Why cloud adoption is complicated as companies seek digital transformation
Neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp tells us that out of the seven core instincts in the human brain, which are anger, fear, panic-grief, maternal care, pleasure or lust, play and seeking, seeking is the most important. All mammals have this seeking system and are rewarded for exploring their surroundings and seeking new information for survival. The world in 2020 has caused businesses to accelerate what they are looking for to survive and often they have had to make quick decisions, relying on experienced partners to advise on these choices.
We have seen this specifically in the Middle East where digital transformation has accelerated and our customers have sped up their rapid adoption of cloud. The contribution of digital economy to the UAE’s GDP is at 4.3% in 2019, and His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has set a target to double this contribution by enhancing the country’s digital readiness.
Moving to the cloud to help digital transformation seems straightforward. A no brainer, some may say. But moving to the cloud is not so easy. For me the critical aspect of partnering with any customer is understanding the specific detail on where they are in their transformation journey. No-one denies that moving to the cloud gives the benefits particularly when we are all working from home, we need to share data in different locations, and we need to be nimble and cost effective with our workloads.
Oracle UAE Cloud Region launch
Join us for a virtual event on 17th November at 2:30 PM Gulf Standard Time to mark the official launch of our UAE Cloud Region. His Excellency Omar Sultan Al Olama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications, and His Excellency Hamad Al Mansoori, Director General, Telecommunications Regulatory and Digital Government Authority are the keynote speakers for the virtual event.
Moving intricate workloads to the cloud is complex. Businesses have to keep delivering for their customers, people need to be continually trained and paid, planning has to happen, unexpected issues have to be handled and new business innovation has to be considered in order to have a future. We have the ability to offer cloud the way our customers want it…public, hybrid, private, cloud@customer. We have choice. In the Middle East, we have Oracle’s second generation cloud region in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and now we have one live in Dubai. Two more cloud regions are planned in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
The Dubai cloud region offers all Oracle Cloud services, including Oracle Autonomous Database and Oracle Autonomous Linux, and our goal is to help accelerate the digital transformation initiatives of organisations across the UAE. In real practical terms customers like DP World will be able to develop their digital initiatives at different levels via Oracle Cloud Applications and Cloud Infrastructure platform. Managing data smartly in the cloud will help with improving agile and cost effective logistics operations. This is really important in our world, how to safely move goods around the world.
And if our customers, for example in finance or public sector that have demanded data sovereignty requirements, we have Oracle Dedicated Regional Cloud@Customer. The Government of Oman, for example, can run an entire IT portfolio on a cloud infrastructure with physical control of infrastructure and data. The fully managed cloud region provides strong isolation of customer data, which remain local to the government’s datacentres and provide the highest levels of security.
It’s about choice of technology at the right time and we have this philosophy so our customers can quickly respond to changing economic conditions and their own digital transformation needs by rapidly scaling with secure services.
Whilst I am convinced digital transformation will continue to be sought and will thrive in the Middle East, the most important thing to me is that we are ready to partner with our cloud innovation at every important and complex stage of the transition path.
By Andrew Sutherland, SVP, Oracle in Europe and the Middle East.
