Oracle University Podcast

Join us for an inspiring conversation with private equity advisor Jeffrey Malcolm as he shares how Oracle AI certification has transformed his career, family, and approach to business. Discover the real-world impact and opportunities that come from upskilling with Oracle's leading AI training programs.
 
AI Foundations: https://mylearn.oracle.com/ou/learning-path/become-an-oci-ai-foundations-associate-2025/147781
Oracle University Learning Community: https://education.oracle.com/ou-community
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/oracle-university/
X: https://x.com/Oracle_Edu
 
Special thanks to Arijit Ghosh, Anna Hulkower, Kris-Ann Nansen, and the OU Studio Team for helping us create this episode.
 
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Episode Transcript:
 
00:00
Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast, the first stop on your cloud journey. During this series of informative podcasts, we'll bring you foundational training on the most popular Oracle technologies. Let's get started!
00:26
Lois: Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast. I'm your host, Lois Houston, and I'm joined today by Jeffrey Malcolm, Operating Adviser working in the private equity space, to talk about how Oracle AI certifications have impacted his professional and personal life. Hi Jeffrey, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today. Our conversation actually stems from a fascinating discussion we had at AI World, Oracle's annual user conference. There you shared your journey to becoming Oracle AI certified... How that process not only shifted your perspective on emerging technologies, but also influenced the way you work, interact with colleagues and clients, and even how you encourage continued learning in your own family. I'm really excited to dive deeper into your story and explore the value and real world benefits of certification in today's AI-driven landscape.
01:20
Jeffrey: Uh Lois, first of all, thank you for having me. Um, it was fantastic running into your teammates at AI World. It was amazing. You know, for for me, you know, as we go through this AI journey with my portfolio companies, I'm constantly looking at what are the new things out there? How can I get myself enabled? So, excited that we're having this conversation today.
01:42
Lois: That's great. So, let's start at the beginning. Before your certifications, what was your initial reaction when you heard about Oracle's OCI and AI certification programs? Were you immediately interested or was there hesitation?
Jeffrey: I was skeptical. You know, I was skeptical about OCI capabilities as you guys didn't have much market penetration at the time. You know, in my technology career, I built several enterprise applications on AWS, Azure, and GCP. However, OCI Cloud was new and my wife Kay Malcolm, who you know, kept raving at home over and over about OCI, that the cloud was faster, it was more secure and cost friendly. All of which this thing that I'm hearing are appealing to me as a CIO because that's something that I need to control at my companies that I'm working with.
Lois: Right.
Jeffrey: So because even though I was skeptical I was like if all of these things are appealing to her, I'm going to go ahead, I'm going to take the certification, I'm going to confirm all of these allegations that she's making to just make sure that, you know, it's actually true. And I was pleasantly surprised once I pulled the covers back.
02:59
Lois: So, you mentioned that your wife actually encouraged you to sign up for the free OCI Foundations training. Can you tell me a little bit more about that experience and how it influenced your decision to continue learning?
Jeffrey: When she took the OCI test, at first she passed with a 95% score. So, you know, that encouraged me to just, you know, to take it as as as informative as I can. And to be honest, I wanted to beat her score because, you know, we're competitive. Um, upon passing and seeing the high quality of the candidate, you know, of the content. Uh, it was just hard for me to keep this internally. I wanted to share it with my network. I wanted to kind of see if there's others that could benefit from it. But you know my my initial piece was how can I beat her? And when I was able to date the score I I did score a 96 and beat her and I started sharing it with my network. And what happened Lois it was amazing. You know we we found a a cohort of individuals right around 50 who wanted to start taking the similar course. We were like hey this is something that's amazing. We had individuals who were teachers. We had individuals who had work in the corrections facility. We had plumbers. We had electrician. And they were all skeptical about taking this highly technical course. But we said, "Hey, it's self-paced. It's something that you can do and you can really benefit your career." So at the end, we had 50 people who took it. Of the 50, we had 30 brave souls who went ahead and took the certification. Um, and of the 30, we had a 24 people who passed. That's almost a 90% pass rate.
Lois: Yeah. 
Jeffrey: And it was so successful, we actually had one individual who shared their news. He was able to get a new position where he became a technical project manager and 3x his salary. So, it was just amazing to watch how people were brave enough to take this content, how OCI did an amazing job of making it self-paced and absorbable and then people got the certification, we published it on LinkedIn, and people actually got jobs. So, it was actually quite quite impressive.
05:24
Lois: That's an incredible story. So, you didn't just become a believer, you actually went and built an application on OCI, right? What was the project and how did your new skills play a role in making that happen?
Jeffrey: That's that's a funny story. So at the time I was doing the uh the OCI training. I was building a mobile native application for a startup who was at the time looking to impact climate change. They were socially conscious enterprise dedicated to bring human-centered tools to individuals to live a better life and protect our environment. You know, the the main focus was how can they create an application that had no ads, only information, and provide a tool that would allow people to do joyful actions such as recycling, such as, you know, um looking at how you can lower your power consumption in your home, moving from plastics away from your home and just not consuming that much plastic. So we really wanted to gamify that and build an application that could do that. Uh my training gave me the confidence that as I was architecting the solution to say I needed to build something scalable and secure and full transparency at the time my myself and the rest of my development team was looking at completely AWS solutions.
From this training I was like no if we really want something secure and scalable, the Oracle Database specifically Autonomous Database is it and we switched we built a multicloud solution across Azure um AWS and um GCP as well as OCI OCI had our backend and we built our application to leverage it specifically because after taking a training I was convinced that the backend needed to on Oracle Database specifically Autonomous Database. So it helped the the application had been running now for 3 years no issues um from a scalability standpoint and it's been fantastic for us.
07:34
Lois: Well that's great. That's a great story to uh to talk about how you leveraged your training and into something that actually made a difference in your job. So let's talk a little bit about your AI certification. You've described the AI foundations training that you took from Oracle University as demystifying. So tell me about some of the biggest takeaways for you. How did it shift your understanding of what AI really is and how it can be used?
Jeffrey: That's a great point. Um you know in the last two three years AI has just been the talk of the town and specifically in my role as an advisor to private equity companies, I'm constantly being asked how can AI impact the top line? How can AI the bottom line and help us realize the multiple or investment pieces to exit um our our different companies? My background whenever I look at a problem I need to understand the guts of it and at the time there was all of these myths and and and confusion and scared to be honest around AI. So coming from an engineering background at MIT, one of the things MIT taught me is I need to look under the covers to truly understand something from a technology standpoint. Do my due diligence before sharing best practices with my portfolio companies that I'm working with. So that made me take on this challenge to say hey I need to understand what's the difference between machine learning, deep learning. What are the different you know kind of you know neural networks out there? When do you want to use it? So the AI foundation training that Oracle was offering was compelling to me to the point that I had had great success on the OCI's piece I'm like let me take this on. So that's what really started my journey back in January of 2023 um this was just a few months after the release of ChatGPT and I really wanted to understand how AI can like skyrocket and help our companies you know drive drive value. So that's what made me take it on. I wanted to understand what's the difference between RNN you know recurrent neural networks convolutional um neural networks and what's the best business case that our companies can use? What's the best time to use a vector database? Why is it important? Why is it needed for AI solution? I wanted to be able to articulate the difference between a RAG and Agentic AI workflow to our companies so that's really was the impass of as to why I wanted to take on this piece and why I wanted to do uh the AI foundational training.
10:08
Lois: And your journey didn't stop with you and Kay, right? Your sons are both Oracle AI-certified as well as I understand it. So, tell me a little bit about that. What inspired them?
Jeffrey: So our poor boys um you know we have two boys you know both are in college uh you know and one full transparency is a computer science major at at Georgia Tech. The other one is doing a biology major at um Kennesaw State. In our household, we believe in technology and and we believe anyone can look at it. So, after getting a better understanding of AI and realizing AI is really going to impact every aspect of our our society and our industry, we said we should absolutely have our boys do this. Well, of course, with any kind of young kids, they're going to be hesitant. So um we we had to really incentivize them you know for you know for my for our youngest you know who was not you know been exposed to this technology, he was starting his new business and he wanted to learn and for our oldest being at Georgia Tech he was in that computer science major this was going to help him secure some summer internship. So what we did was to incentivize them we had to turn off the Wi-Fi and so the Wi-Fi could only be on if they were doing the certification and and full transparency after I would say a weekend and like 3 days they were able to complete the course and truly um pass and understand on a foundational level like what's the difference between RAG and Agents? What's the difference between you know RNN and CNN? What are neural networks and what's deep learning the machine learning? For my oldest, who was in computer science, it helped him secure a summer internship because he was able to talk about in a very clear way that he understood AI. And then he was also able to show his um his certification and that helped him to secure an internship with Oracle on the OCI team being a software developer. And to be honest, he's going into his third summer where he's going to be at Oracle um coming this next summer in 2026. So, it's been beneficial. I tell people like this is something that you should absolutely do and um we encourage our friends and we tell the story about our boys because it's it's personal. We show that anyone can do it.
12:35
Lois: That's that's an awesome story. And the whole family is AI certified. That's great. So, you mentioned that you've been sharing your experience with your friends and your colleagues and neighbors. What are some of the common misconceptions or fears that you encounter when you're talking about AI with people? How do you help them understand what it means for their careers and for their lives?
Jeffrey: Um, no, it's a great question. You know, a lot of people I talk to still think AI is either going to replace them or that it's too technical for them to ever understand.
Lois: Right.
Jeffrey: And the fear usually comes from not knowing where to start. Um, I tell them that AI is really just a tool and and and learning the basics helps you to see where it fits into your work life. And and once they understand that it's it's here to help, not to replace them, the conversation shifts and become, oh, okay, now how can I become more knowledgeable so I can be less fearful and identify opportunities? So really, I've been having conversation to say, look, it is not something that's here to replace you. It is a tool and it's a tool that really once you understand how you can use it at your job or in your school work or in where you volunteer, it can really drive automation and speed and allow you to do your job much better.
