About Exadata Cloud Service Database Deployments

• Service Level

• Oracle Database Software Release

• Oracle Grid Infrastructure Software Release

• Oracle Database Software Edition

• Oracle Database Type

• Automatic Backup Configuration

• Data Security

Service Level

When creating a database deployment on Oracle Database Exadata Cloud Service, ensure that you select Oracle Database Exadata Cloud Service as the service level option.

Ignore other service level options, as these relate to Oracle Database Cloud Services that are implemented on non-Exadata systems.

Note:

Before you can create a database deployment with Exadata Cloud Service, you must have access to an Exadata Cloud Service instance. If you do not have access you will not see Oracle Database Exadata Cloud Service in the list of service level options.

Oracle Database Software Release

When creating a database deployment on Oracle Database Exadata Cloud Service, you choose one of the following Oracle Database software releases:

• Oracle Database 11g Release 2

• Oracle Database 12c Release 1

• Oracle Database 12c Release 2

• Oracle Database 18c

Oracle Grid Infrastructure Software Release

Oracle Grid Infrastructure provides infrastructure services, such as cluster management and storage management, to Oracle Database. On Exadata Cloud Service, one installation of Oracle Grid Infrastructure supports all of the database deployments in each Exadata Cloud Service instance.

The Oracle Database software release version that you select for the starter database deployment determines the Oracle Grid Infrastructure software release version that is configured on your Exadata Cloud Service instance. The starter database is the very first database deployment that you create after the creation of your Exadata Cloud Service instance.

For new starter database deployments:

• If you select Oracle Database 18c as the Oracle Database software release version, then Oracle Grid Infrastructure 18c is installed.

• If you select Oracle Database 12c Release 2, or earlier, as the Oracle Database software release version, then Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c Release 2 is installed.

After Oracle Grid Infrastructure is installed:

• On systems that are configured with Oracle Grid Infrastructure 18c, you can create database deployments that use any Oracle Database release version.

• On systems that are configured with Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c Release 2, you can only create database deployments that use Oracle Database 12c Release 2, or earlier. Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c Release 2 cannot support databases using Oracle Database 18c.

• On older systems that are configured with Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c Release 1, you can only create database deployments that use Oracle Database 12c Release 1, or earlier. Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c Release 1 cannot support databases using Oracle Database 12c Release 2, or later.

  If you want to deploy Oracle Database 12c Release 2 on a system that is already configured with Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c Release 1, then you must manually upgrade to Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c Release 2 and manually create the version 12.2 database deployment. For details see My Oracle Support note 2206224.1.

Oracle Database Software Edition

When creating a database deployment on Oracle Database Exadata Cloud Service, Enterprise Edition - Extreme Performance is the only available choice. This provides all the features of Oracle Database Enterprise Edition, plus all the database enterprise management packs and all the Enterprise Edition options, such as Oracle Database In-Memory and Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC).

Oracle Database Type

When creating a database deployment on Oracle Database Exadata Cloud Service, you choose one of the following database types:

• Database Clustering with RAC — creates a clustered database that uses Oracle Real Application Clusters. You can specify to run the clustered database instances on one or more compute nodes (database servers) in the Exadata Cloud Service environment.

• Database Clustering with RAC and Data Guard Standby — creates two clustered databases with one acting as the primary database and one acting as the standby database in an Oracle Data Guard configuration. Each database uses Oracle Real Application Clusters, with clustered database instances on one or more compute nodes (database servers).

Automatic Backup Configuration

Oracle Database Exadata Cloud Service provides automatic built-in database backup facilities. Automatic backups can be stored on:

• Cloud storage — uses an Oracle Storage Cloud container. This container becomes associated with Oracle Database Backup Cloud Service, which Exadata Cloud Service uses to perform backups to cloud storage.

• Exadata storage — uses storage from the local Exadata Storage Servers that is allocated to the RECO disk group. Database backups are managed in the Fast Recovery Area (FRA), which is located in the RECO disk group.

When creating a database deployment on Exadata Cloud Service, you choose the destination for automatic backups. Your choices are:

• Both Cloud Storage and Exadata Storage — enables two separate backup sets containing periodic full (RMAN level 0) backups and daily incremental backups. The backup to cloud storage uses an Oracle Storage Cloud container, with a seven day cycle between full backups and an overall retention period of 30 days. The backup to Exadata storage uses space in the RECO disk group, with a seven day cycle between full backups and a seven day retention period.

  Note:

  This option is only available if you provisioned for database backups on Exadata storage. See Exadata Storage Configuration.

• Cloud Storage Only — uses an Oracle Storage Cloud container to store periodic full (RMAN level 0) backups and daily incremental backups, with a seven day cycle between full backups and an overall retention period of 30 days.

  Note:

  To eliminate possible confusion or contention, do not use a single cloud storage container as a backup destination for multiple database deployments.

• None — no automatic backups are configured.