Oracle Cloud at Customer: On-Premise Cloud for Oracle Workloads and Cost Optimization
Oracle Cloud at Customer (often abbreviated as Oracle C@C) is a unique offering that brings Oracle’s cloud services directly into your data center.
In simple terms, it allows organizations to run Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) services on-premises, behind their firewall, while Oracle handles the hardware and management remotely.
This expert overview will explain Oracle C@C, its key benefits for those with existing on-prem Oracle workloads, and how it can be used strategically to optimize licensing and support costs.
We’ll also explore how moving critical workloads to Oracle C@C can help break up on-premises support contracts. This allows you to keep essential systems supported on a subscription basis while trimming costs on unused or non-critical licenses.
Real-world examples (e.g. Oracle Database, E-Business Suite, WebLogic) are included to illustrate these points.
The goal is a clear, high-level understanding for IT decision-makers looking to reduce Oracle costs without compromising support for vital systems.
What Is Oracle Cloud at Customer (C@C)?
Oracle Cloud at Customer is essentially Oracle’s public cloud delivered inside your data center. Oracle installs its cloud hardware (like Exadata Cloud@Customer racks or other Cloud@Customer equipment) at your site, and Oracle manages it remotely as part of its cloud services.
This means you get the same services and capabilities available in Oracle’s public cloud – databases, applications, compute, storage, etc. – but physically located on your premises and under your control.
In effect, Oracle C@C provides an on-premises cloud fully managed by Oracle, with subscription-based pricing instead of a traditional hardware purchase.
Key points about what C@C entails:
- On-Premises Cloud Services: Oracle C@C delivers Oracle Cloud Infrastructure services (and even Oracle SaaS applications) within your data center. You run workloads locally on Oracle’s cloud machines, which are connected to Oracle’s cloud network for updates and management.
- Fully Oracle-Managed: Oracle owns and maintains the infrastructure. They handle hardware maintenance, software patching, and updates remotely, so your team doesn’t have to manage the underlying servers.
- Same OCI Experience: The experience is consistent with Oracle’s public cloud (OCI). You can use the same tools, automation, and APIs. It’s an OCI region in your data center, sometimes called a “Dedicated Region” or Cloud@Customer deployment.
- Data Stays Local: Critically, your data remains on-site. For organizations with data residency, security, or latency requirements, C@C offers cloud benefits without moving sensitive data off-premises.
In summary, Oracle C@C gives you cloud-like agility on-premise. You get on-demand resources, cloud services, and Oracle’s management, but with the data control and locality of an in-house deployment.
This model is especially useful for companies that want cloud capabilities but cannot move fully to the public cloud due to compliance or network constraints.
Key Benefits for On-Premises Oracle Workloads
For enterprises running significant Oracle workloads in their own data centers, Oracle Cloud at Customer can provide several high-level benefits:
- Regulatory Compliance & Data Residency: By keeping databases and applications on your premises, you can meet strict data sovereignty or compliance requirements. Industries like finance, government, or healthcare often must keep data within certain boundaries—C@C allows this while still using cloud services. Your data stays within your controlled environment, addressing residency and security concerns, which is why companies pursue C@C.
- Lower Latency & Local Performance: Because the infrastructure is on-site, applications that require low latency (for example, real-time trading systems or high-frequency transaction databases) benefit from not having to traverse the public internet to a cloud region. You get high-performance engineered systems (like Oracle Exadata for databases) that deliver at a local speed.
- Oracle-Managed Infrastructure (Reduced Overhead): Oracle handles the heavy lifting of infrastructure management – hardware upkeep, patching, upgrades, and even database administration tasks in some cases. This reduces operational complexity and frees up your IT team from routine maintenance. In other words, your staff can focus on strategic projects instead of babysitting Oracle servers and applying patches.
