OCI Feature Series – Part 4: Lets Talk About Cost 

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) provides a full range of Oracle Database services — from Standard Edition to Autonomous Database — catering to all workload requirements. Compared to on-premise deployments or running Oracle Database on other public clouds, OCI offers substantial cost savings, flexibility, and built-in management features that set it apart. 

Cost and Licensing Advantages

One of OCI’s biggest differentiators is its cost structure and licensing flexibility, making it far more cost-effective to run Oracle Database than traditional deployment models: 

Lower Total Cost of Ownership – Running Oracle Enterprise Edition on OCI’s DB Base Service costs approximately AUD $1,200 per month (AUD $14,400 per year) for 2 OCPUs, 32GB RAM, and 2TB of high-performance storage running 24/7. This is significantly lower than typical on-prem licensing, which involves perpetual licenses, ongoing support fees, and infrastructure costs. Plus, everything — compute, storage, and networking — is included. 

Optimised for Non-Production – Need to run databases only during business hours? By scheduling compute usage dynamically (e.g., 6 AM – 6 PM on weekdays), you can reduce costs to just AUD $556 per month for the same configuration. 

Flexible Scaling – Scale up or down OCPUs on demand with a simple configuration change and reboot, ensuring your costs always align with actual workload needs. Database storage capacity can be expanded easily online as required.

Predictable Costs – Expanding database CPU capacity, or feature set is straightforward, cost-transparent, and easy to forecast for future growth.

Built-In Management Tools – Oracle Base management tools simplify database administration, significantly reducing the effort required to support and maintain your Oracle platform. 

The Bottom Line 

OCI’s DB Base services deliver exceptional value by combining cost-effective Oracle Database hosting with built-in cloud automation and management features. This doesn’t just cut cloud service costs—it also reduces support effort, leading to significant TCO savings. 

Are you considering Oracle Database on OCI? We’ve helped organisations dramatically cut costs while improving performance. Let’s talk — reach out to learn how we’ve optimised Oracle workloads on OCI.