21 ms·

Zoom taps Oracle for cloud deal, passing over Amazon, Microsoft

204 points by SREinSF 6y ago

alephnan 6y ago
In the article: > Zoom selected Oracle to expand its cloud, bypassing major industry leaders Amazon Web Services, Alphabet’s Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft’s Azure Cloud. I guess GCP isn't significant enough to be in the headline
- outside1234 6y ago
  The truth hurts sometimes. Also, isn't GCP deprecated?
  - searchableguy 6y ago
    I really wonder what hn has against google. This place sometimes feel like a witch hunt ground
    - deanCommie 6y ago
      Google has earned it with a history of non-customer-focused behaviour. You reap what you sow.
      - searchableguy 6y ago
        which customer-focused-product from google that you paid for that hurt you? Look, I find their behavior pretty anti-consumer in some aspects too but relatively, they don't look bad. We can talk about amp, controlling the web through blink and chromium, search, map and the list can go on. But as I grow older, I think that's not how anything is going to change. Blaming the company is unreliable way to achieve what you hopefully want - a good competitive market with pro-consumer policies and behavior. That won't happen with blaming google or any other company. People won't change either if you told them about AMP a million times everyday on every thread. This forum itself is an echo chamber in that sense as with other tech focused online groups. Do you think you should participate in politics? Check up with your local authorities? And try to sneak in reforms that will probe up more competitors and improve the current monopoly? The problem isn't that google is being anti-consumer more so that you don't have any way to reliably remove google as a dependency
    - SteveNuts 6y ago
      (In my professional experience) Google is absolutely terrible at B2B, their support is sorely lacking. (In my personal experience) Google deprecates products I love at a fast pace and have for many years. For me, they went from an air of mystery like they were the "Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory" of shops to "just another software conglomerate", and not a particularly good one at that.
      - searchableguy 6y ago
        > (In my professional experience) Google is absolutely terrible at B2B, their support is sorely lacking. I am curious about which products and what kind of support they are lacking at. > (In my personal experience) Google deprecates products I love at a fast pace and have for many years. Can you name a few? (going to guess reader, inbox for gmail etc) And if they are being like any other tech company, why the extra unnecessary bullying though?
        sylens 6y ago
        https://killedbygoogle.com/ https://killedbygoogle.com/
    - mav3rick 6y ago
      Many of these people will take the high comp jobs at Google. Many of them also openly state they are salty at being rejected in Google interviews.
      - altonzheng 6y ago
        When I introspected, I realized indeed, all my dislike of Google was, at the root, just saltiness at being rejected :D.
        searchableguy 6y ago
        I can't tell if sarcasm. That username and we being on hn isn't helping.
- taormina 6y ago
  "Alphabet’s Google Cloud Platform" is GCP
- king_magic 6y ago
  ... huh? "Alphabet’s Google Cloud Platform" is GCP.
  - monkpit 6y ago
    It’s not in the submission title... that’s the point
  - adrianmonk 6y ago
    In the headline. The headline is "Zoom taps Oracle for cloud deal, passing over Amazon, Microsoft". Which doesn't contain any of "Alphabet", "Google", or "GCP".
hasperdi 6y ago
Unless Oracle is doing it for free, I see little reason to go with them
- mmastrac 6y ago
  Totally guessing here but I imagine this is a super cheap deal for Zoom.
  - bitcharmer 6y ago
    At first :)
- echelon 6y ago
  It's free now, but it will cost you your soul. Never buy Oracle.
- rconti 6y ago
  Probably doing it for free and throwing an endless supply of Tier 1 headcount at the 'problem'.
- rs999gti 6y ago
  Java licensing?
zentiggr 6y ago
Well, here you go, Zoom disruptors - they just tied a lead weight around their neck, time to go to and eat their lunch.
- rrmm 6y ago
  Who do I root for?
ABeeSea 6y ago
Another red flag in regard to Zoom’s security.
bearcobra 6y ago
My understanding is that they already use AWS and Azure, so this probably isn't the case, but I wonder if the fact that the other major vendors have competing services influenced this decision.
cmauniada 6y ago
Why? Is it because of cost? Perhaps nepotism? I don' see a reason why Amazon or Azure would be passed over in favour of Oracle. Why wasn't GCP a contender either? Something seems fishy... someone from Zoom care to chime in? Maybe they are afraid that Amazon or Microsoft with their tradition of copying competition would pose a threat? Even then, Microsoft is already competing using Microsoft Teams and if Amazon wanted to it wouldn't be hard for them at all to come up with a product.
- sb8244 6y ago
  Gcp is listed in the article but not the title. Strange title selection but they were considered.
  - cmauniada 6y ago
    I should have worded my question better, I was just surprised why you would leave out arguably the top 3 companies and go with something like Oracle. (Maybe I am too young and that's where my animosity for Oracle comes from, but I feel like they are way behind the curve in terms of their cloud).
