Oracle Cloud July 2023

Oracle Cloud and the power of community in driving digital evolution

IN ASSOCIATION WITH:

ORACLE CLOUD and the power of community in driving digital evolution

PRODUCED BY: LEWIS VAUGHAN

WRITTEN BY: MAYA DERRICK

Oracle’s Jürgen Kress

In conversation with Mobile Magazine, Director of Product Management Integration and Digital Assistant at Oracle Jürgen Kress shared insights into how Oracle Cloud leverages community to propel digital evolution. As a multinational computer technology corporation and the third-largest software company worldwide, Oracle is renowned for its comprehensive range of software products and services. The company offers Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), with a comprehensive set of services from infrastructure to platform and SaaS. This ranges from compute and storage, PaaS services like integration, BI, content, identity management, or a chatbot to services like ERP, HCM, CX, NetSuite, or industry solutions like the OPERA Hospitality Platform. With a mission to help people view data in new ways, discover insights, and unlock endless possibilities, Oracle remains at the top of its game. Named a Leader and Positioned Highest for Ability to Execute in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Integration Platform as a Service Worldwide 2023, Oracle continues to shape the future of digital transformation.

The transformation journey

Kress, who has been with Oracle for over two decades, highlights the remarkable transformation in the IT industry. Oracle’s

explains how being named a leader in two Gartner Magic Quadrant reports will further propel the business and those it works with

Technically Inspiring

We use our specialist technical expertise, powerful technology, customised client solutions and global reach to deliver better results for the world of insurance.

Why Oracle Cloud has the ability to provide PaaS services

Vikas Sharma, Global Head of INSIS CoE at Charles Taylor, explains how the company harnesses Oracle’s OCI to enhance their internal operations and output

With a history spanning almost 140 years, Charles Taylor provides insurance solutions with a unique breadth, offering technical expertise and global reach alongside award-winning solutions. Their constant strive for excellence is propelled forward through using an array of Oracle Cloud systems that have been in place for the last 10 years – as Vikas Sharma, Global Head of INSIS CoE, explains.

‘A natural choice’

“It was a natural choice for us to try Oracle Cloud products, so we moved into OCI. One of the main benefits of OCI was providing PaaS services.” Comparing OCI Autonomous Database to a self-driving car, Sharma praised its ability to do its own patching –whether that be security patching, security detection, or identifying vulnerabilities. And there’s a financial benefit, as well.

Fast delivery

“I always use this phrase: time is money,” says Sharma.

“The first and foremost benefit that we get is that it helps us to deliver our solution in fast time-to-market.

“The time for server building and infrastructure building – which used to take many days, sometimes many months – has reduced a lot. And that eventually reduces a lot of our cost, benefitting our customers.”

Security and safeguarding data

With data protection and security paramount, Sharma adds that Oracle’s services, when used together, completely safeguard information at any and all levels. “We use Oracle Cloud Guard, which is one of the products that comes from OCI, to secure at the tenant-level. Then we utilise other services from OCI, like DataSafe, specifically, to find out any kind of vulnerabilities at the database level.

“All our servers are in a private subnet so they are completely secured. And we utilise some of the services security list type of services, rules services from OCI, to secure our applications.”

integration capabilities serve as an onramp to the broader IaaS platform.

According to Kress: “OCI is a second-generation cloud representing a fundamental re-architecture of the conventional public cloud. While first-generation clouds were built on decade-old technology, Oracle’s Cloud is specifically architected for the enterprise. It was built in a microservice architecture, which gives us a competitive advantage. We use that difference to shift all workloads for our customers to the cloud – existing workloads, new cloud-native workloads – and we are continually releasing new capabilities such as integration and AI

“Oracle now boasts the fastest core network of global data centres, with 42 regions currently available and nine more in the pipeline”

JÜRGEN KRESS DIRECTOR PRODUCT MANAGEMENT INTEGRATION AND DIGITAL ASSISTANT, ORACLE CLOUD

services including Digital Assistant, our secure, enterprise chatbot.”

