Pros and Cons of In-House Oracle Cloud Management vs. Outsourcing

Cost optimization, process efficiency, time to market, agility and innovation are key drivers for cloud infrastructure services sourcing decisions to cloud experts.

Post running new or non-critical applications on cloud, IT Decision makers are now more comfortable in taking a decision to migrate their critical applications like ERP, EBS, SAP etc on cloud IaaS and PaaS environments.

Why this leap of faith? IT leaders have evolved to run cloud environments more securely than data centers and have tasted the benefits delivered from Cloud infrastructure environments. While the infrastructure ownership has been outsourced to global cloud providers, what about the Management of those environments?

All layers on top of the virtualization layer — the operating system, the database, the Middleware, access security and the application — will still require management. Some customers are tech-savvy enough to manage their own cloud services, others need to rely on experts who can manage the Application and Cloud environment both. Here you have a choice:

1. Either engage your current MSP who may not have the knowledge to run your critical application on Cloud Platforms or;
2. Engage Cloud certified MSP’s who now have certification from the Cloud providers to consult, build, operate & manage the application on their differentiated Cloud to optimum performance.

Top 5 Issues in Managing Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Inhouse

For critical applications like Oracle, SAP, ERP etc., the complexity of workloads, and more specifically the contracting, architectural design, and implementation of these workloads, requires expertise that most companies may not have internally. Over and above these teams may not have the knowledge to run, optimize and manage such environments on cloud IaaS and PaaS platforms.

1. Operational Optimization – All layers on top of the virtualization layer — the operating system, the database, the middleware and the application — will still require management for. If you are running applications like EBS, People soft, JD Edwards etc on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (IaaS & PaaS Platform) you still will require to run regular diagnostics, product fixes, performance management, and/or operational workarounds to upgrade, apply patches, add additional security features, Optimize the environment as you would have don’t it inhouse.Gartner’s scorecard 2021 assessment states that Oracle Cloud has introduced the highest number of new capabilities & new features. While this is an impressive engineering feat, it nevertheless indicates that many of OCI’s core capabilities are relatively new. These will require skills to be able to test and apply these new features.
2. Limited ecosystem for skills: Since Oracle introduced its cloud post 2015, you might find it a challenge to find the right skills to seamlessly run the cloud environment which is still releasing loads of new features.To solve this OCI has a validated managed service provider (MSP) partner program and certifies specialists with Cloud Solutions Provider Expertise,”. It’s important to balance the capabilities inhouse with external vendor partners. While Partner quality, expertise, and experience varies widely. Your existing partners may be more focused on onprem Oracle-specific support rather than using OCI as a vehicle for cloud-enabled IT transformation or digital transformation.
   
3. Limited ecosystem for tools: Most organizations — especially multicloud customers — supplement first-party cloud provider capabilities with additional cloud management tools and cloud security products. Although Oracle has generally formed a partner relationship with at least one top vendor in each important tooling category, the breadth of these ecosystems means that most of these tools have little or no support for OCI.If you have already chosen such tools for existing multicloud needs may find that their existing vendors and tools have insufficient support for OCI. To overcome this weakness, you can engage with an Oracle CSPE who will have the requisite skills.
4. Dependence on Oracle Database technologies: OCI has reference architecture support for non-Oracle Databases — such as Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Apache Cassandra and MongoDB — it has no service offerings for non-Oracle Database, nor is OCI supported by common third-party multicloud database services (such as MongoDB Atlas and DataStax Astra DB). Oracle’s database-as-a-service offerings are delivered exclusively on Oracle technology —Oracle Database, Oracle NoSQL Database, or MySQL (which is owned by Oracle). Customers that exclusively use Oracle may perceive this as an advantage, since these same solutions can be delivered as on-premises software.
5. Breakfix vs Proactive Resolutions – No code is perfect. Odds are that your application or system will eventually require technical assistance, be it inhouse or external support. Managing your systems is no longer a game of waiting for issues to occur and fixing them. Today, you must be able to identify and address issues before they become problems to assure critical applications are always available. While you can use out of the box tools to solve such problems, the real challenge will be to proactively predict such a scenario.

While an Oracle cloud certified partner (aka CSPE) can help to overcome several of these challenges, you need to critically assess these partners with the broad based managed services support, tried and tested tools, scripts and processes they can offer, customized to your environment.

With such partners, engage them to move from reactive to proactive systems management, Reduce system maintenance time and effort and also leverage their tired and test tools and scripts to ensure it solves the above challenges in a cost effective and timely manner.

Benefits of Cloud Management Outsourcing

Tested Tools and Processes

You need experts to Predict, Prioritize and Prevent unwanted hurdles in your cloud journey. Experts with Oracle proactive support tools and tried and tested processes, can help prevent issues before they arise. Certified Oracle Cloud MSP’s (aka. CSPE) will have the relevant tool-chest and designed processes to accelerate the migration and management journey. Features like Clone Automation, OCI-Specific Backups (DR, Restic) to Object Storage, PCP Load Balancing & Load Distribution Analysis Across RAC Nodes, Automated Production Health Checks are just a few things that you should be looking out for.

Easy to Scale

Demands during business variations can be easily accommodated with scaling up or down resources as per needs. New application build, testing, Mergers and acquisitions or divestitures are few scenarios where outsourcing will help in skewed demands in your environment.

Reduce Cost

With several options to choose from Onshore, Offshore or right shore the customer can optimize costs while ensuring resource availability 24/7

Advantages of In-house Cloud Management

Compliance Requirements

If your business has strict compliance requirements you have a choice to get the cloud management done inhouse too. But that will come with additional effort and cost. IPAA, the EU Directive, and other U.S. and foreign laws require electronic health records, personal identification information, financial records, and other sensitive data be protected.

However to solve this Oracle can bring the Cloud environment within your data center with Oracle Cloud@customer service. Gartner also recommends to engage an certified cloud expert to guide you through the journey through consulting.

Security is Tighter

Since all tools and management are inhouse. fewer dangers and fewer entry-points if the cloud services are self-contained and access given to limited resources. However, Gartner has highlighted in key reports “Public Clouds are Secure, are you using them securely” highlighting that leading Cloud providers infrastructure are build ensuring detailed security of the platform. However, since security over and above the infrastructure is a shared responsibility, engaging experts to guide you to strengthen your security posture would be highlight recommended.

Simplicity

Small businesses with very basic needs would opt to get inhouse resources which will be less expensive and more practical.

It’s not an easy choice to decide between outsourcing cloud services or keeping them in-house for your critical application. The best strategy is to get all the information you can before making this decision that can tie up your IT resources for a long time. Speak to our experts who can review your IT needs by experienced Oracle cloud management consultant.