    - sb8244 6y ago
      Oh no, I totally have the same question. I just wanted to make it clear that GCP was in the running since that was in your comment. But yea, I don't get it either. I'd be curious to know why.
      - enigmo 6y ago
        free credits. I've heard of deals giving out $50mm+ in credits over five years before... also gives you some insight into AWS/GCP/Azure margins.
        sb8244 6y ago
        Good point. I wonder how deals like this are structured on the accounting backend.
sanguy 6y ago
Somethings as fishy as Zoom's encryption here....
Jonnax 6y ago
Is Oracle cloud any good? Is it like the other providers where you can take a credit card and use? Or do you need to give your soul to oracle?
- suyash 6y ago
  Yes, we have a free $300 Credit and also Always Free Cloud Services just like other Cloud Vendors, give it a shot. (PS I work at Oracle). https://www.oracle.com/cloud/free/ https://www.oracle.com/cloud/free/
  - MattGaiser 6y ago
    I have lots of mini projects, so I am game to try it. Any cool things I might want to play with on there?
    - suyash 6y ago
      Try serveless function, how about moving your personal blog and website to always free tier?
      - SXX 6y ago
        I doubt you can do anything about it, but Oracle Cloud simply refuse to work with any of Russian credit cards. Registration simply fails at the end no matter what card is used and support send you to bank / payment provider and payment provider sent you back to Oracle. I never had such problems with any other hosting company. I'm live between different countries so I registered it anyway, but still...
        suyash 6y ago
        Please contact support or use the chat button to talk live to someone, this should be easily resolved. https://www.oracle.com/corporate/contact/ https://www.oracle.com/corporate/contact/
baggy_trough 6y ago
Why the hell would any business get into bed with Oracle if there is any alternative to it? That sales team is merciless, and the money will be extracted to the point that the victim is half dead, once the hooks are in.
- caseyf7 6y ago
  Are you sure you're not talking about Google Cloud?
  - baggy_trough 6y ago
    I wasn't, no. Is their reputation as fearsome as Oracle? I have personal experience with both; only Oracle was regrettable (so far).
    - caseyf7 6y ago
      The last few years Google Cloud sales reps have been much more aggressive. They walk in wearing Gucci loafers, talking about their MBAs, and telling us we need to spend 50% more this year. With the new GCP head from Oracle, I wouldn't expect it to get better, but glad to hear others are getting better treatment.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
AndrewKemendo 6y ago
A lot of "they must be crazy" in this thread and I admit I had the same reaction seeing the headline. However there are some options here other than "Zoom management is incompetent." 1. As others have pointed out, Amazon Google Msft all have competitive products and Zoom doesn't want to give them any more insight than they already have. 2. Oracle finally has a set of cloud products that are on par with AWS, GCP or Azure from a cost, availability, license perspective 3. They got a great deal to help Oracle change the way they do business so they can become competitive in Cloud I don't know if any of these are true or not, but none are implausible imo
- amalter 6y ago
  Additionally - I don't know if Zoom's backend is Java, but if it is - Oracle has a sweet deal on getting the Enterprise version of Graal for free if you run on Oracle Cloud. I think this could be a smart move for a company to be the "big fish in a small pond" - even if that pond is owned by a shark with freaking laser beams....
MattGaiser 6y ago
I suspect Oracle is giving good deals as nobody ever considers them as a cloud provider, so they need to gain market share to stay relevant. They wouldn’t be in the top 10 lists of ones I would think of. How many here even knew they had a cloud you could use?
- andrewflnr 6y ago
  Me, but not because I wanted to. They advertised pretty heavily in the Washington DC metro, big bright red ads all over.
- Havoc 6y ago
  I did. Tried their free credit stuff. Was seriously unimpressed. Felt like a beta test Unless it's way cheaper I don't see the point
  - laughyy4 6y ago
    Oracle and cheap. Thanks for the laugh.
    - mirekrusin 6y ago
      "Cheap" as in "cheap drugs" given by drug dealer to new customers to hook them up.
    - lucianf 6y ago
      That's not fair, this is about OCI not the larger Oracle. It's like bashing Azure for what Microsoft has done in the past (funny how we're not hearing much about that anymore). OCI is cheaper than AWS on pretty much every metric. In this particular context: "The Reuters article helpfully points out that Zoom has 217,000 terabytes a month of traffic flowing through it. If we assume all of that is from inside of Zoom’s environment out to the internet (it absolutely isn’t, but it’s a fine worst-case data transfer scenario) and all of it is moving to Oracle now that the deal is signed (certainly not happening, but work with me here), according to public pricing that data transfer would cost, per month: $11,186,406.55 on AWS, nobody knows on Azure because the pricing calculator thinks I’m screwing with it when I put that big of a number into it, and $1,843,630 (hat tip to Jeffery Lyon on that; I moved a decimal in an earlier version of this post) on Oracle Cloud." https://www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/why-zoom-chose-oracle-cloud-over-aws-and-maybe-you-should-too/ https://www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/why-zoom-chose-oracle-clo... (disclaimer, I work at Oracle)
