Very first experience with oracle Cloud Service

Recently I found myself in the unique position of having access to the beta version of the Oracle Cloud to get a glimpse at the future as Oracle sees it.

This blog describes my personal experience and does not necessarily reflect Oracle’s point of view.  That said, the cooperation with and support from Oracle was more than adequate and much appreciated.

What did I get?

It all started with a link and some credentials from Oracle. Check it out yourself:

myservices.oraclecloud.com/mycloud

Filling out the right credentials brings you to the main page, that is far larger than I can show here. To get an idea, here’s the top:

As you can see there are separate pages for each kind of service. When you click on the Database Cloud Service you’ll be taken to the next page, showing you which databases you already have and giving you the opportunity to create a new one.

Create a database

Now there’s something funny: clicking on Create Instance will not only create an instance but also a virtual host to run the instance on. Yes, that’s right: each database has its own host. The only way to consolidate is to use pluggable Databases, which is an option.

Next there’s a screen not printed here to choose you service level.

• Oracle Database Cloud Service – Virtual Image
  Oracle Database Server pre-installed on Oracle Cloud Virtual Machine.
  No additional cloud tooling available
• Oracle Database Cloud Service
  Oracle Database Server pre-installed on Oracle Cloud Virtual Machine.
  Access to all additional cloud tooling available

I chose the latter one.

Okay, so what options are there for now? I chose the create a 12c version (11.2.0.4 also available) and got this screen:

High Performance? Extreme Performance? Here’s a brief explanation:

High Performance: Multitenant, Partitioning, Real Application Testing, Advanced Compression, Advanced Security, Label Security, Database Vault, OLAP, Advanced Analytics, Spatial and Graph, Diagnostics Pack, Tuning Pack, Database Lifecycle Management Pack, Data Masking Pack, Test Data Management Pack and Cloud Management Pack for Oracle Database.

Extreme Performance: In-Memory Database, Active Data Guard, Multitenant, Partitioning, Real Application Testing, Advanced Compression, Advanced Security, Label Security, Database Vault, OLAP, Advanced Analytics, Spatial and Graph, Diagnostics Pack, Tuning Pack, Database Lifecycle Management Pack, Data Masking Pack, Test Data Management Pack and Cloud Management Pack for Oracle Database.

I picked the basic version and got next screen.

Several Compute Shapes are available:

Finally i created a database. Once finished, which actually took quite a lot of time (>30min) some times, I had my database.
Oracle provided me a public/private key pair in advance that I used all the time. When you want to use putty or a similar program you will need the private key to log in. No username/password as we used to do.

And there it is. A database that can be accessed through putty or with tns from any other location. There’s also an EM Console available.

Next for me was to transport a datapump export and import it. That worked flawless, again using the private key, this time for winscp.

Create a weblogic instance

Since my mission was to implement a working application including its database, my next step was to create a weblogic instance. That went more or less through the same steps and also took quite some time to create after clicking the Finish button.

Once finished it was very easy to open the corresponding weblogic management interface and use it the way you are used to. I deployed an application on it and sure, it worked. My very first Oracle cloud deployment.

Yet to be explored, current issues

Due to my limited time and other projects I did not get a chance to check out the options that can be seen on several pages.
I would be very interested in the backup stuff.
As I said, each instance has its own host. But it might be possible to create more instances with dbca.
Data Guard has clearly not been implemented yet but will be soon.
Rac?

And I found a serious issue so far. If you ask for more CPU’s, space or RAM then you have bought, the whole instance just shuts down instead of warning you. Moreover, if you want to correct your own mistake, assuming it was one, than you can not downsize to a cheaper Compute Shape. I am sure those issues will be fixed before the product becomes commercially available.

Cost, benefits

I should mention these aspects as well. But frankly, I have no clue what these services will cost you, let alone how it compares to doing it all yourself or hiring space in a conventional data centre. Also, there is the aspect of deploying your data in someone elses cloud. That is an interesting discussion that applies to all major cloud players.
My gut feeling says that the Oracle Cloud has an advantage over other providers where it concerns, not surprisingly, Oracle products. But that is a strictly personal opinion.