OCI Dedicated Region FAQ

General

What is OCI Dedicated Region?

OCI Dedicated Region (also known as Oracle Dedicated Region Cloud@Customer) comprises of all Oracle cloud services (IaaS/PaaS/SaaS) for deployment in one or more physical locations chosen by the customer. Customers retain full control of their data and applications to meet the highest security, regulatory, low latency, and data residency requirements. OCI Dedicated Region brings best-in-class price-performance and security to mission-critical workloads that are unlikely to move to the public cloud for several years.

When would I use OCI Dedicated Region instead of OCI public cloud region?

You can use OCI Dedicated Region for applications that require low-latency or local data residency. These applications may need to generate near real-time responses to end user applications or communicate with other on-premises systems. Applications for banking, payments processing, and risk management services (including Oracle products like FLEXCUBE and Modern Risk & Finance) can be provided to end users and financial clients from in-country locations to meet data locality requirements. OCI Dedicated Region also provides all of OCI’s analytics and machine learning services to health management systems that need to remain on-premises to meet latency requirements.

What services are offered on OCI Dedicated Region?

OCI Dedicated Region offers the exact same set of services available in the Oracle’s public cloud regions. OCI Dedicated Region is also certified to run Oracle SaaS products like ERP, Financials, HCM, and SCM, making it the only solution to offer a completely integrated cloud experience for IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS software on-premises. Customers can use these services for lift and shift scenarios, or for incrementally upgrading legacy applications using modern cloud primitives while continuing to meet demanding performance and compliance goals.

How elastic is OCI Dedicated Region?

We work with the customer around capacity planning just like we do with our own public cloud regions. This way, we can make sure enough physical resources are available in advance of demand.

What type of SLAs are offered on OCI Dedicated Region?

OCI Dedicated Region offers the exact same SLAs for availability, manageability, and performance as a single Availability Domain in an Oracle public cloud region. For example, if you deploy your application across multiple fault domains, a compute SLA with a guarantee of 99.95 percent availability applies. For more details about OCI Dedicated Region SLAs, please see: https://www.oracle.com/cloud/sla/

In which countries is OCI Dedicated Region available?

For a list of countries where OCI Dedicated Regions can be deployed, please contact Oracle.

Are there any pre-requisites for deploying OCI Dedicated Region in my location?

Yes, site planning (power, space, networking, others) is required to ensure proper installation and deployment of an OCI Dedicated Region. Please fill out this web form to get started. An Oracle representative will contact you within three to five business days.

How long does it take for an OCI Dedicated Region to be available for use?

The OCI Dedicated Region will be available for use within weeks after the data center is ready. An Oracle project manager will provide weekly updates and will coordinate with your facilities management team to ensure a timely and safe delivery.

What is the pricing for OCI Dedicated Region?

The pricing for OCI Dedicated Region is the same as Oracle public cloud regions. You only pay for services you consume with the same predictable low pricing. You can continue to use all existing Oracle tools like budgets, cost analysis, invoices, and usage reports to monitor and audit usage of the OCI Dedicated Region. Pricing for Oracle public cloud regions are located here: https://www.oracle.com/cloud/pricing/

Is there a minimum commitment for OCI Dedicated Region?

Customers can start small. In exchange for a consumption-based commitment over a period of five years, they get the flexibility to select the exact amount and type of compute and storage for their workloads. The hardware footprint of OCI Dedicated Region is designed to grow with the customer workloads. At initial deployment, the footprint is based on the customer forecasted consumption for the first year. After that, resource consumption and availability are continuously monitored, and OCI Dedicated Region footprint is expanded as needed.

Will my OCI Dedicated Region get new features and security updates?

Yes. OCI Dedicated Region is a fully functional cloud region that Oracle upgrades with new features as they become available in public cloud regions. Additionally, Oracle will continually execute security updates to ensure we can maintain the highest levels of security. Note, new services or capabilities that require additional infrastructure will deploy at the rate at which Oracle can expand into your data center facilities.