gameswithgo 6y ago
oh no
btown 6y ago
For those who may think Oracle may have moments of nuance, it's always worth listening to Brian Cantrill's epic rant on Oracle and lawnmowers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=34m7s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=34m7s
- breischl 6y ago
  Wow, that is an impressive rant. >Don't make the mistake of anthropomorphizing Larry Ellison That is just brilliant comedy. :)
- abledon 6y ago
  i wonder what would happen if Larry was forced to do a 10 day vipassana
DevKoala 6y ago
Do people questioning the intentions of this move, have actual experience using Oracle cloud? It seems that people really eat the marketing that AWS/GCP/Azure are the best cloud provider for every single product. Oracle Cloud's perception is in the gutter, and it's all press. It's very possible that they have a competitive cloud service. They were making some decent offers for talent last time I checked.
- corpMaverick 6y ago
  Oracle has a long history of being an all around shitty company. So is probably that. Even if they have may have a good cloud offering.
- jedberg 6y ago
  From what I've heard, the top talent they are hiring are not being allowed to actually do anything useful. They are getting paid to be in the PR. Maybe someone who actually works on Oracle cloud can jump in here and clarify.
  - alpha_squared 6y ago
    > Maybe someone who actually works on Oracle cloud can jump in here and clarify. I'd love to, and I'm sure others would as well, but I'm not sure what can be said that wouldn't run afoul of legal.
    - jedberg 6y ago
      The fact that you're afraid of what legal might think of your response says volumes in and of itself.
      - enitihas 6y ago
        Which company employees aren't afraid of what legal might think?
        6y ago
cczizou 6y ago
We need some more competition. Maybe a real-life Pied Piper.
abledon 6y ago
first times a tragedy (security), second times a farce
ram_rar 6y ago
I worked in a startup that was eventually acquired by cisco. We had the same dilemma back then. AWS and GCP were great, but also fairly expensive until you get locked in. Oracles bare metal cloud sweetened the deal soo much, that it was a no brainer to go with them. We were very heavy on using all open source tech stuff, but didnt rely on any cloud service like S3 etc. So the transition was no brainer. If your tech stack is not reliant on cloud services like S3 etc, you're better off with a cloud provider who can give you those sweet deals. But you'll need in house expertise to deal with big data.
- koolba 6y ago
  Any clue what the bandwidth cost comparison would be? They’ve got to be chewing through any mortal tier and be on their own level with 100M DAU.
  - gmueckl 6y ago
    I am not sure if it is a good idea to host SFUs* fairly centrally in cloud data centers. Wouldn't it be cheaper to build a network of SFUs that deal with traffic as locally as possible? That keeps backbone traffic low and and cloud traffic costs sane at the expense of having to find all these colo sites. I reslly have no if AWS or GCP could even handle all that incoming and outgoing traffic in theory. *SFU: selective forwarding unit - the node in a video conference call that receives and resends all the video streams between participants.
- dralley 6y ago
  >AWS and GCP were great, but also fairly expensive once you get locked in. Oracles bare metal cloud sweetened the deal soo much, Until you get locked in.
  - ram_rar 6y ago
    updated it. Thanks!
    - 6y ago
scott00 6y ago
Some useful context: Zoom also runs 17 of their own data centers in addition to using AWS and Azure[0]. This deal is to run their "expansion" on OCI. Hard to say what that means exactly, but it doesn't sound to me like Zoom is making a big bet on OCI. [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/18/zoom-cfo-explains-how-the-company-is-grappling-with-increased-demand.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/18/zoom-cfo-explains-how-the-co...
- latch 6y ago
  This just doesn't pass the smell test. Running your own data center is a huge capital and operational investment. While there are hundreds of companies world wide that do this, they tend to be core telecommunication companies (infrastructure), dedicated data center operations, dedicate hosting companies or companies with billions in revenue. A google search confirms that they colocate, apparently with Equinix. This is as far as running a data center as living in an apartment is to building and managing apartment buildings. (Fun Fact, while Amazon does own and run its own data centers in most places, they're also colocating with Equinix in some regions (though I assume their level of colocation goes beyond traditional colocation)).
  - jcims 6y ago
    I would imagine most of that AWS colo is for hybrid cloud products (Direct Connect/Outposts/etc.). It’s obviously possible but seems unlikely they would run an availability zone in a space unless they had complete and exclusive control over the physical plant.
    - jlawer 6y ago
