Stay classy: Amazon's Jassy gets sassy with Larry

AWS boss claims consumer division has switched off Oracle data warehouse

Amazon’s consumer business has switched off its Oracle data warehouse and will be almost Big Red-free by Christmas – at least according to AWS boss Andy Jassy.

The claims – made over Twitter, so it must be true – were then doubled down on by Amazon CTO Werner Vogels, who said that the database was one of the largest in the world, adding “RIP”.

It’s the latest in a long-running war of words between the rival tech giants that normally sees Oracle CTO Larry Ellison smack-talking the online marketplace-cum-cloud vendor.

Ellison’s attacks usually take one of two forms: they either choose the right figures to show that Oracle’s performance trounces that of AWS, or needle his rival for still running Oracle’s databases.

Relying on your opponents’ kit isn’t a good look, though, and there have been regular rumours about Amazon’s progress to ditch Big Red.

Most recently, reports came in that Amazon would be rid of Oracle’s database software by the first quarter of 2020. To which Ellison’s biz replied that “around a year ago, Amazon spent another $60m to acquire still more Oracle database and data analytics software”.

The spokesborg added: “We don’t believe that Amazon Web Services has any database technology that comes close to the capabilities of the Oracle database.”

This time, it’s Jassy himself making the claims, which arguably makes them harder for Oracle to ignore – but of course there isn’t a rule about not fudging numbers on Twitter.

The AWS boss said the consumer division turned off Big Red’s data warehouse on the first of the month, and claimed it would be almost Oracle-free by the end of the year.

In latest episode of "uh huh, keep talkin' Larry," Amazon’s Consumer business turned off its Oracle data warehouse Nov 1 and moved to Redshift. By end of 2018, they'll have 88% of their Oracle DBs (and 97% of critical system DBs) moved to Aurora and DynamoDB. #DBFreedom

— Andy Jassy (@ajassy) November 9, 2018

Shortly after that, Amazon CTO Vogels chimed in:

Amazon's Oracle data warehouse was one of the largest (if not THE largest) in the world. RIP. We have moved on to newer, faster, more reliable, more agile, more versatile technology at more lower cost and higher scale. #AWS Redshift FTW! https://t.co/AE50r7MUmW

— Werner Vogels (@Werner) November 10, 2018

As the firm approaches Black Friday and the Christmas rush, it won’t be long before the transformation is put through its paces. ®