Every system depends on reliable infrastructure behind the scenes. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) delivers that reliability with speed, flexibility, and built-in security. Join Lois Houston and Nikita Abraham as they speak with Oracle Cloud experts David Mills and Tijo Thomas about what makes OCI different and how it drives real results for businesses of every size. Cloud Business Jumpstart https://mylearn.oracle.com/ou/course/cloud-business-jumpstart/152957 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, Radhika Banka, 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!

00:26

Lois: Hello and welcome to the Oracle University Podcast! I'm Lois Houston, Director of Communications and Adoption with Customer Success Services, and with me is Nikita Abraham, Team Lead: Editorial Services with Oracle University.

Nikita: Hi everyone, and welcome to a brand-new season of the podcast! We're really excited about this one because we'll be diving into how Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is transforming the way businesses innovate, stay secure, and drive results.

00:55

Lois: And to help us with this, we've got two experts who know this space inside out—David Mills, Senior Principal PaaS Instructor, and Tijo Thomas, Principal OCI Instructor, both from Oracle University. Hi David! For those who might not be familiar, could you explain what Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is?

David: OCI, as we call it, is Oracle's enterprise grade cloud platform, built from the ground up to run the systems that matter most to business.

It provides the infrastructure and platform services businesses need to build, run, and scale applications securely, globally, and cost effectively. To provide more context, all of Oracle's SaaS applications such as NetSuite, Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Supply Chain Management, as well as Enterprise Resource and Enterprise Performance Management, they all run on OCI. But OCI isn't just for Oracle's own apps. It's a full featured cloud platform used by thousands of customers to run their own applications, data, and services.

OCI includes platform services such as databases, integration, analytics, and many others, and of course, the infrastructure services, such as compute, networking, and storage, which comprise the core of OCI. Bottom line, if something is running on Oracle Cloud, OCI is behind it.

OCI includes over 100 services across numerous categories like compute, storage, networking, database, containers, AI, developer tools, integration, security, observability, and much more. So, whether you're lifting and shifting legacy workloads or building new apps in the cloud, OCI has the building blocks.

03:02

Lois: David, who was OCI designed for?

David: OCI was built from scratch to address the limitations of first-generation clouds. No patchwork of legacy acquisitions, just a clean, modern, high-performance foundation designed for real enterprise workloads.

OCI was designed for businesses that can't compromise financial services, health care, retail, governments, customers with strict regulations, global scale, and mission-critical systems. These are the companies choosing OCI not just because it works, but because it works under pressure.

03:42

Nikita: What else makes OCI different from other cloud platforms?

David: Oracle's network and storage architecture delivers low latency results consistently. Then there's pricing—simple, predictable, and often much lower than our competitors.

OCI was designed with governance and security in every layer. OCI supports all types of cloud strategies: public cloud, hybrid deployments, multi-cloud environments, and even a dedicated cloud we can install inside your own data center. We call all that distributed cloud, and that's where OCI really shines.

OCI gives you everything you need to modernize your technology stack, run securely at scale, and build for the future without giving up control or blowing your budget.

04:37

Lois: Now, Tijo, we've covered what OCI is, who it's for, and what makes it unique. Let's switch gears a bit and talk about cloud regions. For anyone who doesn't know, a cloud region is just a specific geographic location where Oracle, or any cloud provider, runs its own data centers. Why does the choice of region matter for businesses, and what should they think about when picking one?

Tijo: Many businesses are required by law to keep their data within national borders, whether it is GDPR in Europe or local privacy laws in Australia or Singapore, choosing the right region would help you to stay compliant.

The closer your applications are to your users, the faster they perform. Running in a nearby region means lower latency, faster response times, and better customer experience. Then there is disaster recovery and high availability. Regions are the building blocks for setting up failover strategies.

By deploying workloads in multiple regions, businesses can protect themselves from outages and keeping their systems in running state. Some businesses also need to meet industry-specific compliance requirements. Think of sectors like health care, government, or finance.

