Everything You Need to Know About the Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud Interconnect

Quest Cloud Computing SIG
February 17, 2022
1:00pm EST
Everything You Need to Know About the
Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud Interconnect

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© Revelation Technologies Group, Inc. 2022 | All rights reserved.
@Revelation_Tech
INTRODUCTION

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About Me
Ahmed Aboulnaga
• Master’s degree in Computer Science from George Mason University
• Recent emphasis on cloud, DevOps, middleware, security in current projects
• Oracle ACE Pro, OCE, OCA
• Author, Blogger, Presenter
• @Ahmed_Aboulnaga

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OVERVIEW OF THE AZURE-OCI INTERCONNECT

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June 5, 2019
Announce Partnership
+

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The and Interconnect
What It Is
▪ A cloud interoperability partnership
▪ Enables customers to migrate and run mission-critical enterprise workloads across Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud
▪ Receive a highly optimized, best-of-both-clouds experience
Marketing Speak
▪ “Makes lift-and-improve migrations seamless”
▪ “Delivers direct, fast and highly reliable network connectivity between two clouds”
▪ “Provide first-class customer service and support that enterprises have come to expect from the two companies”
New and Innovative Scenarios
▪ Seamlessly connect Azure services, like Analytics and AI, to Oracle Cloud services, like Autonomous Database
▪ Run Oracle E-Business Suite or Oracle JD Edwards on Azure against an Oracle Autonomous Database running on Exadata
infrastructure in the Oracle Cloud

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Current Offerings
▪ There are currently 9 Azure Interconnect regions
▪ Unified identity and access management, via a unified single
sign-on experience and automated user provisioning, to
manage resources across Azure and Oracle Cloud
▪ Oracle applications (JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, E-Business
Suite, PeopleSoft, Oracle Retail, Hyperion) certified to run
on Azure with Oracle databases (RAC, Exadata,
Autonomous Database) deployed in Oracle Cloud
▪ Oracle applications can use Azure Active Directory as the
identity provider and for conditional access
▪ A collaborative support model
▪ Oracle Database will continue to be certified to run in Azure
on various OS’, including Windows Server and Oracle Linux
The and Interconnect

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The Cross-Cloud Interconnect
• Oracle and Microsoft have already done all the tedious,
time-consuming work for you by providing low-latency,
high-throughput connectivity between their two clouds
Traffic Flow Between Clouds
▪ High-throughput, low-latency, private
network connection
▪ Access the connection by using either
Oracle FastConnect or Microsoft
ExpressRoute
▪ No intermediate service provider required
to enable the connection
▪ Secure private connection between the
two clouds
▪ No exposure to the internet
▪ High availability and reliability
▪ Built-in redundant 10-Gbps physical
connections between the clouds
▪ Straightforward, one-time setup

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Security
• Only workloads are allowed between both clouds through
the interconnection
• No access from one cloud through the other
Security Isolation
▪ Traffic from networks other than Oracle
Cloud and Azure can’t reach one cloud
through the other cloud
▪ Example:
▫ Customers can’t reach Oracle Cloud
Infrastructure through Azure
▫ No traffic between your on-
premises network through the
Azure virtual network (VNet) to the
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure virtual
cloud network (VCN), or vice versa
▫ If you need to reach Oracle Cloud
Infrastructure, you need to deploy
FastConnect directly from your on-
premises network

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The Accenture Whitepaper
• Titled The Oracle and Microsoft Cloud Partnership: Testing the
Connection (2019)
• Leveraging the interconnect eliminates the “limitations of the
public internet”
• No need to “contract directly with a Telco provider to set up a
dedicated connection” which can take “as long as 12 weeks” and
be “very costly and complex” (and can cost “as much as $100,000
per year in recurring charges”)
• Customers must consider ease, performance, and value
• Engineers ran a continual test for more than 2 weeks, collecting
more than 32,000 data points
Results
Consistent latency of 1.5ms round trip time (RTT) between the 2 clouds

