IBM Cloud Pak® for Applications (CP4Apps) is an end-to-end hybrid cloud application platform, providing flexibility for deployments, building new cloud-native applications, refactoring and re-platforming existing applications. Designed to leverage a collection of application runtimes, modernization tools and a Kubernetes container platform to adapt to their landscape needs.
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Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
Score 8.6 out of 10
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Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is Oracles's infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) platform which combines the utility of public cloud with the granular control, security, and predictability of on-premises infrastructure.
IBM Cloud Pak for Applications is clearly suitable for modernizing the WebSphere runtime from the heavy, complex and expensive WAS-ND, and to a lesser extent WAS-base, to the super simple, fast and lightweight WebSphere Liberty runtime. I guarantee, once you start using Liberty you'll never look back. Enough cannot be said about how awesome Transformation Advisor is. The output analysis it produces, along with the migration plan and associated artifacts, considerably simplifies both the decision-making process surrounding modernization and subsequent implementation. Without TA we would've made bad decisions by blindly picking unsuitable apps for moving from WAS to Liberty. Using the results from TA we've excluded multiple WAS apps from our immediate plans to migrate to Liberty, saving time and effort that probably would have resulted in a failed migration. We recently used Transformation Advisor to help us successfully migrate an app from Tomcat to WebSphere Liberty. We needed to make some changes to the Tomcat app, but TA helped highlight these required changes. Without TA I'm not sure we would have succeeded.
It is a service that enables us to divide incoming network traffic among numerous resources, including virtual computers. By intelligently routing requests, it guarantees fault tolerance and high availability. Application performance is enhanced, and resource utilization is optimized by load balancing. SSL/TLS termination and public and private load balancing are supported. Using the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console or APIs, load balancers are simple to set up and configure.
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure has a generous free tier, moreso than other hyperscalers, with an always-free tier that guarantees certain products are always free
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure allows you to size VMs with differing combinations of CPU and RAM, which is contrary to other hyperscalers that have specific pre-defined combinations only
While the licensing is considerably simplified than it used to be, I still find it somewhat confusing. For example, WebSphere Liberty Core has an 8:1 VPC ratio. This is clear when dealing with VMs but it is still not clear to me as to whether we get an 8:1 ratio when running on OpenShift or whether we need to purchase additional OpenShift licenses to support running WebSphere Liberty Core in OpenShift.
Not so much related to IBM Cloud Pak for Applications, but while Transformation Advisor is an indispensable tool to help modernize to the WebSphere Liberty runtime, I wish we could run it against WebSphere Liberty itself. The reason being, we are now using TA as a single repository for our configurations. TA also highlights many potential issues when migrating to Liberty; these issues may also be applicable for apps already running in Liberty, we just don't know it yet.
Navigating the UI takes lots of getting used to. It reminds me of older GCP (just to get used to where everything is).
Permission for different things always seemed to be more difficult than it really needed to be. Once you got them set up you were good but updating anything or creating new permissions for just about anything took longer than I thought it should.
Based on how the buttons were laid out, it was pretty easy to delete all of your DNS records, and backing them up was not as intuitive as I'd like with the UI, but it was easy to do using a script.
Reliability: Very dependable and stable OCI services have been for the business operations.Performance: The speed and efficiency of OCI in meeting their computing and storage needs.Scalability: The ease and effectiveness of scaling resources up or down to accommodate changing demands.Security: The robustness and effectiveness of OCI's security features in protecting their data and applications.
The services & products in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure needs more improvement to beat other Cloud service providers. The price is good & Security processes are good. We are requiring to put more effort in supporting this Oracle Cloud Infrastructure than other Cloud service providers. Probably better ways are there but is not super easy to find or not super available
In our project where we are handling Big data, Oracle Cloud helped us a lot by improving its performance and reducing the time taken. Its role-based security helped us to manage the privacy in our project. When there was load, its scalability feature helped us a lot by scaling it to a configured higher scale.
Overall it is amazing, there is always room for improvement. We have weekly updates that tend to slow the program used more and more. We had to change some reports within Oracle because the others wouldn’t load. This is tied to our payroll and the delays are causing many time constraint issues and panic. We have to create a new report when one breaks. Otherwise awesome!
Comparing IBM Cloud PAK for Applications against alternatives highlights its distinct advantages. Its robust support for hybrid and multi-cloud environments enables unmatched flexibility in application deployment, crucial for businesses seeking to leverage various cloud services. This contrasts with platforms that may limit their focus to a single-cloud approach or offer restricted multi-cloud capabilities.IBM Cloud PAK's seamless integration with AI and data analytics, particularly through IBM Watson, provides powerful tools for developing AI-driven applications. This integration is a key differentiator from competitors that might not offer as comprehensive AI and analytics tools, allowing businesses to easily incorporate advanced technologies into their applications.Furthermore, IBM Cloud PAK for Applications prioritizes ethical AI development and compliance with regulatory standards, aligning with OpenAI’s guidelines. This commitment is essential for organizations that value responsible AI practices and need to adhere to strict privacy and security regulations.The selection of IBM Cloud PAK for Applications was driven by its holistic approach to application development, offering a blend of flexibility, advanced technological integration, and a commitment to ethical standards, making it a superior choice for businesses focused on innovation while adhering to ethical and legal standards.
We did an proof of concept between Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Amazon Web Service and Microsoft Azure. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure was the clear winner with us because of support of the product. The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure support staff was very knowledgeable and helpful getting us up and running with a bit of time investment. This pushed Oracle Cloud Infrastructure out ahead of the other two products.
was not part of initial purchase team. Anyways, i think unit pricing and billing frequency is good compared to other Cloud service providers, when it comes to Cloud Capital expenditure & Operational expenditure. Would be more interested in exploring more options where customers can get more cost relaxations on trying out new cloud services in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure for example a new App or a feature
Services & Infra wise is ok to use & host applications & services. Security wise also good for a Cloud service provider. It is a interesting area to explore & using it for day to day needs can be further improvised in future probably. Modern day Services like AI and Machine learning could be improved
We have been able to migrate apps away from the expensive WAS-ND to the more cost-effective WAS-base without throwing away our WAS-ND licenses. With a 1:4 ratio of WAS-ND to WAS-base we've been able to we've been able to save in excess of 75% on licensing charges for these apps.
By having a license model based on VPC ratios (1:4:8 - WAS-ND:WAS-base:Liberty core) we've been able to move away from using license pooling resulting in over-allocating (i.e. wasting) CPU cores for each license pool, to using consolidated license pools hosting a combination of WAS-ND, WAS-base and Liberty-core. This has allowed us to reduce our licensing costs accordingly.
It improved the performance of all the applications we migrated by an average of ~90%.
OCI storage reduced the cost by an average of 40% on all the migrations we did. This includes backups as well.
Object Storage Archive is the most reliable and cheapest storage available for DB backups or application backups. This reduced our storage costs significantly compared to on-premises.
The minimum volume size for block volume is 50 GB. This forced us to use more storage on some applications but the impact of the cost increase is < 5%.
Lack of reduced redundancy storage options in object storage may have increased costs by > 8% for our use-case.
