1:34 PM, a moment of truth. I sat, fingers poised over my keyboard, as the digital gates of Oracle's Cloud stood before me, refusing to yield. My mission: to claim a coveted spot among their Always Free ARM machines, a prize sought after by developers worldwide. The Mumbai region, my target, was notorious for its elusive openings. Each attempt to create an instance ended in a familiar, infuriating refrain: "Out of host capacity." The error message mocked me, a constant reminder that I was just one of many trying to crack the code.
As I clicked, failed, and clicked again, a realization dawned on me. This Sisyphean task was precisely the kind of drudgery my automation pipeline was designed to eliminate. I stopped clicking and started typing, crafting a PowerShell loop that would tirelessly call Oracle's CLI, attempting to provision an instance every minute. The script would classify each response, persisting in the face of "Out of host capacity" errors, and triumphant when it finally secured an instance OCID.
The hours ticked by, 145 attempts passing before the script logged a success line. Somewhere, in the digital expanse, a 4-vCPU, 24 GB RAM ARM machine in Mumbai had been surrendered to me. I had claimed my server, and with it, a profound lesson: if a thing can be retried, do not retry it yourself. Automate the retry, and liberate your time for the pursuit of excellence. As I walked away from my laptop, the soft glow of the screen fading into the background, I couldn't help but wonder: what other walls, waiting to be breached, stood between me and the pinnacle of my potential? The clock was ticking, and I was just getting started.
