Oracle Cloud – The Late Bloomer

Posted: Friday, Jan 17

KBI.Media
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Oracle Cloud – The Late Bloomer

Karissa Breen, more commonly known as KB, is crowned a LinkedIn ‘Top Voice in Technology’, and widely recognised across the global cybersecurity industry. A serial entrepreneur, she is the co-founder of the TMFE Group, a portfolio of cybersecurity-focused businesses spanning an industry-leading media platform, a specialist marketing agency, a content production studio, and the executive headhunting firm, MercSec. Now based in the United States, KB oversees US editorial operations and leads the expansion of the group’s media footprint across North America, while maintaining a strong presence in Australia, and the broader global market. She is the former Producer and Host of the streaming show 2Fa.tv, and currently sits at the helm of journalism for the group’s flagship arm, KBI.Media, the independent cybersecurity media company. As a cybersecurity investigative journalist, KB hosts her globally-renowned podcast, KBKast, where she interviews leading cybersecurity practitioners, CISOs, government officials including heads-of-state, and industry pioneers from around the world. The podcast has been downloaded in over 65 countries with more than 400,000 global downloads, influencing billions of dollars in cybersecurity budgets. KB is known for asking the hard questions and extracting real, commercially relevant insights. Her approach provides an uncoloured, strategic lens on the evolving cybersecurity landscape, demystifying complex security issues and translating them into practical intelligence for executives navigating risk, regulation, and rapid technological change.

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Oracle Cloud – The Late Bloomer

From Karissa Breen

For years, the tech behemoth Oracle stood in the shadows of cloud giants like Amazon and Microsoft. But now, with their second-gen Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), Oracle is rewriting the cloud playbook. Oracle is far more than just the database company as most people would have memories of.

Mahesh Thiagarajan, Executive Vice President of OCI, whose strategies are turning skeptics into believers.

"Cloud security is not a solo act" asserted Thiagarajan.

Since joining Oracle in 2016 from Microsoft Azure, Thiagarajan has had a front-row seat to OCI’s evolution. Against the odds, Oracle, once the cloud industry’s underdog, has managed to sidestep the pitfalls that the earlier adopters ran into.

"It's a shared responsibility, a partnership between the customer and the cloud provider." Expressed Thiagarajan.

But when developers, racing against deadlines, fumble in configuring the cloud, it can become chaotic.

This strategy has empowered Oracle to invest heavily, giving them a leg up in performance with the intent to drive to the top of the cloud players.

The growing shift from questions about cloud value to demanding data sovereignty and control, especially among government users. Oracle’s play ensures every bit of data complies with privacy laws. But Oracle’s plan is to not rest on its laurels – despite being a late comer to the game.

Thiagarajan shared his view on the what’s on the horizon which customers can expect a surge in decentralised, edge-based installations and bespoke offerings like government-specific clouds and EU sovereign clouds.

"Every decision is a dance between data and intuition" Added Thiagarajan.

Oracle’s strategy is to pivot based on customer feedback. OCI is listening, learning, and flexibly responding to customer needs, aiming for a 360-degree cloud capability availability through the ‘Everything everywhere’ initiative.

Collaborations with Microsoft and Google to embed Oracle databases in their clouds signify a new paradigm of multi-cloud synergies. In addition, AI infrastructure, in partnership with NVIDIA, underpinning integration of generative AI across Oracle’s portfolio.

"Customer needs first – always" Thiagarajan emphasised.

OCI’s approach to high-performance storage for AI workloads is setting new industry benchmarks, furthering their pole position in the cloud race.

Thiagarajan proclaims that Oracle Cloud isn’t just a player but a powerhouse rewriting the rules of the cloud game. OCI is not only catching up but could potentially outpace the early birds.