Always Free & Cloud Basics
Why run your own VPS?
A VPS — a virtual private server — is a small Linux box you rent by the month and control completely: SSH, install anything, run a Spring Boot app, host a database. Providers like Oracle Cloud let you run one always free: no credit card surprises, just a real server that stays up while you learn.
What OCI gives you for $0
- 2x AMD micro VMs (1 OCPU / 1 GB RAM) forever.
- 1 flexible Ampere (ARM) VM — 4 vCPU / 24 GB shared.
- 10 GB Block Volume, 10 GB Object Storage, 10 GB Archive per tenancy.
- 1 TB outbound data transfer each month.
- A static public IP reservation at no cost.
A VM created in the Always Free tier behaves exactly like any paid VPS — it is a 24/7 server you can reach from anywhere. The only real limits are CPU/RAM, so keep your build and database modest.
Mental model
Think of OCI as three layers: Compute (the VM — this tutorial), Storage (block volumes + object buckets, the next one) and Networking (the VCN, security lists and static IP wiring that make it reachable). Once you can push a WAR to a free Ubuntu box and keep it alive with systemd, you have 90% of the “deploy my own server” skill that real jobs ask for.