      They use exclusive sections of an existing colo provider facilities, often called data suites or data halls at least in Australia, where the 3 AZs are split between numerous commercial colo facilities. They get enough control through their contracts to make sure the hosting provider provides exactly what they need to spec.
      - 6y ago
lowdose 6y ago
Are the same people saying don't do GCP because Alphabet kills all products now commenting Meet is a valid excuse for Zoom to migrate to Oracle as a first choice? Cognitive dissonance anybody?
node-bayarea 6y ago
Remember Salesforce is a big investor in Zoom. And they have a big partnership with Oracle. Most of Salesforce DB runs on Oracle DB. They might have influenced.
bosswipe 6y ago
Somewhat off topic, but I've found Zoom to have such better video quality then all the other big players I've tried that it leaves me wondering why, do they have some secret sauce for streaming that other don't?
sproketboy 6y ago
Good.
yellowapple 6y ago
RIP Zoom's devops team. Having experience with AWS, Azure, and OCI, I wouldn't voluntarily touch OCI with a 29½-foot pole. One of my company's software vendors uses OCI for the cloud-hosted version of their product, and we've had all sorts of random issues that make me really really really want to install the "on-prem" version on some Windows instances in our own AWS account. Maybe we're just an outlier and Zoom will have better experiences, but something tells me that given Zoom's scale the issues will only be amplified. Given that it's an Oracle product, I can't imagine it being cheap in the long-run, either, so I seriously don't know what the value proposition is there. Sure, maybe Zoom got a good introductory price given their scale, but... eek.
president 6y ago
Oracle was one of the first major enterprises that converted to Zoom for all their internal communications. Maybe there was already some sort of connection or special relationship between the two companies early on?
SXX 6y ago
I guess Zoom have choosen Oracle cloud for it's horrible UX. Both give me the same chills when I look at their UI.
- tpetry 6y ago
  They have no secret sauce. Every other service favors bandwidth savings over video quality, zoom did the reverse.
geogra4 6y ago
Oracle seems to be pushing OCI really hard to Oracle DB customers.
killjoywashere 6y ago
Paint me paranoid, but I think this is a move by Beijing to get closer to Oracle, which provides support for (and thus has access to) many US Government databases.
kraavi 6y ago
“We chose Oracle Cloud Infrastructure because of its industry-leading security, outstanding performance and unmatched level of support.” Zoom stressed security first, Oracle's executive team has a close relationship with the current administration. I wonder if this is a lobbying play in light of China centric security concerns. Oracle isn't exactly known for its security, that would be Microsoft or Google.
- lucianf 6y ago
  Care to support that comment please? Mind you, talking about cloud platforms here not parent companies. Not a salespitch, but Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is built with pretty serious enterprise-grade security in mind. Couple of resources: [1] https://www.oracle.com/a/ocom/docs/oracle-cloud-infrastructure-security-architecture.pdf https://www.oracle.com/a/ocom/docs/oracle-cloud-infrastructu... [2] https://www.oracle.com/assets/oracle-inf-cloud-security-wp-3840537.pdf https://www.oracle.com/assets/oracle-inf-cloud-security-wp-3... [3] https://docs.cloud.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/Security/Concepts/security_overview.htm https://docs.cloud.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/Security/Co... [4] https://blogs.oracle.com/cloud-infrastructure/the-four-pillars-of-oracle-cloud-infrastructure https://blogs.oracle.com/cloud-infrastructure/the-four-pilla... [5] https://blogs.oracle.com/cloud-infrastructure/core-to-edge-security%3a-the-oracle-cloud-infrastructure-edge-network https://blogs.oracle.com/cloud-infrastructure/core-to-edge-s...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
m3kw9 6y ago
At a time like this $$ matters a lot. Must be a sweet sweet deal.
notyourday 6y ago
For businesses that actually have users the biggest cost is not instances, it is the per byte billed network cost, including cross-AZ cost. AWS cross zone traffic within the same region is not free: https://www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/aws-cross-az-data-transfer-costs-more-than-aws-says/ https://www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/aws-cross-az-data-transfe... and I distinctly remember getting bitten by the same kind of a bill at Google for traffic between their AZs within the same region, which makes me guess that Azure has the same business model. If Oracle offered Zoom free traffic inside the region between different AZ's then it demolished AWS and GCP pricing.
byteQualia 6y ago
A more realistic perspective on why Zoom chose OCI: https://www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/why-zoom-chose-oracle-cloud-over-aws-and-maybe-you-should-too/ https://www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/why-zoom-chose-oracle-clo...
blackrock 6y ago
At some point, it’s gotta be cheaper to just buy your own servers, and build your own cloud. Or at least rent some colocation space. Why keep renting expensive resources, when you can just own it outright.

