Support for remote development is one of the newer features of Microsoft Visual Studio Code (VS Code) announced in 2019 that I’m most excited about. With the Remote Development Extension Pack, developers are able to work with code on remote servers using SSH, Docker containers and Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).

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With only three days remaining for my 30-day trial, I will finally close these series by discussing my experiences dealing with various levels of support from Oracle. Having used the Oracle Cloud (OCI) both in my day job and as a technology evangelist, I have had the opportunity to engage Oracle support at various levels: sales, customer and technical.

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Oracle Function was announced late last year (2018), with limited availability to select Oracle Cloud customers. The platform is built on Fn and is Oracle’s solution for developers wanting to deploy services using a Serverless Framework.

As succinctly explained by Kaslin Fields, a Fn function is a small embodiment of code that listens and speaks to HTTP streams. Ideally, each Fn function serves one, and only one purpose. It can be implemented in wide variety of programming languages and they are listed here (see the list of runtime options available).

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In case you missed it (which is almost impossible), the Oracle Autonomous Database (AutonomousDB) is Oracle’s hottest offering on the Oracle Cloud and it now comes fitted with what is arguably the best feature of the Oracle Database: Oracle Application Express (APEX). I have a few more days to go with this trial, so why not take one out for a spin?

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To everyone following my 30 Days on the Oracle Cloud experience, I apologise that I was not able to keep up with the series previously, due to work commitments. I have enrolled in yet another trial, so I am hoping to continue where I left off and share my thirty day adventure with an Oracle Cloud trial. I’m on Day 14 now, and for this post, I’ll examine an important issue that many of us face, even in our personal life - moving houses!

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I was glad to be back in Seattle to attend the 2019 edition of ODTUG’s famed Kscope conference. This is the second time the event is held this close to home (read my previous recount of the same conference five years ago)! And like every Kscope before, the conference always provides unique experiences, bountiful knowledge and new people to meet! Here’s a quick summary and highlights of my week.

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Since Oracle Application Express (APEX) version 18.1, application developers are able to easily integrate OAuth2-based authentication using many popular identity providers including Google, Facebook and Microsoft. Morten Braten, Anton Nielsen and I have previously written on this subject.

• APEX Authentication with Microsoft account
• Oracle APEX Social Sign-On with Microsoft Azure
• Oracle APEX Less Social Sign-On with MS Azure and Office 365
• APEX Social Sign-In Without a Wallet

Starting May 2019, Microsoft is changing how developers manage their OAuth2 application registrations.

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One of my fondest memories of my previous job was working with VMware virtualization products. With VMware Workstation, system administrators had the ability to “move” a virtual machine (VM) from a local workstation to vSphere. It was no surprise then that I was very exited (and itching to play) when VirtualBox 6.0 was released with a new feature: support for exporting a VM to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)!

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It took a little longer than I had hoped to publish the next article in this series about my experience with a 30-day Oracle Cloud trial. I had a created compute instance in the same compartment and that messed up my estimates. That’s just one piece of the puzzle.

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After running my Oracle Application Express (APEX) instance (see the previous article on what it takes) for more than a day, I think I have enough to take a first measure of costs and fact check the prices listed by Oracle!

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