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The Accenture Whitepaper
• Titled The Oracle and Microsoft Cloud Partnership: Testing the
Connection (2019)
• Leveraging the interconnect eliminates the “limitations of the
public internet”
• No need to “contract directly with a Telco provider to set up a
dedicated connection” which can take “as long as 12 weeks” and
be “very costly and complex” (and can cost “as much as $100,000
per year in recurring charges”)
• Customers must consider ease, performance, and value
• Engineers ran a continual test for more than 2 weeks, collecting
more than 32,000 data points
Results
Consistent latency of 1.5ms round trip time (RTT) between the 2 clouds
Our opinions differ regarding cost
▪ Cost vary drastically based on circuit speed and location,
and can be as low as $660 (50 Mbps) annually to as high as
$663,000 (10 Gbps) annually
Our experiences on performance are somewhat
comparable, but more realistic
▪ Peak vs. off-peak performance vary considerably, so
averaging out is not representative of real world
performance

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Cost Estimator

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Understanding and Comparing Pricing
• Costs incurred on both Azure and OCI sides
• Cost varies per zone, type, and plan on Azure
• OCI cost on a high usage day (1 Gbps) = $5.525
• Table below compares 1 circuit at the 1 Gbps speed
Circuit Speed Zone Type Data Plan Monthly Cost Circuit Speed Monthly Cost
Microsoft Azure Oracle Cloud
1 Gbps Zone 1 Standard Metered $436 1 Gbps $158
1 Gbps Zone 1 Standard Unlimited $5,700 1 Gbps $158
1 Gbps US Gov Zone 1 Standard Metered $545 1 Gbps $158
1 Gbps US Gov Zone 1 Standard Unlimited $7,125 1 Gbps $158
1 Gbps Zone 1 Premium Metered $436 1 Gbps $158
1 Gbps Zone 1 Premium Unlimited $6,450 1 Gbps $158
1 Gbps US Gov Zone 1 Premium Metered $1,480 1 Gbps $158
1 Gbps US Gov Zone 1 Premium Unlimited $8,060 1 Gbps $158

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STANDING UP THE ENVIRONMENT

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Virtual Machines Specifications
OCI Azure
Region US-ASHBURN-AD-1 East US
Type VM.Standard3.Flex Standard_A2m_v2
vCPU 2 2
Memory 16 GB 16 GB
Kernel 5.4.17-2136.302.7.2.1.el7uek.x86_64 5.4.17-2136.302.7.2.1.el8uek.x86_64
Operating System OEL 7.9 RHEL 8.5
Model Intel Xeon Platinum 8358 CPU Intel Xeon CPU E5-2673 v3
MHz 2.60 GHz 2.40 GHz
Cost
$0.098 / hour
$70 / month
$0.1190 / hour
$85 / month
($128 / month with RHEL)

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Benchmark Comparison of CPU Models
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-Xeon-Platinum-8358-vs-Intel-Xeon-E5-2673-v3/4493vs2606

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Installing the Azure CLI on OCI
• The Azure Command-Line Interface (CLI) is a cross-platform command-line tool to connect
to Azure and execute administrative commands on Azure resources
• Current version of the Azure CLI is 2.32.0
root@ocifree:/root> name=Azure CLI
root@ocifree:/root> baseurl=https://packages.microsoft.com/yumrepos/azure-cli
root@ocifree:/root> enabled=1
root@ocifree:/root> gpgcheck=1
root@ocifree:/root> gpgkey=https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc >
/etc/yum.repos.d/azure-cli.repo
root@ocifree:/root> sudo yum install azure-cli

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Logging in to the Azure CLI from OCI
root@ocifree:/root> az vm list -d -o table
Please run 'az login' to setup account.
root@ocifree:/root> az login
To sign in, use a web browser to open the page
https://microsoft.com/devicelogin and enter the code ANLR6ENGZ to
authenticate.
[
{
"cloudName": "AzureCloud",
"homeTenantId": "c2c47a9f-e2b4-4d74-8a6b-242b3f688a30",
"id": "5f57b5b0-b6fe-422c-0427-fe81a8ebc2ab",
"isDefault": false,
"managedByTenants": [],
"name": "Azure subscription 1",
"state": "Enabled",
"tenantId": "c2c47f68-e2b4-4d74-8a6b-242b3a9f8a30",
"user": {
"name": "ahmed@revtech.com",
"type": "user"
}
}
]

