In our previous blog we broke down the Oracle Cloud offering so that the average IT person, who doesn’t deal with Oracle day in and day out, can understand the different cloud offerings. As an off-shoot of that last blog, this month we wanted to expand on one type of term you hear often when talking about Oracle Cloud, especially if you are speaking to your Oracle Technology Representatives, and that is “Lift and Shift”!
“Lift and Shift” means migrating an existing application stack (including database, middleware, web servers, etc.) as is from your on-premises data center to the Oracle Cloud. For example, you “lift” your E-Business Suite Financials to servers and VMs into the IaaS Cloud. This allows you to move away from managing your hardware, you get some administration services taken care of, but you don’t have to change to a completely new application (like you do in SaaS). You might also get “improvement” since you’re running on newer and faster servers with high performance storage. You can also take advantage of the lift to upgrade to a newer version of the Oracle database in the PaaS Cloud that would allow you to leverage features not available in older database versions.
Furthermore, when using an Oracle PaaS offering as a component in your application stack, Oracle not only manages the underlying hardware but also much of the administration of the service itself. In the example of Database as a Service, Oracle will handle tasks like backups, software patching, creating new databases, and taking databases down. Simply having Oracle handle patching in a timely fashion can pay huge dividends in terms of reliability and security and reduce the risk associated with hackers exploiting software bugs. You will still need some DBA and IT administration staff to monitor your PaaS stack, but the work should be less than current state (them doing everything) and they can focus on more value-added activities (like working closely with your Development teams and tuning query performance).
With a “Move and Improve” approach to the Oracle Cloud you can mix and match IaaS and PaaS components to make the most of your IT spending.
If you have any Oracle Applications that you are considering moving to the Cloud, Olitech is here to assess which approach would be the most beneficial to you and your firm. We would consider your existing environment, any constraints around versions or other factors, and help you assess which cloud option (if any) fits best with your future strategy. Contact us today to find out more.
By
Robert Scott Boucher
Robert Scott Boucher is a Senior Solutions Architect at Olitech Solutions. Scott has been delivering value through information technology for over 20 years and helping organizations architect, build, operate, and optimize their cloud, hybrid, and on-premises Oracle systems. His experience includes a successful track record in large financial services, technology, and government organizations including ACI Worldwide, ICAP, IBM Global Services and JPMorgan Chase.