Analyst(s): Steven Dickens, Ron Westfall
Publication Date: September 13, 2024
Document #: AIESSDRW202409
Oracle and AWS have formed a strategic partnership to offer Oracle’s database services directly on AWS infrastructure, enabling seamless integration between the two cloud platforms. This collaboration eliminates cross-cloud egress fees by co-locating Oracle’s infrastructure within AWS data centers, providing enterprises with cost-effective and efficient data management. The partnership solidifies Oracle’s position in the enterprise market while advancing a true hybrid multi-cloud environment for businesses.
What Is Covered in This Article:
- Oracle and AWS have partnered to integrate Oracle’s database services into AWS data centers, enabling seamless cross-cloud operations.
- The collaboration eliminates costly egress fees, allowing for efficient data transfers between Oracle databases and AWS services.
- This partnership strengthens Oracle’s position in the enterprise market by offering flexible, multi-cloud capabilities.
- Enterprises benefit from increased innovation potential, combining Oracle’s database strengths with AWS’s cloud services and AI tools.
The Oracle & AWS Collaboration: A True Hybrid Multi-Cloud World Takes Shape
The News: Oracle and Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced the launch of Oracle Database@AWS, a new offering that allows customers to access Oracle Autonomous Database on dedicated infrastructure and Oracle Exadata Database Service within AWS. Oracle Database@AWS looks to provide customers with a unified experience between Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and AWS, offering simplified database administration, billing, and unified customer support.
In addition, customers will have the ability to connect enterprise data in their Oracle Database to applications running on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), AWS Analytics services, or AWS’s advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) services, including Amazon Bedrock.
The Oracle & AWS Collaboration: A True Hybrid Multi-Cloud World Takes Shape
Analyst Take: In today’s increasingly cloud-dependent environment, enterprises are faced with a growing need to manage diverse workloads across multiple platforms. While the cloud market has been dominated by a few major players—Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud—enterprises rarely operate in just one of these environments. The result has been a growing shift toward hybrid multi-cloud strategies, where companies leverage the best of what each cloud provider offers.
The recent collaboration between AWS and Oracle marks a pivotal moment in this shift. With Oracle announcing that its database services will now be fully integrated into AWS data centers, we’re witnessing the advent of a true hybrid multi-cloud era. This partnership underscores how enterprises can now operate seamlessly across clouds, breaking down the historical barriers between providers and delivering unprecedented flexibility and efficiency to businesses. This collaboration, however, is not just about expanding capabilities. It tackles long-standing pain points that have plagued enterprises for years, notably the often-prohibitive egress fees that come with moving data between clouds. By addressing this critical challenge, Oracle and AWS are creating a new standard for cross-cloud integration, enabling enterprises to operate in a cost-efficient, scalable, and flexible cloud environment.
The announcement shrewdly aligned with the release of Oracle’s Q1 FY2025 results. From our view, Oracle delivered a solid quarter underpinned by a double beat on the top and bottom lines. Specifically, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure delivered a 45% year-over-year increase and a 53% surge in cloud consumption revenue driven by AI workloads and industry-specific solutions. These numbers are outstanding and demonstrate that OCI is the fastest growing IaaS provider today, adding momentum to its AWS alliance and the Oracle Database@AWS initiative.
The Shift to True Hybrid Multi-Cloud: Moving Beyond the Buzzwords
For years, the notion of a multi-cloud strategy has been largely aspirational for many enterprises. While many companies have adopted multiple cloud platforms—whether for redundancy, compliance, or to leverage specialized services—true integration between these platforms has remained elusive. Most multi-cloud setups have simply involved the use of different providers for distinct workloads, with little actual interaction between the clouds.
The AWS-Oracle partnership changes this dynamic. Instead of operating as separate silos, this collaboration enables Oracle’s Autonomous Database and Exadata infrastructure to be deeply integrated into AWS’s cloud environment. For enterprises, this means that Oracle’s database services will operate just like any other AWS-native service. The seamless nature of this integration allows businesses to move and manage data between AWS services and Oracle’s infrastructure without the friction that has previously been associated with cross-cloud operations.
This shift is significant. It signals a move toward a world where cloud providers no longer exist in isolation but instead function as interoperable platforms. Enterprises can now access the full range of services from AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud while leveraging Oracle’s renowned database systems. The result is a cloud strategy that is truly hybrid and multi-cloud—not just in name, but in practice.
Negating Cross-Cloud Egress Fees: A Major Pain Point Addressed
One of the most persistent challenges in adopting a multi-cloud strategy has been the cost of data transfer between clouds, particularly in the form of egress fees. These fees, charged by cloud providers for moving data out of their environments, can quickly add up and become a significant burden for enterprises that need to move large volumes of data between cloud platforms.
In traditional setups, transferring data between two clouds often meant paying high egress fees, which could make the process of integrating services across clouds financially unfeasible. For example, moving data from an Oracle database on OCI to analytics tools or ML services on AWS would typically result in significant egress charges.
With the AWS-Oracle collaboration, this issue is being directly addressed. Oracle Database@AWS effectively negates these cross-cloud egress fees by co-locating Oracle’s infrastructure within AWS data centers. The result is that data transfers between Oracle’s databases and AWS services happen over a low-latency network within the same physical infrastructure. This eliminates the need for costly data movement across external networks, significantly reducing operational expenses for enterprises.
This removal of egress fees is particularly critical for companies dealing with high volumes of data. Whether for real-time analytics, ML workloads, or business intelligence applications, the ability to freely move data between Oracle databases and AWS services opens new possibilities for innovation without the looming threat of escalating costs.