Lois: Yeah, that's so true. And the knowledge understanding is so powerful. It really does change people's perspective from being fearful to being excited about the possibilities with AI. 
14:13
Be a part of something big by joining the Oracle University Learning Community! Connect with over 3 million members, including Oracle experts and fellow learners. Engage in topical forums, share your knowledge, and celebrate your achievements together. Discover the community today at mylearn.oracle.com.
14:34
Lois: So tell me a little bit about uh how in your private equity work um I know you interact with a wide variety of clients. How does this knowledge about Oracle's AI uh technology and having the certification empower you to have conversations and build trust with your clients?
Jeffrey: The biggest value I've received from getting the Oracle AI certification is that it gives me clear and practical foundations for talking to people about what AI is and what it's not. Let's be honest, there's a lot of hype out there about AI and there's a lot of hype and fear that is unproven. You know, in in my work with private equity, clients want to know what's the real, what's possible, what's worth our investment. You know is this something that we should really look at. So when I can explain AI concepts, agentic workflow, you know, neural networks and one is important, you know, what neural networks are better for vision capabilities, what neural networks are better for audio capabilities, what neural networks are just better for for text. Right? When I can really go down to those simple terms and connect with them on the operating challenges that that companies is facing, then I have tangible case studies that I can help work with my companies on that will build credibility and this hype and fear kind of starts to subside and go away.
So with that, you know, when when when working with my private equity companies, I don't want to just do something just because it's the hype. We we really need to make sure that whatever we doing can drive growth and drive IBIDA growth so that we could realize our investment thesis. So this certification really helped me to just ground it in the ways that I could have real conversations with our companies about what are the activities that are going to drive growth, what are the activities that's going to be efficient, what are the activities that are going to have value creation for our company. and it's been something that you know has really been helpful.
So, another thing I wanted to share is Kay and I have been working with not only, you know, digging it to enterprises, but I want to take it to universities and we've been working with her mother's alma mater, Alabama State, which is a historically black college and university, to help them get on Oracle AI and then get their foundation going because we want to take this down to the college level and help to drive this and offer it. Through that interaction, they've reached out to the city of uh Montgomery and they want to work with the public schools to start getting the school system to start becoming AI foundation um certified and understand how AI can evolve in everything that you do. So, we've been working with them. We actually had a quick event here that Oracle did um at here in Atlanta and they were able to attend and see some of the application and we're hoping to just continue this. So it it's not something that I'm just talking to my private equity companies about. I'm also want to bring this into universities, bring this into the school because it's a fundamentally different way to solve problems and anyone can do it. You don't have to have a technical background. We're at a foundationally different level where anyone can start their AI journey.
18:05
Lois: Right. And we're just at the beginning of this transformation of the industry. It's a great way to teach the next generation how to be prepared so they can have uh you know great careers and leveraging AI. So, one of the things you've mentioned to me when we've talked in the past is that you boil down AI to two things, data and math, right? Not innovation itself but a tool. So can you elaborate a little bit on that?
Jeffrey: Yeah, it's one of the the things I like to say. I think if people talk to me and they say, you know, Jeff always boils it down. So, you know, when I look at it, generative AI foundation is based on the concept of machine learning and deep learning. 
Lois: Right.
Jeffrey: Um both concepts are based on linear algebra, calculus, probability, statistics, optimization theory. You know those are some of the the the foundation of both of those. LLMs use these foundations and data to generate content and execute tasks. So people's actions in system generate the data that these LLMs use and and math follows specific patterns such as Bayer's theorem, Pythagorean theorem. The innovation that comes from those because you have math in terms of the machine learning and you have data requires thinking out of the box and not following one of these pattern, which is only accomplished through people and our unique experience. So when I think of generative AI that's why I see it as a tool. You're always going to require human interaction to drive an outcome. 
Lois: Right.
Jeffrey: It it is a combination of math and data. Our unique experience of how we engage and how we look at a problem brings innovation to a challenge. So that's one of the things I always say it's I boils it down to it's math and data. Innovation comes from people. And the reason why it comes from people is we all have unique experiences, unique backgrounds. So we look at a problem differently in terms of how we solve it and that difference is what drives the innovation.
Lois: Right. And just leverages AI to do so.
Jeffrey: Correct.
20:20
Lois: So you've said that AI levels the playing field. What does that mean to you in practical terms and how have you seen it make an impact in your area of expertise?
Jeffrey: When I say level the playing ground, what I mean is there's a unique opportunity where this technology is impacting every industry that we know. Prior to this, you know, if there was a technology solution such as, let's look at the big ones, cloud, everyone moving to the cloud, it required you to have some knowledge of cloud technology. Big data it required you to have some knowledge of data solutions. AI is so transformational that you know if we look take a look at vibe coding that's out there. Your ability to think about a problem and break it down in a in a tangible way and build an app and leverage vibe coding where the LLM can actually do the hard work for you is transformational. It doesn't require you to have that knowledge to drive it. Now to take some and to and and that what what does that do? That allows you to quickly take a business idea from concept all the way to an MVP and then you can then move that into production and and and start making money on whatever that idea is.
Does that take you 100% away? No. You're still going to need someone to run it and all of that. But what what I love about it is a lot of individuals have many different ideas and many different concepts. You can now quickly materialize those into a technology solution without having to have a technology background because the hard work of executing that code can be handled by an LLM. That's just one example if we just talk about coding. If you look at other industries such as the legal industry that is doing a lot of stuff around um just looking at how can you quickly process documents and read those, it's really revolutional. So what what I mean by it being transformational, it enhances each industry differently. So therefore, it's not that you have to have a technology background. If you're willing to take it on and look at it as a tool, then we are all at the beginning stage. And to be honest, I'll go as far as saying, Lois, if you don't have a technical background, you're actually at an advantage because you don't have to unlearn some of the activities that you used to solve problem with. You actually can come up with new ways leveraging AI agentic workflow to solve those problems quicker. So that's why I really feel like we are at a level a level playing field and it's a transformational piece and I'm encouraging as many people to just start becoming familiar with the different tools that are out there. Get you yourself a ChatGPT account, start working with Anthropic Claude, get yourself a Gemini account, start working with their notebook LLMs to generate, you know, um, infographics. It's amazing. And that's the new thing that I'm playing with right now. Start using these tools because what's happening is as you understand them, your creativity is going to say, "Oh, I can now do this." Uh, mark my word. I think this is going to be one of the pivotal era that we look back and say, "If I had taken full advantage of AI when it came out, I would have started this many businesses." And I don't want people to have that regret. So that's why I think you know dismiss the fear. You do not have to have a technology background to start AI. You can do that now. You can take your business ideas from concept to MVP, sell it to investors to get an investment to take it to production, and hopefully make the winnings that you want with your ideas. So I'm I'm I'm super excited about where we are as a society because I think this is a huge opportunity.
Lois: Yeah, I agree with you. I think we're we're witnessing a transformation uh revolution in in so many different ways and the cross industry applications are just you know mind-blowing.
Jeffrey: Yeah.
24:36
Lois: So for somebody who might be intimidated about pursuing an AI or OCI certification you just mentioned how you would encourage them you know to get started anyway. What advice would you offer? How would you recommend that they get started?
Jeffrey: So first of all I would say go to Oracle University.
Lois: Thank you.
Jeffrey: You know I check out their courses. You know the thing that I would say that I like about um the courses there is it's self-paced. It's easily easy to absorb and then it goes deep into whatever topic you want. So, it starts off very high level to give you the background of what you need, but it goes really deep if there's something that you want to go in on. That's that's the first thing. The other piece that I love about it is the courses not only just have talking points, but they have hands-on labs that you can actually put to action the content that you just learned. So one of those hands-on lab with the lab is based on Oracle Live Labs and a little plug for my wife. Oracle Live Labs was created by Kay. I remember when she was here at home building this almost three four five years ago and it's amazing to see the coursework that they have. They have so many different hands-on labs that they can do. So, I would say because of the combination of this great structured content, the ability to then have the hands-on lab through Live Lab that you can then put into action the things that you you you've learned, then it's a quick and tangible way to just receive content and actually test it out. And, you know, to watch Live Labs grow, to see where it is. I'm just I'm I'm excited for her. I'm proud. I know it's one of her her passion. She always says it's it's her her gift to developers is Live Labs because as an engineer myself I can't just hear something and learn it. I have to put it to action. So I think that combination of Oracle University having the content and then having mechanisms like Live Lab to do hands-on is why people should go there and start and then some of the courses you guys have they're free.
Lois: Absolutely.
Jeffrey: I wouldn't do that. So if they're free, like let me go ahead and start it now and then as I go up, you know, even if there's a charge, like there's a benefit. So you guys have offered such a low entry um um hurdle to start that I don't see why you wouldn't just start there.
Lois: And all of our OCI training is free as well as the foundations associate certification. So you're right, there's there's no barrier to entry for sure.
Jeffrey: Mhm.
27:13
Lois: Well, Jeffrey, I want to thank you so much for sharing your journey with me today. Your enthusiasm, your experience, and your expertise has just really been inspiring and um I've just been really happy to hear about how this has not only impacted your career, but also your outlook on the industry and um influence the people around you. So, thank you again. I really appreciate it.
Jeffrey: Anytime. I'm excited that I was able to share my journey and I hope everyone, you know, starts their own. So excited. Thank you.
Lois: Thank you.
27:54
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Security, compliance, and resilience are the cornerstones of trust.
 
