Larry Ellison All About Oracle Multicloud: ‘We’re Entering a New Phase’

ORACLE CLOUDWORLD — Larry Ellison is all about Oracle multicloud opportunities.

“We're entering a new phase where services on different clouds work gracefully together,” the founder of the 47-year-old tech behemoth said in Las Vegas on Tuesday. “The clouds are becoming open. They're no longer walled gardens, but customers will have choices and can use multiple clouds together.”

As a prime example, Oracle has teamed with Amazon Web Services, the big kahuna in cloud computing. The companies announced their partnership this week. (For context, Oracle made a mirror deal with Google Cloud, after initiating the entire wave of such pairings last year with Microsoft Azure.) The significance is that different cloud environments must work together for the benefit of end users, Ellison said.

And Matt Garman, CEO of AWS, agreed.

“Giving customers choices has always been good for our business,” he said.

Garman joined Ellison on stage at Oracle CloudWorld 2024 to delve into the importance of an Oracle multicloud approach. Organizations choose AWS for its scalability and security, Garman said. But they also run many of their “mission-critical workloads” on Oracle. 

“They were having a trouble figuring out, how do I pick A or B?” Garman said. “And they said, ‘I want to pick A and B.’ They really wanted to run all of those mission-critical workloads inside of AWS, where their applications are, but they need low latency to their database, and that's what we're super excited about rolling out.”

In addition, Oracle Database@AWS is natively enabled and can be purchased through AWS Marketplace, Garman noted.

“So it all comes to you on your AWS bill, all through the AWS console,” he said. “I think customers are going to really love that native-feeling integration, where it kind of feels and works really well together.”

Oracle Database@AWS will be available in December — and with no price distinction, Ellison said.

“[It’s] the same the Oracle database on AWS, the same price as the Oracle database on OCI, same price, same performance, same everything,” he said. “You can get support both from AWS and from Oracle and … again, we think this dramatically expands the market.”

Oracle Multicloud Means More than Public Cloud, Partnerships

But when it comes to cloud configurations, Oracle also emphasizes private cloud, not just public, in an Oracle multicloud strategy, Ellison said.

“Our private cloud is absolutely identical to our public clouds,” he said. “Every service, every feature is in our private clouds that are in our public clouds. So it's not an abbreviated cloud in any way.”

Those environments feature narrow focuses, too, for organizations that need specific capabilities. For example, Oracle delivers dedicated and sovereign platforms. 

Passwords Are ‘Ridiculous’

After talking up the Oracle multicloud opportunity, Ellison turned to issues of security, which included deep discussion of password eradication.

“The idea that we use passwords is a ridiculous idea. It's obsolete. It's very dangerous,” Ellison said.

Ellison promotes AI-powered biometric authentication as a means of preventing cyber criminals from successfully stealing data. 

“[I]f we're going to do a really good job of defending our networks, defending our computer systems, and stopping data theft … we need to exploit the most advanced technologies to defend ourselves. And those advanced technologies are artificial intelligence,” Ellison said.

And Ellison says Oracle will eat its own dog food.

“By this time next year, Oracle employees won’t be using passwords,” he said.