Oracle Offers New Cloud Services

By TC Doyle

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If someone were to say, “Oracle is the most comprehensive cloud provider on the planet,” would you believe them?

Based on the company’s track record, probably not. But make no mistake, the company that makes the above claim – Oracle itself – is getting very serious about cloud computing.

This week, the Redwood Shores, Calif., company announced the availability of two important services that will be delivered as a service over the Web: the Oracle Database Backup Service and the Oracle Storage Cloud Service. According to Oracle, the new announcements provide customers “the flexibility to easily move critical applications and data from on-premises to the cloud and vice-versa.”

Part of the Oracle Cloud Platform as a Service (PaaS) portfolio, the new Database Backup Service provides a cloud backup solution that Oracle says can “be an integral part of multi-tier database backup and recovery [strategy].” Among other things, Oracle Database Backup Service helps customers “parallelize and compress backup data transfers to help maximize performance and includes client-side encryption to provide end-to-end data security.”

Part of the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) portfolio, Oracle Storage Cloud provides an object storage solution that helps customers store, access and manage data in the cloud.

According to Oracle, partners can now participate in their customer’s adoption of cloud services. “From referral to the delivery of value-added services, Oracle enables partners to profit from these new Oracle Cloud services,” the company said in a prepared statement.

A year ago, Oracle announced that Oracle Cloud has attracted 10,000 customers and more than 25 million users. Since then, it has demonstrated a willingness to put more emphasis on annuity and off-premises equipment sales. The latest cloud announcements, for example, come four months after Oracle announced plans to buy Corente, a New Jersey company that provides cloud-based technologies for companies including British Telecom and Illinois Tool Works.

Previously, Oracle purchased Taleo, a developer of human-resources software that is available via the cloud, and RightNow Technologies, a maker of Web-based customer service solutions.