By utilising OCI Application Integration (OIC), customers gain access to a wide array of services, ranging from compute and storage, to identity management, content management, modern data platform, and application development. The seamless integration of various applications, both Oracle and third-party, enables customers to enhance their operational efficiency and unlock the full potential of Oracle’s infrastructure. Prebuilt adapters and integrations accelerate delivery and minimise upgrade risks. Unified observability simplifies hybrid and multi-cloud operations.

JÜRGEN KRESS

TITLE: DIRECTOR PRODUCT MANAGEMENT INTEGRATION AND DIGITAL ASSISTANT

COMPANY: ORACLE CLOUD

EXECUTIVE BIO

An expert in the Oracle Cloud Platform Jürgen Kress is part of product management team and responsible for Oracle’s Integration & Digital Assistant partner business & the customer success program. He is the founder of the Oracle Integration & Developer Partner Communities and the global Oracle Partner Advisory Councils. These PaaS Partner Communities are home to over 10,000 members internationally as Oracle’s most active and successful communities. Which Jürgen manages with monthly newsletters, webcasts, online trainings and conferences. He hosts the Partner Community Forums, Summer Camps and Bootcamps where hundreds of attendees receive product updates, roadmap insights, and hands-on training. He graduated from Berufsakademie Stuttgart and holds a master’s degree from University of Brasilia. As an author he published several books and is an active social contributor via Twitter, LinkedIn, discussion forums, online communities, slack and blogs.

Oracle and KNEX Empower Clients with Fusion Applications for Real-World Impact

KNEX is a seasoned team of elite Oracle experts curated by founder Basheer Khan, a globally recognised Oracle authority.

Since 2013, we’ve delivered proven solutions built on broad industry understanding.

Beyond integrating systems, we elevate success, leveraging Fusion extensions to coordinate harmony within the organisations.

KNEX: Unlock the full potential of your Fusion Applications

KNEX Technology is revolutionising Fusion Applications implementations with innovative extensions that expand functionality across industries

Being a member of the Fusion Inner circle, and an early adopter, Basheer Khan gained deep expertise in Fusion Applications. Recognising this, Oracle engaged Khan in 2010 to install Fusion Applications for early adopter companies. This experience led Khan to envision a consulting firm that not only implemented Fusion Applications but also helped clients optimise their investments. With this idea in mind, Khan founded KNEX Technology in 2013 with the goal of implementing cloud applications, integrating them with other systems, and extending their functionality to bridge gaps.

In 2005, Oracle recognised Khan as an Oracle ACE Director, part of their ACE Program that recognises individuals who are experts in their respective fields. In 2012, KNEX’s CTO, Gustavo Gonzalez was awarded the same recognition. This milestone achievement makes KNEX the only organisation with two of the three ACE Directors in the world who specialise in Fusion Applications.

Providing positive change – together Oracle and KNEX have collaborated on many amazing projects. One of the most poignant is implementing Fusion Applications across 14 countries, in just 16 weeks. “I think this is a record,” Khan shares. “We don’t know of any other implementation for such a broad region in such a short time.

“We’ve also done some impactful projects when it comes to improving the productivity of our clients. One of our clients in the financial services sector had their team spending a considerable amount of time capturing data from different banks. We were able to automate that using Oracle Integration Cloud.”

To breathe life into the concept of positive change, our favourite collaboration is with non-profit organisations. KNEX works hand-inhand to help non-profits afford and successfully uptake Oracle Fusion Applications, simplifying their dayto-day operations and enabling them to focus on their missions to provide positive change to the world.

Khan concludes: “At KNEX, we simplify the complex.”

Speaking about OIC’s industry recognition, Kress explained: “Congratulations to all the customers, partners, and the whole community. It was a big team effort including product management, development, sales, and marketing. Oracle is a SaaS market leader with solutions spanning ERP, CM, CX, and industry solutions. Customers need to connect their applications, including Oracle SaaS, with their applications, data, and messaging services in the cloud, between different clouds, and on-premises.”

