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Oracle OCI "Always Free" VPS. Why anything else? - Page 3
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Oracle OCI "Always Free" VPS. Why anything else?

135

Comments

  • @plumberg said:

    @hampered said:

    @plumberg said:

    @hampered said:
    My problem is I opened my account in Singapore and now live in South America, but you can't change regions...so that's that...it's still useful, but 300ms ping changes a lot...

    Isn't it possible to convert to paid account and then request change?

    I think you can change to paid and deploy in any region, but you can't actually change your customer region which your free stuff is based on. I might be wrong though.

    Hmm. Will try upgrading and see. Worst case will signup for a new account?

    If I remember correctly they asked for a good reason for needing to change the main region. Even if your account was upgraded.

  • @tototo said:

    @plumberg said:

    @hampered said:

    @plumberg said:

    @hampered said:
    My problem is I opened my account in Singapore and now live in South America, but you can't change regions...so that's that...it's still useful, but 300ms ping changes a lot...

    Isn't it possible to convert to paid account and then request change?

    I think you can change to paid and deploy in any region, but you can't actually change your customer region which your free stuff is based on. I might be wrong though.

    Hmm. Will try upgrading and see. Worst case will signup for a new account?

    If I remember correctly they asked for a good reason for needing to change the main region. Even if your account was upgraded.

    Huhhhhh.

    Any idea how to approach this? 🤔

  • @tedtomato said:

    @TimboJones said:
    To the OS, not much. But some software just isn't available on ARM natively. Not sure if Docker is a workaround to that or not.

    Isn't already a lot of Linux software running on ARM CPUs, even before those Ampere CPUs (specifically designed for cloud workloads)?

    Like Raspberry Pi, video streaming boxes, routers etc.?

    Given the cost/performance of those Ampere CPUs compared to Intel or AMD, I can only assume we are going to see a lot more of this.

    Sure, little embedded things. But until there were monster core ARMs, it wasn't necessarily worth porting software that runs on x86 beasts. Or just no developer effort since its often open source.

  • @plumberg said:

    @tototo said:

    @plumberg said:

    @hampered said:

    @plumberg said:

    @hampered said:
    My problem is I opened my account in Singapore and now live in South America, but you can't change regions...so that's that...it's still useful, but 300ms ping changes a lot...

    Isn't it possible to convert to paid account and then request change?

    I think you can change to paid and deploy in any region, but you can't actually change your customer region which your free stuff is based on. I might be wrong though.

    Hmm. Will try upgrading and see. Worst case will signup for a new account?

    If I remember correctly they asked for a good reason for needing to change the main region. Even if your account was upgraded.

    Huhhhhh.

    Any idea how to approach this? 🤔

    Developer team change. Blame tech layoffs, COVID and/or Putin/Russia and see if they argue.

    Thanked by 1plumberg
  • @TimboJones said:

    @tedtomato said:

    @TimboJones said:
    To the OS, not much. But some software just isn't available on ARM natively. Not sure if Docker is a workaround to that or not.

    Isn't already a lot of Linux software running on ARM CPUs, even before those Ampere CPUs (specifically designed for cloud workloads)?

    Like Raspberry Pi, video streaming boxes, routers etc.?

    Given the cost/performance of those Ampere CPUs compared to Intel or AMD, I can only assume we are going to see a lot more of this.

    Sure, little embedded things. But until there were monster core ARMs, it wasn't necessarily worth porting software that runs on x86 beasts. Or just no developer effort since its often open source.

    Yes, little embedded things... Well, 40 million of them sold so far (excluding other brands of similar boards)

    Amazon AWS has been running its own ARM Graviton CPUs for a while, and an awful lot of software is of course running fine on Raspberry Pi. Microsoft (Azure) and Google are also adapting Ampere CPUs.

    I think you are overestimating the issues on running a Linux server on ARM. I have searched and haven't found people complaining much. Everything I have tried so far has worked (but I have only use mainstream software so far, nothing obscure).

    Given the price/performance and power consumption (a big consideration nowadays) of those Ampere CPUs (having read about it), I have the feeling they are going to become quite common in cloud virtualisation, and will drive prices down.

  • @cybertech said:
    subscribed for future "account/vm termination" complaint

    No complaints so far. 4 servers have been working perfectly fine for several months now. No downtime, no issues. I have however converted my account from free to PAYG, and I am incurring small monthly charges on purpose...

    Thanked by 1cybertech
  • @tedtomato said:

    @cybertech said:
    subscribed for future "account/vm termination" complaint

    No complaints so far. 4 servers have been working perfectly fine for several months now. No downtime, no issues. I have however converted my account from free to PAYG, and I am incurring small monthly charges on purpose...

    How much is the charge ?

  • I have an account since 2020, until now it is still active

    Thanked by 1tedtomato
  • I'm using Oracle Free Tier on my personal account since 2018. Though, I use Oracle heavily for production on Company account. But that's completely out of context for his post.

