Is inbound data transfer free?
Yes, inbound data transfer (ingress) is completely free in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).
Oracle does not charge you for moving data into your Virtual Cloud Network (VCN) from the internet or from an on-premises data center. This "open door" policy is designed to make it easy and cost-effective to migrate large databases or upload massive amounts of content into the cloud.
Unlike some services that might have "soft limits" or hidden processing fees, OCI ingress is:
Free for all volumes: Whether you upload 1 GB or 1 PB, the cost is $0.
Global: This applies to every OCI region worldwide.
Device Independent: Whether the data is coming over the public internet, a VPN, or a dedicated FastConnect line, there is no per-GB charge for the data coming in.
While the data transfer itself is free, it’s important to distinguish between the transfer and the service that receives it:
Load Balancers: If data passes through a Flexible Load Balancer, the inbound data transfer is free, but you still pay the standard hourly rate for the Load Balancer's bandwidth capacity.
Storage Requests: If you are uploading data to Object Storage, the transfer is free, but you will pay a tiny fee for the "PUT" requests (typically a few cents per 10,000 requests).
To keep your budget clear, remember the "In is Free, Out is Friendly" rule:
As AI and Big Data workloads grow, the ability to "sink" massive datasets into the cloud for training without incurring a "toll" is a significant competitive advantage for OCI. It ensures that the most expensive part of your data's lifecycle is its storage and processing, not the act of moving it to the cloud.