Can I add new compute shapes or increase capacity once my OCI Dedicated Region is live?

Yes. You can request more storage capacity and additional compute resources once your OCI Dedicated Region is live. You can manage these requests via your Oracle sales representative.

Do I need to be responsible for hardware separately?

No, OCI Dedicated Region is a fully managed service from Oracle including hardware, software, cloud services, support, etc. There is no need for a separate capital purchase, hardware software integration, etc.

How do I request technical support for workloads running in my OCI Dedicated Region?

You can continue to use existing tools like the OCI console, SDKs, and APIs to request technical support. Please note that for any physical maintenance, Oracle will schedule a time and require access to your physical facilities. For an additional fee, you may also purchase 24x7 on-site support where an Oracle representative is available to rapidly troubleshoot and fix any hardware related issues. For more details, please see https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/GSG/Tasks/contactingsupport.htm

Who is responsible for the physical security of OCI Dedicated Region?

OCI Dedicated Region is operated and managed based on a shared responsibility model between Oracle and the customer. Post activation, Oracle will continue to support all physical activities required within the facility that houses Oracle-owned computing and networking equipment (Oracle secure area) in conjunction with the customer. Oracle will troubleshoot and resolve any physical hardware issues, manage data destruction events, and perform planned operational audits within the Oracle secure area. Customers are responsible for the data center uptime, physical compliance of the facility, and maintenance of the data center within the agreed temperature and humidity levels and ensuring power and cooling for all racks with the Oracle secure area.

Developer Experience

How do I connect to my OCI Dedicated Region?

You can connect to OCI Dedicated Region just like you do today to a public cloud region using Oracle tools, SDKs, and the management console. For example, once the OCI Dedicated Region is available to you, you can configure the CLI with a region identifier created as part of the region provisioning process. You can find this region identifier in the OCI Dedicated Region cloud management console section under the “Manage Regions” page. Note: service and console routes are not advertised to the internet, so please make sure you have the in-region Oracle root name server configured in your network to reach Oracle’s cloud services. For more details, please consult your Oracle support representative.

How do I connect my on-premises systems to an VCN (Virtual Cloud Network) in OCI Dedicated Region?

Oracle FastConnect enables customers to create a dedicated, private connection between on-premises systems and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. With FastConnect private peering, customers can extend their existing infrastructure into a VCN in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Communication across the connection is with IPv4 private addresses. For more details, please visit: https://www.oracle.com/cloud/networking/fastconnect/

What happens when my facility's network connection goes down?

All services will continue to operate normally, and you can access them locally. Similarly, API availability will not decrease - for instance, run/start/stop/terminate APIs will continue to work. Roll-up metrics will continue to be cached locally for a few hours, then Oracle will cache them when connectivity returns. Disconnection beyond a few hours may result in Oracle not being able to meet SLAs. However, while Oracle updates and patches will not be available until the network returns, OCI Dedicated Region will operate in its last-known state in the event of an unplanned network disruption. Oracle will not be able to address unexpected failures in accordance with our SLAs, but all built-in redundancy will apply.

Can I run the Oracle Cloud VMWare solution on OCI Dedicated Region?

Yes. You can run the Oracle Cloud VMWare Solution (OCVS) on OCI Dedicated Region. OCVS includes VMware vSphere, vCenter, vSAN, NSX, and HCX. Customers have the same level of visibility and access (SSH to hypervisor, configure hosts, edit vSAN settings, etc.) as their on-premises VMware cluster. For more details about OCVS, solution, please visit: https://www.oracle.com/cloud/compute/vmware/.

Can I centrally govern workloads across Oracle public cloud regions and my OCI Dedicated Region?

Oracle public cloud regions and OCI Dedicated Region are in separate realms. Hence they are not connected and currently cannot be managed using a single console. An OCI Dedicated Region is managed using its own console which provides an identical experience like the Oracle public regions.