In August, The Ministry of Education announced its selection of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) to revamp the Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing (DIKSHA), the country’s national education technology platform. Moreover, after shifting to Oracle in 2021, Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE) has benefited approximately 12 million borrowers, including 21% women-led entrepreneurs and 92% first-time borrowers. 

In 2021, the Bangladesh government selected Oracle Cloud as its partner for hosting all of its cloud services. Not to forget the US government and the military, which were one of the first customers of OCI. The list goes on and on. For 47 years, Oracle has stood as a beacon of trust for governments worldwide. Why is that the case?

The reason: Oracle’s commitment towards data security, which is unlike other providers. Chris Chelliah, senior vice president, technology and customer strategy, Oracle JAPAC told AIM that the reason that the governments across the world trust OCI with their data is because of what the company has embedded in its DNA – openness in the cloud and secure encryption of data.

Cloud should be open

“The number one reason that governments choose us is because they don’t like handcuffs, they want openness” Chelliah explains. Larry Ellison, CTO of Oracle has taken this commitment of openness to the next level. “Cloud should be open,” he said, talking about its partnership with Microsoft, and eventually partnering with other cloud providers, namely AWS and Google. 

One of the things that OCI boasts is that it has the most support for hybrid cloud strategies. Customers can run entire OCI regions in their own data centres or move the entire on-premise data to the public cloud. The interconnection with Microsoft Azure with low-latency makes it even better since many governments are trying to integrate generative AI in some or the other way. For the same reason, NVIDIA AI is now also on the OCI marketplace.

Nearly half a century ago, the Oracle database boasted the unique ability to run on any hardware platform, be it IBM, HPI, Sun, Fujitsu, or others. The same idea is also carried over to its cloud services. “This is the tenant of Oracle. If you look at what we’ve done historically, it’s a good indicator of what we’re going to do in the future,” said Chelliah. 

Oracle database is the only database that runs on other hyperscale clouds. Chelliah said, “Think about it – if you run your data in the Amazon or Google cloud today, those databases don’t run anywhere else, they are proprietary only to that cloud.” Chelliah explains that it is beneficial for the governments that their data is not locked into one cloud. “They don’t want to be held hostage,” he said. 

From its inception, the company has thrived on offering alternatives, ensuring that customers are never locked into a particular technology. This commitment is particularly crucial for governments, who seek openness and reject the idea of being held hostage by any technology provider. “Once they trust us as a platform, they know we’re not gonna lock them in,” said Chelliah.

Secure encryption

Oracle’s commitment to safeguarding data stands out as a testament to its reliability. Recognising that data is akin to gold, Chelliah said that Oracle’s DNA revolves around protecting this precious resource. Oracle ensures physical separation between customer data and the cloud operator or software provider, ensuring that even when managing data, they lack visibility into its contents.

“Even if I’m managing your data, I don’t see your data. I don’t actually see the contents. I see some bits and bytes that are encrypted by you, and only you can decrypt it,” he said.

Cloud providers have been accused of data leakage and selling of customer data, Oracle’s business model is distinct. Chelliah takes a dig at Oracle’s competitors, “they live and die with it. Oracle’s business model and DNA is about protecting our customer’s data. We take that seriously and its never a consideration to converge our customer’s data with our business model.”

“You can’t put unencrypted data in Oracle Cloud. We won’t let you.” He highlighted how Oracle has taken any data and sold it to anyone, nor for advertisements. “Oracle’s competitors can never claim to do that for the public sector,” exclaimed Chelliah. 

Oracle doesn’t lock in customers, and it doesn’t rely on selling data. “The reason for that is simple – we know that the data is gold. And our DNA is protecting the data for our customers. This is all that breeds trust with the governments,” concluded Chelliah.