I have a small website running on the "always free" tier. It's perfect for my needs. After my trial period ended (and I hadn't used any fee-based resoures), I reverted back to "always free." This is fine. This morning, I received an email which read, in part:
Your Always Free resources will remain available to you as long as you actively use your account.
but doesn't define the meaning of "actively use your account." I would just chat online with someone, but that's not available to me. I tried to use their community forums, but their login seems busted, so I landed here. (No offense, but I was under the impression this is mostly for development questions.)
Is having a website running sufficient to qualify as "active use?" Do I need to login to the console periodically? No matter the use, what constitutes "active?" For example, if I am required to login the the console periodically, how often to I have to do that? Weekly? Monthly?
Based on the documentation, Always Free account activity is measured according to the following rules:
Oracle Autonomous Database: "Successfully making a SQL*Net or HTTPS connection resets these measurements to zero"
Per the documentation, you get 7 days before the resource is automatically stopped, and then 90 days before the resource is permanently deleted.
Based on my experience with the database, you get a warning email after 7 days, and then 2 days later the resource is stopped. You get a warning email about permanent deletion after 60 days, and luckily I don't have experience with how long it takes for a resource to be permanently deleted.
APEX: "Successfully making a HTTPS connection resets these measurements to zero."
APEX shares the same 7 and 90 day rules as the autonomous database.
Oracle will deem virtual machine and bare metal compute instances as idle if, during a 7-day period, the following are true:
- CPU utilization for the 95th percentile is less than 15%
- Network utilization is less than 15%
- Memory utilization is less than 15% (applies to A1 shapes only)