They often require that the infrastructure and the data should stay within the national or regional boundaries. If your business is growing into new markets, regions allow you to deploy apps and services closer to your customers and without having the need to build new data centers.

Regions also enable local integrations and partnerships, whether it is connecting with ISPs, local service providers, or complying with in-country partner requirements. Having a region nearby makes that integrations and operations smoother. Regions are not just about geography. They are a critical part of how the businesses would stay compliant, resilient, and responsive across the globe. Oracle runs a fast-growing global network of cloud regions, and each OCI region is fully independent and fully isolated. You choose your regions, and your data stays there.

07:06

Nikita: And are there different types of cloud regions?

Tijo: There are several commercial regions, sovereign regions, government regions, and multi-cloud regions. Even with a wide range of cloud regions, some organizations cannot move their workloads and its data to the public cloud. Those workloads may need to stay in their own on-premises data center, but at the same time, they still want to leverage the benefits of OCI.

07:42

Take your cloud skills to the next level with the new Oracle Database@AWS course. Master provisioning, migration, security, and high availability for Oracle Database on AWS. Then validate your experience with an industry-recognized certification. Stand out in the multicloud space and accelerate your career. Visit mylearn.oracle.com for more information.

08:09

Nikita: Welcome back! We were talking about workloads and how some companies may have to keep their workloads on-premises. Why would they need to do that, Tijo?

Tijo: First, data sovereignty. Let's say there may not be a list of public cloud region that the organization is looking for, or maybe the business need to set up a disaster recovery strategy within that specific location.

Then there is security and control. Some industries have very strict regulations, and they require physical access and oversight of their infrastructure. And finally, there are latency-sensitive workloads. These are applications that cannot afford the delay of going back and forth to a remote cloud region. They need cloud services right next to their physical data center.

08:59

Nikita: So, how does Oracle help with that?

Tijo: To address these requirements, Oracle introduces a set of offerings. The first one is called dedicated region, and the second one is called Cloud@Customer services. Through both these offerings, you get OCI services right in your data center and all behind your firewall, while achieving the benefits of flexibility and automation.

09:24

Nikita: So, what's a dedicated region?

Tijo: Dedicated region is a completely managed cloud region that brings all the OCI services and Oracle Fusion SaaS applications within your data centers. Along with deploying the full stack OCI, you would receive support for Oracle Fusion SaaS applications and also gain a consistent experience with the same SLAs, APIs, and the tools available in Oracle Cloud.

09:53

Lois: Ok and what about Cloud@Customer?

Tijo: While dedicated region is ideal for large scale enterprise needs, with full stack OCI and SaaS, some organizations just require a lighter footprint. And that's where Cloud@Customer comes in. And to begin with, we'll talk about Compute Cloud@Customer. It is a fully managed rack scale infrastructure that allows you to use the core OCI services, like the OCI compute, OCI storage, and OCI networking services at your on-premises. With Compute Cloud@Customer, you can run applications and middleware systems to provide consistent user experience and simplify IT administration across your distributed cloud architecture.

We can plan to run the same application stack everywhere and centrally manage them without needing experts in every location.

10:52

Nikita: Is there a way to make running your Oracle databases easier and more cost-effective?

Tijo: That's why Oracle offers you Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer.

Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer combines the performance of Oracle Exadata with the simplicity, flexibility, and affordability of a managed database service delivered through customer data centers. It is the simplest way to move your current Oracle databases to the cloud, because it provides full compatibility with existing Exadata systems and Exadata Database services in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

You could also run the fully-managed Oracle Autonomous Database on Exadata Cloud@Customer that would combine all the benefits of having Exadata, along with the simplicity of an autonomous cloud service. And when Compute Cloud@Customer is combined with Exadata Cloud@Customer, you can run full stack applications completely in your own data center.

Applications will use the same high performance OCI compute and database services you get in the cloud, so you don't have to change the way you architect or deploy them.

12:09

Nikita: So, what you're saying is that Oracle dedicated region and Cloud@Customer bring OCI services into your data center.

