About Autonomous Database
Oracle Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure is a highly automated, fully managed database environment running in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) with committed hardware and software resources. These isolated resources enable organizations to meet stringent security, availability, and performance requirements while reducing cost and complexity. Autonomous Databases are provisioned inside an Autonomous Container Database (ACD) and are user databases. You can create many Autonomous Databases in a single Autonomous Container Database resource.
To get a holistic idea of the four layer architecture used with Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure and understand Autonomous Database's positioning in this architecture, refer to Components of Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure.
Application DBAs create, monitor and manage Autonomous Databases. Additionally, they create and manage Oracle Database users within these databases, and provide others the information necessary access the database. You can connect to your Autonomous Database and start developing database applications after your fleet administrator sets up infrastructure resources and an Application DBA provisions an Autonomous Database with database users. A database user can also connect to Autonomous Database using various tools such as SQL*Plus, SQLcl, Database Actions, or Oracle APEX.
Autonomous Database Requirements
Resource Requirements
To provision an Autonomous Database, you need an Autonomous Container Database with or without Autonomous Data Guard, depending on disaster recovery requirements. See Create an Autonomous Container Database for details.
Required IAM Policies
You must have an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure account with privileges granted through required IAM Policies. The required policies depend on the operation you are performing. For a list of IAM policies pertaining to Autonomous Databases, see Policies to Manage Autonomous Databases .
Database Features Managed from Autonomous Database
The following features can be defined and managed at the Autonomous Database level.
| Feature | Notes | Further Reference |
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Workload Type You can configure your database to be one of either Autonomous Data Warehouse or Autonomous Transaction Processing workload types. |
Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse is a cloud data warehouse service that eliminates virtually all the complexities of operating a data warehouse, securing data, and developing data-driven applications. Oracle Autonomous Transaction Processing is a fully automated database service optimized to run transactional, analytical, and batch workloads concurrently. |
About Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure |
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View Connection Details You can download client credentials and view the TNS names and connection strings of an Autonomous Database from the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) console. |
Oracle client credentials (wallet files) are downloaded from Autonomous Database by a service administrator. If you are not an Autonomous Database administrator, your administrator should provide you with the client credentials. For cross-region standby Autonomous Databases, you can download region-specific connection strings. |
About Connecting to a Dedicated Autonomous Database |
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Autonomous Database for Developers You can create an Autonomous Database for Developers instance. Autonomous Database for Developers is a free tier offering designed for database development and functional testing activities. |
Autonomous Database for Developers comes fixed at 4 ECPUs and 32GB storage, and do not support manual or auto-scaling. As developer database instances can only be created on an ECPU-based ACDs without Autonomous Data Guard, the Free instance toggle button is disabled for ACDs with OCPU, Autonomous Data Guard, or both. |
Autonomous Database for Developers |
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CPU Count You can select the number of CPUs for your database from the list of provisionable CPUs. |
The CPU type, that is, ECPU or OCPU is determined by the parent Autonomous Exadata VM Cluster's compute type. This value defaults to 2 ECPUs or 1 OCPU depending on the CPU type. |
Compute Management in Autonomous Database |
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CPU Auto Scaling CPU auto scaling permits Autonomous Database to automatically use up to three times as many CPUs as specified by CPU Count as the workload on the database increases. |
You can enable CPU Auto Scaling while provisioning an Autonomous Database or after one has already been provisioned. |
Enable or Disable Auto Scaling of an Autonomous Database |
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Storage You can specify the storage to allocate to your database in terabytes (GB) while provisioning an Autonomous Database. |
The minimum value is 32 GB. The default values are 1024 GB for Autonomous Data Warehouse and 32 GB for the Autonomous Transaction Processing workloads. |
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Database Authentication You set the database username and password while provisioning a database. |
The user name and password is defined while creating the database will be the ADMIN username and password. An Application DBA can connect to this database using the ADMIN username and password to create other Database users. |
Create Database Users |
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Access Control You can configure network access by creating an access control list (ACL). An ACL provides additional protection to your Autonomous Database by allowing only the client with specific IP addresses to connect to the database. If the parent Autonomous Container Database uses Autonomous Data Guard, you can define access control for the standby database also. |
