Oracle OpenWorld 2013: Oracle’s Mission-critical Software and Microsoft’s Enterprise-grade Cloud

First published on CloudBlogs on Sep, 24 2013
For years Microsoft and Oracle have helped customers address enterprise technology needs, and during those years I’ve had the opportunity to personally partner with, compete with, and admire Oracle as an industry leader. Certainly when you think of enterprise scalability and reliability Oracle comes to mind, and I believe the Microsoft clouds also deliver the enterprise-grade reliability, scalability and performance – and at the “cloud economics” price point that so many have come to expect from Microsoft.  The combination of the Oracle workloads on Microsoft clouds is incredibly powerful. I am proud to be a part of the next big step in this partnership – delivering the power of Oracle’s mission-critical software to the millions of customers running Windows and Azure. In June, we announced a new strategic partnership to bring Oracle software to even more Windows customers and partners, and I am excited to share two big announcements:

• Starting today, Microsoft is offering a preview of license-included Windows Server virtual machine images running Oracle Database, Oracle WebLogic Server, and the Java Development Kit. You can download it now here .
• Oracle is also offering bring-your-own-license Oracle Linux virtual machine images running Oracle Database and Oracle WebLogic Server in Windows Azure

Building on our longstanding relationship, customers using Java, Oracle WebLogic Server, and Oracle Database will now have the flexibility to run that software on Windows Azure and Windows Hyper-V. Also, ISVs who build and sell applications based on Java and Oracle will have the flexibility and choice to run their applications and services in Windows Azure – enabling the enterprise adoption of cloud-based ISV solutions built with Oracle technologies. Not only am I excited to share the first big results of this partnership, but, when I take the stage later today, it will be the first time a Microsoft executive has delivered a keynote at Oracle OpenWorld .  You can watch it live or on-demand here . During my remarks, I’m going to touch on two big topics afoot in the technology industry: The cloud OS vision, and how Microsoft and Oracle are working together to bring the power of Oracle’s software to private/public clouds and service providers. I’ll also show how one of our mutual partners, Redknee , is already building innovative new, Oracle-based solutions on Windows Azure. If you use Oracle software & Windows software, or if you’re excited about how the cloud can transform your business (hopefully both), I encourage you to watch.

Today is the first of many steps that will deliver on the promise of this partnership, and there is more work and more announcements to come. In the meantime, try out the preview , check out the Oracle Self-service Kit , and learn more about running Oracle’s software on Microsoft’s clouds. We’re just getting started .