Cloud Computing

As you are probably aware my area is Oracle / Unix so cloud computing should make my life so much easier. From an Oracle point of view it does not really matter whether a server is down the corridor or a thousand miles away, an Oracle database looks like an Oracle database. So even though I have been using servers on the cloud for ages with my DBA head on it does not really matter. However with Unix head on it makes a huge difference. In the past you had to buy a server, rack mount it, download software, run the installation, do the configuration, ask the network people to provide an IP address and then do all the testing.


 Now, you can log into Amazon AWS, click on EC2 pick the server that you need and within minutes you have a fully functioning machine. You still have lots of work to do but no worries about air conditioning, physical security, power outages etc. Amazon even give you 750 hours a month for free and 30gig of storage.


The problem I have, is that I have a laptop with Oracle Virtualbox running two Linux servers acting as a sandbox for testing RAC, ASM, DataGuard etc. that costs me nothing to run other than electricity; so do I move to the cloud, probably not. If Amazon wants to give me two servers with more storage as part of their free tier now that would be tempting. Now, if I was running a server room that decision is made a million times more difficult. One option is to go with a hybrid, private cloud solution you keep your server room but have all the benefits of scalability and management and move to a public / private cloud moving forward. If I was going with a greenfield option I reckon the cloud is the way to go but for the rest of us I think it will a be a slow migration.

Now it is not just me who can't decide what the future is going to be.

Writing on the wall for on premises IT - January 2018:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/19/firms_ditching_on_prem_it_says_survey/

but on premises IT is about to boom - February 2018:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/27/morgan_stanley_hardware_industry_prediction/

Who knows!!!

 




I'm a bit biased when it comes to Oracle but the "Always Free" option is pretty cool; two servers with 50gig of storage and providing you stick to the always free option you should never be charged. Once again, for testing RAC it was a no go. There is no shared storage option so for ASM not much use even with the thirty days you get to do pretty much anything you want, before you have to start paying. Anybody know if it's possible to set up RAC on Oracle's cloud- there is not a lot on the web ?







https://www.oracle.com/cloud/sign-in.html











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