Oracle Database@Google Cloud FAQ

General product information

What is Oracle Database@Google Cloud?

Oracle and Google have announced a partnership to deliver Oracle Database services on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) managed by Oracle, running inside Google Cloud data centers. This new service allows you to accelerate innovation and cloud migration and quickly build and modernize applications using capabilities such as Oracle Database 23ai’s AI Vector Search and JSON Relational Duality and Google’s Vertex AI and Gemini foundation models. Leverage a frictionless end-to-end experience across purchasing, operations, and collaborative support.

• Innovate with Oracle Database services running in Google Cloud.
  • Build new cloud native apps using Google Cloud services, such as Google Kubernetes Engine and Google Vertex AI, with Oracle Autonomous Database.
  • Enhance existing applications by combining business data with large language models using Oracle Database 23ai’s AI Vector Search with Google’s Vertex AI and Gemini foundational models.
  • Quickly react to business demands using one converged, fully automated database that’s optimized for all workloads and data formats.
  • Generate deeper analytical insights by combining the performance, availability, scale, and security of Oracle Exadata Database Service and the fully automated Oracle Autonomous Database with innovative Google Cloud services such as Looker
• Migrate Oracle Database workloads to Google Cloud.
  • Simplify moving database workloads to Google Cloud thanks to full compatibility with on-premises Oracle Database and Exadata environments and Oracle Zero Downtime Migration.
  • Achieve the same high levels of Oracle Database performance that’s available in OCI and gain extreme availability with proven Oracle capabilities.
  • Run Oracle Autonomous Database and Oracle Exadata Database Service in Google Cloud to benefit from differentiated Exadata capabilities for OLTP, data warehousing, analytics, and AI.
  • Simplify database management with Autonomous Database’s self-managing, self-tuning, and self-scaling capabilities, which minimize human error, reduce operational costs, and increase security.
• Simplify management and operations.
  • Purchase Oracle Database services through the Google Cloud Marketplace using your Google Cloud commitments and get a single bill for Oracle Database and Google Cloud services.
  • Use existing Oracle Database licenses and accrue the same Oracle Support Rewards as when using OCI directly.
  • Automate manual administrative tasks such as database provisioning, backups, and monitoring.
  • Simplify management using native integration with Google Cloud Console, APIs, monitoring, and operations, giving you peace of mind to focus on your business.
  • Simplify support through collaborative engagement from Google and Oracle.

Which Oracle products are available?

Oracle Exadata Database Service, Oracle Autonomous Database Serverless, and Oracle Database Zero Data Loss Autonomous Recovery Service are available. We expect this portfolio to grow rapidly with additional products.

What part numbers are available from Oracle with Oracle Database@Google Cloud?

All other Oracle Cloud part numbers are available only in OCI.

What are the commercial benefits for customers when they use Oracle Database@Google Cloud?

• Google Cloud commitments: The purchase of Oracle Database@Google Cloud will contribute toward a customer’s Google Cloud commitments
• Oracle Support Rewards: Existing Oracle customers with on-premises licenses will be eligible for Oracle Support Rewards.
• Custom contract terms: Google and Oracle customers can work with Oracle Sales to negotiate commercial terms.
• Leverage existing Oracle licenses: Existing Oracle customers can use existing Oracle Database licenses via Oracle Bring Your Own License (BYOL) to purchase Oracle Database@Google Cloud, just like they can with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

Where can I use the service?

Please refer to the Oracle Database@Google Cloud regions section for regional availability and the roadmap. We encourage you to share any requirements for additional regions with your Oracle or Google account team.

What generation of Oracle Exadata Database Service on Dedicated Infrastructure is supported?

At present, Exadata X9M is supported.

What versions of Oracle Database are available?

There is feature and list price parity between the services offered in Oracle Database@Google Cloud and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure; therefore, any database version currently supported and available on OCI is visible and available on Oracle Database@Google Cloud.

Does the service support both single-tenant and multitenant environments?

Yes, Oracle Database@Google Cloud supports both single-tenant and multitenant environments. Oracle Exadata Database Service on Dedicated Infrastructure running inside Google Cloud provides you with dedicated Exadata compute and storage nodes, just as it does when running on OCI.

Does Oracle Database@Google Cloud support new and existing OCI tenancies?

Yes, tenancies can be either new or existing. You’ll be given the choice during the onboarding process. As the Oracle Database@Google Cloud service is physically present in Google Cloud, existing Oracle Exadata Database Service on Dedicated Infrastructure environments will not be "moved," either physically or commercially. New Exadata infrastructures built within Google Cloud will be seen in the existing OCI tenancy.

