Oracle joins cloud computing in late push to help businesses transform where it matters most
Oracle Corp, the leader in database management systems, wants to help companies migrate their data management solutions onto the cloud to catch up with the accelerated pace of digitalisation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Oracle believes the migration from “on-premise” to the cloud will benefit every customer, even those in industries that handle complicated and massive amounts of data like the government and healthcare.
Typically, companies are reluctant to migrate to the cloud from “on-premise” which they feel can handle the workload and speed better although this is a misconception.
“As we move into a digital world with digital transformation and so many cloud solutions now available in the market, data strategy will still be the key moving forward,” Chua Horng Shya, managing director of Oracle Singapore, tells The Edge Singapore in an interview. “This is in addition to the end-to-end solution we offer our clients,” she adds.
Better late than never
In February, Oracle globally launched its Cloud Lift Services that promises companies it will migrate their most complicated computer programs to its cloud for free.
Oracle had for years had staunchly held to its “on-premise” way of delivering its database management software even as cloud computing became more prevalent. In helping its customers migrate to the cloud, Oracle wants to catch up with competitors such as Amazon.com Inc’s Web Services and other providers who are way ahead in cloud computing solutions.
Within Singapore, the key industry identified to be the ones benefiting from the shift to cloud are the large public sector organisations, as the country’s government plays the key role in driving the Smart Nation vision, says Chua, who joined Oracle last November after 14 years with
Microsoft Corp.
Oracle has also been working with the Singapore government for more than 20 years and is one of the main databases for many critical systems for the government.
“Other than being a core database provider [to the government], we have also helped to shape a few innovations in the Singapore government space,” says Chua, who was director of the public sector group at Microsoft. Before this, she had spent around a decade with the then Infocomm Devel
opment Authority of Singapore and the then National Computer Board.
One example of public sector innovation supported by Oracle was that of SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG). In November 2018, Oracle collaborated with SSG to embed the Skills Frameworks in the Oracle Human Capital Management (HCM) Cloud, allowing HR professionals, employers and employees to quickly and easily access the Skills Frameworks. This provides them with a common skills language that helps in recruitment processes, talent management, and facilitating learning and development for the organisation.
From HR to healthcare
Oracle, which already has a strong presence in the healthcare sector here, is looking forward to playing new key roles such as helping to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.
“If you look at our healthcare arena, Oracle is very strong in our electronic medical records,” notes Chua, who explains that the Oracle Health Management System (HMS), which was first developed to manage Covid-19 testing, therapeutic and vaccination programmes in the US, is being used in African nations to strengthen their public health programmes.
The arrangement to bring the HMS to Africa was done in partnership with the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. The HMS includes a secure and highly scalable cloud database that can store the electronic health records for billions of people and any type of disease, not just Covid-19.
The Tony Blair Institute is also currently in discussions with more than 30 countries about adopting the Oracle HMS to support various public health initiatives.
“With our recent collaboration with the Tony Blair Institute, we also collaborated on the vaccine management system. That huge system is about data collection, data analysis, as well as providing data and anomalous databases to any decision-maker to look into the vaccine management from the time of dispatch to the effectiveness of the vaccine,” says Chua.
To be sure, Oracle’s solutions are not just meant for the government or healthcare sectors. “At Oracle, we have more than 50 industry focus areas. In fact, we are agnostic to industries and can reach out to many companies or distributors because we are the core foundation and platform. We provide the core database system so that they can analyst and make sense out of the data collected,” says Chua, adding that many organisations, regardless of industry, saw the benefit of Oracle because its database has built-in AI and machine language engines.
Even as Oracle helps companies make sense of data and achieve their digitalisation goals, Chua says Oracle helps businesses stay competitive and helps boost the morale of employees as its cloud and AI technology helps to take away mundane and repetitive work, allowing employees to focus their time on more meaningful work.