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Overview

Manufacturing organizations depend on Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) platforms to manage engineering data, product structures, digital twins, and collaborative design processes. As enterprises modernize their infrastructure, many continue to require advanced Oracle database capabilities such as Oracle RAC while simultaneously adopting Microsoft Azure for application hosting, AI, analytics, and digital engineering workloads.

Oracle Database@Azure brings Oracle Exadata capabilities directly into Azure datacenters through a tightly integrated multicloud architecture that combines Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). This approach enables customers to run Siemens Teamcenter application workloads on Azure while leveraging Oracle Exadata Database Service for enterprise-class availability, scalability, and performance.Architecture

Teamcenter multi-tier architecture deployed on Azure with Oracle Exadata Database(OCI) Service.

Architecture

The solution uses a multi-tier Teamcenter deployment hosted on Azure Virtual Machines while leveraging Oracle Exadata Database Service on Dedicated Infrastructure.

Client Tier

• Teamcenter Rich Client


• Active Workspace Client


• Azure Virtual Desktop


• Engineering Workstations


• Siemens NX

Web Tier

• Teamcenter Web Tier


• Active Workspace Gateway


• Teamcenter Security Services

Enterprise Tier

• Teamcenter Foundation


• Active Workspace


• Visualization Services


• File Management System (FMS)


• Apache Solr Search


• Dispatcher Services


• File Server Cache

Database Tier

• Oracle Exadata Database Service


• Oracle RAC


• Autonomous Recovery Service


• Backup Infrastructure

Key capabilities include:

Oracle Exadata X11M Infrastructure

• 2 Database Servers


• 3 Storage Servers


• Oracle Database 19c


• 1,520 ECPUs


• 2,780 GB Memory


• 240 TB Total Storage


• Oracle RAC

Hybrid Multicloud Foundation

Applications execute natively on Azure while Oracle Exadata infrastructure is managed through OCI.

Benefits include:

• Oracle feature parity


• Oracle RAC support


• Native Azure management experience


• Integrated monitoring


• High availability


• Low-latency architecture

Azure- OCI Network Set up

Identity and Security

Oracle Database@Azure supports integration between:

• Microsoft Entra ID


• Oracle Identity Cloud Service (IDCS)

Benefits include:

• Single Sign-On


• Centralized identity management


• Federated authentication


• RBAC governance

Cross-cloud connectivity uses:

• Azure ExpressRoute


• Oracle FastConnect

Communication occurs entirely over private networking.

Benefits include:

• No public database endpoints


• Private IP communication


• Encrypted traffic


• Network Security Groups


• OCI Security Lists

Deployment Requirements

Software Versions

Teamcenter Solutions

The architecture supports:

• NX Integration


• Solid Edge Integration


• Classification


• Requirements Management


• Schedule Manager


• Change Management

Deployment Methodology

The validation followed a three-phase implementation model.

Phase 1 – Foundation

• Oracle Database@Azure setup


• OCI tenancy integration


• Azure subscription mapping


• Exadata provisioning


• Teamcenter base installation

Phase 2 – Solution Deployment

• Teamcenter Foundation


• Active Workspace


• Microservices


• Solr


• Dispatcher


• Visualization Services


• NX Integration

Phase 3 – Validation

• Functional testing


• Integration testing


• Performance testing


• Recovery validation


• Production readiness assessment

Oracle Autonomous Recovery Service

Oracle Autonomous Recovery Service (ARS) was used for backup validation.

Capabilities include:

• Scheduled backups


• Azure or OCI backup storage

Observed backup behavior:

• Daily automated backups


• Autonomous Recovery Service destination


• Successful recovery validation

Data Backup storage @ Azure

• Backups stored in Azure Storage enable independent recovery options in the event of database corruption, accidental deletion, or infrastructure failures within OCI.


• Azure-based backups provide an independent recovery path for business continuity.


• The production database will reside on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), while customer data backups will be securely stored in Azure Storage to ensure durability and data protection.

Select Azure storage as data backup storage location

Validation and Test Results

A comprehensive validation suite consisting of 23 certification tests was executed.

Key scenarios included:

User Experience

• Active Workspace login


• Rich Client login


• Browser compatibility


• External user access


• Generic account access

Product Data Management

• Item creation


• Dataset attachment


• Large file upload


• Impact analysis


• Release workflows

Engineering Workloads

• NX Integration


• JT generation


• Check-in/Check-out


• Visualization rendering

Platform Services

• Dispatcher validation


• Solr search


• File Management Services


• Pool Manager


• Microservices

Recovery Operations

• Backup creation


• Restore testing


• Database recovery verification

All validation scenarios are completed successfully.

