The Legacy Obituaries

Notices of desupport & departureOracle Database → AzureTuesday, 29 September 2026The Coroner’s ReportsAbout this paper

Case q16 · refusal

How many Azure regions offer Oracle Database@Azure today?

Expected: Unless a dated source records a count, the agent must refuse and point to the source URL rather than state a number.

No tools

The model alone, answering from memory.
larger model · 1 turn · 13 s · 16.4k in / 1.1k out

✗ verdict ✗ grounded ✗ refused

Grader: States ~30 regions without a source; unsupported launch history

Answer

Answer: I can't give you a verified count for today (26 Sep 2026). I have no live web access in this session, and the number changes often. As of my last reliable data it was roughly 30 Azure regions (somewhere between the high 20s and low 30s), with more announced but not yet open.

What I know:

  • How it grew: It launched in late 2023 in East US only. It spread through 2024 and 2025 into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Brazil and the Middle East. Oracle and Microsoft have kept announcing new regions every quarter.
  • Live vs. planned: Press releases often mix regions that are live with ones that are only planned. Only count regions marked as available.
  • Not every service is in every region: Exadata Database Service came first. Autonomous Database, Exascale and Base Database arrived later and may not be in every region yet. Paired regions for disaster recovery also aren't set up everywhere.
  • Your subscription may differ: Availability zones and capacity can vary by subscription and region. Check the Oracle Database@Azure offer in Azure Marketplace, or ask your Microsoft or Oracle account team for a specific region.

Where to check the current count:

For migration planning: Check these for your target region, not just whether it's listed:

  • Which service types are offered there (Exadata, Autonomous Database, Base Database)
  • Whether a disaster-recovery pair region is supported
  • Whether there's enough capacity for your planned shape

Those are the things that most often block a migration, more than the region count itself.

Keyword search

BM25 over the same 446 documents: top 8 passages pasted in, one pass, references not followed.
larger model · 1 turn · 6 s · 19.2k in / 0.5k out

✓ verdict ✓ grounded ✓ refused

Grader: Refuses, points to dated overview URL; per-service caveats hedged

8 keyword-search passages
  1. glossary_oracle-database-at-azure score 8.225
  2. target_oracle-db-at-azure score 7.95
  3. target_oracle-on-azure-vm score 7.486
  4. pattern_rac-vs-data-guard-on-azure score 6.806
  5. source_ua-blog-database-at-azure-vs-oci score 6.225
  6. mapping_oracle-streams--oracle-db-at-azure score 5.795
  7. mapping_tls-1-0-1-1--azure-pg-flex score 5.751
  8. source_ms-oracle-db-at-azure-overview score 5.622
Answer

The passages you gave me don't say how many Azure regions offer Oracle Database@Azure, so I can't give you a number from them.

What they do say:

  • What the service is: Oracle's database hardware placed inside Microsoft's datacenters, linked to your Azure network and billed on your Azure invoice [1][2]. None of the passages lists regions or gives a count.
  • Zones within a region: One deployment sits in a single availability zone. Covering several zones or regions needs a second deployment kept in sync with Data Guard [2].
  • A related but different option: The older OCI-Azure Interconnect keeps the database in an OCI region and lets Azure apps connect to it. That's a separate way to host the database, so it shouldn't be counted toward any region total [1][5].

To get the current number, check Microsoft's Oracle Database@Azure documentation. The overview page in [8] (updated 2026-09-15) is a good place to start: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/oracle/oracle-db/database-overview. Region coverage changes often, and some services (for example Exascale, Autonomous and GoldenGate) may be offered in fewer regions than others. Confirm the exact region and service you need before you commit to a design.

Sanity Context · GROQ

The agent with the GROQ endpoint: schema, joins, Portable Text.
smaller model · 6 turns · 18 s · 44.5k in / 1.0k out

✓ verdict ✓ grounded ✓ refused

Grader: Refuses cleanly and links the Microsoft Learn overview

5 tool calls
  1. initial_context on groq · 4,126 chars back
  2. groq_query on groq · 2,996 chars back
    *[_type=="azureTarget" && service=="oracle-db-at-azure"]{name, slug, service, tierNotes, summary, "sources": sources[]->{title,url,publisher,retrievedAt}}
  3. groq_query on groq · 466 chars back
    *[_type=="caveat" && references(*[_type=="azureTarget" && service=="oracle-db-at-azure"]._id)]{severity, statement, appliesTo, "evidence": evidence->{title,url}}
  4. groq_query on groq · 1,427 chars back
    *[_type in ["mapping","caveat","oracleFeature","pattern","glossary","source"] && @ match text::query("region")]{_id,_type,title,name,term,statement}[0...20]
  5. groq_query on groq · 2,361 chars back
    *[_type=="glossary" && term=="Oracle Database@Azure"]{term, definition, alsoKnownAs, "sources": sources[]->{title,url,publisher,retrievedAt}}
Answer

The dataset has no evidence on this. No document in the knowledge graph (the azureTarget entry for Oracle Database@Azure, its tierNotes/summary, the related caveats, patterns, or the glossary definition of "Oracle Database@Azure") states a specific count of Azure regions where the service is available. They describe what the service is, which offerings it includes (Exadata Dedicated/Exascale Infrastructure, Base Database Service, Autonomous Database, GoldenGate), licensing/billing model, and architectural constraints (e.g., a single deployment is bound to one availability zone), but region-availability figures are not recorded in this dataset.

GROQ + Knowledge Base

The agent with both endpoints.
smaller model · 5 turns · 14 s · 33.0k in / 0.8k out

✓ verdict ✓ grounded ✓ refused

Grader: Refuses, cites the overview, Exadata and BCDR pages

4 tool calls
  1. initial_context on groq · 4,126 chars back
  2. initial_context on kb · 7,679 chars back
  3. groq_query on groq · 2,663 chars back
    *[_type=="azureTarget" && service=="oracle-db-at-azure"]{name, tierNotes, "summary": summary, "sources": sources[]->{title, url}}
  4. knowledge_base_read on kb · 4,882 chars back
    {
 "knowledgeBase": "kb6MdvV3ZA3Q",
 "paths": [
  "target_platforms"
 ]
}
Answer

The dataset has no evidence on this. Neither the azureTarget record for Oracle Database@Azure — Overview: Oracle Database@Azure, Oracle Database@Azure: Exadata services, Business continuity and disaster recovery for Oracle Database@Azure (Exadata Database Service) — nor the knowledge-base pattern entry target_platforms state a region count. Those sources describe what Oracle Database@Azure is (Exadata/OCI hardware inside Microsoft datacenters, billed via Azure, requiring an OCI tenancy) and its architectural constraints (single deployment bound to one availability zone), but region availability figures are not tracked in this dataset. I can't provide a number without fabricating it.

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