In this episode, Lois Houston and Nikita Abraham continue their conversation with David Mills and Tijo Thomas, exploring how Oracle Cloud Infrastructure empowers organizations to protect data, stay compliant, and scale with confidence.
 
Real-world examples from Zoom, KDDI, 8x8, and Uber highlight these capabilities.
 
Cloud Business Jumpstart: https://mylearn.oracle.com/ou/course/cloud-business-jumpstart/152957
Oracle University Learning Community: https://education.oracle.com/ou-community
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/oracle-university/
X: https://x.com/Oracle_Edu
 
Special thanks to Arijit Ghosh, David Wright, Kris-Ann Nansen, Radhika Banka, and the OU Studio Team for helping us create this episode.
 
 
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Episode Transcript:
 
00:00
Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast, the first stop on your cloud journey. During this series of informative podcasts, we'll bring you foundational training on the most popular Oracle technologies. Let's get started!
00:26
Lois: Hello and welcome to the Oracle University Podcast! I'm Lois Houston, Director of Communications and Adoption with Customer Success Services, and with me is Nikita Abraham, Team Lead: Editorial Services with Oracle University.
Nikita: Hi everyone! In our last episode, we started the conversation around the real business value of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and how it helps organizations create impact at scale.
Lois: Today, we're taking a closer look at what keeps the value strong — things like security, compliance, and the technology that helps businesses stay resilient. To walk us through it, we have our experts from Oracle University, David Mills, Senior Principal PaaS Instructor, and Tijo Thomas, Principal OCI Instructor. 
01:12
Nikita: Hi David and Tijo! It's great to have you both here! Tijo, let's start with you. How does Oracle Cloud Infrastructure help organizations stay secure?
Tijo: OCI uses a security first approach to protect customer workloads. This is done with implementing a Zero Trust Model. A Zero Trust security model use frequent user authentication and authorization to protect assets while continuously monitoring for potential breaches. This would assume that no users, no devices, no applications are universally trusted. Continuous verification is always required. Access is granted only based on the context of request, the level of trust, and the sensitivity of that asset.
There are three strategic pillars that Oracle security first approach is built on. The first one is being automated. With automation, the business doesn't have to rely on any manual work to stay secure. Threat detection, patching, and compliance checks, all these happen automatically. And that reduces human errors and also saving time. Security in OCI is always turned on. Encryption is automatic. Identity checks are continuous.
Security is not an afterthought in OCI. It is incorporated into every single layer. Now, while we talk about Oracle's security first approach, remember security is a shared responsibility, and what that means while Oracle handles the data center, the hardware, the infrastructure, software, consumers are responsible for securing their apps, configurations and the data.
03:06
Lois: Tijo, let's discuss this with an example. Imagine an online store called MuShop. They're a fast-growing business selling cat products. Can you walk us through how a business like this can enhance its end-to-end security and compliance with OCI?
Tijo: First of all, focusing on securing web servers. These servers host the web portal where customers would browse, they log in, and place their orders. So these web servers are a prime target for attackers. To protect these entry points, MuShop deployed a service called OCI Web Application Firewall.
On top of that, the MuShop business have also used OCI security list and network security groups that will control their traffic flow. As when the businesses grow, new users such as developers, operations, finance, staff would all need to be onboarded. OCI identity services is used to assign roles, for example, giving developers access to only the dev instances, and finance would access just the billing dashboards.
MuShop also require MFA multi-factor authentication, and that use both password and a time-based authentication code to verify their identities. Talking about some of the critical customer data like emails, addresses, and the payment info, this data is stored in databases and storage. Using OCI Vault, the data is encrypted with customer managed keys. Oracle Data Safe is another service, and that is used to audit who has got access to sensitive tables, and also mask real customer data in non-production environments.
04:59
Nikita: Once those systems are in place, how can MuShop use OCI tools to detect and respond to threats quickly?
Tijo: For that, MuShop used a service called OCI Cloud Guard. Think of it like a security operation center, and which is built right into OCI. It monitors the entire OCI environment continuously, and it can track identity activities, storage settings, network configurations and much more. If it finds something risky, like a publicly exposed object storage bucket, or maybe a user having a broad access to that environment, it raises a security finding. And better yet, it can automatically respond.
So if someone creates a resource outside of their policy, OCI Cloud Guard can disable it. 
05:48
Lois: And what about preventing misconfigurations? How does OCI make that easier while keeping operations secure? 
Tijo: OCI Security Zone is another service and that is used to enforce security postures in OCI. The goody zones help you to avoid any accidental misconfigurations. For example, in a security zone, you can choose users not to create a storage bucket that is publicly accessible. To stay ahead of vulnerabilities, MuShop runs OCI vulnerability scanning. They have scheduled to scan weekly to capture any outdated libraries or misconfigurations.
OCI Security Advisor is another service that is used to flag any unused open ports and with recommending stronger access rules. MuShop needed more than just security. They also had to be compliant. OCI's compliance certifications have helped them to meet data privacy and security regulations across different regions and industries. There are additional services like OCI audit logs for traceability that help them pass internal and external audits.
07:11
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07:52
Nikita: Welcome back! We know that OCI treats security as a continuous design principle: automated, always on, and built right into the platform. David, do you have a real-world example of a company that needed to scale rapidly and was able to do so successfully with OCI?
David: In late 2019, Zoom averaged 10 million meeting participants a day. By April 2020, well that number surged to over 300 million as video conferencing became essential for schools, businesses, and families around the world due to the global pandemic.
To meet that explosive demand, Zoom chose OCI not just for performance, but for the ability to scale fast. In just nine hours, OCI engineers helped Zoom move from deployment to live production, handling hundreds of thousands of concurrent meetings immediately. Within weeks, they were supporting millions.
And Zoom didn't just scale, they sustained it. With OCI's next-gen architecture, Zoom avoided the performance bottlenecks common in legacy clouds. They used OCI functions and cloud native services to scale workloads flexibly and securely.
Today, Zoom transfers more than seven petabytes of data per day through Oracle Cloud. That's enough bandwidth to stream HD video continuously for 93 years. And they do it while maintaining high availability, low latency, and enterprise grade security. As articulated by their CEO Erik Yuan, Zoom didn't just meet the moment, they redefined it with OCI behind the scenes.
09:45
Nikita: That's an incredible story about scale and agility. Do you have more examples of companies that turned to OCI to solve complex data or integration challenges?
David: Telecom giant KDDI with over 64 million subscribers, faced a growing data dilemma. Data was everywhere. Survey results, system logs, behavioral analytics, but it was scattered across thousands of sources.
Different tools for different tasks created silos, delays, and rising costs. KDDI needed a single platform to connect it all, and they chose Oracle. They replaced their legacy data systems with a modern data platform built on OCI and Autonomous Database.
Now they can analyze behavior, improve service planning, and make faster, smarter decisions without the data chaos. But KDDI didn't stop there. They built a 300 terabyte data lake and connected all their systems-- custom on-prem apps, SaaS providers like Salesforce, and even multi-cloud infrastructure.
Thanks to Oracle Integration and pre-built adapters, everything works together in real-time, even across clouds. AWS, Azure, and OCI now operate in harmony. The results? Reduced operational costs, faster development cycles, governance and API access improved across the board.
KDDI can now analyze customer behavior to improve services like where to expand their 5G network. 
Next up, 8 by 8 powers communication for over 55,000 companies and 160 countries with more than 3 million users, depending on its voice, video, and messaging tools every day.
To maintain that scale, they needed a cloud that could deliver low latency global availability and high performance without blowing up costs. Well, they moved their video meeting services from Amazon to OCI and went live in just four days.
The results? 25% increase in performance per node, 80% reduction in network egress costs, and a significantly lower overall infrastructure spend. But this wasn't just a lift and shift. 8 by 8 also replaced legacy tools with Oracle Logging Analytics, giving their teams a single view across apps, infrastructure, and regions.
8 by 8 scaled up fast. They migrated core voice services, deployed over 300 microservices using OCI Kubernetes, and now run over 1,700 nodes across 26 global OCI regions. In addition, OCI's Ampere-based virtual machines gave them a major boost, sustaining 80% CPU utilization and more than 30% increased performance per core and with no degradation.
And with OCI's Observability and Management platform, they gained real-time visibility into application health across both on-prem and cloud. Bottom line, 8x8 represents yet another excellent example of a company leveraging OCI for maximum business results.
13:24
Lois: Uber handles more than a million trips per hour, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is an integral part of making that possible. Can you walk us through how OCI supports Uber's needs?
David: Uber, the world's largest on-demand mobility platform, handles over 1 million trips every hour. And behind the scenes, OCI is helping to make that possible.
In 2023, Uber began migrating thousands of microservices, data platforms, and AI models to OCI. Why? Because OCI provides the automation, flexibility, and infrastructure scale needed to support Uber's explosive growth.
Today, Uber uses OCI Compute to handle massive trips serving traffic and OCI Object Storage to replace one of the largest Hadoop-based data environments in the industry. They needed global reach and multi-cloud compatibility, and OCI delivered.
But it's not just scale, it's intelligence. Uber runs dozens of AI models on OCI to support real-time predictions up 14 million per second. From ride pricing to traffic patterns, this AI layer powers every trip behind the scenes.
And by shifting stateless workloads to OCI Ampere ARM Compute servers, Uber reduced cost while increasing CPU efficiency. For AI inferencing, Uber uses OCI's AI infrastructure to strike the perfect balance between speed, throughput, and cost. So the next time you use your Uber app to schedule a ride, consider what happens behind the scenes with OCI.
15:18
Lois: That's so impressive! Thank you, David, for those wonderful stories, and Tijo for all of your insights. Whether you're in strategy, finance, or transformation, we hope you're walking away with a clearer view of the business value OCI can bring.
Nikita: Yeah, and if you want to learn more about the topics we discussed today, visit mylearn.oracle.com and search for the Cloud Business Jumpstart course. Until next time, this is Nikita Abraham…
Lois: And Lois Houston signing off!
15:48
That's all for this episode of the Oracle University Podcast. If you enjoyed listening, please click Subscribe to get all the latest episodes. We'd also love it if you would take a moment to rate and review us on your podcast app. See you again on the next episode of the Oracle University Podcast.

Understanding cloud costs can be challenging, but it's essential for maximizing value.
In this episode, hosts Lois Houston and Nikita Abraham speak with Oracle Cloud experts David Mills and Tijo Thomas about how Oracle Cloud Infrastructure offers predictable pricing, robust security, and high performance. They also introduce FinOps, a practical approach to tracking and optimizing cloud spending.
Cloud Business Jumpstart: https://mylearn.oracle.com/ou/course/cloud-business-jumpstart/152957 
Oracle University Learning Community: https://education.oracle.com/ou-community 
LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/oracle-university/ 
X: https://x.com/Oracle_Edu 
Special thanks to Arijit Ghosh, David Wright, Kris-Ann Nansen, Radhika Banka, and the OU Studio Team for helping us create this episode. 
 
