Oracle AI Database@Azure MVP Spotlight Series - Episode 2

0:04 SPEAKER 1: Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us today.

0:07 This is another episode of our MVP

0:10 Spotlight Series for Oracle Database at Azure.

0:12 Today, we have a very special guest with us, Biju.

0:17 He is one of our prestigious MVPs,

0:19 and I say that word because I myself read some of the books that he wrote.

0:26 It's an honor to have him as an MVP for Oracle Database at Azure.

0:30 BIJU THOMAS: Thank you.

0:32 SPEAKER 1: I gave a little bit of introduction about yourself,

0:33 but why don't you go into a bit of detail introducing yourself.

0:38 What do you do, experience with Oracle, your journey so far?

0:42 We would love to understand all of that from you, Biju.

0:46 BIJU THOMAS: Thank you, Gauri.

0:46 It is so good to be with you

0:49 on this panel here or with you on this MVP Spotlight.

0:53 Thank you so much for having me and this opportunity here.

0:57 My background, I started using Oracle Database back in the 1992-93 timeframe.

1:05 That was fresh out of college.

1:08 I joined the company at CLHP,

1:10 and then they gave me Oracle Database and said, okay, go do your stuff.

1:14 That's how I started with Oracle, and it's been Oracle Database.

1:19 I started as a developer, forms, and SQL developer, and then into the database,

1:27 database administration, then moved into Oracle eBusiness Suite,

1:31 then the Oracle Cloud, and now multicloud.

1:33 That was my journey, the last 30 years, into the Oracle Database,

1:38 but my focus has been always Oracle and the Oracle Database core.

1:44 That has been my focus.

1:47 I started contributing and involving myself

1:53 in the community back in the 1997-98 timeframe.

1:57 That's when nobody had the terminology

2:00 of "blog" or "social media," nothing like that.

2:05 SPEAKER 1: There were books.

2:05 BIJU THOMAS: There were books at that time, yes.

2:09 I was chatting with Sai earlier.

2:14 We had the DBAs.

2:19 There were the great authors and experts like Harry Millsap, Jonathan Lewis,

2:25 Thomas Kyte, and those were the go-to guys and the inspiration at that time.

2:32 We know that they know so much, and then they share the information through

2:36 books and conferences and stuff like that.

2:41 When I was put into a performance tuning job, I didn't know how to do my stuff,

2:46 but because I figured it out, I wrote some scripts and all of that stuff.

2:50 I wanted to make that available for the DBAs who are having the same struggle,

2:58 who want to do the performance tuning.

3:00 I started sharing those scripts in a GeoCities

3:05 website back in the 1997-98 timeframe.

3:09 That's when I had a free website there

3:12 so people can use the scripts that I developed.

3:15 That's where I started sharing my content there.

3:19 Then going into book writing was, I would say, like that is a good coincidence,

3:26 and I would say I was in the right place at the right time, probably.

3:30 I published an article in Oracle Magazine,

3:33 and that's the time when Oracle 8i Database came out,

3:36 and then I was interested in the log miner feature of that.

3:41 I wrote about that in Oracle Magazine.

3:43 Then I get a call from Cybex.

3:45 They're, like, "Do you want to write a book because we are going

3:48 to release the Oracle Certification books." Cybex

3:52 didn't have any Oracle Certification before that.

3:56 They were going to get into the Oracle Certification and then wanted

3:59 to write— and they saw that I was certified in Oracle 7.3, Oracle database.

4:04 I was one of the first 500 to get certified in Oracle,

4:06 so they thought, yeah, I published in Oracle Magazine.

4:09 I have done the certification and completed it as one of the first 500.

4:14 I still have that jacket, the Oracle Certification jacket.

4:18 It's a really good leather jacket.

4:21 SPEAKER 1: I mean, from Oracle 7 to Oracle 26ai,

4:25 that's an inspirational journey you had, so heartwarming to hear all of that.

4:34 You talked about how you started giving back to the community,

4:37 but from '97 until today,

4:41 which is almost 29 years, what kept you going, giving back to the community?

4:48 BIJU THOMAS: I'm learning, so I just wanted to give back.

4:51 When I started participating in conferences and then attending conferences,

4:55 my first conference session was in 2008 at Collaborate

4:59 and then 2009 in Oracle Open World at that time.

