Technically Inspiring

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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 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.

J Rgen 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