In this episode, hosts Lois Houston and Nikita Abraham take you inside how Oracle brings its industry-leading database technology directly to AWS customers. Senior Principal OCI Instructor Susan Jang unpacks what the OCI child site is, how Exadata hardware is deployed inside AWS data centers, and how the ODB network enables secure, low-latency connections so your mission-critical workloads can run seamlessly alongside AWS services. Susan also walks through the differences between Exadata Database Service and Autonomous Database, helping teams choose the right level of control and automation for their cloud databases. Oracle Database@AWS Architect Professional: https://mylearn.oracle.com/ou/course/oracle-databaseaws-architect-professional/155574 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, Anna Hulkower, 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

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

Lois: Hi there! Last week, we talked about multicloud and the partnerships Oracle has with Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Amazon Web Services. If you missed that episode, do listen to it as it sets the foundation for today's discussion, which is going to be about Oracle Database@AWS.

00:59

Nikita: That's right. And we're joined by Susan Jang, a Senior Principal OCI Instructor. Susan, thanks for being here. To start us off, what is Oracle Database@AWS?

Susan: Oracle Database@AWS is a service that allows Oracle Exadata infrastructure that is managed by Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, or OCI, to run directly inside an AWS data center.

01:25

Lois: Susan, can you go through the key architecture components and networking relationships involved in this? Susan: The AWS Cloud is the Amazon Web Service. It's a cloud computing platform. The AWS region is a distinct, isolated geographic location with multiple physically separated data center, also known as availability zone. The availability zone is really a physically isolated data center with its own independent power, cooling, and network connectivity.

When we speak of the AWS data center, it's a highly secured, specialized physical facility that houses the computing storage, the compute servers, the storage server, and the networking equipment. The VPC, the Virtual Private Cloud, is a logical, isolated virtual network.

The AWS ODB network is a private user-created network that connects the virtual private cloud network of Amazon resources with an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Exadata system. This is all within an AWS data center. The AWS-ADB peering is really an established private network connection that's between the Oracle VPC, the Virtual Private Cloud, and the Oracle Database@AWS network. And that would be the ODB.

Within the AWS data center, you have something that you see called the child site. Now, an OCI child site is really a physical data center that is managed by Oracle within the AWS data center. It's a seamless extension of the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. The site is hosting the Exadata infrastructure that's running the Oracle databases.

The Oracle Database@AWS service brings the power as well as the performance of an Oracle Exadata infrastructure that is managed by Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to run directly in an AWS data center.

03:57

Nikita: So essentially, Oracle Database@AWS lets you to run your mission-critical Oracle data load close to your AWS application, while keeping management simple. Susan, what advantages does Oracle Database@AWS bring to the table?

Susan: Oracle Database@AWS offers a powerful and flexible solution for running Oracle workloads natively within AWS. Oracle Database@AWS streamlines the process of moving your existing Oracle Database to AWS, making migration faster as well as easier.

You get direct, low latency connectivity between your application and Oracle databases, ensuring a high performance for your mission-critical workloads.

Billing, resource management, and operational tasks are unified, allowing you to manage everything through similar tools with reduce complexity. And finally, Oracle Database@AWS is designed to integrate smoothly with your AWS environments' workloads, making it so much easier to build, deploy, and scale your solutions.

05:15

Lois: You mentioned the OCI child site earlier. What part does it play in how Oracle Database@AWS works?

Susan: The OCI child site really gives you the capability to combine the physical proximity and resources of AWS with the logical management and the capability of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. This integrated approach allows us to enable the ability for you to run and manage your Oracle databases seamlessly in your AWS environment while still leveraging the power of OCI, our Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

06:03

Did you know that Oracle University offers free courses on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure for subscribers! Whether you're interested in multicloud, databases, networking, security, AI, or machine learning, there's something for everyone. So, what are you waiting for? Pick your topic and get started by visiting mylearn.oracle.com.

06:29

Nikita: Welcome back! Susan, I'm curious about the Exadata infrastructure inside AWS. What does that setup look like?

Susan: The Exadata Infrastructure consists of physical database, as well as storage servers. That is deployed-- the database and the storage servers are interconnected using a high-speed, low-latency network fiber, ensuring optimal performance and reliable data transfer.

Each of the database server runs one or more Virtual Machines, or VMs, as we refer to them, providing flexible compute resources for different workloads. You can create, as well as manage your virtual machine, your VM clusters in this infrastructure using various methods. Your AWS console, Command-Line Interface, CLI, or Application Program Interface, that's your API, giving you various options, several options for automating, as well as integrating your existing tools.