5:05 That's how I started presenting in conferences.

5:08 Those were times, like very nervous times at that time when presenting.

5:15 That got me into a different perspective in giving back to the community

5:20 because the network really changed my view

5:23 of the networking and then sharing knowledge.

5:28 That was the difference, and the community where you meet people

5:33 and sharing your problems or solutions or the ideas,

5:36 something like that is a different perspective.

5:37 You won't get that from even from a webinar.

5:40 I mean, you won't get it.

5:41 I mean, you want that interaction after your session,

5:44 after your talk, or even if you're not talking,

5:47 I mean, just being there and then talking to the people who know their stuff.

5:51 I mean, not everybody is expert in every field.

5:55 SPEAKER 1: The power of being in person versus online,

5:59 definitely it's more impactful to present in conferences.

6:03 When you are present there, you have a live audience.

6:08 BIJU THOMAS: My objective in 1998 or '97,

6:14 whenever I started sharing in the community, the scripts on the website,

6:19 the same passion and the same objective still exists.

6:23 That hasn't changed.

6:25 That motive hasn't changed, so I'm happy about that.

6:29 I haven't changed that.

6:30 The only thing is the medium has changed.

6:32 Now I use social media like Twitter and LinkedIn.

6:35 I use that and then I have a website, a blog website, and stuff like that.

6:41 The medium has changed a little bit,

6:43 but the objective and the content or whatever I share is still going,

6:50 which I am really proud of because I haven't stopped it.

6:54 SPEAKER 1: That's inspirational to all of us also.

6:58 I personally know some of my friends who have

7:00 actually used your books to pass the Oracle Certification,

7:04 so definitely worth spending this time with you.

7:09 Coming back to Oracle Database at Azure, one of its kind,

7:15 two clouds coming together to offer the best of both clouds to our customers.

7:21 How did you get interested in that?

7:23 How did you start working on it?

7:26 I read recently EBS to Oracle Database at Azure migration path.

7:33 How did you start ramping up yourself or how did you start contributing there?

7:38 BIJU THOMAS: Yeah, so it all started

7:41 with the work demands and what the customer wants, rights?

7:45 Back even before 2000, before I joined Data Intensity,

7:50 I had the opportunity to work with a customer where their cloud

7:55 first platform was Azure and then helped them migrate to Azure Database.

8:01 I mean, that is one of the reasons why I joined Data Intensity back in 2019,

8:06 where the focus was Azure for Data Intensity at that time.

8:13 Data Intensity had a program at that time where

8:16 we would help customers migrate to their cloud choice,

8:20 whether it is Azure, AWS, and OCI was there.

8:25 OCI Gen 1 was not ready for prime customers, so Azure was our focus.

8:32 That's how it all started there.

8:34 Then when Database at Azure came,

8:37 that is really a win-win for Oracle and Microsoft

8:41 because you get to use the platform as a service,

8:44 where you don't have to install, you don't have to manage a lot of stuff,

8:48 you don't have to configure your backups and stuff.

8:50 Everything is platform as a service available within Azure,

8:54 and you also get the benefit of the Oracle licensing metrics.

9:00 You get the tools, the licensing, the cost benefit, the consultation benefit,

9:03 all of that available natively in Azure is a win-win.

9:09 That's how we started in the Azure space because of the customer demand.

9:15 I know Oracle and Microsoft saw the customer demand,

9:19 and that's why the partnership exists.

9:21 Even before Database at Azure, the network link,

9:25 the connectivity link was established between the data centers.

9:30 SPEAKER 1: It had been there for quite some time now,

9:33 but this came into the picture to offer almost on-prem type of latency,

9:39 high performance, and throughput, so, yeah,

9:42 all goodness of both the clouds that we could combine in a product, we did that.

9:47 Do you have any customer story or any insights to share with us?

9:54 BIJU THOMAS: Customer stories,

9:55 I would say we have migrated a lot of Oracle customers,

10:01 Oracle eBusiness Suite customers, to OCI.

10:07 Let me take a step back.

10:09 At Data Intensity, we are experts in Oracle managed services,

10:13 like we manage Oracle eBusiness Suite,

10:16 PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, and we do the migration,

10:20 upgrades, and the day-to-day operations support that we do.