Tijo: It enables you to run applications faster using the same high-performance capabilities and autonomous operations. You get all of this while maintaining complete control of your data so that you can address data residency, security, and connectivity concerns.

12:35

Lois: Ok. We've talked about where OCI runs. Now David, let's get into what it actually does.

David: OCI compute lets you run business applications on demand without buying or managing physical servers. You choose the type and size of the virtual machine you want, and OCI handles the rest. Need more power for peak traffic? OCI can automatically add capacity and scale it back down after. In addition to virtual machines, bare metal servers are also available for ultra high performance jobs like simulations, AI, or high speed trading.

Every business stores data, but not all data needs the same kind of storage. OCI gives you options, fast block storage for your compute servers. It works just like a hard drive for your home computer. Shared file storage for applications and microservices. Large scale object storage for backups, videos, or other data, and low-cost long-term storage for object archives.

The system even moves rarely used data to cheaper storage automatically.

13:51

Lois: Given Oracle's expertise in databases, what are some of the database options businesses can access with OCI?

David: Oracle Autonomous Database automatically patches, tunes, and scales itself. Need raw power? Use Oracle Exadata, or go open source with MySQL HeatWave, which can be used for real time analytics.

With these and many other database options, you get high performance automation and reliability all on demand.

14:24

Nikita: With so many database options, how is everything kept connected and running smoothly on OCI?

David: Every cloud service relies on a fast, secure network. OCI's Virtual Cloud network acts like your own private data highway. You control how traffic flows between your apps, your people, and your regions. Need private direct connections to your data center or office? Use OCI FastConnect to bypass the public internet.

OCI networking provides high speed performance with enterprise grade security designed for global business.

15:05

Lois: And what security service does Oracle provide?

David: OCI doesn't treat this as an optional add on. When you sign up for OCI, your environment is isolated, your data is encrypted, and admin actions are logged.

And there are so many security services. Identity and Access Management for handling users and permissions, Cloud Guard to detect threats and misconfigurations, OCI Vault for managing your encryption keys, Data Safe to monitor sensitive data access, as well as many others. You can leverage to meet any government or business compliance requirement. All of these are included in OCI, no need to stitch together third-party tools.

15:55

Lois: What if I want to see what's going on in my environment?

David: OCI has monitoring services for metrics, logging services for real-time insights, tracing for distributed applications, and alarms to notify you when things go sideways. All of these services are integrated. So you can see what matters when you need it without all the noise.

16:23

Nikita: David, let's say someone wants to build and deploy an app. What services does OCI offer them?

David: OCI provides numerous developer services for your teams to build apps or digital tools. OCI DevOps supports automated builds and deployments. OCI Container Engine for Kubernetes helps run microservices. OCI Functions supports serverless code that runs on demand. All of this works with familiar languages and frameworks. In short, OCI gives developers what they need to build, test, and deliver quickly without having to manage infrastructure.

17:03

Nikita: How does OCI make it easier for companies to bring their apps together and use AI, even if they don't have a dedicated AI team?

David: Modern businesses run dozens of apps, and OCI helps you to connect them with Oracle Integration Cloud. With OIC, you can integrate SaaS applications as well as on-premise apps and systems, automate business processes and workflows, route and transform messages, and you can even expose key services as APIs so partners and systems can interact securely.

OCI integration is the glue that holds modern IT together. OCI helps you turn data into decisions without needing an AI team. Use ready-made AI tools for language translation, image recognition, document understanding, speech transcription, and more. Or build your own models with data science and data flow services. It's all designed to bring machine learning into reach for every business.

18:10

Lois: Thank you, David and Tijo, for joining us on this episode of the Oracle University Podcast. If you want to learn more about OCI, visit mylearn.oracle.com and search for the Cloud Business Jumpstart course.

Nikita: Next week, we'll look at why businesses choose OCI and how they're using OCI services to create real outcomes. Until then, this is Nikita Abraham…

Lois: And Lois Houston signing off!

18:38

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.