Oracle Strengthens Its Cloud Presence

Oracle's cloud platform is set to broaden its limits as a result of the company's new partnership with Engine Yard, a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) developer.

An unstated investment has been made in Engine Yard by Oracle, and this partnership is expected to raise the latter's cloud development platform so that its own applications will become more readily available in the cloud.

Programming languages such as Ruby, PHP and Node.js are all based on the Engine Yard PaaS platform, and this additionally automates cloud configuration and deployment which in turn enables developers to create and monitor cloud applications.

Although Oracle was slow off the starting line, it has done much to catch up and develop its cloud services. PaaS services such as the Oracle database and Fusion middleware have been developed by the company, and cloud services like infrastructure, data storage and virtualization operate on its Exadata Database Machine, Exalogic Cloud Server and Exalytics In-Memory Machine.

Oracle's services will become more easily accessible to developers who will add more capabilities for cloud deployments; this has been afforded through merging with Engine Yard's development platform.

The executive vice president of Oracle Development, Thomas Kurian, said: “Developers building new web applications in Ruby, PHP and Node.js to meet growing demands associated with mobile and social computing need a robust web PaaS offering. We are looking forward to integrating the Oracle Cloud with Engine Yard’s platform to further extend our PaaS capabilities for web application development.”

It is expected that Engine Yard will persist in staying an independent company.

The CTO of Cintra Software & Services, Oracle's Specialized Partner of the Year for Oracle's Database Appliance, Abdul Sheikh, stated that the company is using every effort to come back up to speed in the cloud space.

He said: “They've gone from zero to a comprehensive offering of business applications in the cloud very quickly. They are enhancing offerings to the development community around their Java and Open Source service model. Exadata and Exalogic are big differentiators, providing a competitive edge based on a quantum leap in capabilities provided by [Oracle's] Engineered systems.”

Sheikh added: “They are building on capabilities in the suite of development tools to increase the interest of developers so they can compete with the cloud services offerings from other providers.”

Another partner of Oracle, the CFO of Dallas, Texas-based Kester, Ken Judd, also publicised the Engine Yard investment stating that by utilizing the cloud services offered by Oracle, Kester will be able to strengthen its portfolio as new releases roll out.

Judd stated: “We think Oracle is going in the right direction. Oracle has the right hardware and software to get customers in the cloud, as we are putting the services together to help them do that.” (CY) Link