- Cloud Features Without Re-Architecting: You can modernize existing Oracle applications (Oracle Databases, Oracle E-Business Suite, WebLogic-based apps, etc.) by shifting them onto cloud infrastructure without a full redesign. They’ll run on Oracle C@C, similar to how they ran on your old hardware. Still, now you can tap into cloud features (such as automation, elastic scaling to some extent, and integration with other cloud services) more easily. It’s a way to lift-and-shift Oracle workloads into a cloud model while staying on-prem.
- Subscription Pricing & Cost Predictability: Instead of large upfront capital expenditures on hardware refreshes, Oracle C@C uses a subscription model (usually a fixed-term lease of hardware plus cloud service fees). This means more predictable operational costs over time. You pay monthly or annually for what you use (often measured in cloud Universal Credits or CPU usage), similar to public cloud billing. This can simplify budgeting and potentially lower costs if facing a costly hardware upgrade cycle.
- Compatibility with Existing Oracle Environments: Since it’s the same technology as Oracle’s cloud, C@C integrates smoothly with Oracle software. Your on-prem Oracle databases and apps can be migrated with minimal changes. You also maintain compatibility with Oracle’s support requirements for those products because you run them on Oracle-provided platforms.
In short, Oracle C@C offers cloud benefits (agility, management, continuous updates) while preserving on-prem benefits (data control, compliance).
For companies heavily invested in Oracle, it can be an attractive middle ground—gaining cloud innovations without abandoning the on-premises footprint.
Using Oracle C@C to Optimize Licensing and Support Costs
One of the most compelling strategic reasons to consider Oracle Cloud at Customer is the potential for licensing and support cost optimization. Oracle licensing and annual support fees are a significant expense for many enterprises.
Oracle C@C can be used to “break up” large on-premises support contracts, enabling you to pay only for what you truly need supported and to reduce or eliminate costs for unused licenses. This approach hinges on leveraging Oracle’s subscription model instead of traditional support renewals.
Why this strategy is needed:
Oracle’s standard support policies often bundle your licenses under support agreements (Customer Support Identifiers, or CSI). If you have a big Oracle deployment on-prem, you might be paying maintenance on all those licenses even if some are not actively used.
Oracle typically does not make it easy to drop support for a subset of licenses. If you try to reduce quantities, they may reprice the remainder at higher rates, and partial cancellations can violate their support policies.
Oracle generally doesn’t allow support cost reduction unless you completely retire certain licenses or systems. This leaves customers stuck renewing expensive support for shelfware or non-critical systems just to keep the few critical ones updated and supported.
Oracle Cloud at Customer changes the equation:
By moving selected workloads onto Oracle C@C, you create a new, separate contract (a cloud subscription) for those services.
The key idea is to migrate only the workloads that need to remain supported and up-to-date onto Oracle C@C and then terminate or let lapse support for the remaining on-prem licenses that you no longer need active.
Oracle C@C includes support in its subscription cost (for cloud services and hardware), so you won’t need a separate support contract for the migrated workloads – they’ll be covered as part of the cloud service. Meanwhile, the on-prem licenses that are not migrated can be dropped from support renewal if they are truly not in use or not critical.
Here’s how organizations can break up on-premise support contracts using Oracle C@C, step by step:
- Identify Critical Supported Workloads: Review your Oracle license footprint and identify which databases and applications are mission-critical and require ongoing Oracle support and updates. These are typically production systems (e.g., the main Oracle Database instances, the primary ERP like E-Business Suite, high-use WebLogic application servers). Also identify which Oracle licenses are unused or low-value (for example, old databases used for testing, or modules you aren’t using in production).
- Migrate Those Workloads to Oracle C@C: Move the critical databases and applications to an Oracle Cloud in the customer environment. For example, you might deploy an Exadata Cloud@Customer for your Oracle databases or use Oracle’s Compute Cloud@Customer for applications and middleware. Doing this allows those workloads to run on Oracle’s managed infrastructure under a cloud subscription. They remain fully supported by Oracle (since Oracle provides the platform and you either use included licenses or bring your licenses with active support into this environment). The key is that the support for these systems is now provided via the cloud subscription, not your old on-prem support contract.
