Understanding the deployment models
Many users and companies still require their data to be stored in their local data center but would like to enjoy the benefits of the cloud’s robustness, stability, and power. To serve the varied requirements of different businesses, four deployment models have been introduced – public, private, hybrid, and community cloud.
A public cloud
The general solution is covered by a public cloud, in which all resources are part of the cloud provider data center, shared by the users. Users do not need to invest in the hardware. They just rent the resources available. Moreover, this ensures the dynamic scalability of individual resources, which can be provisioned at any time on demand, reflecting the workload. The disadvantage is that you do not have local data under your control. Thus, if laws and contracts do not allow you to store data outside of your company, you cannot use this option.
Note that the Oracle database can be run on various cloud providers. It is not strictly limited to Oracle Cloud – for example, Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Service (AWS) can also be used. In 2022, Oracle and Microsoft announced the general availability of Oracle Database Service for Microsoft Azure. Microsoft Azure services can be directly provisioned, managed, and accessed in OCI. Thanks to this cooperation, users can build new applications (or migrate existing ones) on Azure and connect them to the high-performance, high-availability, managed Oracle Database services on OCI. This is done via the Oracle Azure Interconnect services.
A private cloud
This model provides you with full control over the resources. Data is kept in your local data center, placed on-premises, but you can still use the power of the cloud. Resources are not shared by multiple customers, making data access separation highly scalable and integrated. This is used for mission-critical enterprise systems that require especially high performance. It allows portability between public and private cloud systems.
The hybrid cloud
The hybrid cloud provides an intermediary between private and public clouds by providing a universal solution. Namely, some applications run in the public cloud, but some systems cannot be migrated there. Therefore, they are operated by private cloud systems. A typical example is an application that needs to be run exclusively on an older version of a database system. The Oracle Cloud environment does not support all versions, just the newest ones available.
The community cloud
The community cloud is the fourth type of deployment model, filling the gap between the other categories already covered. Although it is mostly only used in theory, Oracle supports it and it is therefore worth referencing. A community is characterized by a set of companies sharing the same objectives. Cloud infrastructure is provisioned for the whole community and supervised by the manager responsible for the cloud system.
We will take a different view of the data itself, along with the availability and storage of resources, in the following section. Individual resources can be shared, but the benefits of cloud access can also be used in your own data center using a dedicated type of architecture.