Remember when envisioning a new server or Oracle license purchase meant detailed sizing exercises, CRUD diagrams, and negotiating with other departments? Now you can just cloud prototype your application surprisingly cheaply. 4 cents an hour for the minimum configuration! You can even entertain the notion of letting your app’s entire life cycle unfold in the clouds, with Amazon Web Services (AWS).
To understand AWS Oracle pricing, you need to consider a range of sizing and availability service tiers, along with several database version offerings. The sizing categories vary from Micro-DB Instance (630 MB memory, 2 ECU* units) up to High-Memory Quadruple Extra Large DB Instance (68 GB memory, 26 ECU* units). Storage options range between 10GB and 1TB for each DB instance class. AWS will automatically switch out to alternate servers and storage equipment in the event of hardware failure, but you can elect the optional Multi-AZ HA service, which provides for a standby replica database located in a different geographical zone than your base production instance. Standard and Enterprise Edition Oracle database software is available, and you can plug into Amazon’s Oracle licensing or use your own. Here’s the AWS Oracle pricing scheme.
*ECU units measure Amazon CPU capacity; at present 1 ECU equals 1.0-1.2 GHz.
AWS will also provide you with fully provisioned MySQL databases on their infrastructure. Pricing here. MySQL was acquired by Oracle Corp. in 2009.
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Hearing the Oracle 
The size limit has now been increased to 3TB. And if you need partitions, geospatial, and other advanced Oracle features, you’ll need Oracle Enterprise Edition, which means you’l have to provide your own Oracle Enterprise Edition license. AWS RDS only provides Oracle Standard Edition licenses.