Is is surprisingly easy...
Create an AWS account
If you don't already have one, create an account:
Click on the 'Get Started for Free' button.
Enter an email address or mobile number and select 'I am a
new user' and click on 'Sign in using our secure server'.
Fill in the fields in the Login credentials page and click
'Create Account'
Check the 'Personal' box and fill in the fields.
Note – you need to enter your real phone number because it
calls you and asks to enter a verification code.
Click on 'Create Account and Continue'.
It will show you the plan details which should be plenty for
a test database. You also need to credit card details so they can bill you if
you exceed the terms, so try not to.
Click on 'Continue'.
It will then call your phone and ask you to enter a
verification code.
Once done, you will also be sent confirmation emails and can then sign into
the console.
Sign into the console
If not redirected, go here : http://aws.amazon.com/
Click on 'Sign In to the Console', enter the username and
password and click on 'Sign in using our secure server'.
You will be presented with a page full of stuff:
The one you are interested in is the 'RDS' under 'Database',
middle left of the page:
So click on that.
Then click on the 'Get Started Now' button.
At the next page, click on Oracle
At the next screen, select 'Oracle SE One' – I don't know if
it will prompt for licence details for the others, and since this is a test, SE
One is fine.
At the next page, check the 'No' box – otherwise it might
charge your credit card - it might not, but I'm not game to try...
Click 'Next Step'
Fill in the fields – I've made it the smallest so that my
credit card doesn't get charged.
Click 'Next Step'
I don't know what most of these are, so I let them default
except for the name. I also selected 'default (VPC)'.
Click 'Launch DB Instance'
Click on the 'View Your DB Instances' link.
You should see this:
It will take around 20-30 minutes to create, so you can't do anything for a while.
Viewing your instances later
I had a bit of trouble finding the main status page later –
this is where it is.
From here : https://aws.amazon.com/
Click on 'Sign into the Console'
Enter your username and password and click on 'Sign in to
our secure server'.
At the main AWS page, click on the 'RDS' icon (middle-left
of page).
Click on 'Instances'
You should see this:
You can then click on the 'Show Monitoring' button to see charts of the activity, create alerts etc (which I'll do next time).
Connecting to the database with SQL Developer
The database won't be available for a while as it's being
created, maybe 30 minutes or so.
After that time, click on the small arrow next
to the database and you will see a field 'Endpoint'.
If this says 'Not Yet
Available' then you need to wait.
If it's ready, it will show something like this (I've obscured mine for obvious reasons):
Go to SQL Developer (or SQL Plus) and enter this as the
connection info, using the username / password when you set it up:
Click on 'Test', if all is OK it will work.
Mine stopped working because it created another security
group for some reason.
So if you get a 'file I/O' error when trying to connect, the
same thing may have happened to you.
Go to the RDS Console, show the instance details and hover
the mouse over the 'I' icon next to 'Endpoint':
Note the Security Group – click on the link.
It will open a new page with the security group shown. Click
on 'Actions' and select 'Edit inbound rules':
Use the drop-down to select 'Anywhere' under the source,
then Save:
Click on 'Save' and then 'Connect'..
Congratulations, you now have an Oracle database in the
cloud.
Next time I'll look at monitoring and alerting.
