And My Favorite Cloud of 2022 Is...

Part 2: Oracle Cloud

As a reminder, I am ranking each cloud provider using these four criteria:

• Barrier to Entry - how hard is it to become a surface level expert and how quickly can you go from zero to general knowledge of the services being offered.

• Cost-Benefit - what is the cost-benefit analysis and how easy is it to rack up an insane bill.

• Availability and Capacity - are there ever any capacity or availability errors and how often are services degraded.

• Service Integration - how seamlessly do the offered services mesh together to form one, cohesive cloud.

NOTE: This is part 2 of 4. Make sure to head on over to part 1 if you haven’t already read it.

In this post, we are taking a look at Oracle Cloud.

Pros: Oracle Cloud offers a range of services specifically designed to work with Oracle databases, including the Oracle Autonomous Database, which can help simplify the process of managing and scaling Oracle workloads. Some users have reported that Oracle Cloud performs better than AWS for certain workloads, particularly those that involve large amounts of data or require high levels of performance. I can personally say that I do see a small improvement in performance for dense workloads. Also, depending on the specific services and resources you need, Oracle Cloud may be more cost-effective than AWS.

Cons: Oracle Cloud can be more complex to use than some other cloud platforms, especially if you are not already familiar with Oracle products and technologies. In some cases, you may have less flexibility in terms of the types of resources and services that are available, as well as the ways in which you can configure and customize those resources. Oracle also has a limited global presence compared to some other major cloud providers, which may be a concern if you need to deploy your applications in multiple regions around the world.

The barrier to entry is rather low. It is extremely easy to spin up an instance and go. It is a little more difficult to find a way for services to work together. Like AWS, Oracle has several different services that work together. It can be difficult to understand which services do what. Once you have the jargon down, I would argue that Oracle cloud presents a more “no-nonsense” just the facts UI.

The cost-benefit analysis, as is always the case, varies greatly. If you are trying to create primitive infrastructure, there are more than enough cheap compute shapes to choose from. Oracle also has AMAZING PROMOTION going on right now which I talked about in this substack article. If you are trying to create dense computing infrastructure or you are trying to spin up managed databases, the costs can add up quickly. I would say Oracle is more focused on quality and stability especially when it comes to data centered products.

Overall, Oracle Cloud aims to provide both high availability and a range of capacity options to meet the needs of its users. Personally, I have had more capacity issues with OCI than I have had with AWS. I think it may just be the region I am in. When it comes to availability, I have had a few issues but nothing major.

Service integration seems to be somewhat limited compared to AWS. That’s not to say that it is done poorly. In my personal experience Oracle had 5 solid “core services” that work together extremely well: compute, storage, networking, databases, and security. And at the end of the day, that’s all you really need. Those 5 core services work flawlessly together. Once you understand how they all work as a unit and individually, it is really intuitive. AWS has lambda, eks, data lakes, <INSERT SERVICE NAME HERE>. OCI decided to put their time and work behind those 5 core services, and it shows.

My verdict: I like Oracle Cloud over AWS. Call me old fashioned, but I think the most important cloud services are compute and storage. Everything else is a nice to have. Since Oracle is clearly focused on providing users with solid compute and storage services, I can’t complain. The only thing I will complain about is that they group their Oracle Kubernetes Engine under their “Developer Services” tab. C’mon guys, it’s not just the devs who want OKE.

Stay tuned for parts 3 and 4,

Joe