OCI Feature Series – Part 5: Let’s Talk About Free Stuff

When you run Oracle Database on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), you gain access to a suite of powerful database management features at no additional cost. These aren’t just minor add-ons—they provide enterprise-grade automation, scalability, performance monitoring, and security without extra licensing fees. 

Database Cloud Tooling

OCI provides integrated automation that significantly reduces DBA effort making it easier to manage Oracle Databases at scale. 

• One-click, single-line CLI, API, or Ansible commands allow database administrators to efficiently perform critical operations like patching, upgrades, cloning, and backup/recovery with minimal effort. 
• Data Guard setup and disaster recovery management are simplified, eliminating the complexity of manual configurations.  
• Comprehensive API ecosystem and a rich Ansible collection enable full automation of routine database management tasks, minimising human intervention. 

Performance Hub

OCI includes built-in performance monitoring tools that provide deep visibility into database workloads, without requiring extra licensing for diagnostics tools. 

• Comprehensive workload analytics — equivalent to on-prem Enterprise Manager (EM) Active Session History (ASH) functionality.  
• SQL monitoring and execution plan analysis – directly available in the web console, helping DBAs identify inefficient queries and optimise performance. 

Data Safe

Security is a critical concern for any database, Data Safe provides enterprise-grade database security tools built into the platform at no extra cost:

• Continuous security assessment and monitoring help identify vulnerabilities in database configurations.  
• Comprehensive audit capabilities allow businesses to meet compliance requirements with pre-built audit templates and out-of-the-box configurations.  
• SQL Firewall protection (available with 23ai) helps prevent SQL injection attacks and secures against unauthorized access.  
• Visualised security posture and activity tracking in real-time ensures greater visibility into database security events. 

As you can see – Oracle DB@OCI provides a lot of extra value!

Keen to learn how you can adopt these capabilities? Get in touch here to discuss how we use these services to solve real world problems.