There is no doubt that Oracle is one of the prominent players in the cloud game. It has not stopped churning out one development after another. The company has really been innovating to retain customers in this very competitive space where competitors include heavyweights such as Amazon and Microsoft.
The thing with Oracle is that they are never contented with just playing “me too”. Instead of copying what other providers are doing, they do something different instead.
It seems that Oracle’s current cloud strategy is going autonomous. Why should you be excited?
Oracle Autonomous Linux
What will you give to have your operating system provision, scale, tune, and patch itself?
You no longer have to wonder. Oracle has already come out with the Oracle Autonomous Linux. It promises to make your job easier by doing all those things.
Are you surprised? We’re not. The company did come out with the Autonomous Database a couple of years ago. The product not only revolutionized databases but also signaled the company’s strategy when it comes to the cloud.
Oracle’s chief technology officer Larry Ellison explains the company’s goal: to come up with a complete and genuinely autonomous cloud.
Autonomous Linux is based on Oracle Linux. That means all Oracle Linux applications are compatible. Oracle also says that Red Hat applications will not need any changes when running on Oracle Autonomous Linux.
What do you get from the Oracle Autonomous Linux? If it can provision, scale, tune, and patch without you having to do anything, you get a lot of free time that you can use for some more critical tasks.
Plus, it’s bound to be very reliable, high performing, and secure. All that with almost no work coming from you or your staff.
And good news for those who are current customers of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure: migration to the new autonomous Linux is both fast and free.
Oracle OS Management Service
If that isn’t enough for you, then Oracle has something more to offer. The Oracle OS Management Service can monitor and control your systems. It will then work with resource governance policies and automatically carry out management tasks.
You can use this Oracle Cloud Infrastructure feature for different operating systems, such as Linux, Windows, and of course, Oracle Autonomous Linux.
Other benefits
Oracle Autonomous Linux and Oracle OS Management Service use advanced machine learning. What’s more, Oracle Autonomous Linux rolls out security updates every day. These updates affect Linux kernel and the key userspace libraries.
You do not have to take your system off production, these updates are rolled out with absolutely no downtime. It also has Known Exploit Detection that can automatically alert you if cyber-criminals try to use a vulnerability that has already been patched.
Ellison also says that Autonomous Linux can help secure your systems. For instance, he cited the Capitol One data breach. The data breach affected around 100 million Americans and 6 million Canadians. The breach lasted for 14 years, from 2005 to 2019.
Hackers were able to obtain personal data, including credit scores, bank account balances, and contact information.
It was a rich and lengthy payoff to the criminals, all because of errors in configuration. These errors will not happen if the system is autonomous. As Ellison explains, there is no room for human error or data loss.
More security
When you take humans out of the equation, there is less room for mistakes. In fact, Oracle says that autonomous systems might just help organizations feel more confident about their cloud systems.
That being said, security is one of the best features of the Oracle Autonomous Linux. But the company did not stop there.
If you want to be doubly, or triply, sure, then you can avail of Oracle’s new security services.
What are these new automated security services? It’s called Oracle Data Safe, Oracle Maximum Security Zones, and Oracle Cloud Guard.
These new services can help you protect critical workloads. All new services work in the background keeping your system secure. It can gather information from anywhere on your cloud environment, enforce your security policies, and even point out wrong configurations.
More developments for Oracle Cloud
Oracle has steadily been eating up the lead that both Microsoft and Amazon have when it comes to the cloud race. Ellison reported that 12 regions opened in 2018, and they plan to open another 20 regions by 2020. The infrastructure is going to be available in countries that have not been able to access it before.
Oracle’s cloud footprint will now include regions in the United States and Canada, Brazil, the European Union, and the United Kingdom. It will also have regions in Asia and the Middle East, particularly South Korea, Japan, India, Australia, Israel, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia.
The company also announced the same expansion for Microsoft Azure.
Furthermore, Oracle has other good news. For instance, you can try out all the new features for free. Forever.
You’ve read it right. You can use both Oracle Autonomous Database and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure if you are a student or developer, or just about anyone who wants to try out the company’s cloud services.
What’s more, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure can now accommodate VMware Cloud Foundation. You can now migrate VMware vSphere workloads to your Oracle cloud environments. If you run into trouble, you can bank on the company’s technical support as well.
Support is available for on-premises data centers and VMware environments on Oracle.
Lastly, Oracle also has new Exadata offerings, including Oracle Exadata X8M and Exadata Cloud at Customer. The Exadata Cloud at Customer allows users to use Oracle’s public cloud to access Cloud Control Plane.
Exadata X8M, on the other hand, now have remote direct memory access using Converged Ethernet. The new Exadata system now has 2.5 times more I/Os. It also has lower I/O latency when compared to the previous Exadata releases.
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As you can see, Oracle has been very busy, and these new technologies and services only touch on the company’s cloud operations. Is there any question why they are one of the leading players in the industry?
Are you ready to try Oracle’s new autonomous Linux? Tell us your thoughts in the comments.
Screenshot courtesy of Oracle.
