Oracle’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) revenue growth for its fiscal 3Q17 highlights the importance of the tech giants infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS).

According to Oracle’s co-founder, Larry Ellison, in a blog post: “Both Oracle’s SaaS and PaaS business are doing great.

“The software company also has large expectations for its IaaS offering.”

‘Costs less than AWS’

According to him, Oracle’s new Gen2 IaaS is faster and costs less than Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Currently, Oracle is investing in IaaS because of Amazon recently launching Aurora.

According to Amazon’s blog post, Aurora is “a MySQL and PostgreSQL compatible relational database built for the cloud which combines the performance and availability of high-end commercial databases with the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of open source databases.”

Improving IaaS, PaaS and SaaS offerings

Although SaaS and PaaS pushed Oracle’s cloud revenues to US$1.2 billion, he believes that “IaaS will be growing even faster and before long, it will become Oracle’s largest cloud business.”

To stay on top of the game, Oracle must improve its IaaS, PaaS and SaaS offerings, according to Market Realist.

If Oracle puts its main focus on IaaS, it should potentially attract customers to its cloud offerings, as well as compete with its biggest rival Amazon.

Written by Leah Alger