“We considered alternatives, but because the client was in a rush, we quickly ran a POC with FlashGrid Cluster on AWS. The highlight was that we could migrate the Oracle databases without refactoring and leaving Oracle RAC.”
Ronald Blanco
Cloud Architect, Escala 24×7
An award-winning finance company in Vietnam, recognized for delivering innovative digital financial solutions and exceptional customer experience, sought to expand its cloud infrastructure to meet increasing demand. To support both production and user acceptance testing (UAT) environments, the company utilized FlashGrid Launcher to deploy FlashGrid Cluster for Oracle RAC on AWS efficiently and repeatedly. This streamlined method enabled the consistent and automated provisioning of databases in the cloud, thereby minimizing manual effort and deployment time. As a result, the company successfully scaled its Oracle RAC infrastructure on AWS, supporting business growth while maintaining high availability and performance.
“EDF’s internal team of DBAs, engineers, and lead solution architect spearheaded the transition to cloud computing. From the beginning, we could demonstrate it was feasible and that we could rely on a highly available Oracle database on Azure thanks to FlashGrid’s technology and guidance.”
Adam Ashby
Technical Project Manager, EDF
These applications relied on Oracle RAC as the backend database and were critical to the aircraft manufacturing process. The company’s IT services provider executed the migration in three phases: starting with a proof-of-concept and testing, followed by deploying test and development clusters, and finally, launching production and disaster recovery systems. Since 2020, all systems have been successfully running on FlashGrid Cluster on Azure.
“Since 2017, FlashGrid’s software and 24×7 support have helped us meet the high availability needs of our main travel booking application in AWS. We greatly value their ongoing partnership and expertise.”
Karsten Porsager Haastrup
Head of IT Operations, DER Touristik Nordic
“The deep database knowledge of the FlashGrid team is impressive. With their help we were able to achieve our goals of migrating to AWS and scaling our database backend to keep pace with the growth of our business.”
Adam Jones
Vice President, Technology Infrastructure and Operations
“We had to migrate dozens of mission critical Oracle RAC databases from Exadata to AWS with FlashGrid, and were able to do it without sacrificing performance or availability.”
Rama Kolli
Sr. Director – Database Management
“With FlashGrid and AWS we can now deploy a new application within two weeks instead of six months, without compromising our availability SLA.”
David Urban
VP Operations
Cognizant, a global IT services provider, partnered with FlashGrid when a toll collection system in Virginia that they were managing required enhancements, including uninterrupted operation of the backend database. Since the entire application stack was deployed on AWS cloud, implementing database high availability with FlashGrid for Oracle RAC on AWS was the most natural choice. FlashGrid’s ability to run database nodes across availability zones allowed the additional benefit of 99.99% uptime SLA offered by AWS EC2 by protecting against failures affecting an entire availability zone.
“FlashGrid delivers database high availability that we need for running our service in AWS with no interruptions.”
Nataraj Chindam
Senior Database Administrator
When launching cryptocurrency futures trading, a newly formed division of an established international exchange operator decided to put their entire infrastructure on Azure cloud. However, they faced the challenge of running their backend database with sufficiently high availability to power the non-stop futures trading operation. After several months of performance and reliability testing, FlashGrid with Oracle RAC was selected as their database platform. With three database nodes spread across three availability zones, FlashGrid leverages the 99.99% uptime SLA offered by Azure for multi-AZ deployments.
A government contractor approached FlashGrid Inc when they needed to move applications and their backend Oracle RAC databases to AWS GovCloud. The requirement was to run the database nodes across availability zones to take advantage of the 99.99% uptime SLA provided by EC2 for multi-AZ deployments. The project was critical for the agency and the timelines were very tight, leaving no room for error. FlashGrid for Oracle RAC on AWS was the only practical solution that met the project requirements. Infrastructure-as-Code deployment automation with FlashGrid Launcher enabled quick and easy deployment of a PoC cluster, followed by a production cluster. Delivery of the FlashGrid software through AWS Marketplace allowed the contractor to focus on the technical side of the project and effortlessly establish a relationship with FlashGrid as a new vendor.
