Oracle Makes Aggressive Cloud Moves, Including Tech Data Agreement

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In a bold move, Oracle this week announced plans to grow the number of its data centers, worldwide, adding 12 new cloud-based data centers across Asia, Europe and the Americas. This expansion increases the availability of Oracle Cloud around the globe.

“The future of IT is autonomous. With our expanded, modern data centers, Oracle is uniquely suited to deliver the most autonomous technologies in the world,” said Oracle CEO Mark Hurd. “As we invest, our margins will continue to expand. And with our global data-center expansion, we are able to help customers lower IT costs, mitigate risks and compete like they never have before.”

Oracle’s Mark Hurd

The aggressive increase in the number of Oracle data centers, from the four that it currently operates, will expand Oracle’s footprint in Asia, more specifically in China, India, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and South Korea, as well as in Amsterdam and Switzerland in Europe. In North America there are plans for two data centers in Canada and two in the U.S. to support U.S. Department of Defense workloads, the company said.

The company made two additional cloud-related announcements on Thursday.

Oracle signed an agreement to acquire Zenedge, a cybersecurity vendor. Zenedge helps secure critical IT systems deployed via cloud, on-premises or hybrid hosting environments. Customers leverage Zenedge’s Web Application Firewall (WAF) and DDoS mitigation products to secure their applications, networks, databases and APIs from malicious Internet traffic. Powered by artificial intelligence (AI), Zenedge’s products and 24/7 virtual Security Operations Center (SOC) defend over 800,000 web properties and networks globally.

Oracle says the acquisition of Zenedge will allow it to offer enterprise-ready infrastructure as a service (IaaS) with integrated WAF and DDoS services, or next-generation cloud infrastructure.

Tech Data said Thursday that it’s making Oracle’s universal cloud credits for pay-as-you-go (PAYG) metered services available on its StreamOne Cloud Marketplace. This gives partners in the Americas and Europe an easy way to provision, manage and deliver the solutions for cloud-based or hybrid customer deployments.

Oracle says PAYG is an option for customers who don’t want to prepay for Oracle Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) cloud services. Through one universal SKU, customers have unlimited access to all current and future Oracle PaaS and IaaS offerings, spanning both Oracle Cloud and Oracle Cloud at Customer. Customers will have on-demand access to all PaaS and IaaS services with flexibility to upgrade, expand or move services across data centers based on their requirements.

“Oracle IaaS and PaaS are popular solutions and significant additions to StreamOne,” said Sergio Farache, senior vice president, global cloud solutions at Tech Data. “The elasticity and utility that Oracle IaaS delivers are perfectly suited to the cloud. Our customers can now take advantage of IaaS at any time, without making a long-term commitment. Through StreamOne, Oracle resellers can offer IaaS and PaaS for provisioning and use, with simple management and billing capabilities.”