Oracle

The Quickest Way To Get Started With Oracle Database

by Yuli Vasiliev

The Quickest Way To Get Started With Oracle Database


By Yuli Vasiliev

If you already have any experience with installing an Oracle database in your system, you know that it can be quite a time-consuming task that requires you to complete a number of steps, including pre-installation and post-configuration ones. This can be especially disappointing if you just want to install the database for testing purposes. You can completely avoid this installation headache if you choose the pre-built Database App Development VM appliance designed to run within Oracle VM VirtualBox.

So, before you can install the appliance, you need to have Oracle VirtualBox installed on your computer. The current list of platforms it runs on includes Windows, Linux, Macintosh, and Solaris. You can download the distribution for your operating system from the Download VirtualBox page at https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads.

Actually, the Database App Development VM appliance, mentioned above, is not the only pre-built VM you can use to quickly get started with Oracle software within Oracle VM VirtualBox. There are a number of pre-built VMs you can download from the Pre-Built Developer VMs page to test popular Oracle software, including those that contain the recent versions of Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle Linux and Oracle Solaris, as well as many others.

This article though, concentrates on the Database App Development VM that contains ready-for-use Oracle Database 12c installed on Oracle Linux 7. At the time of this writing, the entire list of software components included into this appliance looks as follows:

  • Oracle Linux 7
  • Oracle Database 12c Release 1 Enterprise Edition (12.1.0.2 with In-Memory Option)
  • Oracle XML DB
  • Oracle SQL Developer 4.1
  • Oracle Application Express 5.0
  • Hands-On-Labs (accessed via the Toolbar Menu in Firefox)

Assuming you have Oracle VirtualBox installed on your computer, go to the Pre-Built Developer VMs page at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/community/developer-vm/index.html#dbapp, where find and click the Downloads and Instructions link. On the page opened as a result, check the requirements before proceeding to downloading the installation package. The installation package is available as an ova file, which you can import into your VirtualBox using the File > Import Appliance menu. The Import Virtual Appliance wizard is shown in the screenshot below:

After completing the above wizard steps, you will have Database App Development VM fully ready for use. So, to start the VM, double-click the OTN Developer Days VM icon in the left pane of the Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager. As with regular operating systems, the loading process should take awhile. After the VM has been loaded, you’ll see the following screen:

To start with the database immediately, you can launch Oracle SQL Developer by double-clicking its icon that can be found on the Desktop.

With Oracle SQL Developer you can create a new database user to work with, or use pre-installed once, including SYS, SYSTEM, and those that come as part of the default sample schemas, such as HR. Note that all those schemas have a single password: oracle.

About the Author

Yuli Vasiliev is a software developer, freelance author, and consultant currently specializing in open source development, Java technologies, business intelligence (BI), databases, and service-oriented architecture (SOA). He is the author of Oracle Business Intelligence: The Condensed Guide to Analysis and Reporting (Packt, 2010) and PHP Oracle Web Development (Packt, 2007) as well as a series of other books on the Oracle technology.