Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Documentation

Overview of the Database Service

The Database service offers autonomous and co-managed Oracle Database cloud solutions. Autonomous Databases are preconfigured, fully-managed environments with workload types optimized for transaction processing, data warehousing, development based on JSON document storage, and Oracle APEX application development. Co-managed solutions include Base Database Service and Exadata Cloud Service systems that you can customize with the resources and settings that meet your needs. The External Database allows you to manage Oracle Databases located outside of the Oracle Cloud with OCI tools, and integrate those databases with OCI services.

You can quickly provision an Autonomous Database or a Base Database Service system. You have full access to the features and operations available with the database, but Oracle owns and manages the infrastructure.

You can also extend co-managed database services into your data center by using Exadata Database Service on Cloud@Customer, which applies the combined power of Exadata and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure while enabling you to meet your organization's data-residency requirements.

For details about each offering, start with the following overview topics:

Autonomous Databases

To learn more about Autonomous Database workload types, see the following topics:

Co-managed Systems

External Databases: External Database

License Types and Bring Your Own License (BYOL) Availability

Database Service License Options

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure supports a licensing model with two license types. With License included, the cost of the cloud service includes a license for the Database service. With Bring Your Own License (BYOL), Oracle Database customers can use existing licenses with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Note that Oracle Database customers remain responsible for complying with license restrictions applicable to their BYOL licenses, as defined in their program order for those licenses.

You do not need separate on-premises licenses and cloud licenses. BYOL databases support all advanced Database service manageability functionality, including backing up and restoring a database system, database software updates, and Oracle Data Guard.

You can choose BYOL when you launch a cloud-hosted Oracle Cloud Infrastructure database or a Base Database Service or Exadata Cloud Service deployment. Choosing BYOL impacts how the usage data for the instance is metered and subsequent billing. You can also switch license types after provisioning.

Note that on some provisioning dialogs in the Console, the BYOL option is labeled My Organization Already Owns Oracle Database Software Licenses.

For additional information about license pricing and features, see Oracle Cloud Database Services. For guidelines on using Oracle Database licenses, see Database Licensing.

Always Free Database Resources

The Database service is one of the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure services that provides you with Always Free resources as a part of Oracle's Free Tier. For an introduction to the Free Tier, see Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Free Tier. For details about the Always Free Autonomous Database, see Always Free Autonomous Database.

Moving Database Resources to a Different Compartment

You can move DB systems, Autonomous Database resources, and Exadata Database Service on Cloud@Customer resources from one compartment to another. When you move a Database resource to a new compartment, its dependent resources move with it. After you move the resource to the new compartment, inherent policies apply immediately and affect access to that resource and its dependent resources through the Console.

Important

  • To move resources between compartments, resource users must have sufficient access permissions on the compartment that the resource is being moved to, as well as the current compartment. For more information about permissions for Database resources, see Details for the Database Service.
  • If your database resource is in a security zone, the destination compartment must be in the same security zone. See Security Zone Policies for a full list of policies that affect Database service resources.

Dependent Resource Details

Details about dependent resources are as follows:

  • Base Database Service and Exadata Cloud Service deployments: Dependent resources that move with these database systems include Database Homes and databases, as well as the metadata for automatic backups. To verify the compartment of a dependent resource, check the compartment of the DB system.
  • Autonomous Database: Autonomous Database dependent resources are limited to its automatic backups. Autonomous Exadata Infrastructure instances and Autonomous Container Databases have no dependent resources that move with them. Associated (non-dependent) resources remain in their current compartments.
  • Exadata Database Service on Cloud@Customer: Resources that can be moved are Exadata Infrastructure, VM clusters, and backup destinations. VM cluster networks are dependent resources of Exadata Infrastructure instances, so they move with them. VM clusters have the following dependent resources: Database Homes, and databases and their automatic backups. Backup destinations have no dependent resources.

For more information about moving resources to other compartments, see To move a resource to a different compartment.

Monitoring Resources

You can monitor the health, capacity, and performance of your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure resources by using metrics, alarms, and notifications. For more information, see Monitoring and Notifications.

Authentication and Authorization

Each service in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure integrates with IAM for authentication and authorization, for all interfaces (the Console, SDK or CLI, and REST API).

An administrator in your organization needs to set up groups , compartments , and policies  that control which users can access which services, which resources, and the type of access. For example, the policies control who can create new users, create and manage the cloud network, launch instances, create buckets, download objects, etc. For more information, see Getting Started with Policies. For specific details about writing policies for each of the different services, see Policy Reference.

If you’re a regular user (not an administrator) who needs to use the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure resources that your company owns, contact your administrator to set up a user ID for you. The administrator can confirm which compartment or compartments you should be using.

For common policies used to authorize Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Database users, see Common Policies.

For in-depth information on granting users permissions for the Database service, see Details for the Database Service in the IAM policy reference.

Limits on the Database Service

See Service Limits for a list of applicable limits and instructions for requesting a limit increase. To set compartment-specific limits on a resource or resource family, administrators can use compartment quotas.

Note

Service limits and compartment quotas do not apply to Exadata Database Service on Cloud@Customer.

Many Database API operations are subject to throttling.

Getting Oracle Support Help for Your Database Resources

You can open a My Oracle Support ticket for individual Database resources while viewing them in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console. For more information, see Getting Help and Contacting Support.