When the SaaS vendor decided to start new deployments on AWS instead of on-prem, they were facing the question of how to keep running the same software stack with the same uptime SLA and similar performance. The SaaS vendor has been using Oracle RAC clusters for a number of years in their on-prem datacenters with fast flash-based storage. The new database infrastructure on AWS had to provide similar uptime SLA and similar performance. After thorough testing, the SaaS vendor selected FlashGrid for running multiple Oracle RAC database clusters on AWS.
In 2018 the Singapore government launched its new National Trading Platform that provides customs services to traders, logistics companies, and carriers. The new platform was implemented by Accenture and deployed on AWS. Uninterrupted operation of the new platform and of the backend database powering the platform was a critical requirement. Accenture selected FlashGrid for Oracle RAC for its ability to provide active-active high availability with database nodes spread across two availability zones. Such multi-AZ configuration allows leveraging the 99.99% uptime SLA offered by AWS and non-stop operation even in the case of a local disaster or an outage affecting an entire availability zone.
A major luxury retail brand approached FlashGrid when they were deploying eCommerce solution for the China market. For compliance reasons all data must be stored in China, and Azure China was selected for the deployment. The application backend is based on Oracle Database. Since strict uptime SLA is a critical requirement, the retailer decided to use FlashGrid for Oracle RAC on Azure as their database high availability solution. After several months of active testing the solution was deployed in production and runs the retailer’s entire China online business. Whether it is a maintenance or infrastructure failure, the active-active HA allows retailer to run their store without interruptions.
A software vendor providing the financial management application used by the U.S. Courts approached FlashGrid Inc when they needed to migrate the application and its backend databases from their own data center to Azure Government Cloud. The new system had to meet stringent uptime SLA and performance requirements. FlashGrid engineered cloud system was selected by the software vendor because of its capability to run Oracle RAC in the cloud while fully utilizing the performance of the underlying Azure VM and storage infrastructure. FlashGrid support team’s deep expertise in cloud infrastructure, Oracle database, and performance optimization enabled the software vendor to achieve the performance targets while staying within the project’s budget constraints.
While migrating most servers was easy, there was a challenge with moving Oracle RAC clusters, which needed to be retained as the database backend. After researching options for running RAC on Azure, the company’s in-house operations team did a self-serve deployment of Oracle RAC on Azure using the FlashGrid Launcher free online tool. With the cluster already running, the operations team contacted FlashGrid to discuss completing the project and going live on the new Azure infrastructure with production and disaster recovery RAC clusters. FlashGrid performed an in-depth analysis of the customer’s AWR reports, suggesting the optimal sizing and configuration options for the clusters. The project was implemented on time, removing the roadblock for cross-cloud migration.
“FlashGrid proved to be a reliable solution that is easy to implement and support for us as a systems integrator.”
SoftJam
“I quickly realized that with FlashGrid Cluster on AWS, my team would keep full control and use familiar Oracle tools like ASM and Clusterware. FlashGrid Cluster is a layer underneath our existing stack that makes it easier to use. Unlike DBaaS, FlashGrid allows us to use all Oracle features and keep the level of control necessary to do our jobs without imposing restrictions on the functionality and interoperability of the database system.”
Lead DBA
“With Effectual and FlashGrid, Ginnie Mae was able to migrate our applications and Oracle RAC databases to AWS with no change in the application code. We are now running modernized infrastructure that meets our uptime SLAs and helps us achieve Ginnie Mae’s mission.”
Jeremy Yates
Deputy Technology Architect, Ginnie Mae
“FlashGrid provides us all elements needed for running our mission-critical Oracle databases in Azure: storage and networking software, deployment automation, and 24×7 support”
Jay Wilder
Sr. Director of Software Engineering
“Combining the strong presence of CNS in the Middle East with FlashGrid’s product for database high availability, we were able to deliver and support an Oracle RAC cluster on Azure for a key customer in the region.”
