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AWS plugs Oracle 11g database into its cloud

The Amazon subsidiary has said it will provide support for Oracle's relational database in the scalable AWS cloud within the next few months
Written by Jack Clark, Contributor

Amazon Web Services has unveiled plans to allow businesses to run their Oracle 11g databases in its cloud on demand.

The cloud subsidiary of Amazon will make Oracle database 11g Release 2 available via its Relational Database Service (RDS), it said on Monday. The service is scheduled to arrive in the second quarter of 2011.

"Amazon RDS running Oracle Database will reduce administrative overhead and expense by maintaining database software, taking continuous backups for point-in-time recovering and exposing key operational metrics via Amazon CloudWatch," the company said in a blog post. "It will also allow scaling of compute and storage capacity to be done with a few clicks of the AWS Management Console."

The on-demand Oracle 11g support, offered to both licence and non-licence holders, follows the introduction by Salesforce.com in December of Database.com, which is also powered by Oracle database technology.

In addition, the service is the second relational database in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud, as the company introduced support for MySQL 5.1 via its RDS in September 2009.

"Providing [Oracle Database 11g] at the infrastructure level is interesting but not groundbreaking," Nick Barron, marketing director at managed services company Carrenza, told ZDNet UK. "If [AWS] were talking about Oracle-as-a-service, that would be interesting."

DB Instance

Customers will be able to pay for the use of Oracle Database 11g on an hourly basis "without any up-front fees or long-term commitments", AWS said. The hourly rate will vary according to the Oracle Database edition and the DB Instance size.

A DB Instance is an AWS virtual computer and is available in six sizes, scaling from 1.7GB of memory up to 68GB of memory.

Customers with existing Oracle database licences will be able to use them with AWS, and if they conform to Oracle licensing policies, they will not have to pay additional licence or support fees.

For non-licence holders, the hourly cost will be reduced if they purchase Reserved DB Instances. A Reserved DB Instance is a specific DB Instance that is reserved, for a fee, for either a year or three years, and then run at a "significant discount" on the typical DB Instance usage charge, according to AWS. Specific pricing was not disclosed.


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