The power of community

A significant aspect of Oracle’s success lies in the vibrant and active community it has cultivated. With more than 10,000 community members comprising

customers, partners, and employees, Oracle collaborates, engages, supports, and trains this community. The community model extends to both partners and customers, offering sales and marketing enablement information, newsletters, webcasts, and success stories.

Comms channels ‘vital’

The constant communication channels, such as newsletters, webcasts, blogs, instant messaging, and social media, enable the sharing of product information, success stories, and valuable feedback to continually improve the OCI Application Integration service.

Oracle recognises the crucial role played by partners in implementing successful

“We are thankful for an excellent team, including leadership with an in-depth understanding, and a track record of success in the integration market”

JÜRGEN KRESS DIRECTOR PRODUCT MANAGEMENT INTEGRATION AND DIGITAL ASSISTANT, ORACLE CLOUD

FlexDeploy DevOps Platform for Oracle Cloud Applications

and Infrastructure

Streamline and accelerate delivery of your Oracle Cloud services like ERP, HCM, Integration, and Analytics by automating manual tasks, reducing the risk of failure, and providing traceability and auditability of changes.

Learn how to achieve significant benefits by streamlining the entire deployment process

FlexDeploy DevOps Platform for Oracle Cloud

Flexagon’s DevOps platform, FlexDeploy, helps customers automate their processes when software development and delivery are generally complex. “We bring software to the table in FlexDeploy to embed automation and governance into their processes and make sure there’s visibility to change,” Flexagon’s CEO and Co-Founder Dan Goerdt says.

Removing complexity

Through its partnership with Oracle and its Oracle Cloud systems, FlexDeploy optimizes services for ease of customer use. As an Oracle partner, Flexagon leverages the likes of development environments and demo environments, accessing resources within Oracle’s product management and marketing to optimise FlexDeploy’s support for Oracle Cloud Integration and Applications.

Partnership in action

Heathrow Airport had a huge transformation and is adopting Oracle Cloud, Oracle Cloud Applications, Oracle Integration and APEX. Capgemini, as an Oracle partner and a

Flexagon partner, was able to deliver this transformation successfully. “The impact of the partnership has been tremendous,” Goerdt remarks. “Customers around the globe get the value of FlexDeploy’s expansive out-of-the-box capability for Oracle Cloud. Pairing the FlexDeploy DevOps platform with the Oracle partnership has helped a lot of customers move faster with quality while managing cost and risk. Everybody wins. It’s a neat dynamic to help solve these joint customer challenges in different ways.”

A bright future

Although proud of what Flexagon has achieved since its inception and how partnering with Oracle has enabled the company to reach a wider customer base, Goerdt has his sights set on a bright future in partnership with Oracle. “Oracle continues to crank out new services and extend their existing services. We’re tightly aligned with them so we can continue to enhance FlexDeploy to support the evolution of Oracle Cloud.”

LEARN MORE

projects. The integration partner ecosystem consists of various types of partners, including system integrators, global system integrators, local partners, and independent software vendors (ISVs). To support partners, Oracle provides comprehensive programs that encompass sales, marketing, and enablement information, joint campaigns, free training, and certification. Notable partnerships include innovative regional system integrators, global system integrators undertaking large international projects,

33 hands-on trainings with 2465 attendees in fiscal year 2022

33 webcasts with 7969 attendees in fiscal year 2022

Oracle Cloud and the power of community in driving digital evolution

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and ISVs leveraging pre-built integrations to connect their solutions to the Oracle SaaS ecosystem.

“Partners are absolutely key to us,” Kress says “Of the top 10 customer projects, eight of them have been successfully implemented by partners. We’re thankful for our excellent global partnerships. The integration partner ecosystem includes different types of partners from system integrators, global system integrators, and local partners, to independent software vendors.

“For partners, we offer a whole program including sales, marketing, and enablement information such as sales kits with customer presentations, sales positioning, joint campaigns to generate leads, and opportunities for free training and certification. All of that is put together in a community model to communicate regularly via newsletters and webcasts.”

