Redefining Transformation in a Cloud-Centric Organization

The impact of cloud computing on enterprises across the world cannot be overstated—largely due to the cloud’s ability to help organizations transform what they do, how they do it and how they can drive unprecedented business value. That transformation takes many forms and impacts every bit of data an organization creates, captures, stores and uses. It also requires a reimagination of technology architectures and infrastructure, which demands a strong and open collaboration between organizations and their cloud providers.

The sweet spots of transformation where cloud-based architectures are driving tangible, quantifiable change are hybrid cloud, merging the capabilities of both public and private clouds, and edge computing. Organizations in all industries, all geographies, and all sizes and business models have rapidly adopted cloud computing; research indicates that 87% of enterprises have embraced hybrid cloud strategies, representing an estimated global market size of nearly $41 billion by 2023.

At the same time, the massive growth of smart devices known as the internet of things has created a force multiplier of value creation in cloud architectures. Edge computing helps organizations deal with some historical limitations of public cloud solutions, such as security, bandwidth and network latency.

Hybrid cloud and edge computing are transforming and expanding usage of the cloud and, in doing so, are spurring faster and more robust economic value creation. Whether you’re talking about in public or private clouds, on site or at a service provider’s location, this hybrid cloud solution is changing how, where and when information is made available for critical decision-making.

Architectural Considerations for Transformation
Embracing cloud in its many forms as a means of IT modernization and digital transformation requires a sober analysis of business needs, technology debt, risk tolerance and key performance indicators. To undertake that scrutiny and develop the right strategy—and select the right technology partners—organizations should think about the following issues:

• Requirements for data sovereignty, security, latency and field deployability have historically prevented adoption of public cloud for many critical applications. Hybrid cloud and edge computing are transforming and expanding usage of the cloud, because they provide both the scalability and controls demanded for mission-critical workloads, in terms of both governance and regulatory compliance.
• Most enterprises looking to support their future business applications will need to deploy a hybrid environment. The ability to balance on-premises infrastructure and applications with that of both private and public cloud is an increasingly important requirement of digital transformation and IT modernization.
• Different cloud providers bring unique strengths, such as individual architecture models, different workload proficiencies and predispositions toward certain infrastructure technologies. It’s important to select and work with a cloud provider proficient in different infrastructures, cloud operating models, architectures and workloads.
• Avoiding vendor lock-in is an absolute. Whether you’re talking about specific hardware vendors, software platforms, networking topologies, cloud security tools or virtualization layers, your cloud vendor must help your organization maximize access to technology choices, now and in the future.

Oracle’s Approach to Transformation in a Cloud-centric World
Oracle has a unique position as both a leading technology apps and infrastructure supplier and an experienced, accomplished cloud platform provider. For instance, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure services—based on third-generation IntelÒ XeonÒ processors—and its market-leading databases and applications are at the heart of numerous innovative enterprise solutions.

Now, to help organizations overcome the challenges and limitations associated with migrating mission-critical workloads to the public cloud, Oracle Cloud@Customer brings cloud infrastructure, services and consulting to the customer’s own on-premises environment. Oracle Cloud@Customer is engineered for high performance, low latency, easy deployment, robust security and simplified management—all without organizations having to expend large sums on Capex. 

Oracle also helps drive transformation with a portfolio of application migration tools and services. These not only help organizations safely, securely and reliably move essential applications into a cloud architecture in an on-premises setting, but do so using Oracle’s proven expertise.

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