Oracle announced a new platform this week to help enterprises integrate cloud storage services with on-premises NAS storage systems. The platform, called Oracle Cloud Converged Storage, is based on Oracle's ZFS Cloud software, which is included in the latest Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance release.

The company is pitching the solution as the first truly converged storage solution that offers both public cloud and on-premises, high-performance NAS (network attached storage).

The company said the new tools will allow organizations to move data or applications from on-premises storage to the cloud more easily. There's no need for external cloud gateways or software, or cloud access licenses from legacy, on-premises vendors in order to access public clouds from their infrastructure platforms.

Easier Path to Integration

Oracle said its new approach significantly eases the migration burden for IT administrators as they move from their own on-premise platforms to public cloud integration. The difficulty usually comes when trying to integrate disparate environments with different security requirements and a variety of industry standards. Struggling with end-to-end visibility, diagnostics and support can also be a problem.

With its ZFS Cloud, Oracle thinks it can beat both public cloud providers who cannot deliver on-premises, high-performance storage systems, and also traditional hardware vendors who lack truly integrated public clouds. So says analyst Mark Peters of the Enterprise Strategy Group. Peters says Oracle's converged platform delivers "a genuine hybrid data ability with a 'cloud insurance option' built right into the storage system."

Oracle says the convergence of its storage cloud with ZFS Storage Appliances will provide enterprise clients with the same performance abilities as flash storage drives plus the added agility and simplicity of Oracle's cloud storage solution. The company said the converged system can be used for elastic application storage as well as back-up and recovery. Other uses include development, testing, active archive storage, and snapshot replica storage. It can also be used by Dev Ops with a single API for both on-premises and in the Oracle Storage Cloud, and for lift-and-shift workload migration. Newer applications can also leverage data both in Oracle ZFS Storage Appliances (shown above) and in the Oracle Storage Cloud without any application changes.

Cloud Meets On-Premises

"Cloud [technology] is forcing IT practitioners to rethink their organization's infrastructure to accommodate current technology while future-proofing their business for tomorrow," said Steve Zivanic, Oracle's VP of Storage and Converged Infrastructure. "By converging the Oracle ZFS Storage Appliances with Oracle Storage Cloud, organizations benefit from the highest performing storage systems for their on-premises needs, while seamlessly extending them to Oracle Cloud resources when necessary. Oracle ZFS Cloud is the unifying enabler that helps customers bridge the gap between their current infrastructure and plans for broader public cloud adoption."

The company said the new update also includes a series of innovations to the Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance that extend Oracle Database dynamic automation capabilities. Oracle claims these updates can increase database administrator productivity by as much as ten times, as well as add all-flash pools to accelerate business applications.

The platform also includes new storage protocols to help automate storage tuning and cloud-scale data protection, with more than 62TB per hour of data backup.