What is the relationship between the Google Cloud region and the Oracle Database@Google Cloud deployment?

Oracle Database@Google Cloud refers to Oracle Database services on OCI managed by Oracle, running inside Google Cloud data centers. For Google Cloud and OCI regions with multiple zones and availability domains (ADs), Oracle Database@Google Cloud is deployed in the zone with a 1:1 mapping to the OCI availability domain.

What cloning functions are available?

As the database is provisioned and managed in OCI, existing database tooling, such as backups and cloning, will be available.

What backup options are available?

Oracle Database Autonomous Recovery Service and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage are the recommended backup services for automated database backup and will draw down on a customer’s Google Cloud commitments.

Is Oracle Database Autonomous Recovery Service available via public offer?

No.

Billing and economics

How do I purchase Oracle Database@Google Cloud services?

The Google Cloud Marketplace provides private and public offers for Oracle Database@Google Cloud.

You can purchase Oracle Autonomous Database Serverless, Oracle Exadata Database Service, and Oracle Database Autonomous Recovery Service via a private offer.

First, you work with Oracle Sales to negotiate the commercial terms, which are formalized in an ordering document that’s shared with you for you to review and accept. You must purchase the private offer in the Google Cloud Marketplace to provision the services.

You can purchase Oracle Database@Google Cloud with an Oracle Database license included or use your existing Oracle Database licenses, including unlimited license agreements (ULAs) and Oracle Bring Your Own License (BYOL).

You can also purchase Oracle Autonomous Database Serverless via a public offer directly in the Google Cloud Marketplace, a pay-as-you-go purchasing option.

A public offer customer must be an existing Google customer with an associated financial agreement with Google. Those customers can initiate the Oracle Database@Google Cloud transaction on their own without an Oracle sales representative. The request will then come to Oracle for booking and the provisioning of the environment.

Is Oracle Database Autonomous Recovery Service available via a public offer in the Google Cloud Marketplace?

No. Oracle Database Autonomous Recovery Service is an Oracle Exadata Database Service backup service. Both services are available via a private offer.

Can I use my existing Oracle Database license(s) with Oracle Database@Google Cloud?

Yes. You can use existing Oracle Database licenses, including unlimited license agreements (ULAs) and Oracle Bring Your Own License (BYOL).

Can Oracle Database@Google Cloud customers use Oracle Support Rewards?

Yes. Using Oracle Database@Google Cloud will accrue the same Oracle Support Rewards as using OCI directly. Oracle Support Rewards apply to private offers only.

Will the purchase of Oracle Database@Google Cloud contribute toward my Google Cloud commitments?

Yes. You can use your Google Cloud commitments for Oracle Database@Google Cloud. See the commitments and discounts documentation for more information.

Will disaster recovery network traffic costs contribute toward my Google Cloud commitments?

Any OCI cross-region traffic that normally incurs network bandwidth costs will draw down on a customer’s Google Cloud commitments (for example, a customer with cross-region disaster recovery using Oracle Database@Google Cloud in region one and region two would incur network traffic costs).

How is consumption metered in OCI?

For each Exadata cloud infrastructure instance you provision, you’re billed for an initial 48 hours of infrastructure consumption, then by the second after that. Each OCPU you add to the system is billed by the second, with a minimum usage period of one minute. If you terminate the cloud VM cluster and don’t terminate the cloud Exadata infrastructure resource, billing continues for the infrastructure resource.

Autonomous Database Serverless usage is billed according to the values of two parameters: compute and storage. You select values for these parameters when you provision or scale an Autonomous Database instance. See Autonomous Database Billing Summary for more details.

What is the minimum unit of purchase for a customer in Google Cloud?

The practical minimum for purchasing Exadata on Oracle Database@Google Cloud is as follows:

• Exadata Cloud Infrastructure - Quarter Rack
  • Includes two database servers and three storage servers
• Exadata Database OCPU (license included or BYOL, depending on the circumstances)
  • Four OCPU minimum
• Can scale by single database and storage server increments

The minimum for purchasing Autonomous Database on Oracle Database@Google Cloud is two ECPUs.

What is the minimum service period for the Oracle Database@Google Cloud service?

As is standard with Oracle Exadata Database Service, each Oracle Database Exadata infrastructure shape/instance has a minimum service period of 48 hours.

For Autonomous Database services, partial ECPU hours consumed are billed per second, with a one-minute minimum.

