Gitpod Workspace for Oracle Database Free 23ai-click and run, free and in 7 minutes

I am an enthusiastic user of Gitpod — a platform for ephemeral cloudbased workspaces. Click on a URL and a workspace is started for you (and for me). From scratch, with plenty of resources and fully installed based on a Infra as Code definition in a Git repository. I have created several Gitpod workspace definitions for various technologies, including previous ones for Oracle Database XE 21c and Free 23c. This article introduces the workspace for Oracle Database Free 23ai (23.4.0.4.24) using the “official” Oracle container image.

You click on this link, wait for 5–8 minutes and a fresh environment is available for you that looks like this picture:

A cloud based Linux (Ubuntu) environment with a running container that contains a newly created fresh Oracle Database Free 23ai (at the time of writing that means 23.4.0.. One PDB is precreated, two users are set up. SQLcl is installed outside the container and SQL*Plus is available inside the container. Connecting to the database using an SSH remote connection is quite straightforward too.