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Episode Transcript:
00:00
Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast, the first stop on your cloud journey. During this series of informative podcasts, we'll bring you foundational training on the most popular Oracle technologies. Let's get started!
00:27
Nikita: Welcome back to another episode of the Oracle University Podcast! I'm Nikita Abraham, Team Lead of Editorial Services with Oracle University, and I'm joined by Lois Houston, Director of Communications and Adoption with Customer Success Services. 
Lois: Hi everyone! Last week, we talked about how Oracle Cloud Infrastructure brings together developer tools, automation, and AI on a single platform. In today's episode, we're highlighting the real-world impact OCI can have on business outcomes.
00:58
Nikita: And to tell us about this, we have our experts David Mills and Tijo Thomas back with us. David is a Senior Principal PaaS Instructor and Tijo is a Principal OCI Instructor, and they're both from Oracle University. David, let's start with you. What makes Oracle Cloud Infrastructure the trusted choice for organizations across industries like banking, healthcare, retail, and government?
David: It all comes down to one thing. OCI was built for real businesses, not side projects, not hobby apps, not test servers, but mission-critical systems at scale. 
Most clouds brag about their speed, but OCI is consistently fast, even under pressure. And that's because Oracle built OCI on a non-blocking network and bare metal infrastructure, with dedicated resources and no noisy neighbors.
So, whether you're running one application or 1,000, you get predictable, low latency, performance every time as OCI doesn't force you into any specific mold. You want full control? Spin up a virtual machine and configure everything. You need to move fast? Use a managed service like Autonomous Database or Kubernetes. Prefer to build your own containers, functions, APIs, or develop with low code or even no code tools? OCI supports all of it. And it plays nicely with your existing stack—on-prem or in another cloud. OCI adapts to how you already work instead of making you start over. 
02:39
Lois: And when it comes to pricing, how does OCI help customers manage costs more effectively? 
David: OCI is priced for real business use, not just the flashy low entry number. You only pay for what you use. No overprovisioning, no lock in.
Virtual machines can scale up and down automatically. Object storage automatically shifts to a lower cost tier based on frequency of access. Autonomous services don't need babysitting or patching. And unlike some providers, OCI doesn't charge you to get your own data back. It's enterprise grade cloud without enterprise grade sticker shock.
03:26
Lois: Security and flexibility are top priorities for many organizations. How does OCI address those challenges?
David: OCI treats security as a starting point, not an upsell. From the moment you create an account, every tenant is isolated. All data is encrypted. Admin activity is logged and security tools like Cloud Guard are ready to go. And if you need to prove compliance for GDRP, FedRAMP, HIPAA, or more, you're covered. OCI is trusted by the world's most regulated industries.
Most companies don't live in one cloud. They've got legacy systems, other cloud providers, and different teams doing different things. OCI is designed to work in hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
Connect to your on-prem apps with VPN or FastConnect. Run Oracle workloads in your data center with Cloud@Customer. Interconnect with Azure and Google Cloud or integrate with Amazon. OCI isn't trying to lock you in. It's seeking to meet you where you are and help you modernize without breaking what works.
04:40
Nikita: Can you share an example of a business that's seen measurable results with OCI?
David: A national health care provider was stuck on aging hardware with slow batch processing and manual upgrades. They migrated core patient systems to OCI and used Oracle Autonomous Database for faster, self-managed workloads.
They leveraged Oracle Integration to connect legacy electronic health records, OCI FastConnect to keep real-time sync with data in their on-prem systems, and they went from 12-hour downtime Windows to zero, from three weeks to launch a feature to three days, and they cut infrastructure cost by 38%. And that's what choosing OCI looks like.
05:37
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06:12
Nikita: Welcome back! Tijo, controlling costs while driving innovation is a tough balancing act for many organizations. What are the biggest challenges organizations face when trying to manage and optimize their cloud spending?
Tijo: The first one is unexpected cloud cost. Let's be honest. Cloud bills can be shocking.
You think you've got things under control, that the invoice shows up and you realize it is way over the budget. Without real-time visibility, it is quite hard to catch these surprises before they happen. The next one is with waste of resources and inefficiencies. It is quite common to find resources that are just sitting idle, such as unused storage, underutilized CPU, or overprovisioned memory.
It may not seem like there are much of resource wastage at first, but over time all that is really going to add up. Then there is no clear ownership of cloud spend. It is one of the big problem in cost management. If cost are not clearly tagged to a team or a project, nobody feels responsible, and that makes it really tough to manage or reduce the cloud spend.
There is also misaligned priorities across teams, and looking at different teams like finance, they may want to cut the cost while engineering want to move faster, operations want everything to be up and running. While every team is doing their best, but without a common approach to cost, it becomes challenging to prioritize tasks.
Slow and reactive decision making is another challenge. Most cost issues gets identified after the bill is invoiced, and by then the budget has been already spent. Without timely data, it becomes difficult to make real time changes. And then complex, multi-cloud and regional footprint. As businesses grow across regions and with multi-cloud deployment model, tracking where the budget is going gets really tricky. More services means there are more teams and more complexity. Now, all of these challenges have one thing in common. They need a better way to manage cloud cost together. And this is where FinOps comes in.
08:42
Lois: And what exactly is FinOps? How does it address these cloud cost challenges?
Tijo: FinOps stands for financial operations. It is a framework that brings teams like engineering, operations, finance, and beyond to work together so that the cloud spending becomes smarter, more visible, and better aligned towards business goals. And so FinOps is not just a tool, it is a way of working. According to FinOps Foundation, FinOps lifecycle happens in three phases: inform, optimize, and operate. 
The inform phase is about visibility and allocation, which means you gather the cost, usage, and efficiency data in order to forecast and budget. The optimize phase is about rates and usage, and this is where you would take action to optimize or bring efficiencies. And then in operate, you turn those into continuous improvements through policies, trainings, and automation.
09:51
Nikita: Let's unpack FinOps a bit more. Why is understanding your cloud subscription model so fundamental in the Inform phase?
Tijo: Because cost visibility is very important while managing your Oracle Cloud subscription. There are two ways to purchase OCI services. The first one, we refer to it as pay as you go model, which means you pay for what you use, and the second one is called universal credit annual commitment model, where you can purchase a prepaid amount of universal credits, and the prepaid amount will be drawn down based on actual usage.
OCI provides a portal called FinOps Hub, where you can easily track how your usage has changed month by month over the past year. Through the Hub, you can monitor whether you have stayed within your credit allocation or not. You will also see how much of your committed credits have been used, how much is left, and when is your commitment set to expire. The next step is to gain visibility or to understand the cost. In Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, this starts with the service called cost analysis.
OCI Cost Analysis is a service that would help you to filter, group, and visualize your cloud cost in a way that makes sense for your business. You can compare cost over time. You can drill down the cost by services, and track those spending by specific teams or projects. And then finally export detailed reports for finance or leadership reviews. OCI Cost Analysis gives you an interactive, near real-time view of your cloud spending. So you're not just seeing the numbers, you are understanding what is driving them.
The next one is about setting up spending limits and this is done through OCI Budgets. For example, the organization can set up a monthly budget for the development team. If their usage, the cloud usage exceeds 80% of that limit, an alert will be triggered to notify the team. This means you can configure a threshold, send alerts, or even take actions automatically. 
12:16
Lois: Tijo, what happens during the Optimize and Operate phases of the FinOps framework?
Tijo: The inform stage was more about awareness. In the optimize phase, you take that data you've collected, and use it to optimize resources and improve efficiency.
In OCI, we'll start with Cloud Advisor. OCI Cloud Advisor finds potential inefficiencies in your tenancy, and offers you guided solutions that explain how to address them. The recommendations help you to maximize cost savings. For example, it gives you personalized recommendations like deleting idle resources or resizing compute instances. Secondly, you can identify steps for performance improvements. And finally, enhance high availability and security with suggesting configurations for your cloud resources.
In the third phase, operate, it is about making optimization as a routine or continuous improvements, and this is done through incorporating FinOps into your organization. OCI provides cost and usage reports that can automatically generate daily reports. These reports would show detailed usage data for every OCI service that you're using. You can export cost reports in FOCUS format. FOCUS is an industry standard and it stands for FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification.
13:52
Nikita: And what makes the FOCUS format important for organizations?
Tijo: The format enables the cost data to be consistent. It is well structured, and ready to use with other FinOps tools or dashboards. These reports can also ingest into Business Intelligence or analytics tools that will help you with better visualizations. Organizing your resources the right way is the key to get more accurate and simplified data. Without a clear structure, your cost data will be too complex.
In OCI, this structure starts with your tenancy. Tenancy is your top level OCI account, and it represents the presence of cloud for your entire organization. Next, you have compartments. Compartments help you to break down your cloud environment into logical groups, for example, by department or business unit or projects. Then there are tags, and this is where cost visibility gets more meaningful. Tags allow you to assign custom labels to each resources. Things like environment type, cost center, or the owner name.
 