204 points by SREinSF 6y ago

In the article: > Zoom selected Oracle to expand its cloud, bypassing major industry leaders Amazon Web Services, Alphabet’s Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft’s Azure Cloud. I guess GCP isn't significant enough to be in the headline

outside1234 6y ago
The truth hurts sometimes. Also, isn't GCP deprecated?
- searchableguy 6y ago
  I really wonder what hn has against google. This place sometimes feel like a witch hunt ground
  - deanCommie 6y ago
    Google has earned it with a history of non-customer-focused behaviour. You reap what you sow.
    - searchableguy 6y ago
      which customer-focused-product from google that you paid for that hurt you? Look, I find their behavior pretty anti-consumer in some aspects too but relatively, they don't look bad. We can talk about amp, controlling the web through blink and chromium, search, map and the list can go on. But as I grow older, I think that's not how anything is going to change. Blaming the company is unreliable way to achieve what you hopefully want - a good competitive market with pro-consumer policies and behavior. That won't happen with blaming google or any other company. People won't change either if you told them about AMP a million times everyday on every thread. This forum itself is an echo chamber in that sense as with other tech focused online groups. Do you think you should participate in politics? Check up with your local authorities? And try to sneak in reforms that will probe up more competitors and improve the current monopoly? The problem isn't that google is being anti-consumer more so that you don't have any way to reliably remove google as a dependency
  - SteveNuts 6y ago
    (In my professional experience) Google is absolutely terrible at B2B, their support is sorely lacking. (In my personal experience) Google deprecates products I love at a fast pace and have for many years. For me, they went from an air of mystery like they were the "Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory" of shops to "just another software conglomerate", and not a particularly good one at that.
    - searchableguy 6y ago
      > (In my professional experience) Google is absolutely terrible at B2B, their support is sorely lacking. I am curious about which products and what kind of support they are lacking at. > (In my personal experience) Google deprecates products I love at a fast pace and have for many years. Can you name a few? (going to guess reader, inbox for gmail etc) And if they are being like any other tech company, why the extra unnecessary bullying though?
      - sylens 6y ago
        https://killedbygoogle.com/ https://killedbygoogle.com/
  - mav3rick 6y ago
    Many of these people will take the high comp jobs at Google. Many of them also openly state they are salty at being rejected in Google interviews.
    - altonzheng 6y ago
      When I introspected, I realized indeed, all my dislike of Google was, at the root, just saltiness at being rejected :D.
      - searchableguy 6y ago
        I can't tell if sarcasm. That username and we being on hn isn't helping.
taormina 6y ago
"Alphabet’s Google Cloud Platform" is GCP
king_magic 6y ago
... huh? "Alphabet’s Google Cloud Platform" is GCP.
- monkpit 6y ago
  It’s not in the submission title... that’s the point
- adrianmonk 6y ago
  In the headline. The headline is "Zoom taps Oracle for cloud deal, passing over Amazon, Microsoft". Which doesn't contain any of "Alphabet", "Google", or "GCP".

hasperdi 6y ago

Unless Oracle is doing it for free, I see little reason to go with them

mmastrac 6y ago
Totally guessing here but I imagine this is a super cheap deal for Zoom.
- bitcharmer 6y ago
  At first :)
echelon 6y ago
It's free now, but it will cost you your soul. Never buy Oracle.
rconti 6y ago
Probably doing it for free and throwing an endless supply of Tier 1 headcount at the 'problem'.
rs999gti 6y ago
Java licensing?

zentiggr 6y ago

Well, here you go, Zoom disruptors - they just tied a lead weight around their neck, time to go to and eat their lunch.

rrmm 6y ago
Who do I root for?

ABeeSea 6y ago

Another red flag in regard to Zoom’s security.

bearcobra 6y ago

My understanding is that they already use AWS and Azure, so this probably isn't the case, but I wonder if the fact that the other major vendors have competing services influenced this decision.

cmauniada 6y ago

Why? Is it because of cost? Perhaps nepotism? I don' see a reason why Amazon or Azure would be passed over in favour of Oracle. Why wasn't GCP a contender either? Something seems fishy... someone from Zoom care to chime in? Maybe they are afraid that Amazon or Microsoft with their tradition of copying competition would pose a threat? Even then, Microsoft is already competing using Microsoft Teams and if Amazon wanted to it wouldn't be hard for them at all to come up with a product.

sb8244 6y ago
Gcp is listed in the article but not the title. Strange title selection but they were considered.
- cmauniada 6y ago
  I should have worded my question better, I was just surprised why you would leave out arguably the top 3 companies and go with something like Oracle. (Maybe I am too young and that's where my animosity for Oracle comes from, but I feel like they are way behind the curve in terms of their cloud).
  - sb8244 6y ago
    Oh no, I totally have the same question. I just wanted to make it clear that GCP was in the running since that was in your comment. But yea, I don't get it either. I'd be curious to know why.
    - enigmo 6y ago
      free credits. I've heard of deals giving out $50mm+ in credits over five years before... also gives you some insight into AWS/GCP/Azure margins.
      - sb8244 6y ago
        Good point. I wonder how deals like this are structured on the accounting backend.

sanguy 6y ago

Somethings as fishy as Zoom's encryption here....

