Oracle Database@Azure

The final episode of the multicloud series focuses on Oracle Database@Azure, a powerful cloud database solution. Hosts Lois Houston and Nikita Abraham, along with Senior Manager of CSS OU Cloud Delivery Samvit Mishra, discuss how this service allows customers to run Oracle databases within the Microsoft Azure data center, simplifying deployment and management. The discussion also highlights the benefits of native integration with Azure services, eliminating the need for complex networking setups.   Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Multicloud Architect Professional: https://mylearn.oracle.com/ou/course/oracle-cloud-infrastructure-multicloud-architect-professional-2025-/144474 Oracle University Learning Community: https://education.oracle.com/ou-community LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/oracle-university/ X: https://x.com/Oracle_Edu   Special thanks to Arijit Ghosh, David Wright, Kris-Ann Nansen, and the OU Studio Team for helping us create this episode.   ---------------------------------------------------------------   Episode Transcript: 00:00 Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast, the first stop on your cloud journey. During this series of informative podcasts, we’ll bring you foundational training on the most popular Oracle technologies. Let’s get started! 00:25 Lois: Hello and welcome to the Oracle University Podcast! I’m Lois Houston, Director of Innovation Programs with Oracle University, and with me is Nikita Abraham, Team Lead: Editorial Services. Nikita: Hi everyone! For the last two weeks, we’ve been talking about different aspects of multicloud. In the final episode of this three-part series, Samvit Mishra, Senior Manager of CSS OU Cloud Delivery, joins us once again to tell us about the Oracle Database@Azure service. Hi Samvit! Thanks for being here today. Samvit: Hi Niki! Hi Lois! Happy to be back. 01:01 Lois: In our last episode, we spoke about the strategic partnership between Oracle and Microsoft, and specifically discussed the Oracle Interconnect for Azure.  Nikita: Yeah, and Oracle Database@Azure is yet another addition to this partnership. What can you tell us about this service, Samvit? Samvit: The Oracle Database@Azure service, which was made generally available in 2023, runs right inside the Microsoft Azure data center and uses Azure networking. The entire Oracle Cloud Database Service infrastructure resides in the Azure data center, while it is managed by an expert Oracle Cloud Infrastructure operations team.  It provides customers simple and secure access to Oracle Cloud database services within their chosen Azure deployment region, without getting into the complexity of managing networking between the cloud vendors. It is natively integrated with various Microsoft Azure services. This provides a seamless user experience when configuring and using the different Azure services with OCI Oracle database, since much of the complexity associated with the configuration is greatly simplified.  There is no need to set up a private interconnect between Microsoft Azure and OCI because the service itself resides within the Azure data center and uses the Azure network. This is very beneficial in terms of strategic deployment because customers can experience microseconds network latency between the endpoints, while receiving a high-performance database environment.  02:42 Nikita: How do I get started with the Oracle Database@Azure service? Samvit: You begin by purchasing the subscription from Oracle and setting up your billing account. Then you provision the database, resources, and service.  With that you are ready to configure your application to connect to the database and work on the remaining deployment. As you continue using the service, you can monitor the different resource metrics using the Azure monitoring services and analyze those logs using Azure Log Analytics.  03:15 Lois: So, the adoption is pretty easy, then. What about the responsibilities? Who is responsible for what? Samvit: The Oracle Cloud operations team is entirely responsible for managing the Exadata Database Infrastructure and the VM cluster resources that are provisioned in the Microsoft Azure data center.  Oracle is responsible for maintaining the service software and infrastructure by applying updates as they are released. Any issues arising from the OCI Database Service and the resources will be addressed by Oracle Support. You have to raise a support ticket for them to investigate and provide a resolution.  And as Azure customers, you have to do rightsizing, based on your workload needs, and provision the Exadata Database Infrastructure and VM cluster in the OCI pod within the Azure data center. You have to provision the database in Exadata Database Service, apply the database and system updates, and take advantage of the cloud automation to maintain and manage the database.  You have to load data, establish the connectivity, and support development on your database. As a customer, you monitor the database and infrastructure metrics and events, and also analyze those logs using the Microsoft Azure-provided native services.  04:42 Nikita: Samvit, what sort of challenges were being faced by customers that necessitated the creation of the Oracle Database@Azure service?  Samvit: A common deployment scenario in customer environments was that a lot of critical applications, which could be packaged applications, in-house applications, or customized third-party applications, used Oracle Database as their primary database solution.  These Oracle databases were deployed in Exadata Infrastructure on-premises or even in Enterprise Server hardware. Some customers evaluated and migrated many of their packaged and other applications to Microsoft Azure compute. Since Oracle Exadata was not supported in Azure, they had to configure a hybrid deployment in order to use Oracle databases that reside in the Exadata infrastructure on-premises.  They needed to configure a dedicated and secure network between the Azure data center and their on-premises data center. This added complexity, incurred high costs, had a latency effect, and was even unreliable. There were also cases where customers migrated Oracle databases on Enterprise Server on-premises to Oracle databases hosted on Azure compute.  This did not boost efficiency to a large scale. And those were the only options available when provisioning Oracle Database in Azure because Exadata was not available earlier in Azure. 06:18 Lois: And how has that been resolved now? Samvit: With the Oracle Database@Azure service, customer requirements have been aptly met by allowing them to host their Oracle databases on Exadata infrastructure, right next to their application in the Azure data center.  Customers, while migrating their applications to Azure compute, can also migrate their Oracle databases on-premises on Exadata infrastructure directly to Exadata Database Service in Azure. And Oracle databases that are on Enterprise Server on-premises can be consolidated directly into Exadata Database Service in Azure, providing them the benefits of scalability, security, performance, and availability, all that are inherent property of OCI Oracle Exadata Database Service.  