Oracle announces second cloud region in the UAE

Oracle has chosen Abu Dhabi to open its second second cloud region in the UAE.

Customers will benefit from improved business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities from the Oracle Cloud Abu Dhabi and Dubai regions.

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) underpins both Oracle Cloud regions, allowing customers to quickly move current workloads and data platforms or develop new cloud-native applications that benefit from improved performance, lower costs, and built-in security.

Public cloud services adoption is accelerating at a CAGR of 28 per cent year on year between 2020 and 2025 in the UAE, and IDC projects that the growth momentum will continue. “Cloud’s role in enabling innovation is underscored by the priority organisations have given to cloud in their digital transformation initiatives. Cloud-based technologies have helped organisations weather the Covid-19 crisis, and cloud is now helping them build a resilient organisation that can withstand uncertainties,” said Jyoti Lalchandani, group vice president and regional managing director, Middle East, Turkey and Africa at IDC.

“Our survey of the CIOs in the UAE highlights that an in-country data centre is an important factor for 78 per cent organisations that are planning to adopt cloud over the next 12-18 months. Oracle’s two cloud regions in the UAE will boost local cloud infrastructure availability. IDC believes that cloud has become an inseparable element of an organisation’s digital transformation and innovation roadmap,” added Lalchandani.

“The rapid adoption of cloud-based technologies like artificial intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT), and machine learning is vital for building a thriving digital economy and is a key priority for the UAE. With the Dubai and Abu Dhabi Regions, we have the required cloud infrastructure for organisations across public and private sectors, including SMBs, to accelerate their digital transformation,” said Richard Smith, executive vice president, Technology, EMEA, Oracle.

Dr Mohamed Hamad Al Kuwaiti, head of cybersecurity for the UAE Government, said – “The UAE Government has rapidly transitioned from being a conventional set up to a ‘smart government’ entity, and now with the increasing pace of digital transformation across the country’s public and private sector, we are progressing towards being an AI-enabled government. This progress is in line with the digital economy goals of our country, but we must also ensure that the ‘cyber resilience of the UAE is maintained to mitigate cybercrime and increase international collaboration. Oracle’s two cloud regions in the UAE are important investments towards providing cyber resilience and secure digital infrastructure for organisations to enjoy the full benefits of cloud computing.”

Oracle’s dual-region cloud strategy enables customers to deploy resilient applications in multiple geographically separated locations without having sensitive data leave the country for business continuity and compliance requirements. To help customers plan data centre deployments to meet application requirements and optimise their cloud infrastructure, OCI’s provides a no-cost inter-region latency dashboard that provides insights into real-time and historical latency for Oracle Cloud regions around the globe.

Oracle has also announced plans to expand its cloud region footprint and will open 10 additional cloud regions with new locations across Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific, and Latin America.

Milan (Italy), Stockholm (Sweden), Spain, Johannesburg (South Africa), Mexico, and Colombia are among the upcoming cloud regions. Additional second regions will open in Saudi Arabia, France, Israel and Chile. By the end of 2022, Oracle expects to have at least 44 cloud regions.