Sunrise: The Swiss Telco Boosting Cloud Services with Oracle

The decision for Sunrise to undergo a cloud transformation with Oracle is part of a wider consolidation and modernisation project.

As reported by Inside IT, the Swiss telco is currently eager to update its infrastructure, which includes the migration of the Sunrise databases to Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer. 

Exadata is a combined hardware and software platform optimised for running Oracle databases. It is deployed in Sunrise’s own data centres, but also aims to offer some of the benefits of the cloud, according to the company’s Director of IT Technologies & Assurance, Stephen Dowling.

"We didn't want to move completely to the cloud for a number of reasons," says Dowling, who is responsible for the project. "We have around 18 months to upgrade all the databases and consolidate them in our two data centres."

A clear cloud migration strategy

There are almost 1,000 databases involved in this migration, which is expected to be largely completed by the first quarter of 2026.

Sunrise states that, since the databases are operated on-premises, data protection requirements can be met in accordance with regulations and individual customer needs. Oracle’s platform is able to offer some of the advantages of the cloud, which includes greater levels of flexibility and less effort for database administrators thanks to automated patching and improved monitoring. 

See this exclusive interview Christopher Marsh-Bourdon, VP of Global Financial Markets at Oracle to learn more about Oracle’s cloud strategy:

Already, roughly 20% of the Sunrise databases have been migrated. The development and test environments have been migrated first, with Stephen Dowling saying the productive environments will follow in 2025.

Who is Sunrise?

Sunrise is the largest private telecommunications provider in Switzerland and provides leading mobile, landline, internet and TV services to residential customers. The company is able to offer companies a 360° portfolio from a single source, with end-to-end services and solutions tailored to their specific needs. 

Its mobile network connectivity, including 5G, covers the majority of Switzerland, with its fixed network being used to deliver broadband, TV and fixed-line telephony services. These offerings consist of fibre, HFC or copper infrastructure.

The telco also offers a range of cloud-based services to meet the needs of Swiss small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). These services are designed to simplify and support their customers as they transition to the cloud.

The importance of telcos updating their infrastructure

Sunrise is eager to tap into a new potential, particularly given the rapid increase in demand for cloud services. In addition to offering greater flexibility and efficiency, the new infrastructure offerings from Sunrise and Oracle are intended to improve system availability and scalability to accelerate development and delivery of new services.

"We need to simplify our technological infrastructure in order to be able to respond more agilely to the evolving needs of our customers," Anna Maria Blengino, CIO of Sunrise, said via a statement.

The telecoms industry is currently undergoing a significant increase in cloud spending, according to a recent report by Infosys, in order to boost operational efficiencies, scalability and 5G deployment. 

Moving forward, it is anticipated that telecommunications companies will spend roughly US$32m a year on cloud services.

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