Oracle just announced a new cloud offering called “Oracle Alloy”. According to Oracle’s announcement, Alloy will allow almost anyone to be a cloud provider. Companies may white-label Alloy and brand it as their own. They can also wrap additional services around it to add additional revenue. If, for example, you are a large telecommunications firm, you can now offer “your cloud” services to your client. Your clients will work with you, and you in turn will work with Oracle Cloud (OCl).
One reason Oracle released Alloy is for companies and countries that must keep data in-country. Oracle will allow data to be anywhere you put Alloy, whereas OCl might not have a datacenter located in the country, region, or facility required. It’s actually a good move by Oracle to address one of the biggest concerns with cloud, particularly as countries tighten up their data sovereignty requirements.
What does this mean for you?
So what is Oracle Alloy? Digging a little deeper, we note that Oracle Alloy appears to be Cloud@Customer. If you are unfamiliar with Cloud@Customer, here is a quick summary: When you buy C@C you basically lease a bunch of Exadata machines and put them in your data center. Oracle manages them remotely and calls it cloud. That’s really what C@C is at its core. You can also read more about the positives and negatives in our article on C@C.
Here is the big difference between C@C and Alloy: For C@C, you can only use those machines for your internal business operations. However, it appears for Alloy you can now use those machines for your client’s internal business operations. You are basically hosting your client’s datacenter, or you may be providing your own services to a number of clients.
Is Oracle Alloy worth the investment?
We don’t know yet. We need to see pricing, and more importantly, terms of service. If you are going to acquire Alloy, the last thing you want is to be in a position where Oracle can use their contracts to literally pull the plug on your business. Do you trust Oracle? That will be a big consideration for adoption. Having said all that, the Oracle Alloy offering may carve out a nice little market for Oracle. We will keep current on this development. If you are considering Oracle Alloy, reach out to Palisade Compliance. We will help to ensure you are getting something that works for your company and keeps you in control of Oracle.