Jonnax 6y ago

Is Oracle cloud any good? Is it like the other providers where you can take a credit card and use? Or do you need to give your soul to oracle?

suyash 6y ago
Yes, we have a free $300 Credit and also Always Free Cloud Services just like other Cloud Vendors, give it a shot. (PS I work at Oracle). https://www.oracle.com/cloud/free/ https://www.oracle.com/cloud/free/
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  I have lots of mini projects, so I am game to try it. Any cool things I might want to play with on there?
  - suyash 6y ago
    Try serveless function, how about moving your personal blog and website to always free tier?
    - SXX 6y ago
      I doubt you can do anything about it, but Oracle Cloud simply refuse to work with any of Russian credit cards. Registration simply fails at the end no matter what card is used and support send you to bank / payment provider and payment provider sent you back to Oracle. I never had such problems with any other hosting company. I'm live between different countries so I registered it anyway, but still...
      - suyash 6y ago
        Please contact support or use the chat button to talk live to someone, this should be easily resolved. https://www.oracle.com/corporate/contact/ https://www.oracle.com/corporate/contact/

baggy_trough 6y ago

Why the hell would any business get into bed with Oracle if there is any alternative to it? That sales team is merciless, and the money will be extracted to the point that the victim is half dead, once the hooks are in.

caseyf7 6y ago
Are you sure you're not talking about Google Cloud?
- baggy_trough 6y ago
  I wasn't, no. Is their reputation as fearsome as Oracle? I have personal experience with both; only Oracle was regrettable (so far).
  - caseyf7 6y ago
    The last few years Google Cloud sales reps have been much more aggressive. They walk in wearing Gucci loafers, talking about their MBAs, and telling us we need to spend 50% more this year. With the new GCP head from Oracle, I wouldn't expect it to get better, but glad to hear others are getting better treatment.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]

AndrewKemendo 6y ago

A lot of "they must be crazy" in this thread and I admit I had the same reaction seeing the headline. However there are some options here other than "Zoom management is incompetent." 1. As others have pointed out, Amazon Google Msft all have competitive products and Zoom doesn't want to give them any more insight than they already have. 2. Oracle finally has a set of cloud products that are on par with AWS, GCP or Azure from a cost, availability, license perspective 3. They got a great deal to help Oracle change the way they do business so they can become competitive in Cloud I don't know if any of these are true or not, but none are implausible imo

amalter 6y ago
Additionally - I don't know if Zoom's backend is Java, but if it is - Oracle has a sweet deal on getting the Enterprise version of Graal for free if you run on Oracle Cloud. I think this could be a smart move for a company to be the "big fish in a small pond" - even if that pond is owned by a shark with freaking laser beams....

MattGaiser 6y ago

I suspect Oracle is giving good deals as nobody ever considers them as a cloud provider, so they need to gain market share to stay relevant. They wouldn’t be in the top 10 lists of ones I would think of. How many here even knew they had a cloud you could use?

andrewflnr 6y ago
Me, but not because I wanted to. They advertised pretty heavily in the Washington DC metro, big bright red ads all over.
Havoc 6y ago
I did. Tried their free credit stuff. Was seriously unimpressed. Felt like a beta test Unless it's way cheaper I don't see the point
- laughyy4 6y ago
  Oracle and cheap. Thanks for the laugh.
  - mirekrusin 6y ago
    "Cheap" as in "cheap drugs" given by drug dealer to new customers to hook them up.
  - lucianf 6y ago
    That's not fair, this is about OCI not the larger Oracle. It's like bashing Azure for what Microsoft has done in the past (funny how we're not hearing much about that anymore). OCI is cheaper than AWS on pretty much every metric. In this particular context: "The Reuters article helpfully points out that Zoom has 217,000 terabytes a month of traffic flowing through it. If we assume all of that is from inside of Zoom’s environment out to the internet (it absolutely isn’t, but it’s a fine worst-case data transfer scenario) and all of it is moving to Oracle now that the deal is signed (certainly not happening, but work with me here), according to public pricing that data transfer would cost, per month: $11,186,406.55 on AWS, nobody knows on Azure because the pricing calculator thinks I’m screwing with it when I put that big of a number into it, and $1,843,630 (hat tip to Jeffery Lyon on that; I moved a decimal in an earlier version of this post) on Oracle Cloud." https://www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/why-zoom-chose-oracle-cloud-over-aws-and-maybe-you-should-too/ https://www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/why-zoom-chose-oracle-clo... (disclaimer, I work at Oracle)

