• Connect to an Autonomous AI Database instance from a legacy application and use the file system to load and unload data.
• Analyze data from different sources in an Autonomous AI Database.
• Secure access to data in an Autonomous AI Database from the file systems in an on-premises data center or Private VCNs.

• On-premises Data Center: Set up FastConnect or a Site-to-Site VPN to connect to the on-premises data center. See FastConnect and Site-to-Site VPN for more information.

• Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

  • Create Virtual Cloud Network (VCN) security rules for OCI File Storage Service (FSS) access: Before you can mount a file storage, you must configure security rules to allow traffic to the mount target's VNIC using specific protocols and ports. Security rules enable traffic for the following:

    • Open Network Computing Remote Procedure Call (ONC RPC) rpcbind utility protocol
    • Network File System (NFS) protocol
    • Network File System (MOUNT) protocol
    • Network Lock Manager (NLM) protocol

    See Configuring VCN Security Rules for File Storage for more details.

  • Create a file system in OCI FSS: Create a file system using the OCI console. When configuring mount target details for the file system, select the VCN and the private subnet of that VCN in which your database is deployed, and provide a hostname to automatically generate a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN). See Creating File Systems for more information.
  • Obtain the FQDN for the mount target: View the details of your file system's mount target from the OCI console as described in To view details of a mount target to get its FQDN.

1. Create a directory or use an existing directory to attach the external file system in your Autonomous AI Database. You must have WRITE privilege on the directory object on your Autonomous AI Database instance to attach a file system to a directory location in the database.

   For example, the following command creates the database directory named FSS_DIR and creates the file system directory fss:

   CREATE DIRECTORY FSS_DIR AS ‘fss’;

   See Create a Directory for more information.

2. Run DBMS_CLOUD_ADMIN.ATTACH_FILE_SYSTEM to attach a file system to a directory in your Autonomous AI Database. To run this procedure, you must be logged in as the ADMIN user or have EXECUTE privilege on DBMS_CLOUD_ADMIN.

   • By default, DBMS_CLOUD_ADMIN.ATTACH_FILE_SYSTEM uses NFSv3. However, you can choose to explicitly use the params parameter and specify the nfs_version with value 3 to specify NFSv3.

     BEGIN
     DBMS_CLOUD_ADMIN.ATTACH_FILE_SYSTEM (
         file_system_name      => 'FSS',
         file_system_location  => 'myhost.sub000445.myvcn.oraclevcn.com:/results',
         directory_name        => 'FSS_DIR',  
         description           => 'Source FSS for sales data'                                   
     );END;                                                                          
     /

   • To use NFSv4, include the params parameter with DBMS_CLOUD_ADMIN.ATTACH_FILE_SYSTEM and specify the nfs_version with value 4 to specify NFSv4.

     BEGIN
       DBMS_CLOUD_ADMIN.ATTACH_FILE_SYSTEM (
         file_system_name => 'FSS',
         file_system_location => 'myhost.sub000445.myvcn.oraclevcn.com:/results',
         directory_name => 'FSS_DIR',
         description => 'Source FSS for sales data',
         params => JSON_OBJECT('nfs_version' value 4)
       );
     END;
     /

   This example attaches the network file system specified in the file_system_name parameter to the Autonomous AI Database.

   The file_system_location parameter specifies the location of the file system. The value you supply with file_system_location consists of a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) and a file path in the form: FQDN:file_path. For example:

   • • FQDN: myhost.sub000445.myvcn.oraclevcn.com
     • File Path: /results

   The directory_name parameter specifies the directory name in the Autonomous AI Database where you want to attach the file system. This is the directory you created in Step 1, or another directory you previously created.

   The description parameter specifies the description for the task.

• Oracle Cloud Infrastructure File Storage uses NFS Version 3 to share. See Overview of File Storage for more information.

• If you attach to non-Oracle Cloud Infrastructure File Storage systems, the procedure supports NFSv3 and NFSv4.

• If you have an attached NFS server that uses NFSv3 and the NFS version is updated to NFSv4 in the NFS server, you must run DBMS_CLOUD_ADMIN.DETACH_FILE_SYSTEM and then DBMS_CLOUD_ADMIN.ATTACH_FILE_SYSTEM (using the params parameter with nfs_version set to 4. This attaches NFS with the matching protocol so that Autonomous AI Database can access the NFSv4 Server. Without detaching and then reattaching, the NFS server will be inaccessible and you may see an error such as: "Protocol not supported".

SELECT file_system_name, file_system_location, directory_path                      
   FROM dba_cloud_file_systems
   WHERE file_system_name = 'FSS';

DECLARE
  l_file         UTL_FILE.FILE_TYPE;
  l_location     VARCHAR2(100) := 'FSS_DIR';
  l_filename     VARCHAR2(100) := 'test.csv';
BEGIN
  -- Open the file.
  l_file := UTL_FILE.FOPEN(l_location, l_filename, 'w');
   
  UTL_FILE.PUT(l_file, 'Scott, male, 1000');
 
  -- Close the file.
  UTL_FILE.FCLOSE(l_file);
END;
/

DECLARE
  l_file         UTL_FILE.FILE_TYPE;
  l_location     VARCHAR2(100) := 'FSS_DIR';
  l_filename     VARCHAR2(100) := 'test.csv';
  l_text         VARCHAR2(32767);
BEGIN
  -- Open the file.
  l_file := UTL_FILE.FOPEN(l_location, l_filename, 'r');
 
  UTL_FILE.GET_LINE(l_file, l_text, 32767);
 
  -- Close the file.
  UTL_FILE.FCLOSE(l_file);
END;
/

SELECT object_name FROM DBMS_CLOUD.LIST_FILES('FSS_DIR');

• UTL_FILE in Oracle Database 19c PL/SQL Packages and Types Reference or Oracle Database 26ai PL/SQL Packages and Types Reference.
• LIST_FILES Function

BEGIN
  DBMS_CLOUD_ADMIN.DETACH_FILE_SYSTEM (
    file_system_name      => 'FSS'                                       
  );END;                                                                          
/