Cloud could deliver a silver lining for Oracle

After Oracle, a technology juggernaut since incorporating most of its rivals in the past decade, missed estimates in its last earnings report, the market has been looking for signs that the company has a roadmap for generating revenue across its many business divisions.

It may well be the cloud that delivers this silver lining.

If Oracle can deliver the many pieces of this cloud picture as promised, it would likely find a strong market from companies searching for less confusing and more secure ways of moving to cloud computing, several analysts said.

Bank sends managers to get their heads in the cloud: AIB tech team at openworld looking for ‘what comes next’

AMONG THE estimated 50,000 people attending this year’s OpenWorld event in San Francisco are two delegates from AIB, here to find out more about “trends in the industry and what’s coming next”, says Mark Patterson, AIB infrastructure manager, who also gave a talk.

Attending OpenWorld enables them to network with colleagues, get immediate help on problems, and talk to solution providers on the show floor, says Kevin Callanan, AIB database manager.

Senior executive management has also asked the two to brief them on past OpenWorlds, he says.

“We’ve had benefits from coming in the past. For example, we got a better understanding of the trend towards consolidation.”

As a result, AIB has moved from using several separate software applications in-house, to developing a private cloud which they hope to complete by next year.

It consolidated its database platform, halving the number of servers and databases needed.

“They now all run on Oracle, where previously we had a mix of providers.”

With its latest product announcements at OpenWorld, Oracle “can now be a one-stop shop for database services. That will enable us to deliver databases much quicker, at less expense and we only have one vendor to deal with,” says Patterson.

Callanan says the whole Oracle 12c database model introduced at the conference “is the model where we’re going with the cloud. It’s future-proofing our strategy, and we now have a fully mapped-out plan for the next four to five years.”

He also says a shift to using Oracle hardware last year had brought “significant cost savings”.

Overall, says Patterson, having easier-to-manage databases and IT “frees us up to deliver our existing environment better, and our customers should see a better impact.

“AIB is transforming and has new banking strategies and IT is key to delivering them.”