Can You (Should You) Run Your Legacy Oracle Applications on AWS Cloud?

Actually, You Can!

Last month, I shared my 2019 predictions citing an analyst research survey in which respondents indicated that they were planning to rapidly accelerate the move of their legacy Oracle enterprise applications out of their in-house / internal data centers.  By 2020, there will be dramatic 19% decline in using internal, on-premise infrastructure to run these Oracle applications.

Majority of Oracle Applications Will Be Run Off-Premise by 2020

For the first time since companies began operating and managing their own on-premise infrastructure and licensed applications, a majority of organizations (54%) will be running their legacy Oracle applications off-premise. Decades of traditional IT turned upside down. Stop and think about that impending watershed milestone for a minute…!

Where are companies planning to move these legacy applications? Refer to the summary of the 451 Research analyst study statistics for additional insight.

It’s Getting Lonely in the Data Center

I also touched upon these trends in a related blog “Are Your Legacy Oracle Applications Heading for Retirement (Soon)?” which was released a few months ago. In that blog, a 2018 Gartner research report authored by David Cappuccio, Research VP at Gartner, was referenced which David summarized in his blog titled The Data Center is Dead. The general market shift from internal, on-premise data centers is boldly highlighted by the Gartner planning assumption, “by 2025, 80% of enterprises will have shut down their (internal) data centers, versus 10% today.”

Options for Moving Legacy Oracle Enterprise Applications Off-Premise

As shown by the 451 Research data, companies running Oracle application suites are considering (4) target environment options: public Cloud (IaaS), private cloud, Oracle Cloud Applications (SaaS) or a hybrid combination. Apps Associates has helped our customers navigate along each of these paths on the Oracle to cloud journey.

As examined in previous blog posts, the reality is that it will take time before the majority of organizations can retire or replace their Oracle Applications. The reasons vary but are centered primarily around cost, complexity and risk. A key driving force behind this status quo position, of course, is that organizations have invested heavily in their legacy software over many years by customizing or shaping it to meet their business needs. Therefore, the prevailing options are narrowed quickly for most to public IaaS, private cloud or hybrid with limited scope, departmental SaaS as a viable variation.

Can Your Legacy Oracle Applications Run on AWS?

As the pace picks up to move from traditional on-premise infrastructure, the question being asked repeatedly is whether Oracle legacy applications can be migrated and run on Amazon Web Services (“AWS”) Cloud IaaS. The simple and direct answer is “yes, you can”. Public cloud IaaS is the fastest growing of all target environments. We’ve successfully moved Oracle Applications on AWS many times with zero failures. Listen to a Voice of Customer excerpt from our recent webinar series for an example.

Don’t Be Misled by Common Myths and Misconceptions

The next question that follows is why AWS for enterprise applications, i.e. should we run on AWS? Many customers that are asking this question are already using AWS in other areas for cloud-native services and solutions so they would like to compare and contrast. Overall, the primary differentiators and benefits include, but are not limited to: platform maturity and stability, breath of integrated services beyond core compute / network / store especially with respect to development services and DevOps enablement, independent audits of Managed Service Providers and ability to de-couple and objectively rationalize application and workload inventory.

There is a lot of misleading and inaccurate information being circulated that is causing organizations to hesitate or to steer in the wrong direction. The most prevalent myths: cost (high) vs benefits (low), never been done before, not supported, license will not be compliant and not secure. All of these hurdles are erroneous or misrepresentative in some way. Don’t be fooled. Get the facts before making your decision. Contact Apps Associates for a comprehensive and objective assessment to get started. #OracleOnAWS

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