Cloud Database
Oracle on AWS costs
In a previous post I walked through the steps of setting up an Oracle Database on AWS RDS. It was a very simple and straight forward process. The only thing to watch out for was to open the network to allow traffic in and out. I also showed how to connect SQL Developer to that database.
I’ve been using it for a few days and needed to move onto other things for a few days. I could leave the Database up and running during this period or I could shut down the Database to save a few dollars/euro. It also gave me a chance to see how much this database cloud instance is costing me. In my previous post, it was estimated to cost about 0.89c per day.
Before we look at the Actual/Real costs, let’s walk through the steps of shutting down the database.
To stop the database, click on the Actions button on the top right hand side of the screen, just above the database summary details. You will get a confirmation window/box appearing, see image below, asking you to confirm by clicking ‘Yes, Stop Now’.
It will take a few minutes for this shutdown to complete and in my case it took approx. 8 minutes, which was a little surprising as no one was using it at the time. You might need to refresh the webpage to see this change.
That’s all very simple, but it does give you a warning about the stopped database instance. It will be restarted in 7 days time! So if this is a database you will occasionally use, then you will need to carefully manage this particular feature, otherwise you will end up with the database automatically starting and you will be paying for this.
What about the Costs?
The costs for running this service can be found in the AWS Cost Management page. Here we can see the database was running for 7 and a bit days before I shut it down, and we can see the daily cost was 0.82c. Two things note about these costs. There was larger cost for the first day. Most of this cost was associated with the setup and configuration of the database service. The second thing to note is the costs listed in this console do not include taxes.
A got the bill for this usage, and it came to $6.94, consisting of $5.64 for usage (approx. 75c per day) and $1.30 in taxes/vat. Not a lot considering some cloud services, but comes out at approx 92.5c per day, which is a little more than the estimated cost when the service was being created. A small example of what can happen between the “in theory” cost of cloud versus the actual costs.
AWS RDS Oracle setup
There are lots of options available to you for creating and using an Oracle Database.
One of these options is to use AWS RDS services to create and host a Database.
Warning: Using AWS is a paid service and the RDS options are available based on the size of the server you pick. The example show in below will cost approx 89c per day or $27 per month. For this the database will be running 24×7. You could reduce this cost significantly by only starting/stopping the Database when you need it, or alternatively create an AWS lamda function service to start/stop.
First thing you need to do is go create an AWS account, and yes you will need to hand over your credit card number.
After creating your account and you have logged in, search for RDS and you will get the following display. Click on the orange button at the top of the page to Create Database.
Then select
- Standard create
- Oracle
- Architecture settings -> Use multitenant architecture
- Oracle Enterprise Edition
- Version -> use the drop down and select latest version (in my case 21)
- Templates -> Dev/Test
- Instance Identifier -> database-1
- Master Username -> admin
- Master password -> <set password> and confirm it
- DB Instance Class – as we only want a DB for playing with, go with the cheapest -> db.t3.small (Hint: Scroll to bottom of page to see the estimated monthly costs)
- Storage type -> General Purpose SSD. If you change this to Magnetic, you will see the cost drop by approx $2 per month. I selected General Purpose SSD
- Allocated Storage -> I set this to 20G (it’s just a small play DB)
- Disable/un-tick – Entable Storage Autoscaling
- Select defaults for VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) – see notes later on opening this to allow connection from your computer.
- Public Access – Set to Yes
- Defaults for remaining options.
[Note: You might be prompted to enter a DB Name. Keep this short, with no special characters.]
Click on ‘Create Database’ button at bottom of screen to create the database. It can take anything from a couple of minutes to 30 minutes to create the Database.
When everything is create, and you try to connect to the Database using SQL Developer, you will not be able to connect. The VPC needs to be opened to outside traffic. Click on the VPC Security Groups link, then click on the Security Group link on the next page
Then click on the ‘Edit Inbound rules’ button, and then on the ‘Add Rule’ button (bottom left) to add a new rule. Then select ‘All Traffic’ from drop down, and 0.0.0.0/0 in the Source field. Then save the rules.
You are now ready to create a connection using SQL Developer. To do this you will need database Endpoint from the RDS dashboard. You will also need the DB Name. This can be found by clicking on the ‘Configuration’ tab, and is listed on left-hand side under DB Name
Now in SQL Developer enter those details and click Test button to see if the connection works. It should! but if it doesn’t then double check the username and password, the other details entered, and the network changes made above are correct.
You can now connect and start using the Database.
Warning: You will be connecting as the ADMIN for the Database. You should never use this account for any development work. So go create a new database user/schema and use it for all your work.
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