Oracle will be the first hyperscaler to open public cloud regions in North Africa
New public cloud regions will help accelerate the implementation of Morocco’s digital government initiatives
Organizations across Africa will be able to drive innovation and accelerate digital transformation with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure’s high performance and security, powerful data and AI, and distributed cloud capabilities
AUSTIN, Texas and CASABLANCA, Morocco, May 30, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Oracle today announced plans to open two Oracle Cloud Regions in Morocco to offer enterprise cloud services to local and regional organizations across Africa. The upcoming new regions will enable Oracle customers and partners to migrate mission-critical workloads from their data centers to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), while helping them comply with local regulations. As a result, customers and partners can access a wide range of cloud services to modernize their applications and innovate with AI, data, and analytics.
The planned public cloud regions in Casablanca and Settat underscore Oracle’s commitment to Africa and will help drive the digital transformation of enterprises, startups, universities, and investors in Morocco and across the region.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish the two Oracle Cloud Regions in Morocco was signed by Mr. Mohcine Jazouli, Minister Delegate to the Head of Government in charge of Investment, Convergence, and Evaluation of Public Policies; Ms. Ghita Mezzour, Minister Delegate to the Head of Government in charge of Digital Transition and Administrative Reform; Mr. Ali Seddiki, General Director of the Moroccan Agency for the Development of Investments and Exports (AMDIE); and Oracle leaders during GITEX Africa 2024.
“The opening of Oracle’s public cloud in Morocco will accelerate the digital transformation throughout the region,” said Ms. Ghita Mezzour, Minister Delegate to the Head of Government in charge of Digital Transition and Administrative Reform. “This strategic expansion, with a hyperscaler like Oracle, positions Morocco as a unique player in the region and allows an even more dynamic development of skills, and growth opportunities.”
“As one of the largest economies in Africa, and with strong business and cultural connections with West Africa, Maghreb, and Europe, Morocco offers unique growth opportunities for businesses that are aiming to accelerate their expansion by deploying the latest digital technologies,” said Richard Smith, executive vice president, Technology, EMEA, Oracle. “The upcoming Oracle Cloud Regions will offer enterprise-grade cloud capabilities to help organizations quickly deliver new solutions, build resilience, and explore new markets to help accelerate growth. The new regions will also serve as the foundation for the Moroccan government’s modernization of its public services to better serve its people.”
“We warmly welcome Oracle’s investment in Moroccan soil, emphasizing a strong confidence in the Moroccan youth’s expertise and talent. This initiative underscores our commitment to fostering technological advancement within our nation. Furthermore, it positions Morocco prominently on the international digital stage, showcasing our capabilities and readiness to lead in the global digital economy,” said Mr. Mohcine Jazouli, Minister Delegate to the Head of Government in charge of Investment, Convergence, and Evaluation of Public Policies.
OCI Provides Customers with Latest AI Infrastructure Offerings and a Resilient and Scalable Cloud Foundation
Oracle is the only hyperscaler capable of delivering AI and a full suite of 100+ cloud services across dedicated, public, and hybrid cloud environments, anywhere in the world. Part of Oracle’s distributed cloud strategy, the planned regions will offer OCI’s full suite of services. This includes Oracle Autonomous Database, MySQL HeatWave Database Service, Oracle Container Engine for Kubernetes, Oracle Cloud VMware Solution, OCI Generative AI service, and OCI AI Infrastructure. OCI’s unique cloud architecture enables Oracle to deploy dedicated cloud regions with hyperscale cloud services inside customer data centers and deploy more public cloud regions faster by starting with an optimal footprint and scaling as needed. This approach helps meet the needs of all countries and markets without compromising cloud capabilities, while also providing the consistent performance, SLAs, and global pricing for which OCI has become known.
With the planned regions in Morocco, customers and partners can gain low-latency access to cloud services to help them derive better value from their data. Customers can also leverage redundancy and disaster recovery capabilities to enhance business continuity and help address Morocco’s regulations and requirements for data residency. In addition, OCI’s sovereign AI capabilities provide customers with increased control over where they locate their data and computing infrastructure and how they manage it. As a result, customers can achieve AI sovereignty by gaining the assurance that their use of AI is aligned with digital sovereignty frameworks.
Oracle’s Distributed Cloud Delivers the Benefits of Cloud with Greater Control and Flexibility
OCI’s distributed cloud lineup includes:
- Dedicated cloud: Customers can run all OCI cloud services in their own data centers with OCI Dedicated Region, while partners can resell OCI cloud services and customize the experience using Oracle Alloy. Oracle also operates separate U.S., UK, and Australian Government Clouds, and Isolated Cloud Regions for U.S. national security purposes. Each of these products provide a full cloud and AI stack that customers can deploy as a Sovereign Cloud.
- Hybrid cloud: OCI delivers key cloud services on-premises via Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer and Compute Cloud@Customer and is already managing deployments in over 60 countries.
- Public cloud: Hyperscale public cloud regions serve any size of organization, including those requiring strict EU sovereignty controls. See the full list of regions here.
- Multicloud: Options including Oracle Database@Azure, MySQL HeatWave on AWS and Microsoft Azure, and Oracle Interconnect for Microsoft Azure allow customers to combine key capabilities from across clouds.
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