Overall, the service isn't dependent on a particular tool as long as the application being built uses supported features, but developers will gain advantages from various productivity tools Oracle has developed, according to a

Meanwhile, the Database Cloud Service uses version 11g Release 2 of the Oracle database, with high availability and data encryption provided.

Access can come "directly from the cloud" via Oracle Application Express, through Oracle Java Cloud Service applications using JDBC, and from any other development platform that supports REST (representational state transfer) Web services, according to Oracle's site.

Oracle Public Cloud is run on top of Oracle's Exadata and Exalogic appliances, which combine its software with a specialized arrangement of hardware and networking equipment. This approach differs from other cloud platforms, which tend to run large farms of commodity servers.

Ellison and Hurd may also tout Public Cloud's advanced security and system management features as advantages over the competition.