    AMD VM x 2 (Free Tier) (50+50 GB SSD)
    Ampere VM x 1 (Free Tier) (100 GB SSD)

    Monthly Data Transfer is around 5 TB. (That's too Free Tier)

    I'm happily using it without a single disruption ever since. :)

    Thanked by 1tedtomato
  • @HyperXPro said:
    I'm using Oracle Free Tier on my personal account since 2018. Though, I use Oracle heavily for production on Company account. But that's completely out of context for his post.

    AMD VM x 2 (Free Tier) (50+50 GB SSD)
    Ampere VM x 1 (Free Tier) (100 GB SSD)

    Monthly Data Transfer is around 5 TB. (That's too Free Tier)

    I'm happily using it without a single disruption ever since. :)

    Oracle has upgraded monthly data transfer to 10Tb per month. Are you surprised yet? =))

  • Wow you are so lucky ! I tried 57 times but all failed for no reason !

  • srch07srch07 Member
    edited January 2023

    @HyperXPro said:
    I'm using Oracle Free Tier on my personal account since 2018. Though, I use Oracle heavily for production on Company account. But that's completely out of context for his post.

    AMD VM x 2 (Free Tier) (50+50 GB SSD)
    Ampere VM x 1 (Free Tier) (100 GB SSD)

    Monthly Data Transfer is around 5 TB. (That's too Free Tier)

    I'm happily using it without a single disruption ever since. :)

    ROFL, I don't know how you managed to achieved that.
    I was part of team that did initial OCI upbringing in Oracle, and left Oracle around 4 years back. It was a shit show.

    My experience with OCI as a customer was crap as well.
    Took free tier for a spin with 16GB ram, 100 GB disk and 2 or 4 core (cannot recall).
    Did a vanilla installation of wordpress with Aapanel (Nginx + php + mysql) and ran a load test with upto 1000 connections per minute.

    Garbage failed to serve anything after 140-150 requests. No plugins, nothing.
    To give a perspective, I ran similar test on ec2 free tier (1 gb ram), it ran the test till 700 connections (OLS + mysql).

    Now let's hear about customer support of Oracle. I needed SMTP access over free VM, so I converted account to paid account, and they made a hold and release of USD 100 I believe.
    But the interesting part is, they took little over a month to enable port 25 for SMTP access and setting up a simple PTR record on paid account.

    Ticket kept bouncing from one representative to another, and from one team to another, blaming each other for delay.

    That's the worst response I have ever got from any provider, and it's cloud lol.

    Not to mention, the VPS went sudden maintenance multiple times with hardware failure in 3 months timeframe I used.
    This was around an year back. I closed it and never turned in on.

    GL with using it in production. Only uncle Larry can run it in prod.

  • GL with using it in production. Only uncle Larry can run it in prod.

    No need for uncle Larry. I won't disclose much but we have multiple dedicated account managers aligned and Enterprise agreements with OCI and completed the entire AWS to OCI migration last year. We're saving 60% costs on Data Transfer alone. :')

  • rm_rm_ IPv6 Advocate, Veteran

    @HyperXPro said: We're saving 60% costs on Data Transfer alone. :')

    Cool, now they can start raising prices. :)

    Thanked by 1TimboJones
  • Cool, now they can start raising prices. :)

    Best part is Oracle will guarantee fixed price for the tenure of the agreement. There will be lock-in on customer side too but considering super low costs compared to big 3, it's a steal deal for sure.

  • OCI is free, so they should provide the best services
    And make sure to not terminate the accounts even if someone breaks tos...
    Ans OCI should dare not remove the free service without 10 years of notice period.

  • NeoonNeoon Community Contributor, Veteran

    @plumberg said:
    OCI is free, so they should provide the best services
    And make sure to not terminate the accounts even if someone breaks tos...
    Ans OCI should dare not remove the free service without 10 years of notice period.

    And make sure to not suddenly purge IPv4 addresses and give them to someone else instead.

    Thanked by 1TimboJones
  • @Neoon said:

    @plumberg said:
    OCI is free, so they should provide the best services
    And make sure to not terminate the accounts even if someone breaks tos...
    Ans OCI should dare not remove the free service without 10 years of notice period.

    And make sure to not suddenly purge IPv4 addresses and give them to someone else instead.

    And make sure that they don't trip over a power cord and cut the whole thing out or just decide they are sick if it and shut it down no notice.

  • Be careful .... Monday is just a weekend away

  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    @srch07 said: I was part of team that did initial OCI upbringing in Oracle, and left Oracle around 4 years back. It was a shit show.

    Funny...my employer was an early adopter of Oracle Cloud and it was indeed a turd theater. They were late to the party and slapped a bunch of stuff together and none of the parts worked well with each other.

    In fact, we were involved just as they were implementing "2.0" in which everything changed, but things did work better after that. They probably hired a few Amazon engineers.

    @HyperXPro said: I won't disclose much but we have multiple dedicated account managers aligned and Enterprise agreements with OCI and completed the entire AWS to OCI migration last year. We're saving 60% costs on Data Transfer alone. :')

    That doesn't surprise me - Oracle is hungry for accounts and scale.

    @HyperXPro said: Best part is Oracle will guarantee fixed price for the tenure of the agreement. There will be lock-in on customer side too but considering super low costs compared to big 3, it's a steal deal for sure.

