About Cloning on Autonomous AI Database

When you create a clone for an Autonomous AI Database instance, you have the option to select the clone type: a full clone, a metadata clone, or a refreshable clone:

Full Clone: creates a new database with the source database's data and metadata.
Refreshable Clone: creates a read-only full clone that can be easily refreshed with the data from the source database.
Metadata Clone: creates a new database that includes all of the source database schema metadata, but not the source database data.
Refreshable Metadata Clone: creates a read-only clone that includes all of the source database schema metadata, but not the source database data. A refreshable metadata clone can be easily refreshed with changes from the source database.

For a Full Clone or a Metadata Clone, you have the option to select the clone source:

Clone from a database instance: This creates a clone of a running database.
Clone from a backup: This creates a clone when you select a backup from a list of backups, or when you enter a backup point-in-time to clone.
Clone from the latest backup: This creates a clone where Autonomous AI Database uses the most recent backup data that is available to create the clone.

Note: Depending on the cloning options you choose, cloning an Autonomous AI Database instance copies your database files to a new instance. Depending on the size of your database and where you are cloning your database, expect the cloning operation to take significantly longer than provisioning a new Autonomous AI Database instance. There is no downtime associated with cloning and the cloning operation has no impact on applications running on the source.

Additional Cloning Options

There are several additional cloning options that allow you to clone to a different workload type, a different region, or to a different tenancy.

Cloning Option	Description
Cross Region Cloning	You can clone a database where the source and the cloned database are in different regions (cross region cloning). This allows you to clone an existing database or clone a backup to create a database in a different region.
Clone to Change the Workload Type	You can clone a database and select a different workload type for the cloned database. See Clone Autonomous AI Database to Change Workload Type for more information.
Source Unavailable Cloning	You can clone a database when the source Autonomous AI Database instance is in the unavailable state. This allows you to create a new database from a backup and use the new database in place of the unavailable database.
Preview Release Cloning	When an upcoming release is available for preview with Autonomous AI Database, you can clone your existing database to use the preview version. A preview version is only available when there is an upcoming major version to release. When no preview version is available, cloning does not provide this option.
Cross Tenancy Cloning	You can clone a database where the source and the cloned database are in different tenancies (cross tenancy cloning). This allows you to clone an existing database or clone a backup to create a database in a different tenancy, where the clone is either in a different tenancy in the same region or in a different tenancy in a different region. Note: The cross tenancy cloning option is only available using the CLI or the Autonomous AI Database REST APIs. This option is not available using the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console. See Cross Tenancy and Cross Region Cloning for more information.
Move to a Different Compartment	You can also move an Autonomous AI Database to a different Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Compartment. See Move an Autonomous AI Database to a Different Compartment for more information.