gameswithgo 6y ago

oh no

btown 6y ago

For those who may think Oracle may have moments of nuance, it's always worth listening to Brian Cantrill's epic rant on Oracle and lawnmowers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=34m7s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=34m7s

breischl 6y ago
Wow, that is an impressive rant. >Don't make the mistake of anthropomorphizing Larry Ellison That is just brilliant comedy. :)
abledon 6y ago
i wonder what would happen if Larry was forced to do a 10 day vipassana

DevKoala 6y ago

Do people questioning the intentions of this move, have actual experience using Oracle cloud? It seems that people really eat the marketing that AWS/GCP/Azure are the best cloud provider for every single product. Oracle Cloud's perception is in the gutter, and it's all press. It's very possible that they have a competitive cloud service. They were making some decent offers for talent last time I checked.

corpMaverick 6y ago
Oracle has a long history of being an all around shitty company. So is probably that. Even if they have may have a good cloud offering.
jedberg 6y ago
From what I've heard, the top talent they are hiring are not being allowed to actually do anything useful. They are getting paid to be in the PR. Maybe someone who actually works on Oracle cloud can jump in here and clarify.
- alpha_squared 6y ago
  > Maybe someone who actually works on Oracle cloud can jump in here and clarify. I'd love to, and I'm sure others would as well, but I'm not sure what can be said that wouldn't run afoul of legal.
  - jedberg 6y ago
    The fact that you're afraid of what legal might think of your response says volumes in and of itself.
    - enitihas 6y ago
      Which company employees aren't afraid of what legal might think?
      - 6y ago

cczizou 6y ago

We need some more competition. Maybe a real-life Pied Piper.

abledon 6y ago

first times a tragedy (security), second times a farce

ram_rar 6y ago

I worked in a startup that was eventually acquired by cisco. We had the same dilemma back then. AWS and GCP were great, but also fairly expensive until you get locked in. Oracles bare metal cloud sweetened the deal soo much, that it was a no brainer to go with them. We were very heavy on using all open source tech stuff, but didnt rely on any cloud service like S3 etc. So the transition was no brainer. If your tech stack is not reliant on cloud services like S3 etc, you're better off with a cloud provider who can give you those sweet deals. But you'll need in house expertise to deal with big data.

koolba 6y ago
Any clue what the bandwidth cost comparison would be? They’ve got to be chewing through any mortal tier and be on their own level with 100M DAU.
- gmueckl 6y ago
  I am not sure if it is a good idea to host SFUs* fairly centrally in cloud data centers. Wouldn't it be cheaper to build a network of SFUs that deal with traffic as locally as possible? That keeps backbone traffic low and and cloud traffic costs sane at the expense of having to find all these colo sites. I reslly have no if AWS or GCP could even handle all that incoming and outgoing traffic in theory. *SFU: selective forwarding unit - the node in a video conference call that receives and resends all the video streams between participants.
dralley 6y ago
>AWS and GCP were great, but also fairly expensive once you get locked in. Oracles bare metal cloud sweetened the deal soo much, Until you get locked in.
- ram_rar 6y ago
  updated it. Thanks!
  - 6y ago

scott00 6y ago

Some useful context: Zoom also runs 17 of their own data centers in addition to using AWS and Azure[0]. This deal is to run their "expansion" on OCI. Hard to say what that means exactly, but it doesn't sound to me like Zoom is making a big bet on OCI. [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/18/zoom-cfo-explains-how-the-company-is-grappling-with-increased-demand.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/18/zoom-cfo-explains-how-the-co...

latch 6y ago
This just doesn't pass the smell test. Running your own data center is a huge capital and operational investment. While there are hundreds of companies world wide that do this, they tend to be core telecommunication companies (infrastructure), dedicated data center operations, dedicate hosting companies or companies with billions in revenue. A google search confirms that they colocate, apparently with Equinix. This is as far as running a data center as living in an apartment is to building and managing apartment buildings. (Fun Fact, while Amazon does own and run its own data centers in most places, they're also colocating with Equinix in some regions (though I assume their level of colocation goes beyond traditional colocation)).
- jcims 6y ago
  I would imagine most of that AWS colo is for hybrid cloud products (Direct Connect/Outposts/etc.). It’s obviously possible but seems unlikely they would run an availability zone in a space unless they had complete and exclusive control over the physical plant.
  - jlawer 6y ago
    They use exclusive sections of an existing colo provider facilities, often called data suites or data halls at least in Australia, where the 3 AZs are split between numerous commercial colo facilities. They get enough control through their contracts to make sure the hosting provider provides exactly what they need to spec.
    - 6y ago

lowdose 6y ago

Are the same people saying don't do GCP because Alphabet kills all products now commenting Meet is a valid excuse for Zoom to migrate to Oracle as a first choice? Cognitive dissonance anybody?

