3 Migrate Your Instance to Generation 2

To improve the performance of your Visual Builder applications, Oracle will migrate your Visual Builder instance to Generation 2 of the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).

Note:

Your live apps won't be accessible while your instance is being migrated. You can expect migration to take two hours, so be sure to plan accordingly.

What Do I Need to Do to Get Ready for Migration?

When you receive a notification that your instance will be migrated, there are a few steps you'll need to perform before the migration.

Once Oracle has chosen a date for migrating your instance, an email will be sent to the Visual Builder administrator. The email notification will also provide alternate migration dates if the initial migration date is not convenient. If you want to change the migration date to one of the alternate dates, you'll need to log a Service Request in My Oracle Support and indicate your preferred date.

The email will also provide details about migrating the Visual Builder instance to Visual Builder Generation 2, including:

• the Oracle Cloud ID (OCID) for the Visual Builder service Virtual Cloud Network (VCN), and
• the NAT gateway IP address of the Visual Builder service VCN.

This information will also be displayed in a banner in the Visual Builder UI.

You'll need the Visual Builder VCN OCID and/or the NAT gateway IP address to allow your instance to access external services. For details on what these are, see Overview of VCNs and Subnets and NAT Gateway.

Note:

If your instance requires access to an Oracle DB service (ATP or DBaaS), you'll also receive an OCID and NAT IP address for the Visual Builder management VCN.

Before the migration date, you might need to:

• Notify your application's users that the application will be temporarily unavailable on the migration date. If you have some live apps on your instance, you might want to lock the apps during the migration period.

• Confirm you are subscribed to an OCI region.

  To migrate your current VB instance, you need to be subscribed to an OCI region, and this region must be the same as the region where your VB instance is currently running. You use the OCI Console to see your current subscriptions, and to add regions if needed. For details, see Viewing and Managing Subscriptions in Managing and Monitoring Oracle Cloud.

• Add your new instance to service allowlists, if needed.

  If your current VB instance is using an external service, for example, a web service, your new instance will need access to it. To enable access to a web service, you must add your instance to the web service's allowlist. Your current and new instances must be able to access the services during the migration process. If access from the new instance is not set up before the upgrade, the apps won't work when the upgrade process is completed because they won't be able to connect to the services.

  You'll need to add access rules for your new instance to each service's allowlist. This might require filing a Service Request with the service's administrator. See Allow Your Instance to Access Services below for details.

Allow Your Instance to Access Services

If your Visual Builder instance needs to access an external service, your instance needs to be included in the service's allowlist (formerly a whitelist).

A service typically uses an Access Control List (ACL), called an allowlist, to restrict the networks and services that are allowed to access it. Only users from an IP address or Virtual Cloud Network (VCN) on the allowlist are allowed access to the service. The allowlist restrictions are in addition to the standard authorization mechanisms, such as user credentials, which are always in place.

Any Visual Builder instance that requires access to an external service, such as a REST web service, must be on the external service's allowlist. To get on a web service's allowlist, you'll need to work with the web service's administrator to add an ACL access rule for your VB instance. This may require filing a Service Request with the web service's administrator. You'll typically only need to do this when creating a new VB instance that will require access to a service, or when you plan to start using a new service in a VB instance. A VB instance can be added to an allowlist at any time, even before the instance has been created.

Depending on the location and type of the service your VB instance needs to access, you'll need to provide the service's administrator with:

• the Visual Builder service VCN,
• the Oracle Cloud ID (OCID) of the Visual Builder service VCN, or
• the NAT gateway IP address of the Visual Builder service VCN.

A VB instance's service VCN, OCID and NAT gateway IP address are determined by the instance's region. For example, iad-vb-isovcn is the VB service VCN for instances in the Ashburn region. For details on what these are, see Overview of VCNs and Subnets and NAT Gateway in the OCI Documentation.

Note:

Visual Builder instances that use an Oracle DB service (ATP, DBaaS) will also have a VB management VCN. The VB management VCN OCID or NAT IP must also be added to the service's allowlist. Access from the VB management VCN is required so that schemas related to the VB service can be updated, for example, when patches or updates are applied to the instance.

You can view an instance's VB service NAT gateway IP and VCN OCID in the instance's Visual Builder Instance Information tab in the OCI console. If the instance also has a VB management NAT gateway IP and VCN OCID, they will also be displayed in the tab:

Description of the illustration admin-instacedetails-ocid.png

The instance details you need to provide in the Service Request will depend upon the location and type of the service your instance needs to access. In the following table you can see the VB instance details you'll need to provide to allow VB to access the different types of external services.

To access...	You'll need...
A REST web service located in Oracle Service Network (OSN) (such as ORDS)	You'll need to provide: the VB service VCN OCID. The service administrator needs to configure one access rule, to allow access from the VB runtime service VCN.
An autonomous database located in OSN, like ATP	You'll need to provide: the VB service VCN OCID, and the VB management VCN OCID The service administrator needs to configure two access rules, to allow access from the VB runtime service VCN and the VB management VCN.
an external REST web service	You'll need to provide: the NAT gateway IP address for the VB service VCN The service administrator needs to configure one access rule, to allow access from the IP address of the NAT gateway of the VB runtime service. An access rule configured for the NAT gateway is used when the service is not in the same region and OSN as your instance.
an external DBaaS database	You'll need to provide: the NAT gateway IP address for the VB service VCN the NAT gateway IP address for the VB management VCN The service administrator needs to configure two access rules, to allow access from the VB runtime service VCN NAT gateway and the VB management VCN NAT gateway. Access rules configured for the NAT gateways are used when the service is not in the same region and OSN as your instance.

What Do I Do After Migration?

If you're an administrator, you'll receive an email notification when the migration process is complete, with details about your new instance.

After migration, the URL and IDCS settings of your Visual Builder instance will stay the same, but the way you administer your Oracle Visual Builder Generation 2 instances will change.

You'll still access, create, and manage your Visual Builder Generation 2 instances in the OCI Console in the Visual Builder landing page, but you'll open the page from Developer Services in the navigation menu instead of from OCI Classic Services.

To open your Visual Builder landing page after migration:

1. Sign in to Oracle Cloud at https://cloud.oracle.com to open the OCI Console.

   For more about signing in and using the console, see Get to Know the Console.

2. Open the navigation menu and click Developer Services. Under Visual Builder, click Visual Builder.

Note:

After migration to Generation 2, for a few weeks you'll still be able to access the Visual Builder landing page for your 'old' instances from OCI Classic Services in the navigation menu. However, instances that have been migrated will be marked as stopped.

After migration you can safely remove your 'old' instance from service allowlists by filing a Service Request.

Some of the steps for administering Visual Builder instances are different after they've been migrated to Generation 2. The following documentation can help you get familiar with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and how you can administer your Visual Builder Generation 2 instances.

• See Welcome to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure for an introduction to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and its features.
• See Get Started with Oracle Visual Builder Generation 2 to learn more about accessing and managing your Oracle Visual Builder Generation 2 instances.