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Using the Azure CLI from OCI
Name ResourceGroup PowerState PublicIps Fqdns Location Zones
------------------- ----------------- -------------- ----------- ------- ---------- -------
RevTechPOCAppServer RevTechPOCJAN2022 VM deallocated eastus
RevTechPOCDBServer RevTechPOCJAN2022 VM deallocated eastus
------------------- ----------------- -------------- ----------- ------- ---------- -------
RevTechPOCAppServer RevTechPOCJAN2022 VM running 40.87.58.56 eastus
root@ocifree:/root> az vm stop -g RevTechPOCJAN2022 -n RevTechPOCAppServer
About to power off the specified VM...
It will continue to be billed. To deallocate a VM, run: az vm deallocate.
------------------- ----------------- -------------- ----------- ------- ---------- -------
RevTechPOCAppServer RevTechPOCJAN2022 VM stopped 40.87.58.56 eastus
root@ocifree:/root> az vm deallocate -g RevTechPOCJAN2022 -n RevTechPOCAppServer

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SETTING UP THE INTERCONNECT

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Connecting the Cloud Networks
1. Setup an Azure VNet with subnets and a virtual network gateway
▪ Create an ExpressRoute circuit and select Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
2. Setup an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure VCN with subnets and an attached DRG
▪ Create a FastConnect connection, select Microsoft Azure, enter the service key from Azure
3. Ensure no overlapping IP addresses between your VCN and VNet
The private virtual circuit is provisioned automatically between the two clouds
✓
Note: On-Prem Connectivity
You need a separate ExpressRoute
or FastConnect circuit to connect
your on-premises network to
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure or
Microsoft Azure through a private
connection

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Setup Instructions
• Set up a direct interconnection between Azure and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/workloads/oracle/configure-azure-oci-networking
• Set up a private interconnection between Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud regions
https://docs.oracle.com/en/solutions/oci-azure/index.html
• How to setup the interconnect between Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Microsoft Azure
https://medium.com/@j.jamalarif/how-to-setup-the-interconnect-between-oracle-cloud-infrastructure-and-microsoft-azure-da359233e5e9

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Setup Instructions
Create OCI DRG Setup Azure ExpressRoute
Create Azure Virtual Network Create OCI Virtual Network
Associate Network Security Groups &
Route Table to Azure VNet
Configure OCI VCN Security
List & Route Table
Setup OCI FastConnect Link Azure Virtual Network to
ExpressRoute
1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8

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Successful Provisioning on OCI

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Successful Provisioning on Azure

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PERFORMANCE REVIEW

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Current Architecture
Oracle Database 19.3 Oracle Database 19.3
Oracle WebCenter Portal 12.2.1.4 Oracle WebCenter Portal 12.2.1.4
1.92ms
1.99ms
2.98ms
2.92ms
Oracle Cloud Microsoft Azure
9:00-10:00pm EST
9:00-10:00am EST

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Interconnect Latency Between Cloud Providers
root@ociapp:/root> mtr --report 172.16.0.4
Start: Fri Jan 28 02:43:40 2022
HOST: ociapp Loss% Snt Last Avg Best Wrst StDev
1.|-- 140.91.196.187 0.0% 10 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.2 0.0
2.|-- 192.168.0.2 0.0% 10 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.0
3.|-- ??? 100.0 10 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
4.|-- 172.16.0.4 0.0% 10 2.5 2.2 1.7 3.0 0.0
root@ociapp:/root> ping -c 9 172.16.0.4
PING 172.16.0.4 (172.16.0.4) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 172.16.0.4: icmp_seq=1 ttl=61 time=2.11 ms
root@azureapp:/root> mtr --report 10.0.0.166
Start: 2022-01-28T02:44:57+0000
HOST: azureapp Loss% Snt Last Avg Best Wrst StDev
1.|-- 172.16.1.5 0.0% 10 1.8 1.7 1.5 2.0 0.1
2.|-- ??? 100.0 10 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
3.|-- 10.0.0.166 0.0% 10 1.9 2.0 1.7 2.3 0.2
root@azureapp:/root> ping -c 9 10.0.0.166
Start: Mon Jan 31 15:08:38 2022
1.|-- 140.91.196.187 0.0% 10 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.2 0.0
2.|-- 192.168.0.2 0.0% 10 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.0
3.|-- ??? 100.0 10 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
4.|-- 172.16.0.4 0.0% 10 1.8 4.5 1.7 20.6 5.8
Start: 2022-01-31T15:08:54+0000
1.|-- 172.16.1.4 0.0% 10 19.3 10.8 1.4 20.9 9.6
2.|-- ??? 100.0 10 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
3.|-- ??? 100.0 10 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
4.|-- 10.0.0.166 0.0% 10 29.3 14.8 1.7 29.3 11.0
OCI–to–Azure
9-10pm EST
OCI–to–Azure
9-10am EST
Azure–to–OCI
9-10pm EST
Azure–to–OCI
9-10am EST