Depending on the types of addresses in your list, you can choose one of the following IP notation type options:
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Access Control Within Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure |
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Contact Email You can provide contact emails where you can receive operational notifications, announcements, and unplanned maintenance notifications regarding your Autonomous Database. |
Oracle recommends using the email address of an administrator group rather than an individual's, whenever possible, to ensure no important notifications or announcements are missed. |
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Character Set Autonomous Database lets you choose a character set of your choice from a list of supported character sets while provisioning an Autonomous Database. |
You choose a Character Set and National Character Set while provisioning an Autonomous Database. The list of supported character sets currently includes all database character sets supported on ASCII-based platforms. |
Character Set Selection for Autonomous Database |
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Database In-Memory You can enable Database In-memory for your Autonomous Database by allocating a percentage of its System Global Area (SGA) to the In-Memory column store (IM column store) either while provisioning the database or later. The In-Memory Column Store (IM column store) is the key feature of Database In-Memory. The IM column store maintains copies of tables, partitions, and individual columns in a special compressed columnar format optimized for rapid scans. |
You can enable or disable Database In-Memory for an existing Autonomous Database from its Details page on the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) console. You can also enable Database In-Memory on databases cloned from a database instance or backup, irrespective of whether the clone source has Database In-memory enabled. |
Database In-Memory |
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Database Cloning You can clone an Autonomous Database, creating a point-in-time copy of it or its backup set. You can use the cloning feature to quickly set up an Autonomous Database with historical data for purposes such as testing, development, or analytics. |
Autonomous Database supports the following clone types:
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About Cloning Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure |
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Ops Insights Ops Insights is a cloud-native service that provides 360-degree insight into the resource utilization and capacity of databases and hosts. You can easily analyze CPU and storage resources, forecast capacity issues, and proactively identify SQL performance issues across your database fleet. |
By default, Ops Insights is disabled for an Autonomous Database, and you must enable it from the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure console. With Ops Insights, you can:
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Use Operations Insights on Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure |
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Autonomous Database Metrics You can monitor the health, capacity, and performance of your Autonomous Databases with metrics, alarms, and notifications. The Autonomous Database metrics help you measure useful quantitative data, such as CPU and storage utilization, the number of successful and failed database logon and connection attempts, database operations, SQL queries, and transactions, and so on. You can use metrics data to diagnose and troubleshoot problems with your Autonomous Database resources. |
You can use Oracle Cloud Infrastructure console or Monitoring APIs to view metrics. |
Monitor Databases with Autonomous Database Metrics |
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Data Safe Oracle Data Safe helps you understand the sensitivity of your data, evaluate risks to data, mask sensitive data, implement and monitor security controls, assess user security, monitor user activity, and address data security compliance requirements in your databases. |
Oracle Data Safe provides the following set of features in a single, easy-to-use management console:
Before you can register your database with Data Safe, Data Safe must be configured to access databases in your dedicated infrastructure configuration. |
Autonomous Database Tools
The following tools are available to Autonomous Database users:
| Tool | Notes | Further Reference |
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Database Actions Oracle Database Actions is a browser-based application that provides development tools, data tools,administration, and monitoring features for Autonomous Database. Using Database Actions, you can load data and run SQL statements, queries, and scripts in a worksheet, export data, create Data Modeler diagrams, and enable database administrators to monitor the database. |
You can connect to Autonomous Database using Database Actions without downloading or installing additional software on your system. Oracle Database Actions runs in Oracle REST Data Services and access to it is provided through schema-based authentication. To use Oracle Database Actions, you must sign in as a database user whose schema has been enabled for Database Actions. |
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Oracle APEX (Oracle Application Express) Oracle APEX provides you with an easy-to-use browser-based environment to load data, manage database objects, develop REST interfaces, and build applications. |
Configuration, patching, monitoring, and upgrading all Oracle Application Express components are fully managed by Oracle. There are no limits on the number of developers or end-users for your Oracle APEX applications. Autonomous Database can instantly scale compute and storage online as needed, based upon your workload. You can deploy the Oracle APEX applications developed on-premise to Oracle APEX on Autonomous Database, or vice-versa easily. |
