Oracle Private Cloud Appliance (PCA) is an integrated hardware and software system engineered to enable rapid deployment of a converged compute, network, and storage infrastructure for hosting most applications and workloads, whether running on Linux, Oracle Solaris, or Microsoft Windows.

In combination with customer-provided storage from Oracle or other storage vendors, Oracle PCA incorporates Sun server and network hardware with Oracle operating system, virtualization, and orchestration software to automate the discovery, configuration, deployment, and management of converged infrastructure for hosting virtual machines (VMs).

Oracle PCA incorporates the Oracle Fabric Interconnect F1-15 to provide a converged, wire-once, software-defined networking and storage fabric for all servers and storage in the appliance. Leveraging the software-defined network fabric, users can rapidly and dynamically create or modify private or public networks without having to manually re-cable connections, saving time and reducing the risk of human error. Further, the consolidation of network connections results in up to 70 percent fewer cables and cards.

In addition to rapid infrastructure provisioning, Oracle PCA also accelerates complete application stack deployment through support for Oracle VM Templates and Assemblies. Oracle VM Templates and Assemblies are preconfigured applications, middleware, and databases packaged as ready-to-run VMs that can be dynamically configured at deployment time. The result is an unparalleled ability to go from “bare-metal” infrastructure power on to logging in to a newly deployed, running application within days or even hours, instead of weeks or months.