Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
build hundreds of thousands of applications, from quick and easy departmental solu‐
tions to rich, enterprise-wide systems.
The Oracle Database Cloud Service is described in detail in the following section. Before
getting to the specifics, we should understand the difference between two types of
clouds.
Consumer and Provider
There are two common words used in cloud discussions that you have not seen in this
chapter yet: public and private. We don't really like these words, because they are over‐
loaded with different and somewhat confusing meanings.
Many people use the term
public
to indicate a cloud that runs offsite, and the term
private
to indicate a cloud that runs in your data center. But what about a cloud that runs in
your data center but is owned, managed, and controlled by a vendor? Or a cloud that
runs offsite but is exclusively for your use? And isn't one of the core ideas of the cloud
that the location of the supporting infrastructure should be transparent?
There is a difference between different types of cloud usage that we like to call consumer
and provider. A consumer cloud offering is one where you simply use the cloud services.
As described earlier, you do not have access to any of the software or the hardware inside
the cloud—you simply take the product as offered. A company can have different va‐
rieties of consumer cloud offerings at the same service level, but each of them is fixed
in terms of the underlying components.
You can also use those underlying components to build your own cloud offering—you
would be acting as a cloud provider. You get to choose the options and configurations
of your consumer cloud offering, and you get the privilege of designing and imple‐
menting provisioning, maintenance, and upgrade operations. Your consumers could
be entirely internal customers to your organization, but they would have the same ease
of use and lack of flexibility as other users of consumer cloud products.
The remainder of this chapter will discuss the main Oracle consumer cloud product,
the Oracle Database Cloud Service, as well as the ability to use the Oracle Database as
the foundation for cloud providers.
Oracle Database Cloud Service
The Oracle Database Cloud Service is a PaaS offering. The Database Cloud includes a
complete development and deployment environment, based on the longstanding prod‐
uct Application Express.
The Database Cloud is fully managed and available within minutes. You do not have to
perform installation or ongoing maintenance for the platform. A Database Cloud sub‐
scription is all inclusive, with no additional costs for support or any other feature.
