Autonomous databases, Blockchains and Cloud-native architectures – an OOW 17 recap

Oracle Open World (OOW) 2017 just ended on thursday last week. As usual, it was a great and inspiring conference, which nevertheless felt slightly different than the years before.

Why does it felt different?

A different spirit seemed noticeable, because Oracle starts to put more focus on the developer community – more power to the developers! For the first time, an Oracle Code track took place as part of Java One. Oracle Code was established between last years OOW and this years conference and was run at several locations all over the world. This promising new format explicitly addresses developers, so the tracks are more technical and are not necessarily focusing Oracle products and technologies, but are also covering Open Source technologies, like Kafka, etc.

With respect to Open Source it is also interesting to see that Oracle integrates, uses and thrives respective technologies in their platform services, which will be discussed in the following.

News and worth mentioning

Autonomous Database

One of the most polarizing announcements was a new version of Oracle flagship, the database Oracle 18c. This version implements a new and revolutionary concept, of a self-driving autonomous database, which needs less human interactions; typical DBA tasks like patch, tune, back up, and upgrade are done by the database autonomously.

„This is a big deal, by the way. No one else does this. This is the most important thing we“™ve done in a long, long time.“ (Larry Ellison, Oracle Executive Chairman and CTO)

The autonomy of the database is achieved by leveraging Machine Learning (ML) algorithms. A very exciting and outstanding development, which will of course changes the role of DBAs in the future. But DBAs will not become superfluous; they need to rethink their roles.

• https://www.forbes.com/sites/oracle/2017/10/02/larry-ellison-introduces-a-big-deal-the-oracle-autonomous-database/#1e2192444f0b
• https://www.oracle.com/corporate/pressrelease/oow17-oracle-autonomous-database-100217.html

Container native app development of the future

Oracle announced their new development platform for Cloud-native applications, which consists of

• Container Pipelines, a.k.a. as Wercker for managing container builds and deployments,
• Container Registry Service, implemented as a full Docker v2 comptabile private registry
• Container Engine, which is a Fully-managed Kubernetes Service; This service was announced to be available soon.

I addition, a new Serverless platform based on Fn (http://fnproject.io), which is a Open Source container native serverless platform, was announced. The main advantage of this approach is that serverless functions can be developed and tested locally before deploying it to a runtime. The target runtime the so defined Serverless functions is the Managed Kubernetes Service (Container Engine), which is capable to execute Containers and Serverless functions.

• https://blogs.oracle.com/developers/meet-the-new-application-development-stack-kubernetes-serverless-registry-cicd-java
• https://blogs.oracle.com/developers/announcing-fn

Blockchain – the next big thing in IT

A topic, which was impressively present at this years OOW was Blockchain. The corresponding sessions were always completely packed. The sessions where covering different aspects beginning with an introduction, what Blockchain is and how it can be implemented. Furthermore it was shown, how Oracle will approach the topic with a new fully-managed Blockchain Cloud Service. This upcoming service is based on Hyperledger, which is hosted by the Linux Foundation, where Oracle recently joined.

„Blockchain hold the promise to fundamentally transform how business is done, making business-to-business interactions more secure, transparent, and efficient.“ (Amit Zavery, Senior Vice President Oracle Cloud Platform)

So, let’s stay tuned for more and see, if Blockchain becomes significantly game changing as discussed nowadays.

• https://www.oracle.com/corporate/pressrelease/oow17-oracle-launches-blockchain-cloud-service-100217.html
• https://www.oracle.com/cloud/blockchain/index.html

Simplified Cloud adoption through improved subscription model

In the past, Oracle’s subscription model was not flexible enough, since customers need to specify what kind of Cloud Services are needed. Now, Oracle introduces so called Universal credits, which makes life easier. Customers, buy credits and have access to all IaaS and PaaS offerings. More flexibility at lower costs that is the key promise – sounds great!

In addition, a new Bring your own licence (BYOL) model has been introduced which allows customers to use existing on premise licenses for respective Cloud Services. Another interesting offering to existing on premise licenses, to get started with Cloud.

• https://www.forbes.com/sites/oracle/2017/09/21/larry-ellison-to-customers-were-transforming-the-way-youll-buy-and-consume-the-cloud/#27c22759bc78

Further interesting facts

Besides the aforementioned points, it was also noticeable that the Oracle Cloud offerings become more and more integrated. In the near future Cloud Services will be grouped in reasonable packages. Examples for that are:

• Oracle Mobile Cloud enterprise (OMCe)
  • Mobile Cloud Service
  • Intelligent Bots
  • Customer Experience Analytics
• Oracle Integration Cloud (OIC)
  • Integration Cloud Service (ICS)
  • Process Cloud Service (PCS)
  • Visual Cloud Builder Service (VBCS)
  • Analytics
• Deeper integration of Oracle API Platform Cloud Service and Apiary to allow a full API Management

Further relevant topics, which were dominating the conference were:

• Machine Learning and Artifical intelligence (Oracle Analytics Cloud)
• Chatbots (Oracle Intelligent Bots Service)
• API Management

Summary

As it can be seen from this article, there was again tons of new information, which can be taken home from the conference. It again showed the relevance of OOW for daily business, because learning about newest products, roadmaps and concepts is essential. It is important to sharpen the view on diverse topics and how the way, to position Oracle’s portfolio at customers can be improved and how those can add significant value by implementing Oracle Cloud solutions.