Oracle database on Azure - suggestions and best practices

we have to set up Oracle database on MS Azure. I'm reading various articles/blog posts on Internet and try to choose the best options for us. If I understand correctly the licensing is different (one processor license covers one virtual core, thus the Intel core factor doesn't apply). RAC isn't supported, but you can deploy Data Guard as HA, and eventually DR (on a different region), solution.

We definitely need to patch OS and databases on a regular basis. We currently don't use the multitentant option, but I suppose that we'll need to switch to it because the single tenant will be deprecated.

I don't believe ASM would be more appropriate than XFS with filesystemio_options set to setall for a single instance.

It would be really great if you could share your experience, suggestions and new "best practices" for running an enterprise grade Oracle database on non-Oracle public cloud.

Thanks in advance!

Best regards

Dimitre