Performance Analysis

Login Performance

BOM Performance

Standard BOM Validation

• Successful BOM report generation


• Successful BOM navigation


• Stable system operationLarge BOM Testing

Validation included:

• 6,000 Line-Item assemblies


• 12,000 Line items Bill of Material

Observed behavior:

• Report Generation: ~80 minutes- ~160 minutes


• Database Activity: 5–10 minutes

Database analysis indicated:

• No database bottlenecks


• All indexes valid


• No deadlocks


• No blocking locks


• Fresh optimizer statistics

The investigation suggests most runtime occurred within Teamcenter application processing rather than Oracle database execution.

Performance Efficiency

Oracle Exadata Database Service is designed to support high-throughput transactional workloads and large enterprise databases. During validation testing, Teamcenter services successfully completed user authentication, product structure operations, search activities, workflow execution, and engineering data management functions. Oracle RAC and Exadata smart infrastructure provide a scalable foundation for increasing user populations and expanding product data volumes. Performance testing demonstrated that database operations remained efficient throughout validation activities, indicating that future optimization efforts should focus primarily on application-tier processing, workflow configuration, and Teamcenter customization strategies when addressing large-scale BOM workloads.

To minimize network latency between application and database tiers, the Teamcenter Enterprise Servers and Oracle Database@Azure infrastructure were deployed within the same Azure region and colocated using Azure Proximity Placement Groups (PPGs), helping ensure low-latency communication for database-intensive transactions and PLM operations.

For production deployments, organizations should follow Siemens Teamcenter performance and sizing recommendations available through Siemens Support. Key optimization areas include Teamcenter pool manager configuration, FSC/FMS cache sizing, Solr indexing and search tuning, Active Workspace configuration, JVM heap sizing, database connection pool management, and workflow customization reviews. Regular monitoring of application response times, SQL execution patterns, and large BOM processing workloads can help identify opportunities for continuous performance optimization. Validation results indicated that Oracle Exadata Database Service was not a performance bottleneck; therefore, future tuning efforts are expected to provide the greatest benefit within the Teamcenter application and middle-tier services.

Cost Optimization

This article presents a baseline architecture for Oracle AI Database@Azure. Organizations can use this guidance as a starting point when planning and deploying their Development, Test, and Production environments, tailoring the architecture to meet their unique operational, performance, and compliance requirements.

Organizations should evaluate infrastructure sizing based on expected user populations, database growth rates, and workload characteristics.

Cost management recommendations include:

• Right-size Azure Virtual Machines hosting Teamcenter services. Refer Teamcenter Baseline Architecture


• Use autoscaling where applicable for supporting services.


• Align Oracle Exadata capacity with actual workload requirements.


• Leverage Azure Hybrid Benefit where applicable.


• Monitor storage growth and archive inactive engineering data.


• Review backup retention policies regularly.


• Consolidate non-production environments when possible.

While Oracle Database@Azure may represent a larger infrastructure investment than smaller standalone database deployments, it can reduce operational complexity, improve scalability, and eliminate the need for separate cloud connectivity architectures.

Conclusion

The validation effort demonstrated that Oracle Exadata Database Service on Azure successfully supports Siemens Teamcenter enterprise PLM workloads.

Key outcomes included:

• Successful Teamcenter deployment on Azure


• Oracle RAC support through Exadata X11M


• Validated hybrid Azure + OCI architecture


• Successful backup and recovery validation


• Stable Teamcenter operation across all tested scenarios


• No database-side tuning required during validation

For production deployments, additional application-level optimization is recommended for very large BOM processing workloads. Database performance remained healthy throughout testing and was not identified as the primary bottleneck.

Key Takeaways

• Teamcenter 2506 successfully validated on Oracle Database@Azure.


• Oracle RAC supported through Oracle Exadata Database Service.


• Backup and recovery validated using Autonomous Recovery Service.


• All certification tests completed successfully.


• No database-side bottlenecks identified during testing.

References:

Overview – Oracle AI Database@Azure | Microsoft Learn

Onboard Oracle AI Database@Azure | Microsoft Learn

Exadata Database Service | Oracle

Siemens Teamcenter baseline architecture on Azure – Azure Architecture Center | Microsoft Learn