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They already terminate free accounts without giving a reason. This wouldn't be much different, especially because the instances are free.
Nope. Both AMS and ASH haven't been able to do it on a PAYGO account.
Script it. You can save the configuration for the failed build and automate it trying over and over until eventually you get lucky.
I've not received any communication about this. I don't intend to reduce the sizes of my instances until I do.
If they try to charge me without informing me of any changes, I'll just chargeback.
>
I am sure Oracle knows better than to pull a stunt like this of charging without notifying users. But only time will say.
Found this on Reddit. Apparently Oracle support confirmed that existing 4 OCPU / 24 GB Always Free ARM instances are grandfathered and will keep running, but if you delete them you may only be able to recreate up to the new 2 OCPU / 12 GB limit. The support reply also says PAYG accounts aren't affected.
https://www.reddit.com/r/oraclecloud/s/RuqHUmLaRq
For anyone still running a 4 OCPU / 24 GB Always Free instance, I would avoid downgrading, deleting, or recreating it for now. Based on the support response, once you give up those resources, there may be no way to get them back under the current Always Free limits. This appears to apply specifically to Always Free users and not to PAYG customers, who Oracle says are unaffected by the change.
I'm still surprised they give 12GB for free. This isn't some low spec trial in any way, imagine how many people claimed it and they have some super expensive regions in general like Dubai, Jeddah, Johannesburg, Sao Paulo, Santiago...
The equivalent of this on Azure/GCP/AWS would cost like $100/mo.
Larry didn't became one of the richest men in the world by giving things away for free. Gents you have been warned.
Sad, I downgraded to 2 OCPU/12 GB after seeing the announcement.
Still good server.
So, they can still keep 4/24 without being charged? Do you have a screenshot of Oracle confirming this?
Scaled back to 4 OCPU/24 GB. Hopefully, I don't get charged.
The screenshot is from Reddit, so I can't personally verify its authenticity. However, it appears to be a response from Oracle Cloud Support regarding the recent Always Free changes.
I also opened an Oracle billing/support ticket today to get direct confirmation. Oracle's stated response time is up to 2 business days. Once I receive a reply, I'll share a screenshot of their response as well.
In the meantime, I've attached the Reddit screenshot for reference.
.webp)
This paid scope creeping is so sneaky
From my understanding of Oracle Support's response, you should be fine.
For Free accounts
When you resized from 4 OCPU / 24 GB → 2 OCPU / 12 GB → 4 OCPU / 24 GB, the important question is:
Did Oracle allow you to resize back to 4 / 24 successfully?
PAYG tenancies are not impacted by the Always Free A1 program reduction.
If your limits in the warning say those specs still I dont think they will charge you. They didnt even send out emails or anything
They use the word TERMINATE, which means nuking the server...but if you just scale down, it is not terminating. Let's wait and see.
Beware of OCPU/hours GB/hours allowance that is still half.
Simple. Don't rely on anything someone posted on reddit. It simply is nothing official.
Even if their support told this to a client, you cannot make any official confirmation for all users out of that.
That's fair, and I agree that a Reddit screenshot shouldn't be treated as official confirmation.
That's actually why I opened a billing ticket with Oracle directly instead of relying on Reddit posts. Once I get a response from Oracle, I'll share it.
My concern is that Oracle's documentation and the support responses being shared don't seem to align. Until Oracle publishes a clear statement, I'd rather be cautious.
Also, if someone currently has a working 4 OCPU / 24 GB instance and Oracle is indeed grandfathering existing allocations, I don't see much benefit in voluntarily downsizing it. If there is any chance that those resources won't be available again later, keeping the existing allocation seems like the safer option.
And let's be honest, the whole point of using Oracle Cloud's free resources is to get the maximum benefit that Larry Ellison is willing to give us.
If Oracle is still letting me keep 4 OCPU and 24 GB, I'm not going to be the one volunteering to give half of it back.
Free Forever until it ends or vanishes.
That instance is living on borrowed time.
Always free until it vanishes.
If you see the words Oracle and Free being used in the same phrase expect to get one thing: a Free Beat Up in the end if you don't exit soon enough.
If you're not lucky and don't exit soon enough Oracle may charge you dearly for beating you up for free.
You can setup billing alerts so that if costs exceed $1 you'll be notified. There's also a billing estimator.
Both still showed $0 after I resized back to 4/24 yesterday.
makes sense. it's being heavily abused
It's not that, Oracle is revamping their data centres for customers such as OpenAI and Meta and many of their smaller current customers will be evicted as a result.
21000 jobs will be cut too https://developers.slashdot.org/story/26/06/23/0548201/oracle-cuts-21000-jobs-as-it-embraces-ai
It's meaningless. The ABC error message still appears even when I try to sign up for a free account.
So did you get any response yet?
I only asked Oracle about the PAYG limits, and they confirmed they're still 3,000 OCPU-hours and 18,000 GB-hours per month. So my guess is that, for now, the reduced allocation only affects Always Free accounts. Unless Oracle says otherwise, PAYG doesn't appear to have been reduced.