Oracle Demos Container Prowess

Oracle used its Oracle CloudWorld event this week to demonstrate how it enables DevOps teams to consistently replicate Kubernetes clusters across a continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipeline spanning a hybrid cloud computing environment.

As part of this demonstration, the company showed how instances of its WebLogic application server or Oracle or MySQL databases now can be deployed as Docker containers on top of a Kubernetes cluster. Those backend services can also be integrated with the open source Oracle Fn serverless computing framework launched last year. Services can be invoked as functions programmatically in addition to being incorporated into a CI/CD pipeline based on the container platform the company gained by acquiring Wercker.

Oracle touted its container capabilities as part of the launch of its Autonomous Cloud platform, which is designed to automate DevOps processes end to end regardless of whether applications are being built or deployed in the cloud or on-premises.

To further its efforts, the company also announced it is adding 12 additional data center regions to the Oracle Cloud service. In addition, for the first time it is guaranteeing that its infrastructure will deliver more than 90 percent of published performance every day in a month. If the Oracle Cloud service falls below that level for as few as 44 minutes during the entire month, customers can claim service credits according to Oracle’s terms of service.

Oracle is clearly trying to combine infrastructure-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) environments to make up ground in a public cloud space currently dominated by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. The shift to microservices architectures based on containers creates an opportunity to benefit from a seminal shift in how applications are built and deployed. As more organizations consider the implications of that shift, the company is making the case for delivering the underlying IT required to support those applications as managed services capable of spanning a highly distributed hybrid cloud. Key that strategy are platforms such as Kubernetes, which will make it easier to move workloads between public and private clouds.

The Oracle strategy relies heavily on instances of Oracle database and middleware software deployed both in a public cloud and on-premises. Oracle has an extensive base of installed software running on-premises, but adoption of its commercial software running on public cloud has been limited. The company is making a case for transitioning much of that software and hardware infrastructure to its control at a time when more enterprise IT organizations—which make up the bulk of its customer base—are shutting down their data centers.

At CloudWorld, Oracle CEO Mark Hurd once again made it clear his company expects the bulk of applications to move to the public cloud by 2025 as the overall global economy continues to improve. The need to increase business agility to combat startup companies capable of disrupting entire issues, coupled with ongoing pressure to reduce costs and better secure IT, will force the issue, says Hurd.

Naturally, it remains to be seen how comfortable organizations will be ceding control of IT. But thanks to the rise of containers, companies will have orders of magnitude more applications to manage.

Mike Vizard

Mike Vizard is a seasoned IT journalist with over 25 years of experience. He also contributed to IT Business Edge, Channel Insider, Baseline and a variety of other IT titles. Previously, Vizard was the editorial director for Ziff-Davis Enterprise as well as Editor-in-Chief for CRN and InfoWorld.

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