15:06
Lois: Some people think cost visibility is a concern mainly for finance teams. What's your perspective on this?
Tijo: Cost visibility should be a shared responsibility, which means it shouldn't just be shared with the finance. Engineers, architects, and project owners all need to have access to the cost data that are relevant to them. Because when teams have visibility, they take ownership and that leads to better decisions which are faster, smarter, and more aligned to business goals.
15:42
Nikita: Thank you, David and Tijo, for joining us and sharing your insights.
Lois: If you'd like to learn more, visit mylearn.oracle.com and look for the Cloud Business Jumpstart course. Next week, we'll explore security and compliance in OCI. Until next time, this is Lois Houston…
Nikita: And Nikita Abraham signing off!
16:03
That's all for this episode of the Oracle University Podcast. If you enjoyed listening, please click Subscribe to get all the latest episodes. We'd also love it if you would take a moment to rate and review us on your podcast app. See you again on the next episode of the Oracle University Podcast.

Every system depends on reliable infrastructure behind the scenes. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) delivers that reliability with speed, flexibility, and built-in security.
 
Join Lois Houston and Nikita Abraham as they speak with Oracle Cloud experts David Mills and Tijo Thomas about what makes OCI different and how it drives real results for businesses of every size.
 
Cloud Business Jumpstart https://mylearn.oracle.com/ou/course/cloud-business-jumpstart/152957
Oracle University Learning Community: https://education.oracle.com/ou-community
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/oracle-university/
X: https://x.com/Oracle_Edu
 
Special thanks to Arijit Ghosh, David Wright, Kris-Ann Nansen, Radhika Banka, and the OU Studio Team for helping us create this episode.
 
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Episode Transcript:
 