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Comparing Local vs. Remote Latency
• Going over interconnect is 8X slower
• But latency generally ranges between 1.5-3.0ms, which is generally very good
Start: Tue Feb 1 02:13:41 2022
1.|-- ocidb.sub01140129300.ociv 0.0% 10 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.3 0.0
Start: 2022-02-01T02:13:59+0000
1.|-- 172.16.1.4 0.0% 10 1.6 1.8 1.5 2.3 0.2
2.|-- ??? 100.0 10 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
3.|-- ??? 100.0 10 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
4.|-- 10.0.0.148 0.0% 10 1.9 2.0 1.9 2.3 0.1
OCI App
to
OCI DB
Azure App
to
OCI DB

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Comparing Local vs. Remote Latency
• Compare the number of hops and latency between going through the public internet and
the interconnect
Start: Fri Jan 28 02:38:16 2022
1.|-- 140.91.196.191 0.0% 10 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.2 0.0
2.|-- oracle-svc070646-ic356767 0.0% 10 6.2 3.0 0.6 6.4 2.2
3.|-- ash-b2-link.ip.twelve99.n 0.0% 10 0.8 0.9 0.7 1.1 0.0
4.|-- ash-bb2-link.ip.twelve99. 0.0% 10 3.5 1.5 1.0 3.5 0.7
5.|-- rest-b2-link.ip.twelve99. 0.0% 10 0.9 1.1 0.9 1.7 0.0
6.|-- microsoftirelandoperation 0.0% 10 1.2 2.2 1.1 9.3 2.5
7.|-- ae21-0.icr02.bl20.ntwk.ms 0.0% 10 1.4 7.8 1.2 38.6 12.9
8.|-- ??? 100.0 10 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Start: Fri Jan 28 02:43:40 2022
1.|-- 140.91.196.187 0.0% 10 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.2 0.0
2.|-- 192.168.0.2 0.0% 10 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.0
3.|-- ??? 100.0 10 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
4.|-- 172.16.0.4 0.0% 10 2.5 2.2 1.7 3.0 0.0
OCI–to–Azure
Public IP
OCI–to–Azure
Interconnect IP

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Application Performance
• Azure App installation against OCI DB notably poorer in performance compared to OCI
App against OCI DB; like attributed to poor Azure VM performance

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Application Performance (Azure App) Off-Peak Hours

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Application Performance (Azure App) Peak Hours

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Application Performance (OCI App)

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Application Performance
• Avoid comparing Oracle App performance to Azure App performance (due to differing VM
specs)
• Compare AzureApp-to-AzureDB and AzureApp-to-OCIDB to understand impact of the
interconnect
• No significant impact of the interconnect on performance
• Lots of errors on the Azure App performance tests; attributed to badly performing VMs
A2A A2O A2A A2O O2O O2A
1:55am 2:28pm 12:34am
Encrypted Sales Data Performance Test 83.62 sec 88.01 sec 87.03 sec 94.13 sec 59.68 sec 26.91 sec
Error Rate % 10% 14% 4% 14% 0% 0%
Product Sales Report Performance Test 105.96 sec 93.38 sec 101.11 sec 98.11 sec 59.14 sec 26.28 sec
Error Rate % 10% 16% 18% 10% 0% 0%

