Oracle scored a multi-year deal with telecom giant Vodafone, cut pricing on a version of its cloud infrastructure, and unveiled a preview of a new on-premises compute product that is targeted at similar offerings from rival Amazon Web Services (AWS).

The Vodafone deal will see the Europe-based operator modernize and migrate “a large number of its systems” to Oracle’s Dedicated Region managed cloud products. Oracle will deploy its platform in Vodafone’s main data centers that manage its European IT and network operations. Vodafone will also tap into compute resources that will allow it to dynamically scale services in multiple geographies according to need.

Oracle launched its Dedicated Region product in mid-2020. It acts as a fully managed private cloud that brings all of Oracle’s cloud services into customers’ data centers.

The initial version was the Cloud@Customer option that specifically targeted AWS’ Outposts product, with Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison specifically touting the platform’s superior service-level agreement and pricing advantage.

“No one, not Amazon, not Microsoft, not Google, nobody gives you a complete public cloud behind your firewall dedicated to you,” Ellison said at that time.

Oracle rolled out a telecom-focused version earlier this year dubbed Oracle Cloud for Telcos. It combined Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), Oracle Communications core network, and more than 60 other application suites from Oracle and third-party providers.

Leo Leung, VP of products and strategy for OCI, at that time claimed Oracle was uniquely positioned among hyperscalers because it provides industry-specific applications and more telco-centric services and applications natively, which removes the need for customers to build or work with third parties to assemble a full stack.

Oracle also launched an entry level version of the OCI Dedicated Region product, which the vendor said can now be had for as low as $1 million per year. Leung explained in an email that the vendor is able to lower the entry price point by “offering a smaller starting hardware footprint in the customer data center.”

The vendor claims the new version requires up to 75% less data center space and power.

“We’re able to do this because of advances both in our hardware and in our software,” Leung said, adding that pricing for using the services in a Dedicated Region hasn’t changed, “and those are the same rates as in our public cloud.”

Leung noted that to get the new pricing customers must agree to a minimum usage commitment over four years and provide a data center facility capable of hosting the Dedicated Region.

“Many companies spend far more than $1 million a year on cloud services, and as they require more capacity, OCI will expand the hardware resources in the customer’s data center to accommodate this usage,” Leung said. “The customer is still responsible for operating their data center facilities, and providing capabilities like power, air conditioning, and connectivity.”

The new pricing and commitment replace the initial launch terms that had a $6 million minimum usage commitment over three years or $500,000 per month.

Customers can also add the Roving Edge infrastructure product to the new pricing model. That product is a quasi-roving box that fits into edge locations and extends Oracle’s hybrid-cloud reach similar to AWS’ Snow family and Microsoft’s Azure Data Box Edge products.

Oracle also launched a preview of its Compute Cloud@Customer option that is aimed at smaller environments than the OCI Dedicated Region product. It allows enterprises to run applications on OCI-compatible compute, storage, and networking products in their data centers that are managed from an OCI Region and tap into the new pricing model.

In conjunction with Oracle’s Exadata Cloud@Customer service, the compute option supports the same APIs and management tools for a consistent user experience as well as the ability to run services across distributed cloud environments.

Leung said Oracle remains on track to expand OCI from its current 38 regions to its previously announced 44 regions by the end of year, “but we may not be able to discuss all of them publicly.