node-bayarea 6y ago

Remember Salesforce is a big investor in Zoom. And they have a big partnership with Oracle. Most of Salesforce DB runs on Oracle DB. They might have influenced.

bosswipe 6y ago

Somewhat off topic, but I've found Zoom to have such better video quality then all the other big players I've tried that it leaves me wondering why, do they have some secret sauce for streaming that other don't?

sproketboy 6y ago

Good.

yellowapple 6y ago

RIP Zoom's devops team. Having experience with AWS, Azure, and OCI, I wouldn't voluntarily touch OCI with a 29½-foot pole. One of my company's software vendors uses OCI for the cloud-hosted version of their product, and we've had all sorts of random issues that make me really really really want to install the "on-prem" version on some Windows instances in our own AWS account. Maybe we're just an outlier and Zoom will have better experiences, but something tells me that given Zoom's scale the issues will only be amplified. Given that it's an Oracle product, I can't imagine it being cheap in the long-run, either, so I seriously don't know what the value proposition is there. Sure, maybe Zoom got a good introductory price given their scale, but... eek.

president 6y ago

Oracle was one of the first major enterprises that converted to Zoom for all their internal communications. Maybe there was already some sort of connection or special relationship between the two companies early on?

SXX 6y ago

I guess Zoom have choosen Oracle cloud for it's horrible UX. Both give me the same chills when I look at their UI.

tpetry 6y ago
They have no secret sauce. Every other service favors bandwidth savings over video quality, zoom did the reverse.

geogra4 6y ago

Oracle seems to be pushing OCI really hard to Oracle DB customers.

killjoywashere 6y ago

Paint me paranoid, but I think this is a move by Beijing to get closer to Oracle, which provides support for (and thus has access to) many US Government databases.

kraavi 6y ago

“We chose Oracle Cloud Infrastructure because of its industry-leading security, outstanding performance and unmatched level of support.” Zoom stressed security first, Oracle's executive team has a close relationship with the current administration. I wonder if this is a lobbying play in light of China centric security concerns. Oracle isn't exactly known for its security, that would be Microsoft or Google.

lucianf 6y ago
Care to support that comment please? Mind you, talking about cloud platforms here not parent companies. Not a salespitch, but Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is built with pretty serious enterprise-grade security in mind. Couple of resources: [1] https://www.oracle.com/a/ocom/docs/oracle-cloud-infrastructure-security-architecture.pdf https://www.oracle.com/a/ocom/docs/oracle-cloud-infrastructu... [2] https://www.oracle.com/assets/oracle-inf-cloud-security-wp-3840537.pdf https://www.oracle.com/assets/oracle-inf-cloud-security-wp-3... [3] https://docs.cloud.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/Security/Concepts/security_overview.htm https://docs.cloud.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/Security/Co... [4] https://blogs.oracle.com/cloud-infrastructure/the-four-pillars-of-oracle-cloud-infrastructure https://blogs.oracle.com/cloud-infrastructure/the-four-pilla... [5] https://blogs.oracle.com/cloud-infrastructure/core-to-edge-security%3a-the-oracle-cloud-infrastructure-edge-network https://blogs.oracle.com/cloud-infrastructure/core-to-edge-s...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

m3kw9 6y ago

At a time like this $$ matters a lot. Must be a sweet sweet deal.

notyourday 6y ago

For businesses that actually have users the biggest cost is not instances, it is the per byte billed network cost, including cross-AZ cost. AWS cross zone traffic within the same region is not free: https://www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/aws-cross-az-data-transfer-costs-more-than-aws-says/ https://www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/aws-cross-az-data-transfe... and I distinctly remember getting bitten by the same kind of a bill at Google for traffic between their AZs within the same region, which makes me guess that Azure has the same business model. If Oracle offered Zoom free traffic inside the region between different AZ's then it demolished AWS and GCP pricing.

byteQualia 6y ago

A more realistic perspective on why Zoom chose OCI: https://www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/why-zoom-chose-oracle-cloud-over-aws-and-maybe-you-should-too/ https://www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/why-zoom-chose-oracle-clo...

blackrock 6y ago

At some point, it’s gotta be cheaper to just buy your own servers, and build your own cloud. Or at least rent some colocation space. Why keep renting expensive resources, when you can just own it outright.