When you're creating your Exadata Infrastructure, there are a few things you need to define and set up. You need to define the total number of your database servers, the total number of your storage server, the model of your Exadata system, as well as the availability zone where all these resources will be deployed.

This architecture delivers a high-performance resiliency and flexible management capability for running your Oracle Database on AWS.

08:18

Lois: Susan, can you explain the network architecture for Oracle Database deployments on AWS?

Susan: The ODB network is an isolated network within the AWS that is designed specifically for Exadata deployments. It includes both the client, as well as the backup subnet, which are essential for securing and efficient database operations.

When you create your Exadata Infrastructure, you need to specify the ODB network as you need the connectivity. This network is mapped directly to the corresponding network in the OCI child site. This will enable seamless communication between AWS, as well as the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

The ODB network requires two separate CIDR ranges. And in addition, the client subnet is used for the Exadata VM cluster, providing connectivity for database operations. Well, you do also have another subnet. And that subnet is the backup subnet. And it's used to manage database backups of those VM cluster, ensuring not only data protection, but also data recovery.

Within your AWS region and availability zone, the ODB network contains these dedicated client, as well as backup subnet. It basically isolates the Exadata traffic for both the day-to-day access, and that would be for the client, as well as the backup operations, and that would be for the backup subnet. This network design supports secure, high performance, and connectivity in a reliable backup management of the Oracle Database deployments that is running on AWS.

10:23

Nikita: Since we're on the topic of networking, can you tell us about ODB peering within the Oracle Database architecture?

Susan: The ODB peering establishes a secure private connection between your AWS Virtual Private Cloud, your VPC, then the Oracle Database, the ODB network that contains your Exadata Infrastructure.

This connection makes it possible for application servers that's running in your VPC, such as your Amazon EC2 instances to access your Oracle databases that is being hosted on Exadata within your ODB network. You specify the ODB network when you set up your infrastructure, specifically the Exadata Infrastructure. This network includes dedicated client, as well as backup subnets for an efficient and secure connectivity.

If you wish to enable multiple VPCs to connect to the same ODB network and access the Oracle Database@AWS resources, you can leverage AWS Transit Gateways or even an AWS Cloud WAN for scalable and centralized connectivity.

The virtual private cloud contains your application server, and that's securely paired with the Oracle Database network, creating a seamless, high-performance path to your application to interact with your Oracle Database.

ODB peering simplifies the connectivity between the AWS application environments and the Oracle Exadata Infrastructure, thus supporting a flexible, high performance, and secure database access.

12:23

Lois: Now, before we close, can you compare two key databases that are available with Oracle Database@AWS: Oracle Exadata Database Service and Oracle Autonomous Database Service?

Susan: The Exadata Database Service offers a fully managed and dedicated infrastructure with operational monitoring that is handled by you, the customer. In contrast, the Autonomous Database is fully managed by Oracle, taking care of all the operational monitoring.

Exadata provides very high scalability though resources, such as disk and compute, must be sized manually. Where in the Autonomous Database, it offers high scalability through automatic elastic scaling. When we speak of performance, both service deliver strong results. Exadata offers ultra-low latency and Exadata-level performance, while the Autonomous Database delivers optimal performance with automation.

Both services provide high migration capability. Exadata offers full compatibility and the Autonomous Database includes a robust set of migration tools. When it comes to management, Exadata requires manual management and administration. And that's really in a way to provide you the ability to customize it in the manner you desire, making it meets your very specific business needs, especially your database needs.

In contrast, the Autonomous Database is fully managed by Oracle, including automated administration tasks, optimal self-tuning features to further reduce any management overhead. When we speak of the feature sets, the Exadata delivers a full suite of Oracle features, including the RAC application cluster, or the Real Application Cluster, RAC, whereas the Autonomous offers a complete feature set, but specifically that is designed for optimized Autonomous operations.

Finally, when we speak of integration, integration for both of this service integrates seamlessly with AWS service, such as your EC2, your network, the VPC, your policies, the Identity and Access Management, your IAM, the monitoring with your CloudWatch, and of course, your storage, your SC, ensuring a consistent experience within your AWS ecosystem.

15:21

Nikita: So, you could say that the Exadata Database Service is better for customers who want dedicated infrastructure with granular control, while the Autonomous Database is built for customers who want a fully automated experience. Thank you, Susan, for taking the time to talk to us about Oracle Database@AWS.

Lois: That's all we have for today. If you want to learn more about the topics we discussed, head over to mylearn.oracle.com and search for the Oracle Database@AWS Architect Professional course. In our next episode, we'll find out how to get started with the Oracle Database@AWS service. Until then, this is Lois Houston…

Nikita: And Nikita Abraham, signing off!

16:06

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