10:23 We also do the Oracle Cloud, the Fusion Cloud, and all of that stuff.

10:28 We focus on the Oracle solutions, the Oracle products, but cloud agnostic.

10:35 SPEAKER 1: Cloud agnostic.

10:36 BIJU THOMAS: We can support Oracle workloads,

10:37 Oracle products in OCI, Azure, AWS, and GCP, any cloud.

10:43 We do that.

10:44 Wherever is the customer's preference, that's where we do.

10:48 There are a lot of customers, I would say,

10:51 that was one of my blogs recently mentioned, like the EBS blog, right?

10:55 I will tell that story.

10:56 It's a fear since you asked.

10:59 That customer is on-premises, a large customer.

11:04 They are running Oracle eBusiness Suite,

11:06 and when you say Oracle eBusiness Suite,

11:08 it's just not one application, one database, right?

11:10 Oracle eBusiness Suite itself has multiple environments, like development,

11:14 project, and their production support, all of those environments.

11:19 Then it is like a gravity center because

11:23 it has to have all the satellite applications.

11:27 You need to have a tax application.

11:28 You need to have a barcode or things like scanner applications.

11:33 There are several satellite applications around eBusiness Suite.

11:37 They have to be together.

11:38 SPEAKER 1: Together.

11:40 BIJU THOMAS: When you're talking about eBusiness Suite,

11:41 it's just not one application.

11:42 It's usually four minimum.

11:45 It could be up to 10, up to 12 when you include all the reporting,

11:50 the business intelligence, and all of that because they all go together.

11:54 When you're talking about 20,

11:57 30 databases easily between production and non-production, then you have DR,

12:04 so you are running that on multiple VMs or usually

12:09 physical servers because that was being taught in the beginning.

12:14 Oracle may not work.

12:16 You will not get the right performance when you are virtualized on-prem, right?

12:20 You want to be on physical servers.

12:23 People usually deploy Oracle on physical servers.

12:27 They build high availability using RAC, real application clusters,

12:30 so that gives you even if one of your physical servers goes down,

12:34 you have the other physical server available so you can continue your business.

12:38 The RAC is there.

12:39 Then you have Data Guard for copying the database from one location to another.

12:43 Those are the core structures of Oracle database, right?

12:48 You need that high availability and the business continuity.

12:54 That's what every customer is used to.

12:56 They don't want to have any compromise on that.

12:59 When you are talking to the customer of migrating that critical database,

13:04 their mission-critical database, to the cloud,

13:07 they are looking for those features.

13:10 There are some restrictions, right?

13:12 You cannot have real application clusters in a non-Oracle cloud,

13:16 which means when you're running natively in Azure,

13:19 AWS, or GCP, you cannot have the RAC feature so that high availability is gone.

13:23 There is an argument in the Oracle expert community that RAC is

13:28 probably not needed in the cloud because the VM itself is redundant,

13:34 and there is high availability built in behind the VM.

13:37 SPEAKER 1: Yeah, I mean the cloud is built for high availability,

13:41 so you don't need to implement it.

13:43 BIJU THOMAS: Yeah, so there is no need for RAC, so that is there.

13:46 But still, when you are used to having RAC and when you are paying for the RAC,

13:51 you want to use that in the cloud.

13:53 People think that, why do I diminish my availability

13:59 or the feature when you go to a better platform?

14:04 They want RAC.

14:05 If they are using RAC, they want RAC.

14:07 If they are using Exadata on-prem, they want Exadata in the cloud.

14:10 SPEAKER 1: As they say, when you move to cloud,

14:12 you have to not only change your applications

14:14 but also the way you think and the overall architecture.

14:19 As I have been alluding to, maybe cloud is already built for high availability.

14:25 We offer ODA, we offer MA Platinum standard,

14:31 so you don't need that, and all the other things that you mentioned, Data Guard.

14:37 We have all sorts of integrations available with Oracle Database at Azure.

14:41 You have GoldenGate.

14:42 You have Azure Key Vault.

14:45 We are enterprise-ready with our security posture in place.

14:49 BIJU THOMAS: Yeah, exactly, so that is the beauty of database at Azure.

14:56 You have that.

14:57 When you want to migrate an on-prem database to Microsoft Azure,

15:03 for example, you have to consider all of that.

