Create a Free Cloud Account with Oracle Cloud ( Unravel OCI Part 1 - Post 3)


In this blogpost you will see the workflow of creating a free trial Oracle Cloud account.


  1. If you would like to create an account, you can follow the instructions and have your Free Oracle Cloud Account created.
  2. You need to have the following ready ( you need to provide these details during signup)
    • An Email id which you have access to
    • A Mobile Phone to receive a One Time Password
    •  A Unique Identifier in Oracle Cloud for your Tenancy ( you will type out the same). 
    • An International Credit Card ( Oracle just validates the card, it makes a charge and reverses the same)
    • Your address ( home or office). 
    • A Password that meets the requirements
  3. Visit www.oracle.com from your browser
  4. On the top right, you have the link to Oracle Cloud Free Tier, click on that.
  5. You are taken to the Oracle Cloud Free Tier page as shown below
  6. On the bottom left of this page, you have a button for Start for free, click on that. You are taken to the Cloud Account sign up page.
    • Provide your email Id, and choose your Country of Residence.
    • The email Id you provide is the default user for your Tenancy in Oracle Cloud. This user is called the Root user for the tenancy and has all permissions for all resources in the tenancy and Privileges to do Tenancy Administration.
  7. Scroll down the page and click on next.You are taken to the next page which looks like the screenshot below. 
  8. You are taken to the next page which looks like the screenshot below.
  9. If you are using for your personal use, you can use the Personal Use Account type and enter a Cloud Account Name. The Cloud Account Name is a unique identifier for a Tenant / Customer in Oracle Cloud ( It is similar to how you create an email id  with an email provider, your email id has to be unique in the domain like gmail or yahoo).
  10. If you entered a unique value you will see a green check next to the Cloud Account Name text box.
    • Make a note of the Cloud Account name in your laptop for future reference.
  11. Once you got your Cloud Account Name accepted, in the next field choose your home region ( Regions are geographical areas, around the world, where Oracle Cloud is available in data centers setup by Oracle, choose a region which is closest to where you are physically located so that you can access Oracle cloud resources with minimum latency).
  12. Once you have chosen your home region, scroll down to provide your name and address details.
  13. At the bottom of the page, you need to choose your Country Code for your mobile number and enter your mobile number. Click on Next : Verify Mobile Number  You will get a One Time Code, as a text/sms, on your Mobile phone you provided.
  14. A pop up appears in the Browser to enter the Code you receive on your mobile phone.
    • If you don’t receive the code in 2 minutes time, you can request a new code to be sent. Sometimes, due to network congestion it is possible your Code is not delivered in 2 minutes.
  15. Once you enter the Code, click Verify Code, your account is created and you are taken to the password page.
    • Enter a password that meets the requirement and make a note of the password in your laptop for future reference
  16. When you enter a valid password ( in both the fields the same password is to be specified), all the validations for password requirements turn green,  Click on Next : Payment Information.
  17. You are taken to the payment information page.
  18. This is where you provide your credit card details, Oracle validates your card by making a charge of $1 and reverses the transaction also immediately.
  19. Once you provide you card details, click finish, you are taken to the next screen.
  20. Click on Complete Sign up and your card is validated.
  21. Your Account is created momentarily. It took me in all 15 minutes to create the account.
  22. Once your account is created, you are taken to the Login Screen, with your Cloud Account Name / Tenant ID already populated(as shown below).
  23. Login with the Email id you provided during signing up ( Root User) and the password you provided during sign up earlier.
  24. If you login immediately, you are taken to the home page of Oracle Cloud and you may get a page with a message as shown below.
  25. If you wait for a few minutes, the banner stating ‘It takes a few minutes…’  will disappear and you are shown the page without the banner as shown below.
  26. Notice that there is one more banner displayed on the top that your account is a Free Trial account. This banner will be shown till you decide to convert / upgrade your account to a paid account. You can use the Upgrade link given in the banner to convert your account to a paid account.
  27. During the first 1 month trial, you get USD 300 /SGD 400 Credit in your Cloud Account to use various services. The list of services that you can try out may vary over a period of time, but sure all services may not be available to try out ( eg. Bare Metal, RAC Databases etc). 
  28. Also note, some of the services in Oracle Cloud are Free Tier Eligible and as stated by the documentation, these services are lifetime free for you. You can see some of them listed in the Home page of your account.
  29. Generally, these free tier services are available only in the home region for your Cloud Account, you may not get them in other regions. Some references to the documentation is provided below with screenshots as of today.
  30. The list of Free Tier services are listed in the Screenshot below.
  31. The details of the Free Tier services can be looked up at https://docs.cloud.oracle.com/iaas/Content/FreeTier/resourceref.htm 
  32. To login to Oracle Cloud, you have URL specific to each region, some examples given below.
  33. When you visit any of the above urls, you may be taken to a page as shown below.
  34. In the Text Box for Cloud Tenant provide your Tenant ID  / Cloud Account Name and click continue.
  35. You will be taken to your Home region and a page as shown below will be displayed.
  36. Use the Single Sigin-On option on the left side and click Continue. In the resulting page, use the Root User (Email id) and password you specified during sign up and click on Sign In.
  37. In this example steps, I started with Tokyo region url ( though my home/default region is Mumbai when I subscribed to the Account). Once the login is authenticated it displayed a page as shown below.
  38. Not only that, it automatically redirected to my home region and showed my home page, with the banner displaying my Free Trial Credit balance.
  39. You can further work with your tenancy by referring to the documentation of Oracle Cloud at https://docs.cloud.oracle.com/iaas/Content/home.htm  or you can use my books available in Amazon Kindle.
  40. You can use the Free Kindle Desktop App on your laptop/ desktop and read the books.
  41. You may also learn through my youtube videos available as playlists as listed below.
  42. Now that you have created your free trial account… Wish you all the best with Oracle Cloud!!!

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