Oracle Database Now Live on AWS
Oracle Database@AWS is now generally available in the US, allowing enterprises to run Oracle's high-performance Exadata and Autonomous Database workloads natively within the AWS cloud. The partnership plans to expand to over 20 regions in the next 12-18 months, simplifying hybrid architectures for mission-critical enterprise systems like inventory and retail analytics.
This partnership marks a dramatic reversal in a years-long rivalry, where Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison once publicly derided AWS, claiming its databases were "20 years behind" Oracle's. The collaboration signifies a major strategic shift for Oracle, embracing a multi-cloud approach to meet customers where their applications and data already reside. Unlike previous options for running Oracle software on generic EC2 instances, this new service physically places Oracle's own high-performance Exadata hardware inside AWS data centers. This co-location is managed by Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) personnel as an "OCI child site" within the AWS facility, directly connecting to the main OCI region for control plane operations. The direct hardware integration within AWS availability zones provides microsecond latency between applications running on AWS and the Oracle database. This architecture officially supports and optimizes mission-critical features like Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC), which were previously unsupported and technically challenging to implement on standard cloud infrastructure. For enterprise customers, management is streamlined through the native AWS console, APIs, and CLI, creating a unified experience for provisioning, billing, and support. Usage can qualify for existing AWS enterprise commitments, and customers can bring their own Oracle licenses (BYOL) or purchase new ones through the AWS Marketplace. This deep integration enables new technical capabilities, most notably zero-ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) data pipelines between Oracle databases and AWS analytics services. Data can be unified with Amazon Redshift for analytics or used with AWS AI services like Amazon SageMaker and Bedrock without complex data movement processes. The pricing for Oracle Database@AWS is set at parity with what customers would pay on Oracle's own Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), though it is purchased and billed through the AWS Marketplace. This move completes Oracle’s strategy of making its database services available natively across all major hyperscalers, following similar partnerships with Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.
