Oracle AI, machine learning solutions mark move toward automation
The long view on telecommunications networking is automation of management and operational processes. This is highlighted with the advent of 5G, which is designed to provide connectivity for billions of new devices with a wide range of service requirements–the sheer complexity of future networks will command automation.
For enterprise and industrial network users, automation is also a long-term goal given the business value created by lowering operational expenditures as a function of added efficiency but also lowered human costs. The path from the current status quo to this automated future isn’t necessarily clearly charted, but there’s consensus around the key roles of machine learning and artificial intelligence in creating automated network environments.
With its global scale and long history in the business of providing cloud computing services, Oracle has dealings with both massive global enterprises and telecommunications service providers. Given the centrality of cloud services to both of these businesses, coupled with the end goal of automation, Oracle is introducing machine learning and AI into its product portfolio.
Late last month Executive Chairman CTO Larry Ellison, referring to a cloud-based data warehousing solution that uses machine learning to automatically manage, secure and repair cloud databases, said, “This technology changes everything.” He called the technology “as revolutionary as the internet. It patches, tunes and updates itself.” Ellison said the new solution does more than competitive services from Amazon Web Services at half the cost.
In broadening its use of AI, Oracle updated enterprise applications targeting the finance and procurement, human resources, supply chain, manufacturing, commerce, customer service, marketing and sales sectors. The new solutions are branded as Adaptive Intelligent Apps. EVP of Applications Development Steve Miranda said the suite of apps “combine first- and third-party data with advanced machine learning and sophisticated decision science to deliver the industry’s most powerful AI-based modern business applications.”
IDC Research Director David Schubmehl said the addition of AI to business applications will be a major focus of software providers. “We expect this to be a rapidly expanding area for both enterprise and commercial development as organizations race to embed predictive and prescriptive capabilities into their applications portfolio. The success of these solutions greatly depends on the quality and quantity of the ingested data which determines the resulting recommendation, action or output delivered.”