Build an APEX Application |
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SQL*Plus SQL*Plus is a command-line interface used to enter SQL commands. You can connect to Autonomous Database using SQL*Plus to define the database's tables, views, triggers, types, sequences and so on. |
To be able to connect SQL*Plus to an Autonomous Database, the system running SQL*Plus must have network access to the Autonomous Database. |
Connect with SQL*Plus |
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SQLcl (Oracle SQL Developer Command Line) SQLcl is a command-line interface for Oracle Database. It allows you to interactively or batch execute SQL and PL/SQL. SQLcl provides in-line editing, statement completion, and command recall for a feature-rich experience, all while also supporting your previously written SQL*Plus scripts. |
To be able to connect SQLCl to an Autonomous Database, the system running SQLCl must have network access to the Autonomous Database. |
Connect wth Oracle SQLcl |
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SQL Developer Oracle SQL Developer is a free integrated development environment that simplifies the development and management of Oracle Database in both traditional and cloud deployments. SQL Developer offers complete end-to-end development of your PL/SQL applications, a worksheet for running queries and scripts, a DBA console for managing the database, a reports interface, a complete data modeling solution, and a migration platform for moving your 3rd party databases to Oracle. |
To be able to connect SQL Developer to an Autonomous Database, the system running SQL Developer must have network access to the Autonomous Database. |
Connect with Oracle SQL Developer |
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Oracle REST Data Dervices Oracle REST Data Services (ORDS) makes it easy to develop REST interfaces for relational data in an Autonomous Database. ORDS is a mid-tier Java application that maps HTTP(S) verbs, such as GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, and so on, to database transactions, and returns any results as JSON data. |
The Oracle REST Data Services (ORDS) application in Autonomous Database is preconfigured and fully managed. ORDS connects to the database using the |
Developing RESTful Services in Autonomous Database |
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Simple Oracle Document Access (SODA) Oracle provides a family of Simple Oracle Document Access (SODA) APIs for access to JSON data stored in the database. SODA is designed for schemaless application development without knowledge of relational database features or languages such as SQL and PL/SQL. It lets you create and store collections of documents in Oracle Database, retrieve them, and query them, without needing to know how the documents are stored in the database. |
You can download the SODA drivers from the Details page of an Autonomous Database. There are available implementations of SODA are:
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Overview of SODA |
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Oracle Database API for MongoDB Oracle Database API for MongoDB translates the MongoDB wire protocol into SQL statements that are executed by Oracle Database. It lets developers who have MongoDB skill sets write JSON document-store applications for Oracle Database that use drivers and tools that understand the MongoDB protocol. |
To use the MongoDB API with an Autonomous Database, you must install and configure customer managed Oracle REST Data Services (ORDS) separately, and the version of ORDS must be 22.3 or later. |
Overview of Oracle Database API for MongoDB |
Autonomous Database Management Operations
You can perform the following management operations on an Autonomous Database.
| Operation | Task Instructions |
|---|---|
| Create an Autonomous Database | Create an Autonomous Database |
| Backup Your Autonomous Database Manually | Backup an Autonomous Database Manually |
| Clone an Autonomous Database | Clone an Autonomous Database |
| Create a Long-Term Backup | Create a Long-Term Backup |
| Enable or Disable Auto Scaling of an Autonomous Database | Enable or Disable Auto Scaling of an Autonomous Database |
| Enable or Disable Database In-Memory | Enable or Disable Database In-Memory |
| Enable Operations Insights for an Autonomous Database | Enable Operations Insights for an Autonomous Database |
| View Details of an Autonomous Database | View Details of an Autonomous Database |
| Manage Customer Contacts for an Autonomous Database | Manage Customer Contacts for an Autonomous Database |
| Manage CPU or Storage Resources of an Autonomous Database | Manage CPU or Storage Resources of an Autonomous Database |
| Manage Long-Term Backups | Manage Long-Term Backups |
| Manage Primary and Standby Databases in Autonomous Data Guard Configuration | Manage Primary and Standby Databases in an Autonomous Data Guard Configuration |
| Move an Autonomous Database to a Different Compartment | Move an Autonomous Database to a Different Compartment |
| Restore and Recover Your Autonomous Database | Restore and Recover Autonomous Database |
| Start, Stop, and Restart an Autonomous Database | Start, Stop, and Restart an Autonomous Database |
| View Autonomous Database Metrics for a Database | View Autonomous Database Metrics for a Database |
| View Autonomous Database Metrics for Databases in a Compartment | View Autonomous Database Metrics for Databases in a Compartment |
| Download Client Credentials | Download Client Credentials |
| View Connection Strings for an Autonomous Database | View Connection Strings for an Autonomous Database |
| Set Access Control List for an Autonomous Database | Set Access Control List for an Autonomous Database |
| Register or Deregister a Dedicated Database with Data Safe | Register or Deregister a Dedicated Database with Data Safe |
| Terminate an Autonomous Database | Terminate an Autonomous Database |
The above listed operations can also be achieved using API. See API to Manage Autonomous Databases for further reference.
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