At the annual UKOUG Tech18 Conference, held at ACC Liverpool December 2018, Explorer and Equinix took to the stage to launch a new partnership focussed on creating a joint solution and proposition for Hybrid Multi-Cloud Adoption. This proposition, which is a design methodology and fully managed service, is primarily designed for the Oracle customer base in the UK. The solution is called OCEAN.

OCEAN stands for Oracle Cloud, Enterprise Architecture & Networking and is a Cloud Adjacent Architecture design methodology for Oracle Cloud and multi-cloud adoption, which is interconnected via the Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric^TM to on-premise infrastructure hosted within private cage(s) inside Equinix datacentres.

Explorer is recognised by both the UKOUG and Oracle for Database and infrastructure design, implementation and support expertise. OCEAN has been designed by Explorer to address the lack of architectural design standards for Hybrid and Multi-Cloud adoption relating to Oracle workloads. OCEAN brings together the benefits of both Interconnection Oriented Architecture (IOA) and Oracle best practice, whilst overlaying professional services and support to create a fully tailored managed service for customers.

Jon Lingard, Sales Director at Explorer, explained "The inspiration behind OCEAN came from listening to our customers and appreciating that multi-cloud adoption is increasing at a rate not previously appreciated; especially by Oracle. We realised that we had to embrace this evolving deployment model, whilst also incorporating the fact that nearly all customers will continue to run on-premise infrastructure to co-exist with these new cloud workloads. The challenge for customers is that there has been little, if any, design, deployment or commercial models for customers to adopt, in order to make this hybrid multi-cloud deployment transition as seamless as possible. Enterprises that use hybrid and/or multi-cloud deployments are facing operational complexities, increased risk exposure and application performance issues, which are associated with workloads traversing back and forth between Cloud service providers and on premise infrastructure over the public internet"

To overcome these challenges, businesses need to design an architecture that moves on-premise infrastructure closer to cloud service providers (CSPs), whilst also allowing data to flow openly and securely between all infrastructure and CSPs. The result; Cloud Adjacent Architecture with complete control and flexibility, using a low latency secure network fabric inside the same datacentre where your CSPs reside.

Jon continued; "Our partnership with Equinix enables us to leverage their globally interconnected datacentres to co-locate on-premise or private cloud architecture, literally, on the same corridor as the CSP's our customers are connecting to; be it Oracle Cloud, AWS or Azure.

To go alongside the launch, Explorer also announced a free service to "right size" Hybrid and Multi-Cloud deployments. An OCEAN Survey will lift the lid on current Oracle workloads and infrastructure, identifying areas of concern and will align current and future business objectives regarding Cloud adoption. Visit www.explorer.uk.com/ocean to find out more.