To highlight some of the success factors, trained and certified partners deliver and replicate successful customer projects. Every year, Oracle offers 20 free training

sessions to its partners. In these three-day workshops, up to 200 people learn about the product in live virtual classes, which has resulted in more than 6,000 certified Oracle Application Integration experts since 2020.

Kress explains, “We have small and innovative partners like KNEX, which are among the first movers to connect and extend Oracle SaaS with OIC. They customised Oracle SaaS to run a winery, replicated this customer success, and now offer an industry solution. We work with all Global System Integrators (GSI’s) who deploy international projects. For example, Capgemini and the Heathrow Airport project, Infosys, who presented one of their projects at our last customer success webcast, or Accenture with more than 500 experts. Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) such as Charles Taylor, which offers insurance solutions, leverage OIC to connect with Oracle SaaS. With OIC, Charles Taylor gets access to the Oracle SaaS installed base and customers benefit from tailored industry solutions.”

“Partners such as Flexagon, which offers a DevOps solution, FlexDeploy, for Oracle Cloud infrastructure services. FlexDeploy is a DevOps and automation platform that enables fast and efficient packaging, testing, and development of code and configurations. It’s a complimentary tool that was initially developed on Oracle SOA Suite and now supports the latest OCI architecture. Available through the Oracle Marketplace, FlexDeploy is available to any OCI customer.” Asked about OIC’s global partner model, Kress shared, “To summarise our partner strategy, the secret is that we train and certify partners to deliver successful projects and replicate their

JÜRGEN KRESS DIRECTOR PRODUCT MANAGEMENT INTEGRATION AND DIGITAL ASSISTANT, ORACLE CLOUD

“We are continually releasing new capabilities”

best practices. The community model is a consistent, executable, and scalable model.”

He adds: “For customers and prospects, we established a similar program that includes a quarterly newsletter, quarterly product webcast, customer summits, and success stories. The product webcast provides customers with the latest release details with demonstrations of new features and roadmap details. Prospects learn from successful customer implementations in regional success webcasts. A great example is the London Heathrow Airport reference implemented by Capgemini.

“Overall, we are thankful for an excellent team, including leadership with an in-depth understanding, and a track record of success in the integration market. It’s always a team effort, and we would like to thank and congratulate our customers, employees, partners, and the ACE community that made it possible.”

Driving future development

Oracle aims to expand its customer base and further develop its cloud offerings. “OCI is a complete cloud infrastructure platform suitable for every workload, offering all the necessary services to migrate, build, and run both existing and new enterprise workloads including cloud-native applications and modern data platforms,” Kress details.

“Oracle now boasts the fastest core network of global data centres, with more than 42 regions currently available and nine more in the pipeline. Oracle also provides 20 free tier services, with no time limitations, including compute and storage, autonomous databases, and APEX for lowcode development.”

The company recognises that continued

growth and development depend on customers utilising its products and actively contributing to Oracle’s service offerings. Ongoing communication with customers and partners helps prioritise bi-monthly releases and drive longer-term strategy.

AI and the future of cloud services

Kress highlights the immense potential of AI as the next major revolution in the IT industry. AI services rely heavily on data models and the ability to expose trusted enterprise data to AI systems. By connecting transactional application data with AI

“Partners are absolutely key to us”

JÜRGEN KRESS DIRECTOR PRODUCT MANAGEMENT INTEGRATION AND DIGITAL ASSISTANT, ORACLE CLOUD

capabilities, organisations can optimise automated processes and empower knowledge workers to make timely, datadriven decisions that drive growth. Cloud services are becoming smarter, more autonomous, and interconnected, leveraging the power of connected data and AI to deliver superior predictions and insights.

Through a combination of robust infrastructure, integration capabilities, and a thriving community, Oracle Cloud is driving digital evolution in the industry. Recognised as a leader in iPaaS, Oracle’s commitment to empowering customers, fostering

partnerships, and embracing emerging technologies positions it at the forefront of innovation.

Overall, Oracle’s community-driven approach, coupled with its commitment to partner success and technological innovation, positions the company at the forefront of digital transformation and enables it to provide comprehensive cloud solutions to its customers.