Oracle announced "Ampere A1 Shapes for VMDB" for the BaseDB Cloud Service - Oracle Database 19c on Arm platform in OCI

Last week, June 28th, 2023 Oracle released Arm-based shape for DBCS to use in OCI which support Oracle database 19c.

This is flexible shape let us customize OCPUs allocated to an instance. 

Writing this blog to provide some insight on using Arm-based shape for your DBCS.

If you like to read about what is Arm and why we used Arm processor and what are the benefits, please check below link from Oracle.

https://www.oracle.com/ca-en/cloud/compute/arm/what-is-arm/

Here are the steps to setup Arm shape based DBCS:

Go to OCI --> Click on Oracle database --> click on Oracle Base database Service

Click create DB System --> Provide name ( I used Arm-DBCS)

Click on change Shape and select Ampere (Arm-based processors), We have only one shape available Ampere VM.Standard.A1.Flex shape, its flexible and you can configure OCPU

I choose 2 OCPU

Next Configure storage, Click on change storage

Note: Ampere A1 Shape is only supported on Logical Volume Manager, see below other option greyed out.

Next configure the DB system

Note: Ampere A1 Shape is only supported on single-node DB systems, see below we cant change node count.

Also, Oracle database standard Edition is not supported on Ampere A1 Shape based DBCS.

Add SSH keys and network details and click next

Provide DB name ( I used Armdb) and click on Change database Image)

Note: A database software image can not be used for creating database on Ampere A1 shaped DB system, see below I cant select a database version. 

So I have to Choose Oracle database Software Image.

Note: Ampere A1 shape is available for Database version 19c with the 19.19.0.0 and later release updates (RU) only.

Provide database sys password (it will be same for TDE wallet)

Configure Database backups

Note: Ampere A1 shape-based DB system provisioning and restoration are not supported if the backup destination for the database is Autonomous Recovery Service. see below I can not choose that option.

For now I am disabling the backups

Click on create DB System, it will take few mins to provision

Once its provisioned, you can see the state available.

Now using private key I can access the DBCS node and check the database, you can see its 19.19.0.0.0

Also, you can see the Processor Info where you see architecture is aarch64 using lscpu output

Here Oracle database is ready and running on Arm based Platform.

There are few important things I like to mention here..

1. The shape of Ampere A1 shape-based DB systems cannot be changed to Intel or AMD shape-based DB systems, and vice versa. see below, I tried to change shape.

2. Ampere A1 shape-based DB systems do not support Data Guard associations with Intel or AMD shape-based DB systems. see below I tried to enable Data Guard but only possible shape in Ampere only.

3. Also, A backup of an Ampere A1 shape-based database cannot be restored on Intel or AMD shape-based DB systems, and vice versa.

Note: Oracle database 19c on LINUX ARM is also available to download now.

https://www.oracle.com/database/technologies/oracle-database-software-downloads.html#19c