In addition to the cheap 2 Xeon socket configuration, I would love to see Oracle offering fault-tolerant, mainframe reliability level, infrastructure. Also, "SPARC big iron as a service"...
Oracle is gunning for AWS with new infrastructure offering
101–110 of 166 posts
Re: Oracle is gunning for AWS with new infrastructure offering
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
> AWS isn't merely about the compute. Sure, but having a compelling story about compute and having a massive advantage in knowledge of how to sell to the exact kinds of enterprises that haven't already made their big transition to the cloud yet isn't a bad combination to have if you want to establish a nice firm place in cloud. from which you can expand and develop what you need to bite off other parts of the market.…
No, I think Oracle is targeting a different market because to them it is a low hanging fruit. AWS got a lot of startups and tech savvy companies (like Netflix). If I were Oracle I would target existing customers, who generally are not the tech savvy darlings (think Procter & Gamble, health companies, food companies, banks...) who can now tell their board their on-site Oracle licences have been moved to the cloud. It'…
...and here is how that is going to play out. We're a large public sector customer. As part of our last ELA renewal (which was an effing effing nightmare over vmware licensing) we got this crapload of Oracle cloud products that we didn't really want or need, database cloud, process cloud, integration cloud, on and on. I think there must have been a mandate from Mark Hurd to the effect that "There will be cloud products on EVERY deal." So now our rep is trying to get us to do POC's to move apps onto the cloud stuff. I bet other customers can tell similar stories. And so Oracle can show growth in their cloud business...
Re: Oracle is gunning for AWS with new infrastructure offering
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
> AWS isn't merely about the compute. Sure, but having a compelling story about compute and having a massive advantage in knowledge of how to sell to the exact kinds of enterprises that haven't already made their big transition to the cloud yet isn't a bad combination to have if you want to establish a nice firm place in cloud. from which you can expand and develop what you need to bite off other parts of the market.…
No, I think Oracle is targeting a different market because to them it is a low hanging fruit. AWS got a lot of startups and tech savvy companies (like Netflix). If I were Oracle I would target existing customers, who generally are not the tech savvy darlings (think Procter & Gamble, health companies, food companies, banks...) who can now tell their board their on-site Oracle licences have been moved to the cloud. It'…
> It's a market Oracle is uniquely qualified to pursue because they already have the sales operation and contacts in place.
Microsoft has a lot of the same kind of sales operation and contacts, and they have a suite of cloud infrastructure that's on par with AWS.
Re: Oracle is gunning for AWS with new infrastructure offering
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Beating AWS on price is trivial, though. If you can't beat AWS on price, you have no business starting a cloud service. So it's a question whether they think they need to beat AWS on price or not. AWS pricing certainly makes it very clear that Amazon have no interest or need to compete on price - a lot of the cloud market is extremely price insensitive. It's a curious effect that seems to be largely down to businesse…
If beating AWS on price is trivial, why is nobody doing that to beat them? The only place I have a gripe on AWS pricing is bandwidth. I keep waiting for the announcement that bandwidth is being cut in half next month and it hasn't happened. I've done the datacenter thing many times and there are so many pieces to the costs of running your own that most people don't include. The biggest one is just plain agility. Pred…
Google's "Custom Machine Types" can be a big pricing win over Amazon if your workload doesn't match Amazon's pre-built options.
Re: Oracle is gunning for AWS with new infrastructure offering
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 2.) Amazon is internally use to being frugal, and so pricing wars are not going to hurt them. Oracle is use to charging a arm and a leg for their products. They may be used to being frugal, but that is not at all reflected in AWS pricing, which is ridiculously high across the board.
Did you consider AWS have to keep prices high to constrain demand?
Interesting observation, though it raises the obvious responses:
1. What's constraining AWS's growth capacity? Isn't it simply a matter of stamping out AZs and DCs?
2. Why would Amazone create a pricing structure which encourages new entrants into the field? Contrast local retail in which defunct firms continue to sit on, and extend, real-estate leases, strictly to prevent other companies from growing into the market they've abandoned. See Dominicks / Anderson grocery stores in the Chicago area, in which seventy-two stores are being leased, at a cost of ~$1m/year, each, to prevent competitors from occupying the space:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-vacant-dominicks-s...
(This works in part because rent is only a small part of the operational cost of a grocery store: electric power, labour, maintenance, and of course, groceries, are required if you're actually utilising the space.)
Re: Oracle is gunning for AWS with new infrastructure offering
#106Oracle had a cloud compute capacity, as Sun Microsystems, billed as "Sun Cloud" or "Sun Grid". Launched in 2006, it failed to attract interest. The product was discontinued in 2010.
Re: Oracle is gunning for AWS with new infrastructure offering
#107Re: Oracle is gunning for AWS with new infrastructure offering
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Beating AWS on price is trivial, though. If you can't beat AWS on price, you have no business starting a cloud service. So it's a question whether they think they need to beat AWS on price or not. AWS pricing certainly makes it very clear that Amazon have no interest or need to compete on price - a lot of the cloud market is extremely price insensitive. It's a curious effect that seems to be largely down to businesse…
If beating AWS on price is trivial, why is nobody doing that to beat them? The only place I have a gripe on AWS pricing is bandwidth. I keep waiting for the announcement that bandwidth is being cut in half next month and it hasn't happened. I've done the datacenter thing many times and there are so many pieces to the costs of running your own that most people don't include. The biggest one is just plain agility. Pred…
Google Cloud has made several big efforts to make cloud pricing cheaper, simpler, and more flexible for its customers:
- List Prices are cheaper [-1]
- Google Sustained Use Discounts are like RIs but applied automatically and without commitments (up to 30% off if you use a VM for 100% of a month) [0]
- Preemptible VMs are a fixed 70-80% off, rather than the uncertain and highly variable Spot Instance Market [1]
- Custom Machine Types offer you the ability to set your own CPU/RAM [2]
- Both Google and Microsoft offer per-minute pricing
- VM sizing recommendations will give you a message when you can save money[3]
In the end, Google Cloud can be 40% cheaper than AWS[4]
[-1] https://cloud.google.com/compute/pricing
[0] https://cloud.google.com/compute/pricing#sustained_use
[1] https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/preemptible
[2] https://cloud.google.com/custom-machine-types/
[3] https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2016/09/six-Google-Clou...
[4] http://www.zdnet.com/article/what-google-says-to-aws-price-c...
(disc: work @ Google Cloud)
Re: Oracle is gunning for AWS with new infrastructure offering
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
I attended an Oracle sales conference once (for the canapes, very good) and happened to be in the auditorium for one of the speakers. There were lasers. There was dry ice. Vanessa Mae was playing the electric violin. A director on stage bellowed we will bring $competitor TO THEIR KNEES! Everyone was on their feet cheering, I've been to metal gigs that were less intense. Oracle takes sales very, very seriously.
Granted. It's just that to my ears, Larry Ellison's announcement scores the wrong check marks: bluster: check hubris: check realism: nope I would have expected that someone who takes marketing very, very seriously tries to sound realistic, not overoptimistic or full of that which makes plants grow. Saying "oracle's database rocks" and asking for a stiff price has a certain touch of realism. I can see how a good sales…
>Can a good salesforce use bluster as a main tool to sell something shitty, such as oracle's IaaS offering? How does that sales process work?
Well, yes, obviously and consistently. The sales process starts on the golf course/opera/football private box
Re: Oracle is gunning for AWS with new infrastructure offering
#110If anyone still needs proof that having a competitive IaaS offering is not just about capex just watch Oracle burn piles of money and totally fuck this up.