A Window into the Cloud

By Chris Chelliah

Businesses in Asia Pacific want a view on their entire set of operations and data – the cloud delivers just that

Having dispelled myths surrounding data sovereignty and security, in this final blog of the series, I’m turning my focus to the area of data integrity and integration.  

It’s interesting isn’t it: that while cloud both simplifies IT and business, it also doesn’t?  It certainly makes a significant difference in terms of shifting the complexity and cost of running infrastructure and applications out of the business; but at the same time, you still have the age old problem of having silos – only this time in different clouds.  

Should this slow your cloud adoption?  Most definitely not, but you do have to approach cloud in a managed and organised way so as not to end up in a mess.  And this is where making the right choice again comes in – have you spotted the theme across these three blogs yet?  

The right cloud provider makes the management of data, applications and infrastructure simpler than ever. That is not to say that the cloud is not complex – it is, however this complexity is, to a large extent, hidden from the customer.

The right cloud provider makes things simple through suites of integrated applications, delivered vertically across the enterprise layers and horizontally between on-premise and cloud infrastructures. 

Importantly, the right cloud provider will be able to deliver a comprehensive Platform as a Service layer, delivering the integration services and more, that were previously the domain of middleware in legacy infrastructures. 

The emergence of cloud platform technology is critical in this respect. These services provide the glue that connects application to application, and on-premise and cloud-based infrastructures together. Crucially, integrated cloud offerings mean that much of the configuration and integration has already been done: the platform cloud services instead empower that, and associated management tools deliver a highly-intuitive interface where users can see their entire enterprise resources – both cloud and on-premise – and manage them virtually. 

Thus platform cloud technology in effect creates a unified, common platform for the business, where all data is seamlessly integrated in one single source of truth. 

The important point to make here is that this common platform and single view into enterprise resources is what enables innovation and competitive edge. Take Oracle customer National Pharmacies as a case in point. The Australian health business used a cloud platform to connect its on-premise and cloud technologies and data in a way that benefits its customers. It used cloud platform technology to develop a feature-rich, innovative mobile app within its on-premise legacy systems. Crucially, however, because it is built on a cloud platform, the company can seamlessly move the app resources to a cloud system once it needs to scale the service, while still using its on-premise security solutions to manage identity and access. This is the beauty of the cloud: it united all systems and services in a simple-to-use virtual environment that drives innovation.

As we have seen over these three blog posts, the concerns holding back rapid adoption of cloud services in APAC are largely illusory. The cloud has come a long way since its inception and is now 100% enterprise grade. In its infancy, we saw businesses toying at the edges of the cloud with non-mission critical uses, such as test and development; but with mission-critical applications moving to the cloud, businesses can no longer afford for things to go wrong. That’s why it’s so important they make the right choice of cloud provider; one able to deliver secure, flexible and agile cloud services that enable innovation and growth. Over the next few years we will quickly see which businesses made the right cloud investments: they will be the leaders in their industries.

The writer is the Group Vice President and Chief Architect, Core Technology and Cloud, Oracle Asia Pacific @chrischelliah