Please refer to Oracle PaaS and IaaS Universal Credits Service Descriptions for more information.

Is there a Free Tier for Oracle Database@Google Cloud?

At present, there is no Free Tier option.

Provisioning and migration

How do I provision Oracle Database@Google Cloud?

The provisioning of Oracle Database on Oracle Database@Google Cloud is the same as on OCI, using the same UI flow, API calls, and so on.

How do I migrate to Oracle Database@Google Cloud?

Migrating to this offering is like migrating to OCI, as the database service runs on OCI. Oracle provides proven database migration strategies, including automated migration solutions such as Oracle Zero Downtime Migration and powerful tools such as Oracle Data Guard and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure GoldenGate.

Can I import data from Google Cloud Storage to the database?

Oracle Database@Google Cloud is a standard deployment, available within the Google Cloud VPC. Oracle Database management tools, such as Data Pump, can be used to import data into the database from Google database clients and Google Cloud Storage.

Can I provision from OCI into Google cloud?

For Oracle Exadata Database Service, the Exadata infrastructure and Exadata VM cluster must be created from Google Cloud. The Oracle Database home, container databases, and pluggable databases must be created from the OCI Console. Oracle Autonomous Database Serverless instances are created entirely from Google Cloud.

Network and security

What network is between Google Cloud and OCI?

The network between the Oracle Database@Google Cloud deployment in Google Cloud and its parent OCI site is dedicated, redundant, Oracle internally managed dark fiber, similar to OCI AD-to-AD network infrastructure. The connection between Oracle Database@Google Cloud and Google Cloud is achieved via local connectivity through redundant network hardware directly to Google Cloud network infrastructure.

What connectivity exists between the Google Cloud data center and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure data center?

Each Oracle Database@Google Cloud deployment is connected to an OCI parent site. This link is used for the following:

• Control plane operations
  • Management of the infrastructure, including patching, monitoring, maintenance, and so on, by Oracle Cloud Operations
  • Oracle resource provider provisioning and control workflows
• Data plane operations
  • Oracle Database backups to OCI Object Storage (as part of the optional automated backups from Oracle Database)
  • Transmission of the Oracle Data Guard redo log from primary to standby databases deployed in other locations

Are there throttling/capacity limits for the network (for example, if a customer replicates Oracle Exadata Database Service on Dedicated Infrastructure with terabytes of data to Oracle Database@Google Cloud)?

The network between the OCI parent and Oracle Database@Google Cloud infrastructure is considered an internal regional network; therefore, no traffic costs or throttling limits are in place. Any capacity and other limits imposed on Google Cloud virtual networking are still in effect.

Does the connection from Oracle Database@Google Cloud to OCI traverse Oracle Interconnect for Google Cloud? Does the service rely on the OCI-Google interconnect?

No, Oracle Interconnect for Google Cloud is a standalone Oracle service available for customers to consume when deploying Oracle and Google Cloud services that require interconnectivity. Oracle Database@Google Cloud doesn’t use this network link.

Both the OCI-Google interconnect and Oracle Database@Google Cloud take advantage of the proximity between clouds; therefore, there may be significant overlap in future region rollouts.

If you wish to use other OCI services with Google Cloud services, Oracle Interconnect for Google Cloud will need to be configured.

Could the link from Google Cloud to OCI be seen as a backdoor link (to OCI or Google Cloud)?

No. Oracle owns the link, the management, and the traffic flowing between the Google Cloud data center and the OCI parent data center. Google Cloud and OCI management networks don’t intersect. Google Cloud has no visibility past the termination point in the partner transfer equipment within the data center to which Oracle connects. And vice versa, Oracle can’t see past this same point. The network link is treated as internal to Oracle.

What is the path for data replication for disaster recovery between the primary and DR database?

Oracle Data Guard redo logs are shipped from the primary database to the standby database via the client subnet across customer-managed networks on OCI infrastructure.

• If the standby database is hosted in the same Oracle Database@Google Cloud availability zone
  • Redo log shipment is local to the Oracle Database@Google Cloud network infrastructure hosted at Google Cloud.
  • Routing uses local peering groups to the hub virtual cloud network (VCN), if using different OCI VCNs.
• If the standby database is hosted in a different Oracle Database@Google Cloud region:*
  • Redo log shipment is via the parent OCI site to the standby Oracle Database@Google Cloud infrastructure.
  • Routing uses local peering groups to the hub VCNs.

* Incurs outbound data transfer costs.

