#United States #Austin #Oracle Exadata #Cloud Services #Microsoft Azure

Oracle and Microsoft Join Forces for Enhanced Cloud Services

In a significant move to improve cloud services, Oracle has announced the general availability of the Oracle Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastructure, as part of the Oracle Database@Azure initiative. This revelation was made on March 20, 2025, demonstrating a clear pathway for businesses looking to maximize performance and reduce infrastructure costs.

Lower Costs with Enhanced Capabilities

The introduction of the Exascale deployment option is particularly noteworthy. It allows customers to use the Oracle Exadata Database Service without the need to provision dedicated database and storage servers. This means companies can experience the power, reliability, and availability of Oracle services while enjoying up to 95% lower minimum infrastructure costs. The service provides a pay-as-you-go pricing model, which is becoming increasingly popular among enterprises looking to manage expenditures effectively.

Oracle will soon also provide the Oracle Base Database Service on Oracle Database@Azure. This service is aimed at helping businesses run Oracle Database workloads on virtual machines. It promises easier administration and flexible pricing, making it an attractive option for organizations of all sizes.

Expansion of Regional Availability

In response to growing customer demand, Oracle has expanded the availability of Oracle Database@Azure to the Microsoft Azure East U.S. 2 region. This expansion brings the total number of regions to 14, with 18 additional regions slated for launch within the next year. Some of the new planned regions include locations in Australia, Brazil, Canada, and Europe, indicating Oracle's commitment to broadening its cloud footprint.

Advanced Features for All Workloads

Oracle's advances come at a time when organizations are looking to leverage cloud services for increased performance and flexibility. The company has designed Exascale Infrastructure to offer businesses the ability to efficiently manage smaller database workloads while still scaling according to their needs. This powerful infrastructure includes several key features:

• - Elastic, Pay-Per-Use Resources: Customers can specify the exact number of database server ECPUs and storage capacity required, and resources can scale elastically without incurring additional costs for IOPS.
• - Intelligent Storage Cloud: Utilizing RDMA-capable storage, Exadata's intelligent cloud enhances performance by making thousands of CPU cores available for queries and intelligently caching frequently accessed data.
• - AI Capabilities: Advanced features such as AI Smart Scan enable substantial speed improvements for AI vector searches, showcasing how organizations can run thousands of concurrent operations efficiently.
• - OLTP and Analytics: With intelligent RDMA communication, OLTP applications can scale directly across virtual machines, providing low latency for crucial transactions. Moreover, unique data intelligence offloads data-intensive SQL queries, maximizing throughput for analytics.

Customer Statements and Strategic Insights

Both Oracle and Microsoft emphasize the importance of their collaboration. Pedro Sardo, CIO at Vodafone, expressed how the new service facilitates application continuity and simplifies cloud migration, while Brett Tanzer, Microsoft’s VP of Azure Product Management, noted that the partnership is seeing robust global customer interest. The aim is to provide clients with unprecedented flexibility, performance, and scale to innovate across various sectors.

The Road Ahead

As the demand for cloud services continues to rise, Oracle and Microsoft's collaboration is poised to offer businesses new opportunities for success in the cloud domain. With Oracle Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastructure now available for purchase through the Azure Marketplace, organizations are encouraged to explore how these advanced capabilities can align with their cloud strategies.

For anyone looking to migrate to cloud solutions efficiently or seeking new ways to optimize their database systems, Oracle’s offerings may just be the transformative step they need. The future of cloud computing under the guidance of power players like Oracle and Microsoft is undoubtedly bright, promising innovations that cater to evolving business needs.