February 6, 2014 – theCUBE Conversation with Marshall Choy of Oracle.

Converged Infrastructure, for those unbeknownst to the hottest trend in IT, is an integrated set of compute, storage, and networking components with infrastructure software that provides a single logical chunk of hardware and software that is either specifically engineered together or at the very least tested and proven in variety of configurations and applications. Converged Infrastructure simplifies hardware and software management and accelerates the deployment of infrastructure for private clouds. Marshall Choy, Senior Director – Systems Solutions, Oracle, visited the SiliconANGLE office in Palo Alto, CA to discuss Oracle’s play in the rapidly growing Converged Infrastructure market with theCUBE host, John Furrier, in Oracle’s second of four theCUBE Conversations.

When it comes to Systems Solutions, Oracle’s undivided attention resides with the end-user. “It is all about providing the end-user customer value,” Choy said. Choy believes that one of the key differentiators between Oracle and the competition is the rigorous testing their products must pass prior to seeing the market. “We’ve done thousands of hours of testing across hardware and software. By testing I don’t mean just functional testing, I’m talking about nightly fault inject testing, bi-weekly patch regression testing across the entire solution to enable our customers to have a very low risk deployment, save money and get to market significantly faster.”

Oracle Software On Oracle Hardware

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In addition to Oracle’s insurance of seamless product deployment is the advantage of having Oracle software undergoing testing with the Oracle hardware. While some may be quick to cite this type of pairing to be the breeding ground of lock-in Choy made it a point to mention that these are open systems. “Just as easy to migrate on as off,” Choy said. “Most are choosing to stay on as a more efficient, cost effective solution.”

One component that has drastically improved Oracle’s convergence offering to customers has come from their 2009 acquisition of Sun Microsystems, enabling hardware and software engineers to work side by side.

“Sun as one of the newer assets, has provided Oracle with another opportunity to provide significant value to our customers,” Choy said. “By combining these hardware and software properties, because we work as a single engineering team, we can leverage those IP and build full stack solutions. Our engineered systems from a product standpoint such as Exadata and the Oracle SuperCluster are representations of re-architecture and reengineering of how you do database that provide orders of magnitude, better performance and efficiency.

The Sun component of Oracle has also played a major role in furthering innovation today. “Recently we have concentrated on the compute side in our spark microprocessors,” Choy said. “When sun was acquired by Oracle we were lagging in the industry, since then we have come to market with several microprocessor projects and are now at the top of the server industry in performance and price performance.”

Where Does Oracle Need To Innovate?

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Choy’s final remarks were about Oracle’s next step for their System Solutions. The next milestone for optimized solutions being creating momentum towards a convergence between ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning, CHCM (Creative Health Care Management) and CRM (Customer Resource Management). “We are seeing ERP, CHCM, CRM heading towards a great convergance of these business workflows,” Choy said. The end goal being to create convergence between these systems and managing the entire life cycle of those solutions.