Start developing Arm-based applications quickly using the Oracle Linux Cloud Developer image

August 17, 2021 | 6 minute read
Julie Wong
Product Management Director
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We are excited for the availability of our Arm compute service on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), built to deliver a high performance cloud offering based on the Ampere Altra processor. With the launch of the Ampere A1 Compute platform in OCI, we are also pleased to announce the availability of the Oracle Linux Cloud Developer image as part of OCI's Arm developer ecosystem.

The launch of the Oracle Linux Cloud Developer image for Arm in OCI provides a fast and easy path to transition, build, and run Arm-based applications with the best price-performance in the cloud. This image bundles the most valuable and useful development tools, includes free licensing and support for many of these tools, and enables an immediate launch of a complete Arm development environment in the cloud.

Jump start Arm development

The Oracle Linux Cloud Developer image for Arm provides software and tools that integrate with native OCI services, making it easy to deploy an Arm development environment with just a few clicks. This image was built to allow developers to spin up a comprehensive Arm-based cloud developer environment within minutes. Application developers can easily access the software and tools they need to transition existing applications and to build new ones on the Arm cloud platform.

The Oracle Linux Cloud Developer image for Arm is an Oracle Linux 8-based, ready-to-run image that provides an out-of-the-box development platform on OCI. It enables you to rapidly preinstall, automatically configure, and launch a comprehensive development environment that includes a choice of preferred development languages, software development kits (SDKs), and OCI client tools. It provides easy access to development tools such as command line and GUI tools to write, debug, and run code in a variety of languages, and develop modern applications on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

The Oracle Linux Cloud Developer image includes the following preinstalled software and tools:

Highest level Oracle Linux, Java, and GraalVM support included for free

The Oracle Linux Cloud Developer image includes licensing and support for several premium developer tools for free. If you typically pay additionally for commercial licenses and support, you will find substantial savings from these free, included tools. Or, if you typically prefer a free commercial license, you will gain access to full expert support of your environment.

Oracle Linux Premier Support is included with an OCI subscription at no extra cost. This means that you can enjoy the highest-level support for your Oracle Linux instances in OCI, including around-the-clock expert telephone and online support and access to enhancements and updates, without having to worry about operating system licensing and support costs.

Support for Oracle Java, Oracle’s widely adopted and proven Java Development Kit, is also included with OCI subscriptions at no extra cost. This includes the ability to log bugs, to get regular stability, performance, and security updates, and more.

In addition, Oracle GraalVM Enterprise Edition (EE), now part of an Oracle Java SE subscription, is included for free and supported with an OCI subscription. GraalVM EE, built on Java SE, is a high-performance multilingual runtime with new compiler optimizations that we consider the best solution for building microservices, with high efficiency, better isolation, and greater agility for enterprise applications in cloud and hybrid environments.

Fast and easy cloud deployment

Developers can get immediate access to an Arm-based developer environment simply by launching the Oracle Linux Cloud Developer image from the OCI console - no downloads and no manual installations, minimizing the distractions and disruptions on the path to productive Arm development.

To launch the Oracle Linux Cloud Developer image on an Ampere A1 compute shape, login to the OCI console. Under the left navigation menu, select Compute, then Instances and Create Instance to configure the instance.

Click on Change Shape and select the Ampere shape series and Virtual Machine instance type. Choose the VM.Standard.A1.Flex shape, configure the number of OCPUs and a minimum of 8 GB of memory for this image. Click on Select Shape.

You can also deploy the image on a bare metal compute instance by selecting the BM.Standard.A1.160 shape under the Bare Metal shape series selection menu.

Click on Change Image and select the Oracle Linux Cloud Developer image under Platform Images. Click on Select Image.

When you have completed all your instance configuration details, click Create.

Once the instance is deployed and up and running, a comprehensive set of development software and tools are immediately available at your fingertips. For more details, refer to the Getting Started guide.

Many development tools already support Arm and are readily available from the open source community. In addition to those bundled with the Oracle Linux Cloud Developer image, you can also extend your toolset with other favorite resources like those available from Works on Arm and examples found in the Arm tools and solutions GitHub repository.

Oracle Linux for the Arm platform

The Oracle Linux Cloud Developer image for Arm is based on Oracle Linux. Oracle Linux is extensively tested and used to run Oracle's Engineered Systems and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and is deployed by tens of thousands of supported enterprise customers. Oracle Linux 8 and 7 images for 64-bit Arm (aarch64) are easily accessible and can be deployed directly from the OCI console.

Oracle Linux-based platform images feature the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK) release 6 with security and virtualization enhancements. These images include Oracle Ksplice technology that can apply zero-downtime security updates for the kernel and key user space libraries such as glibc and openssl, without requiring a reboot or stopping applications. In addition, they provide configuration tools like OCI utilities (oci-utils) that integrate with Oracle Cloud services and help simplify instance configuration of resources such as block storage and virtual network interfaces.

Ksplice is exclusively available with an Oracle Linux Premier Support subscription, which is included at no extra charge for instances running in OCI.

Getting started

Arm-based application development in the cloud is easier than ever with the Oracle Linux Cloud Developer image for OCI. You can quickly start and test drive development on the Arm platform without delays by signing up for an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure account, and launching the Oracle Linux Cloud Developer image for Arm on Oracle Cloud Free Tier resources. In addition to the sizable Arm capacity provided in the Oracle Cloud Free Tier, OCI Arm Accelerator offers free credits to make it fast and easy to get started for those who need a more scalable environment.

For more information about the Oracle Linux Cloud Developer image for Arm and other resources, visit the following links:

Julie Wong

Product Management Director


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