VirtualBox is a cross-platform virtualization application. What does that mean? For one thing, it installs on your existing Intel or AMD-based computers, whether they are running Windows, Mac, Linux or Solaris operating systems. Secondly, it extends the capabilities of your existing computer so that it can run multiple operating systems (inside multiple virtual machines) at the same time.
VirtualBox is free and it's a great solution for this type of sandbox because we don't have to install any software on our host operating system which would consume resources when not in use. I will not cover the installation process in any detail as it will vary depending on your host OS. Just navigate to the downloads page and download & install the appropriate binaries for your OS.
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/community/developer-vm/index.html and scroll down until you see the Database App Development VM.
Checkout all the goodies in that VM! Also note that Oracle Database 12.1.0.2 includes some really cool JSON enhancements that you'll be able to start playing with once the VM is imported.
Click the link that says Downloads and Instructions. On the next page, accept the license agreement and then click the link to download the VM.
If you've not already authenticated with your Oracle account, you'll be redirected to a page to do so before the download begins. If you don't have an account just click the Create Account button on that page to create your free account.
Once the download completes you'll be ready to import the VM into VirtualBox. Open VirtualBox and click File > Import Appliance. Use the appliance import wizard to select the OTN_Developer_Day_VM.ova file you downloaded and click Continue.
On the next step of the wizard, you can just leave all the defaults and click the Import button. The import process will begin once you accept the license agreement. After a few minutes you'll see the following screen.
If you would like to be able to copy/paste things between the host and guest OS, go to the menu bar and select Devices > Shared Clipboard > Bidirectional. Trust me, this will come in handy!
With the VM up and running we're ready to install Node.js (which we'll do via NVM).
One of my favorite tools for working with Node.js is the Node Version Manager (NVM). NVM allows you to install multiple versions of Node.js and easily switch between them when needed. This is a great choice for any environment, but even more so for a local sandbox like this.
That should download and run the install script.
See how easy NVM makes it to install and work with Node.js? On to the driver!
Example scripts for the driver can be found at: https://github.com/oracle/node-oracledb/tree/master/examples. The easiest way to start running the examples in the VM is to install Git and clone the repo from GitHub. From there we can copy the examples into our own directory, change the password in dbconfig.js, install the driver, and start running examples!
Running subsequent examples only requires node followed by the name of the example you'd like to run.
Perhaps you could do something similar in AWS.
An alternative way using docker could be wonderful.
That's a great suggestion, I'll see what I can do!