Feeling the need for speed? Turbocharge your performance by moving to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
Modern businesses are awash with data―from back office systems like HR to finance and pensions. Decision makers know the challenge is not simply amassing that data but producing actionable insights from it to boost business performance. Organizations looking to get the most mileage out of their data are turning to the cloud, which promises performance needed for streamlining data to facilitate action and free up talent to spur growth.
But this trend raises the question: Are all cloud systems made equal when it comes to delivering that promise of performance? How do businesses distinguish between cloud technology providers to determine which one can best enhance performance and help dedicate personnel to drive innovation in the cloud, rather than just handing off some DIY infrastructure?
Cloud computing has evolved at a breakneck pace since its inception. Attempting to keep up, some cloud providers have cobbled together existing platforms to meet new demands. The result is piecemeal cloud systems lacking the continuity necessary to unleash data’s full power and struggle to support large, enterprise-scale solutions with high data volumes and immense performance needs.
These cloud systems typically involve cumbersome workloads and contain hardware and software that aren’t harmonized to work together, causing diminished processing power, difficulty handling back-office systems and frustration. A move to the cloud shouldn’t slow you down by saddling you with logistical challenges; it should provide seamless, highly scalable performance and actionable insights, powering faster, growth-generative decisions at scale.
So, the promise of the cloud looms large. But how do you move your business onto it without compromising current service-level agreements (SLAs)? And once you cross that hurdle, how do you optimize the cloud’s performance to turbocharge your data’s value in the best way for your customers?
Migration without disruption
To unlock the total value of the cloud, you have to move more of your workloads onto it. But this poses the risk of disruption, and most businesses cannot afford to compromise their existing SLAs. The migration of your critical systems and data should be made easy by cloud infrastructure that comes pre-integrated and tailored to your organization’s specific business performance needs. Additionally, you should look for a solution provider that delivers the structural support to seamlessly integrate data and guide the transition process. This means no ad hoc or piece-by-piece migrations that
leave enterprises stranded with systems half in and half out of the cloud.
Once you get your data onto the cloud, you will need ample processing power. In Accenture’s research, clients report that Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) provides the performance to process massive amounts of data, like pension for million-members, a large state’s payroll or a 10-million-member customer billing system, all without comprising performance or familiar database architecture. OCI can also scale down as legacy systems are decommissioned, making it a cloud that dynamically adapts to fit the needs of the enterprise, whether large or small.
There are a lot of variables when considering a move to the cloud. A common concern for clients is SLAs being left in the lurch due to unpredicted outages or service unavailability. Clients enjoy peace of mind with OCI as the first industry cloud service provider to guarantee performance SLAs backed by financial compensation.
But it’s not just about volume, ease of transition and reliability. When it comes to speed, inserting 500 million rows of data supported by OCI takes less than three minutes — on average, a 1.6x performance improvement compared to published findings and a 14x performance acceleration.[1] This is made possible by leveraging Oracle’s Autonomous Database on engineered systems, and it means you won’t be stuck waiting for data to be processed in the cloud. Oracle-engineered systems’ stronger performance frees up teams to focus on growth by unlocking greater value, not sorting through infrastructure issues.
An extra boost when you’re in a pinch
Most cloud providers have servers on top of which they then layer software, meaning they’re not really harmonized. The result is the average provider does not achieve the processing power needed to maintain large back-office systems. That’s why large organizations processing, for instance, over 10 million customer bills overnight find that if something goes wrong, they need time to rerun.
That’s where Oracle Exadata Cloud Service (ExaCS), a database computing platform consisting of hardware and software fully optimized to run Oracle databases, fills in the performance gaps. Customers achieve higher availability, outstanding performance and significantly lower cost with Oracle Exadata.[2] For organizations processing hundreds of millions of transactions in a short timeframe found itself in a pinch, ExaCS would offer necessary scale and features to boost performance to required levels.
With Accenture’s structural integration support in place for minimally disruptive data migration and OCI’s ability to drive data optimization, the question for businesses is no longer “why move to the cloud” but rather “why not?” The demand any customer should make for cloud technology and implementation services is to take the headache out of cloud migration, allowing them to focus on addressing business needs rather than technology infrastructure problems.
Key performance capabilities across industries
When a large state government agency was tasked with consolidating many state-wide back-office functions onto a single platform, they turned to Accenture to move application workloads to the cloud. True to the promise of smooth data migration, Oracle and Accenture worked extensively with the agency’s office to understand its goals and prepare for a successful transition to OCI. As a result, the change was painless for users and agencies alike.
Due to this move to Oracle Cloud, the state agency is projected to enjoy robust cost savings and is slated to expand its purview of state applications in the coming years. All of this is possible because of the superior processing speed and power of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and its ExaCS capabilities.
In another case, one of the largest utility providers in North America faced rapid growth in utility meter data to the tune of several hundred terabytes. The client was also focused on sustainability and did not want to expand its data centers. Despite tremendous data growth, the new system needed to deliver high performance and scalability while supporting business development. Additionally, the client needed to keep the system fully compliant with all sorts of regulatory requirements. The task for Accenture was to come up with a scalable, high-performing solution for this massive Oracle workload — one of the largest OCI footprints by volume in North America.
Accenture’s considerations for devising this client’s optimized cloud solution included detailed assessment, proof of concept and performance testing of production size workloads. The proof of concept made it evident to the client that when it comes to price and performance, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure offers the best solution. The ExaCS-engineered systems, purpose-built to handle high-performing computations, large data volumes make Oracle unique among cloud service providers. With OCI and ExaCS, there is no compromise on existing business SLAs or deployment flexibility.
Whether it is on the cloud or within the customer’s own data center, the Oracle solution operates and offers the same performance and functionality with seamless deployment. Many Fortune 500 companies seeking reliability and scalability without compromising their SLAs are turning to OCI for both their Oracle and non-Oracle workloads when dealing with mission-critical data in high volumes.
Empower speed to value
Not all cloud systems are made equal. OCI is solving problems before they happen by providing a level of performance that empowers organizations to realize speed to value and leave infrastructure issues to their cloud provider.
Find out more about how Accenture and Oracle’s cloud capabilities can help boost your organization’s performance.
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Sources:
[1] Comparing Oracle Database Performance in the Cloud. (2020). Accenture. https://www.oracle.com/a/ocom/docs/database/comparing-oracle-database-performance-in-cloud.pdf
[2] For Alliance Data Systems’ IT team, the cloud means less patching, more advising. (2021). Oracle Corporation. https://blogs.oracle.com/cloud-infrastructure/post/for-alliance-data-systems-it-team-the-cloud-means-less-patching-more-advising