Oracle’s Stronghold on the Enterprise: Cementing Its Position
While AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud dominate the cloud infrastructure space, Oracle’s role in the enterprise database market remains peerless. Oracle has long been the backbone of data management for large enterprises, especially those in regulated industries such as finance, healthcare, and telecommunications. Its robust database technologies, such as the Autonomous Database and Exadata, are trusted by enterprises that require high levels of security, performance, and reliability.
The collaboration with AWS is a strategic move that strengthens Oracle’s position in the enterprise market. Many enterprises have already made significant investments in AWS for their broader cloud infrastructure needs, while continuing to rely on Oracle’s database systems for their most critical applications. By integrating Oracle’s database services directly into AWS’s cloud, Oracle is making it easier for enterprises to continue using its technology without needing to compromise on their choice of cloud provider.
This partnership also aligns with Oracle’s broader multi-cloud strategy, which already includes integrations with Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. The ability to run Oracle databases on multiple clouds provides enterprises with greater flexibility, allowing them to avoid vendor lock-in while continuing to benefit from Oracle’s technology. In a world where resilience and redundancy are becoming increasingly important, this multi-cloud approach ensures that enterprises can operate their most critical workloads across different cloud environments, reducing risk and improving operational efficiency.
Enabling Cross-Cloud Innovation
One of the most exciting aspects of the AWS-Oracle collaboration is the potential it unlocks for innovation. By combining the capabilities of Oracle’s database systems with AWS’s vast portfolio of cloud services, enterprises can develop more sophisticated applications and workflows.
Take, for example, the integration with AWS Bedrock, a fully managed service that allows companies to build and scale generative AI applications. With Oracle Database@AWS, enterprises can now feed their decades of historical data from Oracle databases directly into AWS’s AI and ML services. This seamless data flow enables enterprises to unlock new insights, improve decision-making, and drive innovation in ways that were previously difficult or prohibitively expensive due to the challenges of moving data across clouds.
Moreover, the integration also opens the door for greater collaboration between cloud-native services and legacy applications. Many enterprises still rely on traditional, on-premises Oracle databases for mission-critical operations. The AWS-Oracle collaboration allows these enterprises to gradually migrate to the cloud while maintaining access to cutting-edge cloud services such as AWS analytics, storage, and AI tools. This hybrid approach ensures that companies can modernize their IT infrastructure without the need for a complete overhaul of their existing systems.
A New Era of Multi-Cloud Operations
The AWS-Oracle collaboration represents a significant milestone in the evolution of the cloud landscape, ushering in the multi-cloud era. As enterprises increasingly adopt hybrid multi-cloud strategies, the ability to seamlessly integrate services across cloud providers will become a key competitive differentiator. This partnership not only demonstrates the value of cross-cloud collaboration but also addresses long-standing pain points such as egress fees and data movement challenges.
For enterprises, this means greater flexibility, lower costs, and enhanced opportunities for innovation. By breaking down the barriers between cloud providers, Oracle and AWS are paving the way for a future where cloud platforms are truly interoperable, delivering the full benefits of the cloud without the limitations that have traditionally held businesses back.
As the cloud market continues to evolve, the AWS-Oracle partnership is a turning point in the journey toward a fully integrated, hybrid multi-cloud world. The days of isolated, siloed cloud environments are behind us, and the future of enterprise IT looks more connected, efficient, and dynamic than ever before.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
Other insights from The Futurum Group:
Oracle Q1 FY2025 Results: OCI and AI Drive Growth in Industry-Specific Solutions
Oracle and Google Cloud Finally Tie the Interconnect Knot
Oracle Database 23ai: Taking Enterprise AI to the Next Level
Author Information
Regarded as a luminary at the intersection of technology and business transformation, Steven Dickens is the Vice President and Practice Leader for Hybrid Cloud, Infrastructure, and Operations at The Futurum Group. With a distinguished track record as a Forbes contributor and a ranking among the Top 10 Analysts by ARInsights, Steven's unique vantage point enables him to chart the nexus between emergent technologies and disruptive innovation, offering unparalleled insights for global enterprises.
Steven's expertise spans a broad spectrum of technologies that drive modern enterprises. Notable among these are open source, hybrid cloud, mission-critical infrastructure, cryptocurrencies, blockchain, and FinTech innovation. His work is foundational in aligning the strategic imperatives of C-suite executives with the practical needs of end users and technology practitioners, serving as a catalyst for optimizing the return on technology investments.
Over the years, Steven has been an integral part of industry behemoths including Broadcom, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), and IBM. His exceptional ability to pioneer multi-hundred-million-dollar products and to lead global sales teams with revenues in the same echelon has consistently demonstrated his capability for high-impact leadership.
Steven serves as a thought leader in various technology consortiums. He was a founding board member and former Chairperson of the Open Mainframe Project, under the aegis of the Linux Foundation. His role as a Board Advisor continues to shape the advocacy for open source implementations of mainframe technologies.
Ron is an experienced, customer-focused research expert and analyst, with over 20 years of experience in the digital and IT transformation markets, working with businesses to drive consistent revenue and sales growth.
He is a recognized authority at tracking the evolution of and identifying the key disruptive trends within the service enablement ecosystem, including a wide range of topics across software and services, infrastructure, 5G communications, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), analytics, security, cloud computing, revenue management, and regulatory issues.
Prior to his work with The Futurum Group, Ron worked with GlobalData Technology creating syndicated and custom research across a wide variety of technical fields. His work with Current Analysis focused on the broadband and service provider infrastructure markets.
Ron holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from University of Nevada — Las Vegas and a Bachelor of Arts in political science/government from William and Mary.