00:00
Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast, the first stop on your cloud journey. During this series of informative podcasts, we'll bring you foundational training on the most popular Oracle technologies. Let's get started!
00:26
Lois: Hello and welcome to the Oracle University Podcast! I'm Lois Houston, Director of Communications and Adoption with Customer Success Services, and with me is Nikita Abraham, Team Lead: Editorial Services with Oracle University.
Nikita: Hi everyone, and welcome to a brand-new season of the podcast! We're really excited about this one because we'll be diving into how Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is transforming the way businesses innovate, stay secure, and drive results. 
00:55
Lois: And to help us with this, we've got two experts who know this space inside out—David Mills, Senior Principal PaaS Instructor, and Tijo Thomas, Principal OCI Instructor, both from Oracle University. Hi David! For those who might not be familiar, could you explain what Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is?
David: OCI, as we call it, is Oracle's enterprise grade cloud platform, built from the ground up to run the systems that matter most to business.
It provides the infrastructure and platform services businesses need to build, run, and scale applications securely, globally, and cost effectively. To provide more context, all of Oracle's SaaS applications such as NetSuite, Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Supply Chain Management, as well as Enterprise Resource and Enterprise Performance Management, they all run on OCI. But OCI isn't just for Oracle's own apps. It's a full featured cloud platform used by thousands of customers to run their own applications, data, and services.
OCI includes platform services such as databases, integration, analytics, and many others, and of course, the infrastructure services, such as compute, networking, and storage, which comprise the core of OCI. Bottom line, if something is running on Oracle Cloud, OCI is behind it.
OCI includes over 100 services across numerous categories like compute, storage, networking, database, containers, AI, developer tools, integration, security, observability, and much more. So, whether you're lifting and shifting legacy workloads or building new apps in the cloud, OCI has the building blocks.
03:02
Lois: David, who was OCI designed for?
David: OCI was built from scratch to address the limitations of first-generation clouds. No patchwork of legacy acquisitions, just a clean, modern, high-performance foundation designed for real enterprise workloads.
OCI was designed for businesses that can't compromise financial services, health care, retail, governments, customers with strict regulations, global scale, and mission-critical systems. These are the companies choosing OCI not just because it works, but because it works under pressure.
03:42
Nikita: What else makes OCI different from other cloud platforms?
David: Oracle's network and storage architecture delivers low latency results consistently. Then there's pricing—simple, predictable, and often much lower than our competitors.
OCI was designed with governance and security in every layer. OCI supports all types of cloud strategies: public cloud, hybrid deployments, multi-cloud environments, and even a dedicated cloud we can install inside your own data center. We call all that distributed cloud, and that's where OCI really shines.
OCI gives you everything you need to modernize your technology stack, run securely at scale, and build for the future without giving up control or blowing your budget.
04:37
Lois: Now, Tijo, we've covered what OCI is, who it's for, and what makes it unique. Let's switch gears a bit and talk about cloud regions. For anyone who doesn't know, a cloud region is just a specific geographic location where Oracle, or any cloud provider, runs its own data centers. Why does the choice of region matter for businesses, and what should they think about when picking one?
Tijo: Many businesses are required by law to keep their data within national borders, whether it is GDPR in Europe or local privacy laws in Australia or Singapore, choosing the right region would help you to stay compliant. 
The closer your applications are to your users, the faster they perform. Running in a nearby region means lower latency, faster response times, and better customer experience. Then there is disaster recovery and high availability. Regions are the building blocks for setting up failover strategies.
By deploying workloads in multiple regions, businesses can protect themselves from outages and keeping their systems in running state. Some businesses also need to meet industry-specific compliance requirements. Think of sectors like health care, government, or finance.
They often require that the infrastructure and the data should stay within the national or regional boundaries. If your business is growing into new markets, regions allow you to deploy apps and services closer to your customers and without having the need to build new data centers.
Regions also enable local integrations and partnerships, whether it is connecting with ISPs, local service providers, or complying with in-country partner requirements. Having a region nearby makes that integrations and operations smoother. Regions are not just about geography. They are a critical part of how the businesses would stay compliant, resilient, and responsive across the globe. Oracle runs a fast-growing global network of cloud regions, and each OCI region is fully independent and fully isolated. You choose your regions, and your data stays there.
07:06
Nikita: And are there different types of cloud regions?
Tijo: There are several commercial regions, sovereign regions, government regions, and multi-cloud regions. Even with a wide range of cloud regions, some organizations cannot move their workloads and its data to the public cloud. Those workloads may need to stay in their own on-premises data center, but at the same time, they still want to leverage the benefits of OCI.
07:42
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08:09
Nikita: Welcome back! We were talking about workloads and how some companies may have to keep their workloads on-premises. Why would they need to do that, Tijo?
Tijo: First, data sovereignty. Let's say there may not be a list of public cloud region that the organization is looking for, or maybe the business need to set up a disaster recovery strategy within that specific location.
Then there is security and control. Some industries have very strict regulations, and they require physical access and oversight of their infrastructure. And finally, there are latency-sensitive workloads. These are applications that cannot afford the delay of going back and forth to a remote cloud region. They need cloud services right next to their physical data center. 
08:59
Nikita: So, how does Oracle help with that?
Tijo: To address these requirements, Oracle introduces a set of offerings. The first one is called dedicated region, and the second one is called Cloud@Customer services. Through both these offerings, you get OCI services right in your data center and all behind your firewall, while achieving the benefits of flexibility and automation. 
09:24
Nikita: So, what's a dedicated region?
Tijo: Dedicated region is a completely managed cloud region that brings all the OCI services and Oracle Fusion SaaS applications within your data centers. Along with deploying the full stack OCI, you would receive support for Oracle Fusion SaaS applications and also gain a consistent experience with the same SLAs, APIs, and the tools available in Oracle Cloud.
09:53
Lois: Ok and what about Cloud@Customer?
Tijo: While dedicated region is ideal for large scale enterprise needs, with full stack OCI and SaaS, some organizations just require a lighter footprint. And that's where Cloud@Customer comes in. And to begin with, we'll talk about Compute Cloud@Customer.
