Oracle Cloud - Build secure hybrid cloud connections with Oracle Corente Gateway

When you start using the Oracle Cloud one of the things you most likely would like to understand is how you will connect users to systems deployed in the Oracle Cloud and how you might connect servers in your own datacenter or in another cloud to this. For some time the primary answer would be, using Oracle Fast Connect.

However, another solution is provided and finds its origin in this press release dating back to the beginning of 2014;

On January 7, 2014, Oracle announced that it has agreed to acquire Corente, a leading provider of software-defined networking (SDN) technology for wide area networks (WAN).

The transaction has closed.

Corente's software-defined WAN virtualization platform accelerates deployment of distributed and cloud-based applications and services by allowing customers to provision and manage global private networks connecting to any site, over any IP network, in a secure, centralized, and simple manner. Proven deployments at leading enterprises and cloud service providers have dramatically decreased time to deployment of cloud-based applications and services, and increased security and manageability across the enterprise ecosystem.

The combination of Oracle and Corente is expected to deliver software-defined networking offerings that create cost-effective, secure networks, spanning global deployments, delivering a complete technology portfolio for cloud deployments with SDN offerings that virtualize both the enterprise data center LAN and the WAN.

Oracle Cloud acquisition strategy

As it often go’s with Oracle and acquisitions, for some time you do not hear from the acquired product and suddenly it starts to be included in the wider portfolio. Ever since Oracle started the journey to the cloud you see that often companies are acquired to strengthen the service portfolio of the Oracle Public Cloud in some way or form. 

In some cases this is not a full new product line, it are the small additions that make the Oracle Public Cloud much more attractive and more easy to use and incorporate in your enterprise deployments. 

Connecting the Hybrid Cloud

The Oracle Corente Gateway provides a solution to a known problem when developing a hybrid cloud strategy. The issue resolves around the question; how do we connect the different clouds and locations? By default, cloud solution open up to the public internet, a model which you do not want in all situations. The recent issues with compromised MongoDB servers that have been configured to be accessible from the public interne made this painfully clear once again. 

The ideal model you want to see is that nothing is connected to the public internet directly unless there is a functional reason for. Meaning, webservers providing services to users on the public internet can very well be exposed to the public internet. However, all other services running on those specific servers and all other servers should be shielded from people trying to access them. 

Ideally a model is created where the different clouds, cloud locations and traditional datacenter locations are connected together via de secured network. This secured network can be a site-2-site VPN tunnel based network over public internet or this can be a secured network via the dark fiber backbone of the major network providers. The last is for example a service provided by Equinix in the form of the Equinix Cloud Exchange. 

Oracle Corente Services Gateway

Oracle provides an easy to use and easy to implement solution for a site-2-site VPN model in the form the Corente service. The Corente service can be seen as a virtual VPN end-point which you can connect to an on premise solution in your datacenter. As an example, you would be able to create a secure site-2-site VPN connection where you have Corente running in the Oracle Cloud and in your local datacenter you have a Juniper vSRX solution in place. 

By binding both the cloud and your local datacenter together by using a VPN site-2-site connection you can extend your datacenter to the private cloud. By ensuring the correct network routing services can be shared and administration can be done with a single network experience. This limits the needs to have direct and open connections between the two sites. The level of integration and the level of security is raised by binding the two location together. 

As can be seen in the diagram above, the Corente instance is provisioned in the Oracle Cloud. For this an Oracle Compute Service Instance is used which will run Oracle Linux to ensure the software defined VPN endpoint provides the needed services. From the Corente gateway you can route network traffic to the Oracle Compute Service Instances. However, also connections to other Oracle Public Cloud Services can be established. As an example, you can use this model to also ensure the connections to the Oracle Databases running in the Oracle Database Cloud Service.