Looking for a way to manage how many credits your Autonomous database is consuming? One possible to consider is to use a capability called ‘Schedule Start and Stop Times’. This has been available for compute instances for quite a while, but is available for autonomous databases on Shared Exadata Infrastructure also.
Schedule Start and Stop Times allows OCI administrators to schedule when databases come online or have to be turned off. This off course can also be done through scripting, but why would you if you can use clear and simple UI instead.
This does not mean that they cannot run overnight. Off course you can keep them running in periods where teams are running long stress tests or when you are collaborating on a new releases with colleagues from around the world. But when useful, why would you not want to help making sure they are not consuming unnecessary credits.
Do notice the times need to be entered in UTC.
Here are a few ways this could be useful for you:
Use Case 1: Non-production databases
I think this could be especially useful for non-production environments that have no need to be available overnight. Why would you keep your development, test and acceptance databases online when nobody is using them right? With just with a few clicks, this is very easy to manage.
Use Case 2: Stop online databases every evening
I can see this also very useful in professional services environments where databases are often used more to develop new capabilities rather than to support a business critical application.
Schedule Start and Stop Times can be used to make sure your developers do not forget to stop your databases when they end their workday, hence making sure your databases are not wasting credits when nobody is using them.
Click here is you want to learn more …
I hope this helps! Let me know what you think!