It is a fully managed rack scale infrastructure that allows you to use the core OCI services, like the OCI compute, OCI storage, and OCI networking services at your on-premises. With Compute Cloud@Customer, you can run applications and middleware systems to provide consistent user experience and simplify IT administration across your distributed cloud architecture.
We can plan to run the same application stack everywhere and centrally manage them without needing experts in every location. 
10:52
Nikita: Is there a way to make running your Oracle databases easier and more cost-effective?
Tijo: That's why Oracle offers you Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer.
Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer combines the performance of Oracle Exadata with the simplicity, flexibility, and affordability of a managed database service delivered through customer data centers. It is the simplest way to move your current Oracle databases to the cloud, because it provides full compatibility with existing Exadata systems and Exadata Database services in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
You could also run the fully-managed Oracle Autonomous Database on Exadata Cloud@Customer that would combine all the benefits of having Exadata, along with the simplicity of an autonomous cloud service. And when Compute Cloud@Customer is combined with Exadata Cloud@Customer, you can run full stack applications completely in your own data center.
Applications will use the same high performance OCI compute and database services you get in the cloud, so you don't have to change the way you architect or deploy them. 
12:09
Nikita: So, what you're saying is that Oracle dedicated region and Cloud@Customer bring OCI services into your data center.
Tijo: It enables you to run applications faster using the same high-performance capabilities and autonomous operations. You get all of this while maintaining complete control of your data so that you can address data residency, security, and connectivity concerns. 
12:35
Lois: Ok. We've talked about where OCI runs. Now David, let's get into what it actually does.
David: OCI compute lets you run business applications on demand without buying or managing physical servers. You choose the type and size of the virtual machine you want, and OCI handles the rest. Need more power for peak traffic? OCI can automatically add capacity and scale it back down after. In addition to virtual machines, bare metal servers are also available for ultra high performance jobs like simulations, AI, or high speed trading.
Every business stores data, but not all data needs the same kind of storage. OCI gives you options, fast block storage for your compute servers. It works just like a hard drive for your home computer. Shared file storage for applications and microservices. Large scale object storage for backups, videos, or other data, and low-cost long-term storage for object archives.
The system even moves rarely used data to cheaper storage automatically. 
13:51
Lois: Given Oracle's expertise in databases, what are some of the database options businesses can access with OCI?
David: Oracle Autonomous Database automatically patches, tunes, and scales itself. Need raw power? Use Oracle Exadata, or go open source with MySQL HeatWave, which can be used for real time analytics.
With these and many other database options, you get high performance automation and reliability all on demand. 
14:24
Nikita: With so many database options, how is everything kept connected and running smoothly on OCI?
David: Every cloud service relies on a fast, secure network. OCI's Virtual Cloud network acts like your own private data highway. You control how traffic flows between your apps, your people, and your regions. Need private direct connections to your data center or office? Use OCI FastConnect to bypass the public internet.
OCI networking provides high speed performance with enterprise grade security designed for global business.
15:05
Lois: And what security service does Oracle provide?
David: OCI doesn't treat this as an optional add on. When you sign up for OCI, your environment is isolated, your data is encrypted, and admin actions are logged.
And there are so many security services. Identity and Access Management for handling users and permissions, Cloud Guard to detect threats and misconfigurations, OCI Vault for managing your encryption keys, Data Safe to monitor sensitive data access, as well as many others. You can leverage to meet any government or business compliance requirement. All of these are included in OCI, no need to stitch together third-party tools.
15:55
Lois: What if I want to see what's going on in my environment?
David: OCI has monitoring services for metrics, logging services for real-time insights, tracing for distributed applications, and alarms to notify you when things go sideways. All of these services are integrated. So you can see what matters when you need it without all the noise.
16:23
Nikita: David, let's say someone wants to build and deploy an app. What services does OCI offer them? 
David: OCI provides numerous developer services for your teams to build apps or digital tools. OCI DevOps supports automated builds and deployments. OCI Container Engine for Kubernetes helps run microservices. OCI Functions supports serverless code that runs on demand. All of this works with familiar languages and frameworks. In short, OCI gives developers what they need to build, test, and deliver quickly without having to manage infrastructure.
17:03
Nikita: How does OCI make it easier for companies to bring their apps together and use AI, even if they don't have a dedicated AI team?
David: Modern businesses run dozens of apps, and OCI helps you to connect them with Oracle Integration Cloud. With OIC, you can integrate SaaS applications as well as on-premise apps and systems, automate business processes and workflows, route and transform messages, and you can even expose key services as APIs so partners and systems can interact securely.
OCI integration is the glue that holds modern IT together. OCI helps you turn data into decisions without needing an AI team. Use ready-made AI tools for language translation, image recognition, document understanding, speech transcription, and more. Or build your own models with data science and data flow services. It's all designed to bring machine learning into reach for every business.
18:10
Lois: Thank you, David and Tijo, for joining us on this episode of the Oracle University Podcast. If you want to learn more about OCI, visit mylearn.oracle.com and search for the Cloud Business Jumpstart course. 
Nikita: Next week, we'll look at why businesses choose OCI and how they're using OCI services to create real outcomes. Until then, this is Nikita Abraham…
Lois: And Lois Houston signing off!
18:38
That's all for this episode of the Oracle University Podcast. If you enjoyed listening, please click Subscribe to get all the latest episodes. We'd also love it if you would take a moment to rate and review us on your podcast app. See you again on the next episode of the Oracle University Podcast.

Lois Houston and Nikita Abraham explore how Oracle APEX integrates with AI to build smarter low-code applications. They are joined by Chaitanya Koratamaddi, Director of Product Management at Oracle, who explains the basics of Oracle APEX, its global adoption, and the challenges it addresses for businesses managing and integrating data.
 
They also explore real-world use cases of AI within the Oracle APEX ecosystem
 
Oracle APEX: Empowering Low Code Apps with AI: https://mylearn.oracle.com/ou/course/oracle-apex-empowering-low-code-apps-with-ai/146047/
Oracle University Learning Community: https://education.oracle.com/ou-community
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/oracle-university/
X: https://x.com/Oracle_Edu
 
Special thanks to Arijit Ghosh, David Wright, Kris-Ann Nansen, Radhika Banka, and the OU Studio Team for helping us create this episode.
 
