Amazon RDS for Oracle

Amazon has just made RDS data transfers easier and quicker. According to Amazon, starting February 26, 2019, Amazon Relational Database (RDS) for Oracle supports integration with Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) for data ingress and egress capabilities. Amazon Simple Storage Service is simply storage for the Internet. This new feature allows RDS Oracle customers to easily, efficiently, and securely transfer data between their RDS Oracle DB Instances and Amazon S3.

With Amazon S3 Integration, you can perform data access to migrate workloads into your RDS Oracle DB Instance. Previously, data transfers from an RDS Oracle DB Instance were more complicated and required; 1) an additional DB Instance, and 2) a connection between the two. Amazon S3 Integration does away with those 2 steps makes this process much more efficient, saving time, and as we all know time saved is money saved.

• Amazon Relational Database Service is a relational Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) and is free for 750 hours per month.
• If you’re new to AWS, then you get to use the free usage tier for the first 12 months.

Amazon RDS is available on several database instance types;

1. Optimized for memory
2. Performance or I/O

Amazon RDS provides you with six familiar database engines to choose from, including;

1. Amazon Aurora
2. PostgreSQL
3. MySQL
4. MariaDB
5. Oracle Database
6. SQL Server

PC Magazine compared and rated the top DBaaS services in their article “The Best Database-as-a-Service Solutions for 2019:

• https://www.pcmag.com/roundup/362139/the-best-database-as-a-service-solutions

You can use the AWS Database Migration Service to easily migrate or replicate your existing databases to Amazon RDS, and can run Amazon RDS for Oracle under two different licensing models;

2. Licenses Included – In this service model, you do not need separately purchased Oracle licenses; the Oracle Database software has already been licensed by AWS. “License Included” pricing starts at $0.04 per hour, inclusive of software, underlying hardware resources, and Amazon RDS management capabilities. You can take advantage of hourly pricing with no upfront fees or long-term commitments.
   1. In addition, you also have the option to purchase Reserved DB Instances under one- or three-year reservation terms. With Reserved DB Instances, you can make low, one-time, upfront payment for each DB Instance and then pay a significantly discounted hourly usage rate, achieving up to 48% net cost savings. Reserved Instances provide additional payment options: All Upfront, Partial Upfront, and No Upfront.
3. BYOL – If you already own Oracle Database licenses, you can use the “BYOL” model to run Oracle databases on Amazon RDS, with rates starting at $0.025 per hour. The “BYOL” model is designed for customers who prefer to use existing Oracle database licenses or purchase new licenses directly from Oracle.

 

Amazon Oracle Licensing

The License Included model is supported on Amazon RDS for the following Oracle database editions:

1. Oracle Database Standard Edition One (SE1)
2. Oracle Database Standard Edition Two (SE2)

 

The Bring Your Own License model is supported on Amazon RDS for the following Oracle database editions:

1. Oracle Database Enterprise Edition (EE)
2. Oracle Database Standard Edition (SE)
3. Oracle Database Standard Edition One (SE1)
4. Oracle Database Standard Edition Two (SE2)

 

BYOL enables an organization to maintain their previous investment in software yet take advantage of the benefits of a Cloud platform. However, be aware that Oracle authorized Cloud platforms do not calculate required licenses the same way it is done in an on-premise environment. You can apply your Oracle licenses against this environment in a manner that closely matches the performance characteristics of an on-premise solution.

 

Note: Some Cloud Platforms like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure may require a greater number of licenses than an on-premise solution due to how Oracle requires licenses to be calculated on those platforms.

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