Murad F. Abushaikha
Solutions Manager Lead, CNS Middle East
“As a financial institution, we need our main database to have low latency combined with 24/7 uptime and support. FlashGrid for Azure delivered all that, together with excellent performance and the ease of automated deployment.”
Dennis Córdoba López
IT Director
“Robust, fast, and highly available database is essential for Oracle ATG Commerce. FlashGrid for Oracle RAC on AWS is easy to deploy and run, and their 24/7 technical support service is outstanding.”
Chris MacLean
VP Cloud
“With our new virtualized RAC running on FlashGrid architecture we do a 125GB full table scan in 6 seconds. That is an 11x improvement over our previous setup.”
Sam Shiel
Oracle DBA
Corporate and Institutional Banking division of a global bank had challenges with their existing EMC storage system running extended-distance Oracle RAC clusters. Performance was insufficient and reliability problems were resulting in downtime, which undermined the entire purpose of Oracle RAC clustering. The bank turned to FlashGrid Storage Fabric software in combination with standard SSDs installed in the database servers. After one year of testing with a non-critical workload, the bank switched critical workloads to the new Oracle RAC clusters powered by FlashGrid Storage Fabric software.
Financing division of a global equipment manufacturer was implementing their new Oracle Financials system on Azure cloud. Reliable non-stop operation was critical for the system and for its backend database. FlashGrid for Oracle RAC on Azure was an obvious choice that provided active-active high availability for the database. Non-stop operation is ensured during unexpected failures and during planned maintenance. FlashGrid Launcher allowed the internal DBA team to quickly deploy two database clusters in a fully automated fashion while keeping full control of the databases.
For a major retailer operating multiple store chains in Brazil, Azure cloud provides the agility to create new store fronts and new applications for engaging customers. And when orders come in, they must be processed quickly and reliably, which requires highly available RDBMS at the backend. To accomplish this, the retailer decided to use Oracle RAC database cluster powered by FlashGrid engineered cloud system. Retailer’s engineers were able to quickly deploy the database cluster using FlashGrid Launcher tool, with only minimal help from technical support.
When the Singapore Central Provident Fund had to select a database solution to run on AWS, the choice was not hard. Since 2018 the Singapore government was already running its customs services on Oracle RAC powered by FlashGrid. Building on the success of the proven architecture, Cognizant, the government’s contractor, deployed FlashGrid for Oracle RAC with multi-AZ architecture to fully leverage the 99.99% uptime SLA offered by AWS EC2.
Uptime SLA of 99.99% or better was a central requirement for a mobile operator in Europe in 2018 when they were starting deployment of a new billing system on Azure cloud. The biggest challenge was achieving the required uptime SLA for the backend Oracle Database. After discussions with the billing system vendor the only practical solution identified was running 3-node Oracle RAC clusters spread across three availability zones. With such configuration the database could survive the loss of two database nodes, or loss of an entire availability zone. FlashGrid Inc partnered with the billing system vendor, and with TCS, a global IT services provider, to deliver the complete solution that included more than 20 Oracle RAC database clusters powered by FlashGrid engineered cloud systems.
A major applications and solutions provider approached FlashGrid Inc when they had to migrate an application they were hosting for the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs from a traditional data center to a private cloud. The application was using Oracle RAC for its backend database. The private cloud was based on VMware Director and provided advanced VM and networking capabilities. However, the cloud lacked the shared storage capability required for running Oracle RAC. The FlashGrid Storage Fabric software was used to create highly available shared storage seamlessly integrated with Oracle Automatic Storage Management (ASM). FlashGrid Storage Fabric enabled migration to the private cloud without sacrificing the database high availability provided by Oracle RAC.
