Source: oracle.com
In June 2019, Microsoft and Oracle announced what they described as an industry-first multicloud collaboration. The partnership enables customers to interconnect the two companies’ cloud platforms and simplify management of IT environments and individual applications that span both clouds. Following the announcement, demand from joint Oracle and Microsoft customers for multicloud solutions drove the two vendors to accelerate regional expansion.
The first expansion of that alliance connects Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) in London, opening the partnership’s capabilities to a second continent and one of the busiest Oracle Cloud regions in the world.
Why Cloud Proximity Matters
The initial phase of the alliance connected Oracle Cloud Infrastructure’s Ashburn, Virginia region with Microsoft Azure’s US East region, also located in Virginia. The decision to start with geographically co-located regions was deliberate: physical proximity between cloud data centres reduces network latency, which in turn enables faster data transfer, tighter application integration across clouds, and support for a broader range of latency-sensitive workloads.
The same principle applies to the London expansion. By placing the interconnect between OCI London and Azure UK South in the same metropolitan area, the two vendors deliver the low-latency cross-cloud connectivity that enterprise workloads require. Without geographic proximity, the overhead of traversing public internet routes would make many multicloud architectures impractical for production use.
What the Alliance Delivers in the UK
London is described by Oracle as one of its most active cloud regions, hosting a broad mix of workloads ranging from mission-critical systems of record to cloud-native greenfield deployments. The interconnect between Azure and OCI in London includes the following capabilities:
- Preconfigured, dedicated interconnection: A private, high-bandwidth link between the two clouds without traffic traversing the public internet.
- Common identity management: Integrated identity and access controls that allow administrators to manage authentication and authorisation across both platforms from a single pane.
- Unified support: Joint support capabilities from both Oracle and Microsoft to reduce the operational friction of running workloads across two cloud providers.
- Cross-cloud service access: Azure customers can deploy Oracle databases and Oracle applications as managed cloud services and connect them to Azure-hosted workloads running the Microsoft stack. Equally, OCI customers can consume Azure services alongside Oracle services without redesigning their architecture.
The result is that joint customers can select the optimal cloud environment for each component of their workload inventory — Oracle for databases and enterprise applications, Azure for Microsoft-stack services and integrations — without incurring the complexity or performance penalties that previously made cross-cloud architectures difficult to operate.
Restoring On-Premises Coexistence in the Cloud Era
Mixed Oracle and Microsoft technology stacks have long been common in enterprise data centres. On-premises, these stacks could coexist naturally: servers running each vendor’s software sat on the same network, making information exchange straightforward. The shift to cloud disrupted this model. Each vendor’s cloud was a separate, isolated environment, and moving data or integrating applications between them required workarounds that added latency, cost, and operational complexity.
The Oracle–Microsoft multicloud alliance directly addresses this gap. Key architectural enablers include:
- Decoupled application architectures: Services on one cloud can call services on the other without tight coupling, preserving independent scalability and release cadences.
- Common management frameworks: Shared control planes reduce the operational overhead of managing resources across two cloud accounts and two billing models.
- Private network interconnection: Dedicated links replace ad-hoc internet tunnels, making cross-cloud network performance predictable and auditable.
For enterprises with long-standing investments in both Oracle and Microsoft software, this interconnect restores the freedom they had in their own data centres: the ability to run each part of a workload on the platform best suited to it, with reliable, low-latency connectivity between the two.
Looking Ahead
The London expansion was announced in August 2019 as the first step beyond the original US East / Ashburn pairing. At the time, both vendors indicated that additional regions were planned, though specific timelines and locations were not committed to in the announcement. For the latest information on available interconnect regions and supported services, consult the official Oracle Cloud and Microsoft Azure documentation directly.
Future Product Disclaimer (Oracle): The preceding information is intended to outline Oracle’s general product direction. It is intended for information purposes only and may not be incorporated into any contract. It is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied on in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, timing, and pricing of any features or functionality described for Oracle’s products may change and remains at the sole discretion of Oracle Corporation.