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Episode Transcript:

00:00
Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast, the first stop on your cloud journey. During this series of informative podcasts, we'll bring you foundational training on the most popular Oracle technologies. Let's get started!
00:25
Lois: Hello and welcome to the Oracle University Podcast! I'm Lois Houston, Director of Communications and Adoption with Customer Success Services, and with me is Nikita Abraham, Team Lead: Editorial Services with Oracle University.  
Nikita: Hi everyone! We hope you've been enjoying these last few weeks as we've been revisiting our most popular episodes of the year. Today's episode is the last one in this series and is a throwback to a conversation on APEX with Chaitanya Koratamaddi, Director of Product Management for Oracle APEX. 
00:57
Lois: We began by asking Chaitanya what Oracle APEX is and why it's so widely used. So, let's jump right in!  
Chaitanya: Oracle APEX is the world's most popular enterprise low code application platform. APEX enables you to build secure and scalable enterprise-scale applications with world class features that can be deployed anywhere, cloud or on-premises. And with APEX, you can build applications 20 times faster with 100 times less code. APEX delivers the most productive way to develop and deploy mobile and web applications everywhere.
01:40
Lois: That's impressive. So, what's the adoption rate like for Oracle APEX?
Chaitanya: As of today, there are 19 million plus APEX applications created globally. 5,000 plus APEX applications are created on a daily basis and there are 800,000 plus APEX developers worldwide. 60,000 plus customers in 150 countries across various industry verticals. And 75% of Fortune 500 companies use Oracle APEX.
02:19
Nikita: Wow, the numbers really speak for themselves, right? But Chaitanya, why are organizations adopting Oracle APEX at this scale? Or to put it differently, what's the core business challenge that Oracle APEX is addressing?
Chaitanya: From databases to all data, you know that the world is more connected and automated than ever. To drive new business value, organizations need to explore and exploit new sources of data that are generated from this connected world. That can be sounds, feeds, sensors, videos, images, and more.
Businesses need to be able to work with all types of data and also make sure that it is available to be used together. Typically, businesses need to work on all data at a massive scale. For example, supply chains are no longer dependent just on inventory, demand, and order management signals. A manufacturer should be able to understand data describing global weather patterns and how it impacts their supply chains.
Businesses need to pull in data from as many social sources as possible to understand how customer sentiment impacts product sales and corporate brands. Our customers need a data platform that ensures all this data works together seamlessly and easily.
04:00
Lois: So, you're saying Oracle APEX is the platform that helps businesses manage and integrate data seamlessly. But data is just one part of the equation, right? Then there's AI. How are the two related? 
Chaitanya: Before we start talking about Oracle AI, let's first talk about what customers are looking for and where they are struggling within their AI innovation. It all starts with data. For decades, working with data has largely involved dealing with structured data, whether it is your customer records in your CRM application and orders from your ERP database. Data was organized into database and tables, and when you needed to find some insights in your data, all you need to do is just use stored procedures and SQL queries to deliver the answers. But today, the expectations are higher. You want to use AI to construct sophisticated predictions, find anomalies, make decisions, and even take actions autonomously.
And the data is far more complicated. It is in an endless variety of formats scattered all over your business. You need tools to find this data, consume it, and easily make sense of it all. And now capabilities like natural language processing, computer vision, and anomaly detection are becoming very essential just like how SQL queries used to be.
You need to use AI to analyze phone call transcripts, support tickets, or email complaints so you can understand what customers need and how they feel about your products, customer service, and brand. You may want to use a data source as noisy and unstructured as social media data to detect trends and identify issues in real time. 
Today, AI capabilities are very essential to accelerate innovation, assess what's happening in your business, and most importantly, exceed the expectations of your customers. So, connecting your application, data, and infrastructure allows everyone in your business to benefit from data.
06:54
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07:35
Nikita: Welcome back! So, let's focus on AI across the Oracle Cloud ecosystem. How does Oracle bring AI into the mix to connect applications, data, and infrastructure for businesses?
Chaitanya: By embedding AI throughout the entire technology stack from the infrastructure that businesses run on through the applications for every line of business, from finance to supply chain and HR, Oracle is helping organizations pragmatically use AI to improve performance while saving time, energy, and resources. 
Our core cloud infrastructure includes a unique AI infrastructure layer based on our supercluster technology, leveraging the latest and greatest hardware and uniquely able to get the maximum out of the AI infrastructure technology for scenarios such as large language processing.
Then there is generative AI and ML for data platforms. On top of the AI infrastructure, our database layer embeds AI in our products such as autonomous database. With autonomous database, you can leverage large language models to use natural language queries rather than writing a SQL when interacting with the autonomous database.
This enables you to achieve faster AI adoption in your application development. Businesses and their customers can use the Select AI natural language interface combined with Oracle Database AI Vector Search to obtain quicker, more intuitive insights into their own data.
Then we have AI services. AI services are a collection of offerings, including generative AI with pre-built machine learning models that make it easier for developers to apply AI to applications and business operations. The models can be custom-trained for more accurate business results.
09:47
Nikita: And what specific AI services do we have at Oracle, Chaitanya? 
Chaitanya: We have Oracle Digital Assistant Speech, Language, Vision, and Document Understanding. Then we have Oracle AI for Applications. Oracle delivers AI built for business, helping you make better decisions faster and empowering your workforce to work more effectively. By embedding classic and generative AI into its applications, Fusion Apps customers can instantly access AI outcomes wherever they are needed without leaving the software environment they use every day to power their business.
10:32
Lois: Let's talk specifically about APEX. How does APEX use the Gen AI and machine learning models in the stack to empower developers. How does it help them boost productivity?
Chaitanya: Starting APEX 24.1, you can choose your preferred large language models and leverage native generative AI capabilities of APEX for AI assistants, prompt-based application creation, and more. Using native OCI capabilities, you can leverage native platform capabilities from OCI, like AI infrastructure and object storage, etc. Oracle APEX running on autonomous infrastructure in Oracle Cloud leverages its unique native generative AI capabilities tuned specifically on your data.
These language models are schema aware, data aware, and take into account the shape of information, enabling your applications to take advantage of large language models pre-trained on your unique data. You can give your users greater insights by leveraging native capabilities, including vector-based similarity search, content summary, and predictions. You can also incorporate powerful AI features to deliver personalized experiences and recommendations, process natural language prompts, and more by integrating directly with a suite of OCI AI services.
12:08
Nikita: Can you give us some examples of this?
Chaitanya: You can leverage OCI Vision to interpret visual and text inputs, including image recognition and classification. Or you can use OCI Speech to transcribe and understand spoken language, making both image and audio content accessible and actionable. You can work with disparate data sources like JSON, spatial, graphs, vectors, and build AI capabilities around your own business data. So, low-code application development with APEX along with AI is a very powerful combination.
12:51
Nikita: What are some use cases of AI-powered Oracle APEX applications? 
Chaitanya: You can build APEX applications to include conversational chatbots. Your APEX applications can include image and object detection capability.
Your APEX applications can include speech transcription capability. And in your applications, you can include code generation that is natural language to SQL conversion capability. Your applications can be powered by semantic search capability. Your APEX applications can include text generation capability.
13:30
Lois: So, there's really a lot we can do! Thank you, Chaitanya, for joining us today. With that, we're wrapping up this episode. We covered Oracle APEX, the key challenges businesses face when it comes to AI innovation, and how APEX and AI work together to give businesses an AI edge. 
Nikita: Yeah, and if you want to know more about Oracle APEX, visit mylearn.oracle.com and search for the Oracle APEX: Empowering Low Code Apps with AI course. 
Lois: We hope you've enjoyed revisiting some of our most popular episodes of the year. We always appreciate your feedback and suggestions so do write to us at [email protected]. That's [email protected]. We're taking a break next week and will be back with a brand-new season of the Oracle University Podcast in January. Happy holidays, everybody!  
Nikita: Happy holidays! Until next time, this is Nikita Abraham...  
Lois: And Lois Houston, signing off!  
14:34
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