The YouTube description of Inderejeeet Singh’s presentation “Accelerate Apps Development and Innovation” calls it an “in-depth overview.” That might be an oxymoron but it comes as close to accurate as it can. Singh, the EVP, Global ISV, OEM and Java for Oracle, outlines the services and then briefly explains the Oracle innovations within each. You can watch the video here and learn how Cloud is different than its competition.

Oracle Cloud offers four layers: infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service(PaaS), software as a service (SaaS) and data as a service (DaaS).

Oracle’s IaaS – with its compute, network and storage services – is exceptional for several reasons:

• The predictability with Oracle’s CPU and network is a relief from the erratic service of the competition.
• Oracle features an elegant system that uses hardware efficiently and has machines with 28.8 terabytes of nonvolatile memory. This results in an optimal combination of price and performance.
• Oracle facilitates Lift and Shift at the infrastructure level.
  • Oracle tools (Ravello e.g.) make it relatively easy to move applications with complicated configurations or collections of multiple virtual machines into an infrastructure as a service that is shared in the cloud.
  • A hybrid system accommodates regulated industries or those with geographic restrictions that sometimes do not have the option to use the public cloud and can run the entire infrastructure on an appliance called Oracle Cloud@Customer.
  • Engineered systems with Exadata are valued by users.

Platform as a Service through Oracle is a comprehensive, standards-based, fully integrated combination of Oracle and open source technologies to build, deploy, migrate and manages a variety of different application workloads in the cloud at a significantly lower operational cost.

Application development can happen in three ways:

• Lift and shift applications are already written and not originally designed for the cloud. While using IaaS on Oracle offers savings, using PaaS offers an even bigger savings as Oracle is automating the operations costs for customers. This is the real value of lift and shift.
• Cloud native applications are designed for the cloud and are filled with open source utilities including a container for deployed code, a scaling engine, log-in, consensus, caching, consensus and persistence. In many cases the provider is responsible for all these utilities. Oracle with its application container cloud service can provide these as managed services.
• Low Code is available for customers who want to create applications quickly in a “point-and-click” environment. It also includes extensions to applications that are written with little to no code.

All three fit well within the Oracle Cloud – not so with the competition that has inconsistent strengths. Oracle is the only one that provides all three application development. This is Oracle’s most valuable asset.

Integration – Oracle’s most popular integrations are not Oracle to Oracle but integrations with non-Oracle applications like SalesForce, Workday and a variety of others. Oracle also integrates cloud to cloud, on-premise to cloud and cloud to on-premise. Oracle has two approaches to integration.

• For real-time integration, Oracle offers lifting and shifting through its integration cloud service (ICS).
• Batch integration – with files – is often being done as an open source project in Apache Spark and Oracle offers tools to facilitate this.

Identity and Security – Identity Cloud Service (IDCS) and Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) work together for a system of alerts and actions to identity and security violations.

Analytics Data – Visualization Cloud Service allows for individual users with desktop tools to analyze data. For vast amounts from a “data lake,” Oracle utilizes elasticity instead of a sizing-to-the-max approach. Oracle also has a new tool called Big Data Discovery Cloud service that allows an interactive way to browse samples of big data.

Engagement with the end customer is easier than ever with Oracle services. Custom web site can be created quickly and easily on the Oracle Cloud. Mobile ATI is used for shaping large documents. And Oracle’s Mobile Cloud Service makes possible chat platforms that so many users – such as those on Facebook messenger – prefer to use.

Management of the entire stack is provided by one service: Oracle Management Cloud Service. All of these together are Oracle Platform as a Service. Each category is an important part of a full and completely defined PaaS.

In addition to IaaS and PaaS, Oracle offers software as a service (SaaS) and data as a service (DaaS). SaaS allows its 70 million users to subscribe and use application software in the cloud. SaaS is the largest asset of Oracle. DaaS is essentially customer data for consumption to a customer. Basically, this is personalized advertisements on social media. Oracle is the second largest data as a service provider in North America.