Microsoft, Oracle Extend Alliance with Enhanced Azure-OCI Integration

MICROSOFT INSPIRE — Microsoft and Oracle have extended their alliance with the launch of the Oracle Database Service for Microsoft Azure (ODSA). The new managed service enables Oracle database provisioning and management in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) via the Microsoft Azure portal.

Oracle announced the release of ODSA on Wednesday during the second day of the Microsoft Inspire global partner conference. Larry Ellison, Oracle’s founder and CTO, made an unlikely appearance during the keynote session. He joined Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (pictured together above during the virtual event).

The alliance to bring the two clouds together started in 2019 with the launch of Oracle Interconnect for Microsoft Azure. There are now 11 Oracle Interconnect Azure regions throughout the world. This enables the partitioning of multi-tier apps running in the database tier of OCI, Oracle’s public cloud. The remaining tiers of the application can run on Microsoft Azure, appearing to be hosted in a common cloud.

Interconnect Software Support

The interconnect offering supports Oracle E-Business Suite, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, PeopleSoft, Oracle Retail applications, Oracle Hyperion Financial Management and more.

The newly enhanced ODSA eases makes it easier to link Azure subscriptions to OCI tenants, according to Nadella.

“Now we’re making it even easier launching this new experience that streamlines and simplifies deployment even further everything from cross-cloud network setup to identity management,” Nadella said. “Once deployed, customers will be able to launch and manage the Oracle services they use every day from Azure so that they can manage their apps and data as a single solution, running their most important apps across our cloud platform seamlessly.”

“Oracle and Microsoft are excited about this whole concept of multicloud that is interconnecting both Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud and you stay in the Azure console,” Ellison responded. “You can take that Oracle autonomous database and run Power BI against it for analytics accessing more Microsoft services as if they were on Oracle.”

Automated Configuration with Federated Azure AD Identities

The service automatically configures the interconnection including the federation of Azure Active Directory identities, according to the announcement. This makes it easy for Azure customers to use the service. It also provides a familiar dashboard for Oracle Database Services on OCI using Azure terminology; plus, monitoring with Azure Application Insights.

Oracle software engineering VP Max Romanenko elaborated on ODSA, on Oracle’s OCI blog.

“The new ODSA service builds on the foundation of OCI-Azure Interconnect to simplify setup, management and connectivity of application components in Azure to databases running in OCI,” Romanenko explained. “With ODSA, Azure teams can treat databases running on OCI like an Azure resource. In just a few clicks, users can connect their Azure subscriptions to their OCI tenancy.”

Romanenko added that ODSA automatically configures everything required to link both cloud environments. Notably, it federates Azure Active Directory identities, “making it seamless for Azure users to use the service,” he said. “It provides an Azure-like user interface and API experience for provisioning and managing Oracle database services on OCI. ODSA also sends metrics, logs and events for the OCI databases you create using the service to Azure tooling for unified telemetry and monitoring in Azure environments.”