The cloudy side of Amazon has announced it will offer Oracle Database 11g Release 2 over its sky-high relational database.
From the second quarter of 2011, Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) users will be able to enjoy the Oracle database, alongside various versions of MySQL.
The addition will form part of the overall Amazon Web Services (AWS) offering.
When it becomes available, the RDS tab of the AWS Management Console, the AWS command-line tools and the RDS APIs will all support the use of the Oracle database as the "database engine," Amazon said.
"As with today's MySQL offering, Amazon RDS running Oracle Database will reduce administrative overhead and expense by maintaining database software, taking continuous backups for point-in-time recovering, and exposing key operational metrics via Amazon CloudWatch," the company explained in a blog post.
"It will also allow scaling of compute and storage capacity to be done with a few clicks of the AWS Management Console."
Anyone who wants to can run various databases, including Salesforce.com's Database.com as well as the Oracle database and MySQL, over Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2).
RDS is designed to make sitting databases on top of EC2 that much simpler, however.
As for payment, those with Oracle database licenses will be able to bring them across to the cloud to use them "pursuant to Oracle licensing policies." There will be no need to shell out for extra software licences or support fees.
Those without licences will be able to pay for Oracle Database 11g on an hourly basis, using the classic cloud on-demand model.
The rate will depend on what edition of the Oracle database is being used and how much server power is required.
"I think that this new offering and the flexible pricing models will be of interest to enterprises of all shapes and sizes," said Jeff Barr, senior manager of cloud computing solutions at AWS.
Earlier this month, AWS launched a new bulk and transactional email service aimed at businesses and developers.
Eric Stahl, senior director for product marketing at Salesfore.com, said the addition of Oracle would not cut out any complexity.
"Oracle on Amazon is just changing the post code of the complexity," Stahl told IT PRO.
"The users still needs to license, install, configure, tune, back up and upgrade the database. With Database.com you just build your app."