15:06 I'm talking about not database at Azure,

15:09 Azure native VM, so there is no RAC available.

15:12 Then there is also licensing is different on native

15:15 VM where you pretty much lose half of that.

15:18 We at Data Intensity came up with a program called TCOT,

15:22 I mean Total Cost of Ownership Transformation,

15:24 where we look at your current workload because most of the customers have higher

15:30 licensing because they have some shelfware available

15:33 because they usually buy more than they need.

15:37 We will analyze their current workload and determine what is

15:41 the right CPU needed in the cloud because Azure has better CPUs,

15:46 faster CPUs than on-prem.

15:48 That is one thing.

15:49 And we also have a service where we do the license review,

15:54 the effective license position.

15:55 Basically, we will review our contract and then look at what

15:58 you are using and then determine the effective license position.

16:02 Then we merge the architecture and license together and then tell

16:06 you how many licenses you need to run the Database on Azure.

16:10 Sometimes the customer might have enough licenses;

16:13 sometimes they may have to incur a little bit more licenses.

16:16 That is there because of this license rule, right?

16:19 The authorized cloud license rule is different.

16:22 Whereas with OCI, or OCI sitting inside Azure,

16:26 which is Database at Azure, you don't have that licensing penalty.

16:30 It becomes much better for the customers

16:34 to migrate without that licensing penalty.

16:37 Then on top of that, they get the performance

16:39 because you are running on an Exadata-based system.

16:42 You have Exadata.

16:43 Even if you go on Autonomous Database,

16:45 that's also running Exadata behind the scenes,

16:48 so you don't really need as many CPUs as you are using,

16:52 as you were using on-prem.

16:54 You need much less capacity here because there is

16:57 CPU on the storage layer in the engineer system.

17:00 It's doing half of the work for you,

17:02 so you need less CPU when you are consolidating.

17:05 It is a win-win for the customer.

17:06 They can reduce the number of CPUs even if

17:09 they have multiple contracts and do a bring-your-own-license model.

17:13 They can probably cancel some of the contracts

17:16 because they don't need that many CPUs.

17:18 I mean, that's what we find during our analysis,

17:22 and we recommend to our customer.

17:23 You probably don't need this custom, and with database at Azure,

17:28 there is also an option of bring-your-own-license or license-included model.

17:33 Sometimes, if you don't have a good deal last year or maybe you already canceled

17:40 your Oracle support for some reason because

17:42 you were planning to move away from Oracle, some customers are like that.

17:46 They don't have Oracle support.

17:48 Maybe this is an opportunity for them to get

17:50 into database at Azure and then move into a license-included

17:55 model where they don't have to deal with the Oracle

17:58 contracts and license management and all of that stuff.

18:02 SPEAKER 1: You can also choose based on your own needs, right?

18:04 You have multiple DB offerings,

18:07 every offering that's out there from Oracle is supported on Azure today.

18:12 BIJU THOMAS: That is a very good point because some of the other multiclouds,

18:17 they don't have the base database service.

18:19 We are not talking about all enterprises like Fortune 500 companies here.

18:24 There are a lot of SMB companies that we support.

18:27 For them, the Exadata dedicated may be an overkill

18:30 because they don't have that much Oracle workload.

18:33 Maybe they are running an Oracle eBusiness Suite or a PeopleSoft system,

18:36 which might need 20 CPUs or something like

18:39 that and then a few terabytes of storage.

18:42 For them, the base database service is all they need and having that base

18:48 database service available in Azure natively is

18:50 a big plus for the smaller customers.

18:53 SPEAKER 1: Absolutely,

18:53 so our goal is to support all of our customers when we design this product.

18:58 All the goodness that you just shared, how we kept in mind all customers

19:03 right from SMC to our mission-critical workload customers.

19:09 We tried doing that, but great to hear this as a testimony

19:13 from someone who is so active in the community.

19:16 Thanks for sharing that.

19:20 Moving on, how do you see— you shared some of the feedback,

19:26 but I would love to understand where the customers

19:29 are still seeing a bit of a pain with Oracle Database at Azure because you are

19:35 helping us shape up the future of the product.

19:39 Where are some areas we could still do some improvement on?

