What's the difference between a cloud solution and the cloud full stop? In our view, a cloud solution combines cloud technologies with business aims. It's goal-oriented and tailored to an enterprise's specific needs.
Despite this, some cloud consultants and managed service providers talk as though the cloud is just about the technical details. Oracle Cloud, they might say, has purpose-built RoCEv2 networking at 3.2Tb/s. Any questions?
Here at Ascend Cloud Solutions, we like to do things differently. We know that there's a learning curve associated with cloud technologies. Many companies are convinced of the business case for the cloud. But they don't necessarily know how to align their cloud infrastructure with their business goals.
That's why we were delighted to take part in the Oracle Cloud Experience Day here in beautiful Cork. Our team shared its thoughts on OCVS (Oracle Cloud VMware Solution) and representatives from Oracle made the case for OCI itself.
It was an illuminating day, not least because the speakers consistently spoke of the business benefits of Oracle. The question was always "Why Oracle?" Here's what we learnt.
1. It's a market leader
Oracle is a leader in 17 Gartner Magic Quadrants.For those who don't know, Gartner is a technological research firm – and its Magic Quadrants compare and contrast market competitors.
In 2023, Oracle topped the Magic Quadrants for cloud database management systems, SalesForce automation platforms, data integration tools, B2B marketing automation platforms, warehouse management systems, financial planning software... The list goes on.
This should give you some idea of how flexible Oracle is and how many areas of business life it can transform.
2. It provides the best performance at the best price
As well as being highly flexible, OCI offers both high performance and low costs. Wherever you are in the world, OCI lets you run everything faster for up to 50% less.
Compute, block storage, networking; containers, data egress, AI – all run at a world-beating speed and at a competitive price. Networking, for instance, is 80% cheaper than its competitors.
This is good news for those businesses who are looking to migrate but worried about the price tag. OCI demonstrates that peak performance doesn't have to cost the Earth.
3. It has global availability
The cloud, like the internet, is everywhere. Right? Well, yes and no. Not all cloud providers are available everywhere. OCI, however, gives you the full cloud wherever in the world you need it.
This applies to both OCI's public cloud and your on-premise data centre. Whatever your cloud infrastructure looks like, OCI lets you run it in 72 regions worldwide.
This compromise-free global availability is another persuasive argument in favour of OCI – and one which helps give it the edge over its competitors.
4. It has a powerful AI infrastructure
There's no getting around the fact: AI is fast becoming an integral part of how we do business. OCI knows this and provides customers with the most powerful AI infrastructure on the market.
Not just the best, but the best value, too – and that's true whether you're talking about a single VM or a 65,000 GPU cluster.
At the time of writing, OCI is the only hyperscaler with bare metal GPUs for AI training. It offers file storage with a hundred times the performance of standard file storage. And if your business is embracing LLMs, you can run four of the largest on OCI.
4. It provides top-secret security
No cloud provider can afford to underestimate the importance of high security. Enterprises in every sector hold substantial amounts of data. Half measures just don't cut it.
We were excited to learn that OCI's security services are designed to meet the highest available standards. That means every customer gets the kind of security that a top-secret agency would want.
How is this achieved? It's partly because the cloud control plane has been moved away from the customer hypervisor. It's partly because encryption is on by default. And it's partly because at the time of writing, OCI is the only hyperscaler with physically separate regions for US, UK and Australian governments.
Enterprises are justifiably concerned about security. With OCI, you get the peace of mind you need.
5. It enables AI innovation
We've mentioned already that OCI provides a powerful AI infrastructure. But what can you do with it? The sky, it seems, is the limit.
OCI services let you leverage all of your data with modern AppDev capabilities. And by all, we mean all, from your on-prem data centre to your workloads in the public cloud.
As well as letting you use your on-prem data inside AI applications, OCI allows you to uncover supply chain issues in real time. It lets you easily tie ERP data into internal data warehouses and third-party applications. It allows you to query your private data in natural language. And it gives you automated bug-fixing guidance.
All of these AI-driven functionalities have one thing in common: they speed up your performance with no compromise to quality – and no eye-watering price tag.
How can we help?
By this point, we hope you share our enthusiasm for Oracle Cloud. If you're looking to migrate, we can get you there. As a cloud-agnostic consultancy, we're ready to move your workloads from any source.
But if you run workloads on VMware, you should seriously consider investigating Oracle Cloud VMware Solution. This is an agile, scalable and cost-effective solution that can be deployed in a matter of hours.
We know the VMware SDDC stack like the back of our hands. We can help you migrate seamlessly, working with you to ensure disruption is kept to an absolute minimum.
Once migrated, you keep complete control over the stack – and because you're still using your VMware toolbox, there's no need to retrain.

So if you're looking for a cloud consultant to help you migrate to Oracle Cloud VMware Solutions, get in touch today. We'd love to help you meet your business goals the only way we know how.
