Today’s topics include Oracle moving legacy app customers to the cloud through its Soar program, and Nvidia building the Isaac platform for intelligent robots.
On the opening day of chief rival SAP’s SAPPHIRE conference, Oracle introduced its new Soar program, which encourages business application customers to shift to the cloud faster from the company’s legacy, on-premises E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft and Hyperion ERP applications.
CEO Mark Hurd said many customers are months if not years behind in their updates and patches of Oracle databases and applications. However, with the cloud versions of Oracle applications, they can be patched and upgraded automatically using the so-called autonomous functions being built into the database and apps.
Oracle is adding to that capability with the new program, now enabling users of those applications to migrate automatically from on-premises versions into the Oracle Cloud.
Nvidia has introduced its new Isaac platform, which officials say will be the foundation of future autonomous machines—such as industrial robots and drones—in such sectors as manufacturing, construction, agriculture and logistics.
The platform is based on Nvidia’s Jetson Xavier, a computer designed specifically for robots, with more processing capabilities than a powerful workstation all while using a third of the energy of a lightbulb, according to Nvidia officials.
The Isaac platform includes a software development kit, which offers a collection of frameworks, APIs and libraries for accelerating the development of algorithms and software for robots. It’s tightly integrated with Isaac Sim, another element in the platform that gives developers a realistic virtual simulation environment for testing, training and iterations.
Early access to the Jetson Xavier developer kit—including the Isaac software—will start in August, with the kit priced at $1,299.