19:43 BIJU THOMAS: One thing is on the transaction phase,

19:45 somewhere like where in the beginning we need to work with both

19:49 Oracle and Azure teams to get the— if it is Exadata.

19:54 SPEAKER 1: That was some great feedback,

19:56 and I think this is what I would be wanting

19:59 to head this series to, hearing from what our customers are

20:03 saying because you are championing— you are becoming the voice

20:07 of the product group or the product itself in the community.

20:11 I would love to understand what are some of the pain points?

20:14 BIJU THOMAS: Yeah, pain points, I would say still, I mean,

20:18 it is easy to provision Oracle Database at Azure through the Azure portal,

20:22 so it is there, but having some more insights in Azure,

20:27 in the Azure monitor, some of the troubleshooting.

20:32 I know you are working on that.

20:33 I mean, I think that will really help the Azure

20:36 customers and Azure admins where they can see some

20:39 of the insights and observability and where the problem

20:43 is troubleshooting because it is just not the migration, right?

20:47 Migration is easy.

20:48 You have tools on the Azure side

20:51 and the Oracle side to do the migration, the configuration.

20:55 There are landing zones available.

20:57 All of that is set up.

20:58 I mean, it is easy to do the migration and the day one is fine.

21:03 The day two operations, what are the pain points?

21:08 I think that's where you should start looking

21:11 into that because we have customers on Database at Azure,

21:16 so maybe that should be the focus,

21:20 the observability and monitoring and things like that.

21:23 SPEAKER 1: Thanks for sharing.

21:24 Absolutely.

21:25 Though I can't share, we are definitely working on all of that which

21:29 you will be seeing in the very near future.

21:31 BIJU THOMAS: That's really good because I have heard.

21:34 I know what is coming because it is like under NDA.

21:38 We cannot discuss here,

21:40 but being invited and being part of the MVP Program gave me that opportunity

21:46 to meet you in person and then spend time with you and your team.

21:50 SPEAKER 1: It's our honor, actually, to have people like you in the community

21:55 championing our product in the community.

21:59 You have such a large experience on not only Oracle but Azure.

22:07 You are leading some of the biggest migrations out there.

22:12 What would be your advice to some of our aspiring MVPs?

22:17 Where should they focus?

22:18 How should they start contributing?

22:21 What were the channels available for you to contribute?

22:25 What actually helped you?

22:28 BIJU THOMAS: The MVP program channels,

22:30 contribution channels, I would say when I started,

22:32 I mean, as I said, there was no blog, nothing, right?

22:35 I started not for the program.

22:37 I started for the community.

22:39 That's how I started.

22:40 Now there are a lot of channels, opportunities, social media.

22:45 Everybody is on social media.

22:46 You can start an account on Twitter or X or BlueSky or Instagram.

22:54 There are a lot of opportunities there.

22:56 You can write a blog.

22:59 The other area where I would say people can start helping

23:03 is in the forums because if you are stuck, I mean,

23:06 if somebody is stuck and they have a question,

23:08 they post in an Azure forum or an Oracle

23:12 forum where people can start helping in that forum.

23:16 I have seen this problem.

23:17 Please try this.

23:18 This might solve your problem.

23:20 The forums are a good one, and then,

23:25 if you are bold enough and have no stage fear

23:28 or if you want to get out of the stage fear,

23:32 maybe you can start presenting in the conferences

23:34 because all the conferences are looking for new speakers.

23:37 SPEAKER 1: Absolutely.

23:37 Yeah, that's, I think, a very,

23:40 very impactful place because you meet people in person.

23:45 I would just add to that, you know, we have tech community blogs.

23:48 You can just start contributing in the tech community.

23:51 You could write blog posts, or you can even have a smaller discussion.

23:55 There are various options to contribute in the tech community.

23:57 BIJU THOMAS: Is the tech community blog available outside Microsoft also?

24:01 I've followed a few tech community blogs.

24:03 SPEAKER 1: I think it needs a few approvals,

24:05 but you do have that as a channel available, so definitely.

24:13 One feature or one integration that Oracle Database offers at Azure,

24:19 which do you really like?

24:20 Which do you think is the most powerful feature that we have?

24:24 BIJU THOMAS: Yeah, the powerful feature, I would say,

24:29 is still the thought of like having

24:32 the database sit inside the Azure Data Center,

24:37 where you are taking away the concern of the latency.