- Terminate or Reduce On-Premise Support for Others: Once the important systems are on C@C, you can end support contracts for the Oracle licenses that are left behind and no longer needed. Many companies take this opportunity to retire unused licenses or decide not to renew support for non-critical servers. By decommissioning or no longer using certain on-prem software, you gain the justification to tell Oracle you won’t renew support on those licenses (since you’ve migrated off them). This effectively carves out unnecessary support costs. For example, if you moved your production database to C@C, you might stop paying support on 50 old on-prem database licenses that were only lightly used or unused. According to Oracle licensing experts, migrating actively used products to the cloud allows you to terminate licenses and support for unused products, eliminating those unnecessary fees.
- Avoid Full Contract Renewals: At your next Oracle support renewal anniversary, renew only what’s needed. Ideally, you have moved all needed workloads to C@C (which has its subscription), and you can decline to renew the large on-prem support agreement for the rest. This prevents the scenario of renewing a pricey support bundle just to keep a few critical pieces. Instead, you only pay for the cloud subscription (and perhaps a much smaller support subset, if any on-prem licenses remain in use). In essence, Oracle C@C lets you shift from a broad, perpetual support model to a targeted subscription model – you pay for support only on the systems you run in C@C, and everything else can be shelved.
- Leverage Oracle Support Rewards (Optional): If you continue using some Oracle on-prem licenses, Oracle has an incentive program called Support Rewards. For every dollar you spend on Oracle Cloud (OCI) services, including Oracle Cloud at Customer, you earn credits (generally 25% of your spend) that can be applied to reduce your on-prem Oracle support bills. ULA (Unlimited License Agreement) customers get even higher credits (33% per dollar). This means that by using Oracle C@C, you not only potentially drop certain support contracts, but any remaining support costs can be offset. For example, if you spend $100k on Oracle C@C in a year, you could get a $25k credit towards any on-prem support fees you still have, effectively lowering the cost of keeping those licenses. This incentive can reduce Oracle support costs significantly (up to 25% or more) while you modernize your infrastructure.
By following this strategy, customers transform their Oracle spending: they replace large annual support fees on legacy systems with a more flexible cloud subscription. The result is often lower total cost and fewer wasted dollars on unused licenses.
One case study example showed an organization moving non-production databases to OCI and terminating those on-prem licenses, resulting in a 25% reduction in support costs through Oracle Support Rewards credits.
The critical point is that cost savings only materialize if you retire or stop using the old environment. If you simply add Oracle C@C to existing deployments without canceling anything, you’ll pay more, not less.
Oracle’s salespeople acknowledge that to reduce support costs with C@C, you must decommission other hardware/licenses; otherwise, C@C will be an additional expense. So, to use Oracle C@C as a cost-cutting tool, plan it as a replacement, not an addition.
Real-World Examples of Oracle C@C Cost Reduction
To illustrate how Oracle Cloud at Customer can be used in practice to optimize support and licensing costs, consider a few scenarios with different Oracle technologies:
- Oracle Databases: Company A runs dozens of Oracle Database instances on-premise, but only a handful are mission-critical (the rest are test or archive instances). They deploy an Exadata Cloud@Customer machine for the critical databases, ensuring they are on Oracle’s latest hardware and fully supported through the C@C subscription. Because the important databases are now covered, the company terminates support on the remaining Oracle DB licenses used for old testing systems. Those test systems, if still needed, can be run without support or replaced with ad-hoc cloud instances when required. As a result, Company A avoids renewing a large Oracle Database support contract for all those licenses. They are now paying for just the Exadata C@C subscription (covering the critical DBs) and have cut out the maintenance fees for the unused databases – saving a significant percentage of their Oracle support budget in the next renewal cycle.
- Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS): Company B has Oracle E-Business Suite ERP running on-site, supported by an Oracle Database. Support for EBS and the database is essential for their business, but they also own licenses for several EBS modules and database options that they aren’t actively using. The company moves their E-Business Suite application and database to Oracle Cloud at Customer, keeping the entire ERP environment on Oracle-managed infrastructure in their data center. This move guarantees that their ERP remains fully supported (Oracle handles the underlying stack and updates). With EBS now in the cloud subscription, Company B cancels support for several dormant EBS module licenses and older database licenses that were previously on support out of caution. Those unused modules no longer require yearly maintenance. Now, the CFO sees a cost for Oracle C@C (offset by no longer paying EBS server support and support reward credits), and the company is no longer paying software support it wasn’t using. They maintain compliance and support on the core ERP but slim down their overall Oracle maintenance spend.
- Oracle WebLogic and Middleware: Company C has many Oracle WebLogic Server instances and other middleware products supporting various applications. Only a few of these applications are high-priority revenue-generating systems; others are development or legacy apps. They decide to consolidate the important middleware workloads onto Oracle C@C’s compute service (Oracle Compute Cloud@Customer can host VMs for WebLogic and similar). By running their critical WebLogic application servers on C@C, those servers are effectively under Oracle’s wing (Oracle manages the VM infrastructure, and the subscription includes support for the platform). Company C uses a BYOL (Bring Your Own License) model for WebLogic on C@C. However, they choose to keep support active only on the licenses used in C@C and drop support for several other WebLogic licenses tied to retired applications. The non-critical apps might continue running on old hardware without support or be decommissioned entirely. This way, the company doesn’t have to renew a support contract for all their WebLogic licenses – they only maintain licenses for the C@C environment (or pay Oracle for the equivalent cloud service), shrinking the support bill. In addition, the move to C@C lets them consolidate servers, potentially needing fewer total WebLogic licenses than before. This is another savings avenue (fewer licenses to support in the first place).
The pattern is the same in these examples: move the critical stuff to Oracle’s Cloud at Customer (to keep it supported and up-to-date) and drop the excess weight of support contracts for everything else.
The businesses remain fully supported on the systems that matter, ensuring continuity and access to updates/patches while freeing up the budget by not paying maintenance on idle or low-value licenses.
Conclusion
Oracle Cloud at Customer can be a powerful strategic option for enterprises with large on-premise Oracle footprints.
It delivers a cloud-in-your-data-center solution that addresses data residency and control concerns, all while providing cloud-like management and subscription economics.
For IT decision-makers, the value of Oracle C@C is two-fold:
- Technology and Business Alignment: You get modernized infrastructure and Oracle-managed services on-premise, which can improve reliability and relieve your teams from mundane support tasks. It lets you modernize Oracle workloads without the risks of moving them to a public cloud or rearchitecting everything.
- Licensing and Cost Benefits: Perhaps most notably, Oracle C@C offers a clever way to optimize Oracle licensing costs and reduce support fees. You can break up monolithic support contracts by selectively migrating crucial workloads to the C@C subscription model. Instead of renewing costly support for an entire portfolio of Oracle licenses, you pay for only what you truly need. Unused or non-critical licenses can be dropped from support, avoiding wasteful spending. Oracle’s incentives, like Support Rewards, further sweeten the deal, effectively rewarding you for using Oracle Cloud by lowering remaining support costs.
In implementing this strategy, keep a professional eye on the details: carefully inventory your Oracle licenses, check contract terms (Oracle may have specific rules on terminating support – ensure you follow them), and negotiate the Cloud at Customer agreement to suit your needs.
It’s wise to get clarity from Oracle on how your existing licenses can be transitioned (whether via BYOL or swapped for cloud subscriptions) and to document which on-prem licenses will be retired. By doing so, you avoid compliance pitfalls while executing cost reduction.
Remember that Oracle C@C is not a magic cost cutter on its own – the savings come from the ability to offload and replace what you don’t need.
Ultimately, Oracle Cloud at Customer enables a precise, business-aligned approach to Oracle licensing: you fully support your critical Oracle systems on a modern platform, stop paying for support you don’t use, and maintain control over your data, for many IT leaders grappling with soaring Oracle maintenance bills and inflexible on-prem systems, that makes C@C a proposition worth considering in their roadmap for both cloud strategy and cost optimization.
