1 Introduction to Migrating to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
Oracle provides tools, guidelines, and instructions that can help you migrate your existing Oracle Cloud resources from an environment based on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Compute Classic to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
Understand the Benefits of Moving to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
Oracle strongly encourages customers to migrate their existing cloud resources from Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Compute Classic regions. There are several advantages to doing so.
In Oracle Cloud, you provision resources in specific data regions, which are localized geographic locations. In general, a region supports one of two infrastructure platforms: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure or Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Compute Classic. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is Oracle's more modern infrastructure platform that's based on the latest cloud technologies and standards, and typically provides better performance than Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Compute Classic. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure also provides more predictable pricing and lower costs (OCPU per hour). Most importantly, Oracle continues to invest in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, including the addition of new regions, services and features.
You can take advantage of these additional administrative features in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure when you migrate from Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Compute Classic:
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Organize cloud resources in logical compartments, and assign fine-grained access policies to each compartment.
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Distribute cloud resources across availability domains and fault domains for high availability and disaster recovery.
Consider a General Migration Strategy
When migrating to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure there are several distinct strategies that you can consider. These high-level strategies can help guide you through the planning of your migration and help you prioritize your mirgration requirements.
| Strategy | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Rehost | This strategy for migration is also referred to as "Lift and Shift". It involves taking a snapshot of the application server VM's on the source environment including the OS, boot record, converting into an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure-compatible format (qcow2, vmdk) and importing it on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure as a custom Image, and then re-instantiating the image. |
You have non-Oracle applications, running on a VM on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Compute Classic. These applications cannot be easily rebuilt. In this case, you create a snapshot of the entire image (OS, application, configuration information, and data), import it into Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and rerun it there–essentially, you are rehosting the application server from Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Compute Classic to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. The application can also be an on-premise database deployment, which was installed and configured on the source virtual machine. |
| Replatform | This strategy involves rebuilding or redeploying the application on an upgraded operating system. |
You create a new Oracle Cloud Infrastructure virtual machine, based on a new version of the Oracle Linux operating system with the latest security updates. You can then redeploy your application on the new virtual machine and the new operating system. For example, consider the task of migrating PeopleSoft using Cloud Manager. This operation reinstalls PeopleSoft on a new Oracle Cloud Infrastructure VM, and moves just the configurations and data over. |
| Refactor | This strategy involves redesigning and refactoring your application with cloud design points to make it more cloud native. |
You redesign and rewrite your application to make extensive use of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure constructs and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure PaaS services, so you get the maximum benefit out of moving to the new infrastructure. This may be the only solution to migrating complex network configurations. |
| Retire/Replace | These are not covered in detail here. With this strategy, you basically discard your application or buy another application. In these situations, there are no migration scenarios. | N/A |