Amazon RDS To Get Oracle Support

Amazon Web Services has announced that it plans to make Oracle Database 11g available via the Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS), during the second quarter of 2011.

Amazon RDS is a web service that makes it easier to set up, operate and scale a relational database in the cloud. In a press release on the news, AWS said Amazon RDS for Oracle will include flexible pricing options for customers. Those with existing Oracle licences will be able to run Oracle Databases on Amazon RDS with no additional software licensing or support charges. Those without existing Oracle licences can take advantage of on-demand hourly licensing with no upfront fees or long-term commitments.

Licensing options

AWS plans to offer a variety of licensing options for running the Oracle Database on Amazon RDS, including:

• “Bring Your Own License” (BYOL) – Customers with existing Oracle Database licenses can apply them to run Oracle Databases on Amazon RDS with no additional software licensing or support charges.
• On-Demand Database Instances (DB Instances) – This pay-by-the-hour licensing option requires no pre-existing licences, upfront fees or long-term commitments to run Oracle Databases on Amazon RDS. Customers pay a simple, hourly rate per RDS Database Instance running Oracle Database 11g. The hourly rate depends upon the Oracle Database edition and DB Instance size option selected.
• Reserved DB Instances – Reserved DB Instances allow customers to make a low, one-time payment for each DB Instance and in turn receive the option to run that DB Instance at a significant discount on the ongoing hourly usage charge. Both one-year and three-year reservation terms will be available.

Amazon RDS already supports MySQL. With support for the Oracle Database engine, Amazon RDS will streamline database administration for multiple editions of Oracle Database 11g Release 2, freeing up developers to spend more time on the differentiating parts of their applications rather than the muck of maintaining and scaling their database infrastructure.

“Customers were really excited when we launched Amazon RDS for MySQL because it allowed them to run familiar MySQL databases while offloading operational responsibilities and capital costs associated with physical servers and datacenters,” said Raju Gulabani, vice president of database services at Amazon Web Services. “Enterprises have asked when we’d offer the same functionality for Oracle Databases. We’re pleased to share that we’re not only releasing it soon, but also that we’re ready to have conversations with interested customers so they can plan for future deployments.”

Provisioning

Amazon RDS reduces the amount of time required to provision a relational database, as well as the underlying infrastructure hardware and software, from days to just minutes, AWS officials said. It also manages ongoing maintenance tasks such as updating database software, taking continuous database backups for point-in-time recovery, and exposing key operational metrics via a web dashboard. In addition, businesses can scale the compute and storage capacity associated with a database in minutes – with a few clicks, the company said.

“Amazon continues to be a pioneer in cloud computing, and we’ve worked closely together to make sure that the power of the Oracle portfolio is available to customers who want to run them in the AWS cloud,” said Mark Townsend, vice president of Oracle Database Server Technologies, in a statement. “With more and more Oracle Database users interested in running on AWS, we are working with AWS to make sure the ease of fulfillment and platform agility of Amazon RDS is available for the Oracle Database.”

Technical support for Oracle Database will be available from Oracle for BYOL DB Instances, and from AWS with backline support from Oracle for On-Demand and Reserved DB Instances. Developers can learn more about Amazon RDS and how it offloads much of the operational work associated with maintaining relational databases by going to http://aws.amazon.com/rds. Also, businesses and developers can visit http://aws.amazon.com/rds/oracle to learn more, sign up to be notified when the service is available, and request a briefing from an AWS associate.