    By which time it'll be painful to migrate. Even if you haven't written tons of automation that works only with their cloud, you still have to pick up stuff and move it and that is a big project. Not saying it's the wrong move - I mean you have to host with someone - but that's the obvious thinking.

    For real customers (not free tier), OCI seems to work as well as others. All these companies are chasing lock-in. It's no different than the old days of being locked into a specific hardware platform. Just competing on the basis of features and cost is horrible - there's no money in that because people will chase cheap. Get them to a point where it'd be painful to switch...there are dozens of industries built on that model and cloud is the same.

  • ravenchadravenchad Member
    edited January 2023

    out of topic, but anyone here got SG region accnt? been trying for almost 4 months since October/November last yr. and I can't create amd or ampere instance. it always says out of capacity. Anyone have same issue?

  • look at the region while register new account. I've created account in Europe, but the region is US. And I can't change it...

  • emgemg Veteran

    I read the full thread so far. There is a lot of discussion about ARM, but Oracle mentions both "Arm-based Ampere A1 Compute" and "AMD-based Compute" options in the free tier. Click on "What are Always Free services?" on the FAQ page here:
    https://www.oracle.com/cloud/free/faq/

    Before I sign up for a free tier VPS from OCI, I want to be sure I won't be accidentally charged for exceeding some limit unexpectedly.
    -> If you exceed the allowed amount of network or processor activity under the Free Tier, does Oracle automatically charge your payment card? Can you find yourself with a surprise payment?
    ... or does Oracle send you warnings, suspend your VPS, and/or prompt for authorization before charging?

  • @TimboJones said:

    @tedtomato said:

    @TimboJones said:
    To the OS, not much. But some software just isn't available on ARM natively. Not sure if Docker is a workaround to that or not.

    Isn't already a lot of Linux software running on ARM CPUs, even before those Ampere CPUs (specifically designed for cloud workloads)?

    Like Raspberry Pi, video streaming boxes, routers etc.?

    Given the cost/performance of those Ampere CPUs compared to Intel or AMD, I can only assume we are going to see a lot more of this.

    Sure, little embedded things. But until there were monster core ARMs, it wasn't necessarily worth porting software that runs on x86 beasts. Or just no developer effort since its often open source.

    Debian has had a full ARM64 port since the release of 8.0 in 2015. "full port" meaning most of the software in their repository was being compiled for ARM64 (something like 98% of packages worked on ARM), and the installer worked end-to-end on such systems.

    @arifur said: I cant imagine anyone having their production projects hosted on any "FREE" service.

    There's plenty of people that use Gmail for their email (even for work-related stuff!), GitHub Pages for hosting a personal site, Cloudflare for DNS, etc.

  • emgemg Veteran

    Can someone with an existing "OCI Free Tier" account answer this basic question before I sign up to try it:
    -> Are there guardrails in Oracle's free tier services to prevent accidental fees or charges from being assessed by surprise, without a notification or prompt to the user first?

  • mustafamw3mustafamw3 Member, Patron Provider

    @emg said:
    Can someone with an existing "OCI Free Tier" account answer this basic question before I sign up to try it:
    -> Are there guardrails in Oracle's free tier services to prevent accidental fees or charges from being assessed by surprise, without a notification or prompt to the user first?

    You have to upgrade your account in order to get charged, don't upgrade your if you don't want to get charged.

    Thanked by 1emg
  • tedtomatotedtomato Member
    edited January 2023

    As I said, no issues whatsoever so far, and great performance.

    All those VPS are very good, including the micro AMD ones, which still show as 2 cores. Perfectly fine for running WordPress or some reverse proxy. Even a micro AMD one is significantly faster than a Raspberry Pi (for reference).

    Of course lots of people on the internet complain about Oracle OCI, but I wanted to also highlight that some people have no issues at all, for months or years.

    I guess it depends on:

    • What they do with the VPS and whether you break their TOS
    • Which region hosts the VPS. All of mine are hosted in London (UK South), which clearly has plenty of capacity. I never had to wait to create a machine of any spec. Of course, capacity means less likely to Oracle to have to reclaim or terminate
    • Whether they stay on a free account or upgrade to PAYG. I think becoming a paying customer means Oracle won't delete or stop stuff randomly, won't dare deleting customer data (e.g. terminate my account), and also will provides support.
      I upgraded my account to PAYG and I am making sure to incur some small charges (for instance, additional block storage/volumes attached to some servers). I can't see them suspending my account and deleting those suddenly.
  • @tedtomato payg customers are on different infrastructure that free ones, that's why you always have capacity. ;)

  • mustafamw3mustafamw3 Member, Patron Provider

    Reclamation of Idle Compute Instances

    Idle Always Free compute instances may be reclaimed by Oracle. Oracle will deem virtual machine and bare metal compute instances as idle if, during a 7-day period, the following are true:

    CPU utilization for the 95th percentile is less than 10%
    Network utilization is less than 10%
    Memory utilization is less than 10% (applies to A1 shapes only)

    Thanked by 1tedtomato
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