Oracle Database 19c on Arm platform is available

I knew it would come – but we couldn’t tell you. And there were some rumors for a longer time. Anyhow, last week at the end of June 2023 Oracle Database 19c on Arm platform is available for download and in the Oracle Cloud. In case you wonder why I write “Arm” – I learned last week that the writing has been changed a while ago from ARM to Arm.

Where can you download it?

It is available for download already.

• Oracle Database 19c(19.19) for Linux Arm (aarch64)
  • https://www.oracle.com/database/technologies/oracle-database-software-downloads.html#19c
• 19c Client(19.19) and Instant Client 19c(19.19) for Linux on Arm (aarch64)
  • https://www.oracle.com/database/technologies/oracle19c-linux-arm64-downloads.html
  • https://www.oracle.com/database/technologies/instant-client/linux-arm-aarch64-downloads.html

And just to be clear:

You will get Oracle Database 19.19.0 right away. Hence, there is no need to start patching after you installed it at this time.

Where do you find documentation?

• Database Installation Guide
  • https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/19/ladbi/operating-system-reqs-arm.html
  • https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/19/ladbi/server-hardware-checklist-for-oracle-database-installation.html
  • https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/19/ladbi/installation-requirements-for-programming-environments-for-arm.html

• Client Installation Guide:
  • https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/19/lacli/operating-system-reqs-arm.html
• Clusterware Installation Guide:
  • https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/19/cwlin/operating-system-reqs-arm.html
• Release Notes:
  • https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/19/rnrdm/issues-affecting-linux-arm-aarch64-oracle-database-19.14.html

Does it run on Mac M2 processors?

I don’t have one so I can’t try it. But there are smart people out there such as Christian Pfundtner who tried it with success more or less the day it got released. Find his blog post (written in German) here. You may need to run it through a translation service.

• Can you run Oracle for Arm on Apple’s M2 chipset? (written in German)

Processor Metrics and Core Factors

I can’t comment on Oracle processor license metrics and calculations. But this metrics documentation tells you some really good things about Ampere (Altra/AltraMax and AmpereOne) processors.

• Oracle Processor Core Factor Table (June 2023)

Which Linux distributions are supported?

Please see this link to the documentation:

• Supported Oracle Linux 8 Distributions on Linux for ARM (aarch64)

How can you migrate to it?

That is an interesting question. And I will tell you in the coming weeks when somebody in our team has tried it out. At the moment, Data Pump will work. But it is unclear whether the missing ID in V$TRANSPORTABLE_PLATFORM allows a TTS migration as well. And we will try as well whether a clean shutdown followed by a copy operation, and maybe the recreation of the controlfile will be enough to move a database over from another Linux port. We’ll see whether this works or not. Our guts feeling tells us that it won’t be that simple.

And in the Oracle Cloud?

Certainly, you can provision it already there as well. At the same time we announced the General Availability of “Ampere A1 Shapes for VMDB” for the BaseDB Cloud Service. So you have now the option to launch VM DB Systems with Ampere A1 flexible shapes.

Find the technical documentation here:

• https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/dbcs/doc/virtual-machine-db-systems.html
• https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/dbcs/doc/whats-new-oracle-base-database-service.html

And Performance-wise?

I have not done tests by myself but Erik Benner has written an interesting blog post doing some solid performance comparisons:

• https://talesfromthedatacenter.com/2023/07/arming-your-database-a-comparison-of-arm-vs-x64/

–Mike