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Oracle’s “13 regions by 2019” wording is best understood as an expansion target, not proof that exactly 13 new regions had opened by the end of 2019. Oracle first announced 12 planned additions in February 2018, then described a broader end-of-2019 rollout. By September 2019, it reported 16 regions operating worldwide and shifted its roadmap to 20 more by the end of 2020.
What Oracle announced in 2018
On February 12, 2018, Oracle announced plans to open 12 new data center regions across Asia, Europe, and North America. Its named expansion areas included China, India, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Amsterdam, Switzerland, Canada, and the United States, including locations intended to support U.S. Department of Defense workloads. These were announced plans, not a list of 12 openings already completed. Oracle’s February 2018 announcement framed the buildout as a response to customer demand and a way to make Oracle Cloud services available in more geographies.
In October 2018, Oracle presented an updated global data center roadmap. Its announcement referred to additional regions by the end of the following year across Australia, Canada, Europe, Japan, South Korea, India, Brazil, the Middle East, and the United States. The same release also announced OCI security services, including Key Management Service, a Cloud Access Security Broker, Web Application Firewall, and DDoS protection; those security announcements were separate from the region-opening timetable. Oracle’s October 2018 release records the updated roadmap.
What “by 2019” described
In a November 30, 2018 blog post, Oracle said it had an aggressive plan to extend its next-generation cloud region footprint to the majority of its customer base by the end of 2019. Planned additions included Toronto and locations in Australia, Europe, Japan, South Korea, India, Brazil, and the United States, including Virginia, Arizona, and Illinois. The post describes a goal and named future locations; it is not a completion report. Oracle’s November 2018 blog post provides that end-of-2019 wording.
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What Oracle reported during 2019
Oracle’s August 6, 2019 update separated launched regions from near-term plans. It said Toronto, Tokyo, and Seoul had launched that year, described Mumbai as just launched, and said Sao Paulo, Sydney, and Zurich would go live shortly. That distinction matters: the last three were future launches in the dated post, not confirmed openings in that update. Oracle’s August 2019 status update contains the dated account.
On September 16, 2019, Oracle said it had opened 12 regions in the preceding year and was then operating 16 worldwide: 11 commercial and five government. It announced a revised plan to add 20 more by the end of 2020—17 commercial and three government—for a total target of 36. This September roadmap is distinct from the earlier end-of-2019 language. Oracle’s September 2019 press release states the operating count and new target; its accompanying OCI blog post says the plan responded to enterprise requests for in-country redundancy for disaster recovery and data-residency needs. Those explanations and its account of faster, automated deployment are Oracle’s own statements, not independent measurements.
How the roadmap continued in 2020
On February 3, 2020, Oracle reported five additional regions open in Jeddah, Melbourne, Osaka, Montreal, and Amsterdam. It said it then had 21 fully independent locations and was still working toward its 36-region target by the end of 2020. The update shows that the expansion continued beyond the 2019 target window; it does not establish that exactly 13 new regions had opened by year-end 2019. Oracle’s February 2020 update gives that later status.
Did Oracle open 13 regions by the end of 2019?
The cited announcements do not verify exactly 13 new openings by that date. They establish Oracle’s original 12-region plan, its end-of-2019 expansion language, a dated 2019 report of 16 regions operating globally, and a subsequent shift to a 36-region target by the end of 2020. Treat “13 regions by 2019” as a headline-level description of the planned expansion, not as a confirmed final count of new regions opened.
What the announcements mean for cloud buyers
A regional footprint announcement is useful context, but it does not by itself confirm that a particular OCI service is available in a location today. Buyers evaluating Oracle Cloud Infrastructure should check the current OCI release notes and service availability information for their required region and service. For architecture decisions, confirm the details that determine whether a location meets the need:
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- Data residency: whether the required workloads and data can remain in the relevant jurisdiction.
- Disaster recovery: whether suitable independent regions are available for the required recovery design.
- Latency: how the location serves users and connected systems, rather than relying on a global region count.
- Service availability: whether the specific OCI service and features needed are offered in that region.
- Status and timing: whether a location is operating or merely announced, and whether the information is current.
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