Customers can see growth in the operational efficiency, saving on the overall cost.  07:17 Nikita: Can you take us through the process of deployment?  Samvit: It’s quite simple, actually. First, you deploy the Exadata Database Service that is plugged into Azure VNET. Next, you provision the required number of databases, which might be migrated as is or with a consolidated exercise.  You can use any of the Oracle database tools or utilities to do the migration or even use the Oracle Zero Downtime Migration method to automate the entire Oracle database migration. Finally, migrate your enterprise application into the Azure environment.  Establish the required network configuration to allow communication between the migrated applications and Oracle databases.  And then you are all set to publish your application that is running entirely in Azure. You can leverage other Azure services, like monitoring, log analytics, Power BI, or DevOps tools, to enhance existing or even build and deploy newer enterprise applications that are powered by OCI Oracle Database Service in the back end.  08:25 Lois: What about multi-cloud deployment scenarios where applications reside in Azure, but the Oracle databases are deployed on third-party cloud providers, either as a native solution or in computes? Samvit: These Oracle databases can be migrated to Exadata Database Service in the Oracle Database@Azure service.  There is no need for the complex cross-cloud connectivity setup between the vendors. And at the same time, you experience the lowest latency between the application and the database deployment. 09:05 Want to learn how to design stunning, responsive enterprise applications directly from your browser with minimal coding? The new Oracle APEX Developer Professional learning path and certification enables you to leverage AI-assisted development, including generative AI and Database 23ai, to build secure, scalable web and mobile applications with advanced AI-powered features. From now through May 15, 2025, we’re waiving the certification exam fee (valued at $245). So, what are you waiting for? Visit mylearn.oracle.com to get started today. 09:45 Nikita: Welcome back! Samvit, what’s the onboarding process like? Samvit: You have to complete the onboarding process to use the service in Microsoft Azure. But before you do that, you first have to complete the subscription process. You must have an active Microsoft Azure account subscription that will be used for subscribing and onboarding the Oracle Database@Azure service.  To subscribe to Oracle Database@Azure, you need to purchase an Oracle Database@Azure private offer from Azure Marketplace. As a customer, you will first reach out to Oracle Sales and negotiate a price for the service. Oracle will provide you with the billing account ID and contact details of the person within the organization who will be handling the service.  After this, Oracle will create a private offer in Azure Marketplace.  10:40 Lois: Sorry to interrupt you, but what’s a private offer? Samvit: That’s alright, Lois. Private offers are basically solutions or services created for customers by a Microsoft partner, which, in this case, is Oracle. Purchase of those private offers happens from the private offer management page of Azure Marketplace.  But there is a prerequisite. The Azure account must be enabled to make private offer purchases on the subscription from Azure Marketplace. You can refer to the Azure documentation to enable the account, if it is not enabled. You review the offer terms and accept the purchase offer, which will take you to the Create Oracle Subscription page.  You validate the subscription and other particulars and proceed with the process. After the service is deployed, the purchase status of the private offer changes to subscribed.  There are a few points to note here. Billing and payment are done via Azure, and you can use Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment.  You can also use your on-premises licenses with the Bring Your Own License option and the Unlimited License Agreements to pay towards your service consumption. And you also receive Oracle Support rewards for every dollar spent on the service.  12:02 Nikita: OK, now that I’m subscribed, what’s next? Samvit: After you complete the subscription step, Oracle Database@Azure will appear as an Azure resource, just like any other Azure service, and you can move on to onboarding. Onboarding begins with the linking of your OCI account, which will be used for provisioning and managing database resources.  The account is also used for provisioning infrastructure and software maintenance updates for the database service. You can either provide an existing OCI account or create a new one. Then you set up Identity Federation between the Azure account and the OCI tenancy.  This can authenticate login to the OCI portal using Azure credentials, which you require while performing certain operations in OCI. For example, provisioning databases, getting infrastructure and software maintenance updates, and so on. This is an optional step, but it is recommended that you complete the Federation.  The last step is to authorize users by assigning groups and roles in order to have the needed privileges to perform different operations. For example, some groups of users can manage Exadata Database Service resources in Azure, while some can manage the databases in OCI.  You can refer to OCI documentation to get detailed descriptions of roles and group names. 13:31 Lois: Right. That will ensure you assign the correct permissions to the appropriate users. Samvit: Exactly. Assigning the correct roles and permissions to individuals inside the organization is a necessary step for transacting in the marketplace and guaranteeing a smooth purchasing experience. Azure Marketplace uses Azure Role-Based Access Control to enable you to acquire solutions certified to run on Azure. Those are then going to determine the purchasing privileges within the organization.  14:03 Nikita: There’s so much more we can discuss about Oracle Database@Azure, but we have to stop somewhere! Thank you so much, Samvit, for joining us over these last three episodes. Lois: Yeah, it’s been great to have you, Samvit. Samvit: Thank you for having me. Nikita: Remember, we also have the Oracle Database@Google Cloud service. So, if you want to learn about that, or even if you want to dive deeper into the topics we covered today, go to mylearn.oracle.com and search for the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Multicloud Architect Professional course.  Lois: There are a lot of demonstrations that you’ll surely find useful. Well, that’s all we have for today. Until next time, this is Lois Houston… Nikita: And Nikita Abraham, signing off! 14:43 That’s all for this episode of the Oracle University Podcast. If you enjoyed listening, please click Subscribe to get all the latest episodes. We’d also love it if you would take a moment to rate and review us on your podcast app. See you again on the next episode of the Oracle University Podcast.