What if I tell you that you can run a cloud virtual server with 4CPU, 24GB of RAM, and up t0 200GB of Storage for FREE? Yes you heard right, FREE.
YES You can, the first caveat is that the server is not Intel but ARM (Ampere) based. This should not be an issue in most cases. You can also have for free a smaller 1CPU, 2GB of RAM, and up to 200GB of Storage (storage space is calculated total). The second caveat is that you have to be really careful about not going outside your allowed free quota, the consequence for that is quite expensive. Now that I’ve told you the negatives, let’s proceed how to do that.
The provider is Oracle, you will have to setup an Enterprise (PAID) Account on the Oracle Cloud. First you register for free, then you open a ticket with support to elevate your account to Enterprise or Paid account, do not worry, you are riding on the free tier, the reason why you have to get a paid account is because the Ampere servers are given first to the paid customers and then to the free customers, but if you try as a free customer, you will never find the resources available. This process of registering a paid account can take a few days, once approved, let’s create the first compute instance.
I am not describing the exact menus as those change often, instead, I am going to list the steps required for you to obtain the free compute and storage. Also, you will need familiarity with Linux, SSH, and Private/Public SSH keys.
The steps are:
- Create an Ampere compute instance with the following specs, choosing more than the listed specs will result in charges:
- Choose Ampere (ARM) Instance
- Choose a Linux OS, I prefer Ubuntu
- Choose 4 CPUs
- Choose 24GB of Memory
- Make sure 50GB of storage is selected
- For SSH Key, you can create a new one, or paste a key you already have
- Run the instance
After the instance is created, an IP address will be allocated. You can SSH to the instance, the user depends on the OS you selected, if ubuntu, the user is ubuntu.
Once you SSH to the instance, that’s if for compute. At this point, this server is just like any other cloud server, you can setup packages and things. The setup of the actual server is beyond the scope of this article.
Now, let’s configure the storage, if you did things as described in this post, you have 150GB free of storage to allocate. In order to add storage to the cloud server, simply create a block storage device of example 100GB and attach it to the compute instance you created. This step may require a reboot, not sure.
At this point you’ve used 150GB of storage.
Now, if you want, you can create another compute instance in the always free tier category, Intel, 1CPU, 2GB of Memory, and 50GB of Storage. This is also free, yes free.
NOTE: From this point on, you have allocated your free and always free resources, and any additional compute or storage created will result in charges.
I’ve been using this free instance for years with no problems, running a variety of services, only once I’ve crossed over the free ratio (my fault), which resulted in additional charges.
I hope you find this article useful. Thank you for visiting.