Free Oracle Cloud: 1. Sign-up for Oracle Cloud Free

This post is part of a series of blog posts on the Best and Cheapest Oracle APEX hosting: Free Oracle Cloud.

To get started, go to https://www.oracle.com/cloud/free/ and click the Start for free button:

Follow the wizard to sign up for the Oracle Cloud Program:

When you enter your Account details, it's important to point out that your Home Region is really important. It's only in your Home Region that you can get the Free Oracle Cloud service.
I would select the Home Region based on where most of your visiters/customers and yourself are based. Also provide correct information about yourself and a valid phone number.

You will get a notification on your phone to continue:

Provide a password:

Enter your payment information. It's important to add a valid credit card in order to get the Free Oracle Cloud, if you don't you enter in Trial mode.

Your credit card is not being charged (well for 1 USD to test the card), but it's important to have the credit card as Oracle sees your account as a Paid account and it will open more functionality :)

That's it - your account is now being created...

I setup a couple of Free Oracle Cloud services and in most instances the account is created within a minute, and you get redirected to the sign in form:

When signing in you will see the Oracle Cloud dashboard. Note that in the following screenshot, the Free Oracle Cloud Tier is not ready yet.

You will receive a welcome email.

And a few minutes later you will receive a message you are all set, and your FREE Oracle Cloud account should be ready to be selected.

But sometimes, the account is not created straightaway and you need to wait a bit. In a few cases I had to wait a few hours for the email, but at the end it always worked for me. It might be because I used this service when it was just released and maybe some datacenters weren't 100% ready yet.

In the next post we will setup a free Autonomous Database (ATP).