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Reflecting on Past Cloud DB Load Tests (2019-2020)
• Source: Presentation (RMOUG, Quest, COUG):
Compute Cloud Performance Showdown: 18 Months Later (2021): Oracle Cloud, Amazon Web Services,
IBM Cloud, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure
Intel Xeon
Platinum
8167M @
2.00 GHz
?
?
25396
2.0 GHz
2.4 GHz
26 (Threads: 52)
Q1 2019
1455

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Reflecting on Past Cloud DB Load Tests (2019-2020)
• Load tests on Oracle Database 19c running on Microsoft Azure virtual machines in 2019 and
2020, on both Intel and AMD-based models, consistently underperformed relative to other
cloud service providers despite more powerful CPU models
0
20,000,000
40,000,000
60,000,000
80,000,000
AWS OCI IBM GCP Azure
Total Completed Transactions
(higher is better)
AMD

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FINAL THOUGHTS

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Oracle’s Software Licensing Policy in Microsoft Azure
• Oracle provides license mobility for customers who want to run Oracle software on
Microsoft Azure (see Licensing Oracle Software in the Cloud Computing Environment)
– With Standard Edition in the product name, the pricing is based on the size of the instance
– 2 vCPUs = 1 Oracle Processor license (if hyper-threading is enabled)
– 1 vCPU = 1 Oracle Processor license (if hyper-threading is not enabled)
– Every 4 Azure vCPUs used (rounded up to the nearest multiple of 4) equates to a licensing requirement of 1 socket
– Oracle Standard Edition may only be licensed on Authorized Cloud Environment instances up to 8 Azure vCPUs

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Technical Issues
• Cannot downgrade the bandwidth, so had to recreate the ExpressRoute Circuit from scratch
• Unable to delete the old, unused Azure circuit, charges kept piling up ($2,400 under 2 weeks)
• Cannot unattach the OCI virtual circuit from the DRG

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Oracle vs. Microsoft Support
• SRs open on both the Oracle and Azure support sides for deleting the circuit which we
could not delete
• No deflection experienced

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Final Thoughts
▪ Applications can span clouds, such as the web and applications tiers in
one cloud and the database layer in another
▪ Customers can leverage new migration and deployment scenarios
ARCHITECTURE
▪ More interest in moving workloads to Azure versus OCI (per Gartner)
▪ Oracle Database (and its cloud offerings) remains the flagship enterprise
database of choice; lower cost alternatives exist
MARKET
TRENDS
▪ Interconnect costs can range from as low as $660/year to $663,000/year
depending on zone and circuit speed
▪ No concern with software licensing (i.e., running Oracle software on Azure)
COST
▪ Interconnect latency ranged between 1.9ms (off-peak) to 2.9ms (peak)
▪ Application performance load tests did not demonstrate a negative impact
of the interconnect
PERFORMANCE
▪ No issues or deflections experienced from Oracle Cloud Support and
Microsoft Azure Support based on our single technical issue
SUPPORT

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References
Microsoft and Oracle to interconnect Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud
https://news.microsoft.com/2019/06/05/microsoft-and-oracle-to-interconnect-microsoft-azure-and-oracle-cloud/
Oracle and Microsoft Azure FAQ
https://www.oracle.com/cloud/technologies/oracle-azure-faq.html
Overview of the Interconnect Between Oracle and Microsoft
https://blogs.oracle.com/cloud-infrastructure/overview-of-the-interconnect-between-oracle-and-microsoft
Licensing Oracle Software in the Cloud Computing Environment
https://www.oracle.com/assets/cloud-licensing-070579.pdf
The Oracle and Microsoft Cloud Partnership: Testing the Connection
https://www.accenture.com/_acnmedia/PDF-112/Accenture-Testing-Connection-Final.pdf
Learn About Connecting Oracle Cloud with Microsoft Azure
https://docs.oracle.com/en/solutions/learn-azure-oci-interconnect/index.html
Oracle Cloud, Microsoft Azure expand interoperability to Canada
https://www.zdnet.com/article/oracle-cloud-microsoft-azure-expand-interoperability-to-canada/
Oracle and Microsoft Accelerate Enterprise Cloud Adoption
https://www.oracle.com/cloud/oci-azure.html

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Everything You Need to Know About the Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud Interconnect

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