What is the Difference between Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Oracle Database Classic?

Question

Background:

In my Oracle cloud dashboard, I see Database and Database Classic tiles.

Database service has plan of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Database.

Database Classic service has plan of Database Classic.

Oracle documentation points to same https://cloud.oracle.com/database URL when navigated from both PaaS and IaaS.

My perspective:

OCI Database is a IaaS service - where User has the responsibility of

• creating and configuring VM,
• creating the Database system and Database connection,
• database backup, storage, patching, upgrade etc.

Database Classic is a PaaS service where User has the responsibility of

• Creating Database connection.
• Oracle takes cares all the background activities like patching, upgrade etc.

Question:

1. Is my understanding correct on which one is PaaS and which one is IaaS database service?
2. Is my understanding correct on the benefits of using OCI Database and Database Classic?
3. What is the difference between Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Database and Oracle Database Classic?

Regards,

Karthick.R

Answer 1

In Oracle Cloud terminology Classic refers to the generation 1 cloud. OCI refers to the generation 2 cloud, which introduced Bare Metal and off-box virtualization for example. OCI and OCI Classic has different data centers (regions). There are some Classic PaaS services that can be deployed on OCI regions, but those are still managed with the gen1 PSM (PaaS Service Manager Tool), so they also have a different UI compared to OCI services. "Oracle strongly encourages customers to migrate their existing cloud resources from Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Compute Classic regions." - Source: Introduction to Migrating to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Oracle already published documentation and eBook for the OCI upgrade.

Answering your specific questions:

1. Both OCI Database and Database Classic are PaaS services with different UIs and PaaS mgmt tools, but with the same database technology behind. Both OCI Database and Database Classic provides a wizard, as well as command line tools for deploying a database service without installing a database and without creating & configuring VMs.
2. Both will make it easier to backup, patch, upgrade, etc your database, but won't do it in the background. Autonomous DBs (ADWH and ATP) can do that for you, which is available on OCI.
3. The main difference is the management tool/UI provided, as well as OCI Database can benefit from the advantages of the gen2 cloud a.k.a. OCI.