24:42 That's gone.

24:43 That is very powerful for the applications,

24:46 and it also opens up the Oracle Database.

24:50 I mean, it's a source of truth.

24:51 Every, pretty much every, if you take the Fortune 500 companies,

24:56 96% of them have an Oracle Database running.

24:59 I mean, they're missing critical data in Oracle Database,

25:02 so having that database available next to your application ecosystem,

25:07 like the AI agents, and Copilot, and Teams,

25:11 and Microsoft Fabric, Microsoft, what is that One— SPEAKER 1: OneLake.

25:16 BIJU THOMAS: OneLake, yeah, I'm still learning all that stuff, right?

25:21 SPEAKER 1: That's fine.

25:24 BIJU THOMAS: Database being available in the same network,

25:26 sitting next to these products to consume the Oracle data,

25:30 to consume the Oracle Database information, and then bring and analyze the data,

25:37 bring the insights to the customers, is huge.

25:40 That's huge.

25:41 I mean, that's really exciting,

25:43 and I really want to get into the Azure AI space and then start using

25:48 the Oracle data to see how AI can

25:52 learn from the data available in the Oracle Database.

25:57 If you look at the latest studies,

26:01 even though 96% of the enterprise data is sitting in Oracle Database,

26:05 people are not using that data for AI

26:11 learning or AI insights because of the security concern.

26:15 You don't want to have your AI agents connect directly to the database,

26:20 so this ecosystem and having your BI Publisher and other

26:26 stuff in the middle and the Azure Fabric in the middle,

26:30 I mean, that helps the security and having access to the Oracle Database,

26:35 so that's really exciting.

26:36 SPEAKER 1: With the Azure AI stack,

26:38 we would definitely love to debunk all of the security

26:40 myths that are out there in the community.

26:43 We definitely have tools and guardrails in place

26:45 to protect your data while also modernizing your applications.

26:51 It was an honor to meet you and spend time with you, Biju, here.

26:55 I'm hoping you are liking what you're hearing in the MVP Summit,

27:00 how things have been going for Oracle Database at Azure.

27:05 As a leaving thought, if you want to just share one piece

27:09 of advice for anyone— one line, what would that be?

27:15 BIJU THOMAS: One line, I would say,

27:18 don't be scared of thinking in a multicloud world.

27:22 Multicloud is nothing new.

27:24 It's been there for a long time, and every customer needs to be looking at what

27:30 is the best service available in each cloud, right?

27:33 Utilize the best service from each cloud.

27:36 That is what multicloud is facilitating, so that is there.

27:40 I would say, going forward,

27:42 when the customer is looking at maybe they look at the data fabric and where

27:50 the data is coming from, which cloud

27:52 may be hidden from the customer going forward,

27:55 because if the customer is looking at the data in Fabric,

27:58 and then you have a mechanism behind the scene with, okay,

28:01 this is sitting in Database at Azure.

28:02 This data is sitting in your Azure data ecosystem, whatever that is.

28:08 SPEAKER 1: It doesn't matter where it is coming from.

28:11 It's one source.

28:13 BIJU THOMAS: I see we'll get to that level in the next couple of years.

28:17 SPEAKER 1: I said it was my last question, but I just have one more.

28:20 Based on your experience,

28:21 any bold prediction for next two to three years that you see,

28:25 especially for our product, any bold prediction?

28:29 BIJU THOMAS: I think the multicloud thing will go away in the sense that we

28:33 will not be using the multicloud because

28:35 multicloud will be natural in the next two,

28:38 three years, and then the cloud layer will start disappearing.

28:44 We will only look at the data layer, is what I'm thinking.

28:48 That's what I'm thinking.

28:48 When I look at the data fabric,

28:52 you don't have to worry about, like, where your data is residing.

28:57 The cloud services can position the data

28:59 at the right service for you and the licensing.

29:03 I think that will be the thing pretty soon.

29:05 SPEAKER 1: Let's see how the future unfolds,

29:07 but, yeah, thank you so much for your time today.

29:09 BIJU THOMAS: Thank you.

29:09 Thank you so much.

29:10 SPEAKER 1: Thank you, everyone, for watching this.

29:12 We'll be back with another Spotlight Series episode for you soon.

29:16 Thank you.