Wednesday 3 October 2012

Get Started With Oracle Applications Now With Our New Test Drive Program


AWS has just launched Oracle Test Drive Labs.
The purpose of the Oracle Test Drive program is to provide customers with the ability to quickly and easily explore the benefits of using Oracle software on AWSserver infrastructure.
These labs have been developed by Oracle and AWS partners and are provided free of charge for educational and demonstration purposes.
Each Test Drive lab includes up to 5 hours of complimentary AWS server time to complete the lab, and you can return here and to try any or all of the Test drive Labs at any time, so feel free to experiment and explore!
Please note that there may be some pre-requisitesfor few labs. Kindly understand them, acquire the required accounts or softwares before proceeding with the labs.


For example, Oracle Secure Backup to S3 requires Oracle Technet (OTN) account.
The products vary from Oracle products for Database and Infrastructure, Oracle Applications and Oracle Fusion Middleware.
We can select from nearly a dozen labs which include but are not limited to: 


  • Oracle Data Guard Disaster Recovery
  • Oracle Secure Backup to S3
  • Siebel on AWS


Read below post by Jeff for sample demo of back up Oracle database to AWS using the Oracle Secure Backup product.


One of the key advantages that customers and partners are telling us they really appreciate about AWS is its unique ability to cut down the time required to evaluate new software stacks. These "solution appliances" can now be easily deployed on AWS and evaluated by customers in hours or days, rather than in weeks or months, as is the norm with the previous generation of IT infrastructure.
With this in mind, AWS has teamed up with leading Oracle ecosystem partners on a new initiative called the Oracle Test Drive program.







Amazon RDS - Now Available in the AWS Free Usage Tier

Good News!!!

AWS has announced AWS RDS Support in AWS Free Usage Tier. Prior to this, AWS only supported AWS RDS - SQL Server in Free tier, such as:
 

AWS RDS Free Tier old
Earlier

 
But starting today, AWS has announced support for all databases of AWS RDS :


AWS RDS Free Tier new
Starting October 1st, 2012



NOTE:
* These free tiers are only available to new AWS customers, and are available for 12 months following your AWS sign-up date. When your free usage expires or if your application use exceeds the free usage tiers, you simply pay standard, pay-as-you-go service rates (see each service page for full pricing details). Restrictions apply; see offer terms for more details.

Amazon RDS free tier is currently not available in VPC.


Read below abstract from Jeff's post on AWS Blog :

[...]  Our customers appreciate the fact that they can launch DB Instances on demand at very affordable hourly rates, with the option to purchase Reserved DB Instances to reduce their costs even more. Here's a video (featuring Biswaroop Palit of the Amazon RDS team) with more information about what RDS is and how it will simplify your life:



 
We are now adding RDS to the AWS Free Usage Tier. New AWS customers (see the AWS Free Usage Tier FAQ for eligibility details) can use the MySQL, Oracle (BYOL licensing model), or SQL Server database engines on a Micro DB Instance for up to 750 hours per month, along with 20 GB of database storage, 10 million I/Os and 20 GB of backup storage. When you combine this new capability with the existing EC2 usage available on the Free Usage Tier, you may be to build and run a complete multi-tiered web application without spending a penny. Here's another video with more information on this important new development:
 


 
AWS WEBINAR
 
In order to help you to get the most from Amazon RDS on Oracle, we'll be hosting a free RDS webinar at 10:00 AM (PT) on October 18th.
 
Attend the webinar to learn how RDS lets you focus on your business by addressing the key pain points that come with Oracle database administration.
 
 

AWS Week in Review - September 24th to September 28th, 2012

 
 
Let's take a quick look at what happened in AWS-land last week:

Monday, September 24
Tuesday, September 25
Wednesday, September 26
Thursday, September 27
Friday, September 28


Tuesday 2 October 2012

Infographic : Goals Behind Social Media Use

According to the latest data100% of colleges and universities surveyed are using some form of social media. But what are their goals behind social media use? We published an infographic today that breaks these goals down into the following categories: 

1. Increase awareness/advocacy/rankings
2. Engage current students/faculty/staff
3. Recruit students, engage admitted students/alumni
4. Crisis issues and management

Furthermore, we look at social media engagement by channels (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) and measure their effectiveness.


Goals Behind Social Media Use