What happens if/when the connection to OCI fails? Will the data plane still be running and will data be accessible?

Existing Exadata Database Service and Autonomous Database deployments will still be operational; however, you won't be able to create, update, or delete resources. Any process or procedure relying on OCI-based services (for example, OCI Vault key lookup, database backups, and so on) will fail.

Metrics and logging shipped from OCI to Google Cloud Monitoring will be delayed, even though the Exadata Database Service and Autonomous Database deployments are functional.

It is expected that all control plane functionality will become unavailable.

Can I update or request an update to the DRG?

The dynamic routing gateway (DRG) used to provide the link between OCI and Google Cloud network resources is housed within a tightly controlled service virtual cloud network (VCN) and can’t be updated. When provisioned, the Exadata VM cluster resources are attached to this DRG. If you have specific routing requirements, you can use local peering groups to connect to another VCN. This locally peered VCN can then be attached to a DRG you control. This DRG can be used for cross-region replication (see the question about data replication for disaster recovery).

What is the latency between Oracle Database@Google Cloud and other OCI services?

Oracle Database@Google Cloud is focused on high performance and low-latency workloads running in Google Cloud. If the workload that requires low latency is in OCI, we recommend deploying Oracle Exadata Database Service or Oracle Autonomous Database in OCI. Where available, we recommend using Oracle Interconnect for Google Cloud to connect the OCI service and Oracle Database@Google Cloud to meet low-latency needs.

Is the traffic between Google Cloud and OCI data centers encrypted?

All traffic between sites, including Oracle Database@Google Cloud infrastructure, is encrypted.

Can databases created on Oracle Database@Google Cloud VM clusters connect to the vault in OCI, or can I manage keys in Google Cloud Key Management?

As the database is created via OCI, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Vault is used to house the system-generated or customer-generated key.

Data protection and disaster recovery

How can I achieve disaster recovery (DR) for Oracle Database@Google Cloud?

Oracle Database@Google Cloud is launched in multiple Google Cloud regions. You can use Oracle Data Guard to deploy cross-region DR solutions.

What is the recommended DR size compared to the primary region?

The Oracle Database@Google Cloud infrastructure is identical to that in OCI; therefore, standard Exadata and Oracle Database sizing tools, such as Oracle Cloud Capacity Analytics, can be used.

Can I use Google Cloud zones with Oracle Database@Google Cloud?

Oracle Database@Google Cloud will initially be available in a single zone within each Google Cloud region.

Partners

Can I work with my trusted partner service provider for Oracle Database@Google Cloud?

Yes, for consulting services. Please note that Oracle Database@Google Cloud is sold to customers directly via the Google Cloud Marketplace and isn’t available for purchase through any other company or channel.

As an Oracle services partner, where can I learn more about Oracle Database@Google Cloud?

If you're interested in becoming an Oracle consulting services partner as well as qualifying for a Service Expertise designation, you can find the latest information on the Oracle Partner Network website. Service providers can purchase the offering directly, but not on behalf of customers.

Operations and support

What is the support model for Oracle Database@Google Cloud?

Oracle and Google have developed a joint support model to provide rapid response and resolution for mission-critical workloads. Customers will create all technical support requests directly with Oracle. Oracle will engage Google support if needed.

How do I manage my Oracle Database(s) on Oracle Database@Google Cloud?

Oracle and Google have partnered to provide you with a well-integrated Google Cloud experience for deploying, managing, and using Oracle Database instances in Google Cloud. For most day-to-day operations, you’ll be able to use native Google Cloud tooling.

Do you support Oracle Operator Access Control for Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer?

Oracle Database@Google Cloud management is the same as Oracle Exadata Database Service on OCI; therefore, Operator Access Control isn’t applicable.

Can the service be fully operated and managed from the Google Cloud console or API?

Oracle Database@Google Cloud resources that are provisioned and managed via the Oracle Database resource provider in Azure can be operated and managed from the Google Cloud console, API, SDK, or CLI.

• Exadata infrastructure is fully managed.
• Exadata VM clusters are partially managed.
• Oracle container databases and pluggable databases aren’t managed by the Oracle resource provider.

Expansion of the resources and features managed by the Oracle resource provider is on the roadmap.

Next steps

Where can I find detailed documentation on Oracle Database@Google Cloud?

Please refer to the Oracle Database@Google Cloud documentation for more information.

Where can I find the reference architectures for Oracle Database@Google Cloud?

Please refer to the Oracle Database@Google Cloud solutions page for more information.