Oracle sets up second cloud region in India to take on Amazon, Microsoft

The American tech giant said its unique dual cloud region strategy enables customers to get disaster recovery services without having sensitive data leave the country

Oracle, one of the world’s biggest technology companies, is increasing its investments in India, which is becoming its major battleground to take on rivals Amazon, Microsoft and Google and dominate cloud computing services. The Redwood City-, California-based firm has announced its second Cloud region in India in Hyderabad. The firm is betting big to sell its cloud technology to Indian businesses, the government and start-ups to unlock innovation and drive business growth.

“India is one of the few countries in the world that has got two (such) cloud regions. That's a big thing and the reflection of Oracle's commitment to India and the fact that there is a growing cloud business for us here,” said Sriram Rajan, vice president - Cloud (India) at Oracle. “India is going to be a very important market for Oracle globally. Our customers are running in thousands and we have doubled  our customer base over the last four year.”

The opening of the new facility follows the launch of its Mumbai Cloud region in 2019. Oracle said the new region makes India the company’s latest country with multiple cloud regions available and capability to effectively meet the increasing demand for secure and stable enterprise cloud services. Oracle said it will provide enterprise customers in India better performance, pricing, and security based on its second-generation cloud. With this launch, India joins the US, Canada, Japan, Australia, South Korea, and the European Union in having multiple Oracle Cloud regions that facilitate enterprise-class disaster recovery strategies.

“With Oracle opening dual cloud regions in Australia, Japan, Korea and now India, we are further renewing our commitment to support growth in the new decade,” said Garrett Ilg, executive vice president, Japan and Asia Pacific, Oracle.

Oracle said its unique dual region strategy enables customers to deploy resilient applications in multiple independent cloud regions for disaster recovery - without having sensitive data leave the country. The firm said it is thereby complying with regulatory requirements around data sovereignty as well as operational issues associated with operating in multiple countries.

“A large number of Indian organizations are looking to change growth orbits with a greater focus on cloud-led innovation,” said Shailender Kumar, regional managing director, Oracle India. “With two Oracle Cloud regions live in India, we’re fully geared to support our 15000 plus customers in their innovation journey, with adequate support by nearly 1000 specialized Oracle partners.”

Oracle competes with global rivals, such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and Google, to dominate cloud computing services.  

In India, Oracle provides its technology to customers including Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Limited, Manappuram Finance and Indian Oil Corporation Limited. It also counts Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani, HDFC Bank and government's policy think tank Niti Aayog among its customers. 

“Oracle continues powering a large number of our citizen-centric services,” said Jayesh Ranjan, principal secretary, industries & commerce (I&C) and information technology (IT), Government of Telangana. “This (new cloud region) will surely help both public and private enterprises in our state to take advantage of Oracle cloud services.”

According to a report by technology research firm Canalys, cloud infrastructure services spending worldwide hit yet another record at $31.0 billion in the first quarter of 2020, growing at 34 per cent year-on-year. It said growth was driven by organisations around the world moving to remote working owing to the pandemic. As a result, enterprises sought rapid access to compute resources in the face of lockdowns and disruption. A surge in demand for online collaboration tools, e-commerce, and consumer cloud services drove sharp increases in cloud infrastructure consumption, benefiting all major cloud providers, the report added.

Rishu Sharma, principal analyst, cloud and artificial Intelligence at research firm IDC India said now as Indian enterprises start their journey towards getting back onto the growth track, they will look first for locally-based cloud infrastructure and services providers. The providers would be chosen based on the ability to provide low latency, in-country services to access data and its data management and analysis, bullet-proof security and interoperable cloud environments. 

“A provider that can fulfil these demands and complies with the data sovereignty laws of the country will be viewed as a partner of choice,” said Sharma. “By the addition of this second cloud region, Oracle has enhanced its position in the Indian market with increased capacity to meet customer demands for cloud services that deliver resilient digital infrastructure.”