Oracle Autonomous Database Professional flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Autonomous Data Warehouse

A workload-optimized Autonomous Database flavor tuned for analytic queries, with columnar-style compression, high parallelism, and automatic materialized views. It is provisioned separately from Autonomous Transaction Processing.

Autonomous Transaction Processing

An Autonomous Database flavor tuned for OLTP workloads with row-based access patterns, high concurrency, and index-heavy query plans. It uses the same automation as ADW but different defaults.

Auto Scaling

A Serverless feature that lets an Autonomous Database use up to three times its base OCPU or ECPU count during load spikes, then return to base. It is enabled by default and does not change base billing.

ECPU vs OCPU

ECPU is the newer Elastic Compute Unit used for Autonomous Database compute sizing; OCPU is the older unit. One OCPU generally maps to two ECPUs, and you can change compute models on supported instances.

Consumer group services

Connection services such as HIGH, MEDIUM, LOW, TP, and TPURGENT that map sessions to resource consumer groups. The chosen service sets parallelism, priority, and resource limits for that session.

Automatic Indexing

A built-in Autonomous Database feature that monitors workloads, creates candidate indexes, validates them against real SQL, and keeps or rolls back them based on measured performance impact.

Dedicated Autonomous Database

A deployment on exclusive Exadata Cloud Infrastructure rather than shared Serverless infrastructure. It provides isolation, custom maintenance schedules, and is chosen for compliance or predictable performance needs.

Serverless Autonomous Database

The default shared-infrastructure deployment where Oracle manages Exadata hardware. Billing is per second of compute plus storage, and scaling operations are online and fast.

Provisioning inputs

Creating an Autonomous Database requires a compartment, workload type, database name, compute model and count, storage size, ADMIN password, and network access choice (ACL or private endpoint).

Access control list

A list of CIDR blocks allowed to reach a public-endpoint Autonomous Database. Traffic from addresses not on the list is blocked at the network layer before authentication occurs.

Private endpoint

A network configuration that places the Autonomous Database in a VCN subnet so it is reachable only from inside that network. It replaces the public ACL and requires a VCN and subnet.

mTLS wallet

A downloadable client credential bundle containing ewallet.pem, cwallet.sso, tnsnames.ora, sqlnet.ora, and ojdbc.properties. Mutual TLS requires presenting this wallet when connecting to the database.

tnsnames.ora aliases

Wallet entries such as mydb_high, mydb_medium, and mydb_low that map to connection services. The alias suffix selects the consumer group and therefore the parallelism of the session.

JDBC thin connection

A Java connection string of the form jdbc:oracle:thin:@<tns_alias>?TNS_ADMIN=<wallet_dir>. It uses the wallet for TLS and the alias for service selection, requiring no Oracle client install.

Always Free Autonomous Database

A free-tier Autonomous Database with 2 ECPUs and 20 GB storage, limited to two per tenancy. It supports the same features as paid instances and can be upgraded in place.

Clone operations

A full clone copies data and metadata; a metadata-only clone copies schema definitions without rows. Clones are point-in-time copies and can be refreshed from the source database.

Storage auto-scaling

Serverless Autonomous Database grows storage automatically up to the service limit (384 TB) as data is added. You set an initial size, and growth happens without downtime or manual intervention.

Performance Hub

A monitoring view showing ASH analytics, SQL monitoring, wait events, and AWR-style reports for an Autonomous Database. It is the primary tool for diagnosing slow SQL and contention.

OCI alarms

Threshold-based notifications on metrics such as CPU Utilization, Storage Utilization, and Session Count. Alarms route to topics and subscriptions so operators are alerted before limits are hit.

Automatic backups

Daily incremental backups plus archived redo enable point-in-time restore within the retention window. Retention defaults to 60 days on Serverless and is configurable; manual backups can also be taken.

Refreshable clone

A read-only clone that periodically refreshes from its source database. It is used for reporting or testing without consuming production resources or impacting source performance.

Scale up versus scale out

Scale up/down changes the base OCPU or ECPU count on the primary instance. Scale out adds read-only instances for read scaling; the two operations are independent and serve different purposes.

Work requests

OCI records for asynchronous operations such as provisioning, scaling, and backup. Checking the work request status shows whether an action succeeded, failed, or is still running.

Data Safe integration

Optional Oracle Data Safe services for Autonomous Database that provide security assessment, user assessment, activity auditing, and sensitive data discovery to support compliance requirements.

ADMIN user

The initial database user created at provisioning with full privileges. It cannot be dropped, manages other users and roles, and is used for administrative tasks such as imports.

Data Pump import

The standard method to load schemas into Autonomous Database. Export from the source, stage the dump in Object Storage or DATA_PUMP_DIR, then run impdp with a credential and directory.

DBMS_CLOUD.COPY_DATA

A PL/SQL procedure that loads files from Object Storage or a supported cloud store into an Autonomous Database table. It requires a credential and a format specification.

DBMS_CLOUD.CREATE_CREDENTIAL

A procedure that stores cloud-storage credentials in the database so DBMS_CLOUD procedures can access Object Storage buckets. The credential name is referenced by later load and external-table calls.

External tables on Object Storage

Tables created with DBMS_CLOUD.CREATE_EXTERNAL_TABLE that query files in a bucket directly without loading rows. They are useful for ad hoc analysis and for staging before a load.

Data Studio loads

A browser-based Database Actions tool that loads CSV, JSON, and XLSX files by uploading, previewing, mapping columns, and inserting into a new or existing table. No client install is needed.

Zero Downtime Migration

Oracle's tool for migrating databases to Autonomous Database with minimal downtime, typically using Data Guard or GoldenGate. It orchestrates evaluation, migration, and cutover steps.

Post-migration validation

After loading data, compare row counts, check for invalid objects, and review rejected rows. Unsupported source features may be flagged, so validate before switching applications to the new database.