Oracle simplifies cloud consumption with Universal Credits

Oracle has unveiled new set of programs and methods which are designed to make it easier for its customers to move to the cloud and consume cloud services. Coming close at the heels of its announcement of a completely autonomous database, Oracle seems to be looking to cut into Amazon’s lead in the cloud business and is being quite aggressive about it.

Oracle CTO Larry Ellison on Tuesday unveiled the new "Bring Your Own License" program; customers can use their existing software licenses for Oracle platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offerings, including Oracle Database, Middleware and Analytics.  This is pretty similar to Oracle’s own program which lets customers bring on-premise licenses to its infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS).

As a part of its project to make cloud simpler, Oracle is also launching a program called universal credits for cloud consumption. This contract, as Oracle calls it, Lets its customers to tell Oracle how much they expect to spend (on a pay-as-you-go basis, or on a monthly or yearly basis). The customer can then use that money on any cloud service, including IaaS and PaaS services, spanning Oracle Cloud and Oracle Cloud at Customer and can also switch services or drop certain services without notifying Oracle and can apply their credits to new services when they're made available.

"The actual business terms are very, very simple," said Ellison.