You can create full clone, a metadata clone & a refreshable clone from Autonomous Database. Full clone allows you to create a full copy of the database. Metadata clone will only include database schema metadata without the data. Refreshable clone allows you to refresh the data from source database on timely manner (make sure refresh occurs at least once within the 7-day period).

Autonomous Database (ADB) cloning is very useful feature and provides a cost-saving alternative to Autonomous Database Data Guard option. For low Recovery Time Objective (RTO) & Recovery Point Objective (RPO), you should choose Autonomous Data Guard.

Following are some of the good use cases for using cloning,

• Currently ADB backup cannot be manually restored in another region
• Cross region Autonomous Data Guard is available, but you cannot change OCPU on standby database, so cost becomes important factor for some customers
• Creating non-production databases in another region from the production database clone to reduce data transfer across regions and speed up the process

I will go over how to create full clone of ADB in another region here. I’m going to use existing ADB created in Ashburn region earlier in oracle-lab compartment as shown below. Click on ADB-DEV in following figure to go to detail page.

Click on More actions –> Create clone as shown in below figure.

Now provide require information for Autonomous Database clone. Select full clone, clone source as database instance, basic information for the Autonomous Database clone, database configuration information, administrator credentials, network access, license and contact email as shown in following figures. Click on Create Autonomous Database clone to start cloning process.

It will take some time depending on various factor like database size, cross-region data transfer etc. Once the cloning process is complete, ADB clone will be listed as available as shown in below figure.