Exploring Oracle’s MySQL Cloud Service

As the maker of the world’s most popular open source database, Oracle is ideally positioned to deliver a MySQL Cloud Service. With the Cloud/DBaaS market expected to grow from 1.1 billion in 2014 to 14 billion by 2019 (forecast by MarketsAndMarkets), Oracle has officially thrown their hat into the DBaaS ring with Oracle MySQL Cloud Service. Built on MySQL Enterprise Edition, Oracle MySQL Cloud Service is a MySQL database service that provides a simple, automated, integrated and enterprise ready MySQL cloud service.

If you’re among the many organizations considering moving your database infrastructure to the Cloud, you may want to include Oracle’s MySQL Cloud Service in your short list. To better help you evaluate Oracle MySQL Cloud Service, this tutorial will give you a rundown on how to get up and running with the free account option.

Signing up for an Oracle Public Cloud Account

On the Oracle Cloud home page, you’ll see a “Try for Free” button in the top-right corner of the page. Clicking it will take you to the /tryit page, where you’ll find a couple of “Create a Free Account” buttons. Click one to receive 300 dollars of free credits that are valid for up to 30 days. We’ll use those to go through today’s tutorial.

  1. Enter an account name, select a data region, and specify your contact information.
  2. Verify your identity with your mobile number and a verification code.

    Try it for Free
    Try it for Free

  3. Enter your credit card details. You won’t be charged unless you elect to upgrade the account. You may see a small, temporary charge on your bill. This is a verification hold that will be removed automatically.
  4. Accept the terms and conditions, click “Complete”, and then wait for a Welcome email.

Once the signup process is complete, you’ll be directed to the Getting Started Page. You can also access it via the link in your welcome email:

Getting Started Page
Getting Started Page

On the Getting Started Page, you can get familiar with your account by clicking one of the tiles on the Guided Journey.

Guided Journey
Guided Journey

The site will then prompt you with some questions, and guide you to some suggested cloud services, videos, and tutorials.

Creating a MySQL Cloud Service Instance

The Dashboard is your starting point for all your Oracle Cloud Account management actions.

    1. Sign into the Oracle Cloud by clicking the link in your Welcome email, or go to https://cloud.oracle.comand click “Sign In”. Select “Traditional Cloud Account” from the first dropdown, choose a Data Center from the second one, and click on “My Services”.

      MySQL Cloud Service Instance
      MySQL Cloud Service Instance

    2. On the next page, type the name of your Identity Domain and click “Go”.

      Sign into Oracle Cloud
      Sign into Oracle Cloud

That will take you to the Dashboard.

Oracle Cloud Dashboard
Oracle Cloud Dashboard

There, you’ll notice that your remaining free credits and days are shown.

Now it’s time to create our MySQL instance.

    1. Be sure to select the item without the “(traditional)” from the Identity Domain dropdown, or you won’t see all of the available service options.

      Identity Domain dropdown
      Identity Domain dropdown

    2. Click the “Create Instance” button and select “MySQL” from the popup dialog.

That will bring up the MySQL Cloud Service page.

    1. Initially, the page shows that you have no MySQL Cloud Service instances, so you’ll have to create one by clicking the “Create Instance” button.

      Create Instance
      Create Instance

    2. The first stop is the Basic Information page. There, you can provide the instance name, description, as well as some other pertinent information:

      Instance Page
      Instance Page

    3. The Service Details page is where you’ll specify most of the instance parameters. These include Configuration details as well as backup and recovery options.
    4. When you create a MySQL Cloud Service instance, you have to provide an SSH key pair, which will allow you to connect to the instance from an SSH client.

      You can generate a public/private key pair with your SSH client, or during the instance creation process. The private key remains on your local machine, and you can install the public key on any machine you want to connect to via SSH.

    5. In the Configuration section, specify the following:
      • Usable Database Storage (GB): The default is 25 GB.
      • Administration User and Password: The MySQL administration user credentials, usually “root”.
      • Database Schema Name: The default database.

Note that you can also configure MySQL Enterprise Monitor in this section if you want to monitor the instance from the same machine that hosts it. This is not the best practice, so for this tutorial select “No” from the “Configure MySQL Enterprise Monitor” dropdown.

  1. In the Backup and Configuration section, note that backups (using MySQL Enterprise Backup) are enabled by default. You need an Oracle Cloud Service container so that backups can be stored both in the cloud and on the local compute node. For this tutorial, select “None” from the “Backup Destination” drop-down list to disable backups on the instance.
  2. Click the “Next” button in the Create Service wizard. The third and final page of the wizard displays a summary of your settings. Verify the settings for your instance and then click “Create”.
  3. The instance will now be displayed with a status of “Creating service…”. You can click the refresh button to monitor the status of the creation request:

    In-Progress Operation Messages
    In-Progress Operation Messages

When the instance is ready, it will appear in the list of available services. Then, you can click the service name link to view the service details, which include the public IP address of the virtual machine that hosts the instance. You’ll also be able to perform all your typical administration tasks such as backups, patching, and scaling, from the Instance Summary screen.

Conclusion

All-in-all, the process was not too difficult. I had a few issues along the way with pages expiring and getting locked out at one point. Having said that, getting back on track was easy enough.

Now that we’ve got a MySQL instance to play with, in upcoming articles, we’ll look at adding users, assigning roles, as well as managing our account.

See all articles by Rob Gravelle

Robert Gravelle
Robert Gravelle
Rob Gravelle resides in Ottawa, Canada, and has been an IT guru for over 20 years. In that time, Rob has built systems for intelligence-related organizations such as Canada Border Services and various commercial businesses. In his spare time, Rob has become an accomplished music artist with several CDs and digital releases to his credit.

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