Cloud provider Oracle and telecoms firm Vodafone have announced a partnership to connect the formers’ Edge cloud offering to the latter’s Internet of Things (IoT) network.
The companies this week announced a partnership to bring global IoT connectivity to Oracle’s Enterprise Communications Platform (ECP) customers.
Oracle’s ECP connects devices and real-time communications to Oracle’s cloud services. The platform supports various IoT protocols to connect Edge and mobile devices over public and private communications networks either through an on-premise Edge gateway appliance or directly through WiFi or 4G/5G.
The ECP platform uses Vodafone’s Global SIM for cellular connectivity; the telco’s IoT network spans over 180 countries.
Erik Brenneis, CEO of Vodafone Business IoT, said: “We’re excited to announce the next step in our partnership with Oracle – providing reliable and secure connectivity to its Enterprise Communications Platform customers. This collaboration will help customers expand their operations and accelerate on a global scale with compliant connectivity in over 180 countries worldwide. We look forward to our ongoing partnership with Oracle, where we can connect more customers in more countries.”
Vodafone’s Global SIM comes in four variants. Standard is for handheld applications and conditions, while robust is hardened for tougher conditions such as temperature, humidity, vibration, and has a longer lifetime. Industrial SIMs are soldered directly into terminals for extreme environments. Automotive-grade SIMs are the toughest SIM cards, specifically designed for automotive uses.
Andrew Morawski, executive vice president and general manager, Oracle Communications, added: “By expanding our long partnership with Vodafone and bringing its extensive global network reach and IoT expertise together with Oracle’s wide-ranging portfolio of industry suites, we can help create new ways to delight customers and deliver new revenue streams.”
Oracle says its ECP offers enhanced services such as video and audio streaming, recording capabilities, Edge distributed processing, authorization, and authentication.
“Connectivity is the heart of industry transformation,” Morawski added. “Using drones to inspect construction jobsites, remote monitoring the health of a patient, paying the bill tableside at a restaurant – none of these scenarios are possible without wireless connectivity and industry-specific applications working in harmony.”
In 2021, Vodafone said it had decided not to implement other LPWA standards such as LoRaWAN, and had opted for Narrowband-IoT and LTE-M; At Vodafone, the LPWA connection of objects is done via the company’s LTE cellular networks.
