Oracle 21c Available in the Oracle Cloud Free Tier

Oracle 21c is not yet available for on-prem deployments, but it is available as a preview release on the Oracle Cloud.  This post describes how to get started with free access to Oracle 21c in the Oracle Cloud.

About Oracle Cloud Free Tier

The Oracle Cloud Free Tier allows you to run Oracle databases and Oracle VMs, and developer tools, at no cost (ref).  The core services are free for an unlimited amount of time and includes two VMs and two databases.  Oracle offers a lot of extra services on this same platform that are not free, so be careful.  Many extra features can be tried for free using credits as noted later, but after the end of your free trial period you have to pay to play.  The Always Free features are just that, always free, and never expire or incur a cost.

The Oracle Cloud Free Tier has two parts: Always Free, and Free Trial.  The Always Free is free for an unlimited time.  The Free Trial gives you $300 in credits which expire at the end of 30 days, whether you use them or not, and the Free Trial ends early if you exhaust the credits.

I should note this isn't entirely new.  The Oracle Cloud Free Tier was launched in in 2019.  In fact, depending on your region (your nearest Oracle data center) you might only have access to Oracle Database 19c or 21c, or both might be available.

In terms of why Oracle is offering something for nothing, they aren't.  I'm not suggesting Oracle is doing something fishy.  Not at all.  I just think it's important to understand motives.  And to be quite fair, AWS does the same thing for the same reasons.  Let's examine Oracle's motives:

  • First, this is intended to entice folks to check out Oracle's autonomous Linux, database, and cloud infrastructure, to discover just how simple it is to run complex databases in the cloud.
  • Second, it encourages people to use Oracle's development tools APEX and SQL Developer.
  • Third, who knows, you might even find some extra cost features that you really like and are willing to recommend to others (like your employer).
  • Finally, as always, there's the marketing angle: Oracle gets to claim all of the users on their cloud infrastructure whether they are using it for free or are paying for service. 

I should warn you it is not possible to sign-up for just the Always Free service without also signing up for the Free Trial.  You must place a method of payment on file, such as a credit card, which will be validated by charging a small amount and then reversing the charge.  If at the end of the Free Trial you want to use cost-based features, then your credit card will be charged.

What Do You Get for Free?

Users get two VMs and two databases with plenty of storage for developing apps or learning about Oracle.  A startup company, for example, could use these resources to develop their data model and application in secrecy for free.

The two VMs and two databases are completely separate, so you don't need to create one to use the other.  Every database is a PDB plugged into a CDB managed by Oracle.  The VMs are spun-up on separate servers wherever Oracle has free resources.  If you just want to play with a database and skip using a VM, then you just need to click a few buttons to create that database.  If your goal is to develop Linux shell scripts, Python code, etc., then you can skip the database and just create a VM.

Oracle offers Data Guard for database high availability, but it is not part of Always Free, it's cost based.  In order to remain completely free, you must create your two Oracle databases as distinct entities.  However, the Oracle Cloud itself is highly available.

Once you create a free database Oracle monitors its utilization in gross terms: are you active or not?  As long as you remain active the database stays up-and-running. 

If you are inactive for some threshold amount of time Oracle will stop your database.  Well, your database is really a PDB attached to a CDB, so what happens is they run a command to close your PDB which releases memory and file handles back to the host operating system, but they do not delete anything.  To re-open your database just login to your Oracle Cloud console and click the appropriate button.

Let's review Always Free's features.  The below list was scraped together from Oracle's online documentation:

  • Oracle APEX for developing apps against your database.
  • Oracle SQL Developer for creating and managing everything in your database.
  • Access to free Oracle training materials.
  • Two VMs each with 1/8th of one OCPU, one 50 GB boot drive, an allowance to create more block volumes up to 50 GB total size, plus 10 GB of object storage and 10 GB of archive storage.  VMs can be created with Oracle Linux, CentOS, or Ubuntu.
  • Two databases of your choice: Oracle Autonomous Transaction Processing or Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse.  (You can create one of each or both the same).  The version is limited to 19c or 21c depending on your cloud region.  Each database gets 1 OCPU, 8 GB memory, and 20 GB storage.
  • Load balancer between your resources, up to 10 Mbps throughput.
  • Outbound data transfer up to 10 TB per month

Next, let's examine what you get in the next level up, the Free Trial.  Recall these eventually become cost-based resources once the trial period ends.

  • Terabytes of storage for your VMs.
  • Terabytes of storage for your databases.
  • Data Guard Autonomous Standby.
  • WebLogic
  • Kubernetes
  • Visual Builder Studio
  • Up to 10,000 users able to access your app/database

For more information see here (ref)

Are You Limited to Oracle Database?

No, you are not limited to running Oracle Database on Oracle Unbreakable Linux.  You could, for example, run MySQL on Ubuntu.  There's also an option to run NoSQL databases.  I don't really discuss those options here because I'm an Oracle DBA by nature. 

Maybe for the fun of it you can create a PostgreSQL database on your VM and practice migrating data back-and-forth with your Oracle database.  I haven't tried that yet, but is sounds fun.

Signing Up

To use the Always Free Tier you must create an Oracle Cloud account.  As noted earlier, it is not possible to sign-up for just the Always Free service without also signing up for the Free Trial service.  The sign-up wizard gets you started with both Always Free and Free Trial.

To get started, click this link and follow the prompts.

During sign-up, you must create an account and in doing so you must provide a mailing address, email address, mobile phone number, and a credit card number.  The email address becomes your user ID.  The email and phone are verified: a security code is sent to your mobile phone, and a verification email is sent to the address you entered.  When you click on the verification link embedded in that email, it takes to you the login page. 

Your credit card will be tested during account setup to ensure it is a valid payment method, but it's just a small charge followed by a reversal.  You won't really be charged for anything unless you use resources that are outside of the Always Free Tier.  Even if you do use cost-based features offered as part of the Free Trial, you have $300 in credits to burn through before Oracle hits your credit card.

Once logged into your new account, the Oracle Cloud Free Tier's Quick Action dashboard appears and looks like this:


I suggest you bookmark the page.  Or, you can get there by navigating to https://cloud.oracle.com/ and following the prompts.

That's it.  You are all signed up and ready to create a VM, a database, or other resources.  Creating things is super easy.  Using them can be a bit confusing.  In my next blog, I'll describe how to create databases and connect to them with various applications.

Further Reading and Disclaimers

I have several additional blog posts on using the Always Free Tier.  Check them out!

For general information see https://www.oracle.com/cloud/free/#always-free.  For documentation on system specifications see https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/FreeTier/resourceref.htm.

I have never worked for Oracle, I have no insider information, and I own no shares of stock.  Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation.

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