Best Practices for Managing your Oracle API Platform Cloud Service

Best Practices for Managing your Oracle API Platform Cloud Service - Classic Instance

Although you have full access to the VMs your service instance runs on, follow these best practices to ensure you can migrate your Oracle API Platform Cloud Service - Classic instance to newer versions when they are released.

WARNING:

Failing to follow these guidelines may make it difficult or impossible to migrate your service instance to newer versions of the product.

Layered Resources

Oracle API Platform Cloud Service - Classic is built on the following layers:

VM Layer: includes the virtual machine image and the Oracle Linux operating system running in the VM.
Platform Layer: includes the WebLogic Server application server. This layer includes associations with Database Cloud Service (DBCS) and Oracle Storage Service (OSCS).
Oracle API Platform Cloud Service - Classic Layer: This includes the Oracle API Platform Cloud Service - Classic Management and Development Portals (if the Developer Portal is not deployed on-premises).

Supported Administration Actions

These administration tasks are supported:

Unsupported VM Layer Administration Actions

WARNING:

Don’t perform any of the following actions at the VM layer. These actions are unsupported and may make it difficult or impossible to migrate your service instance to newer versions of the product.

Patch Oracle Linux with unsupported updates
Tune Oracle Linux operating system settings
Install or deinstall Oracle Linux programs
Delete files, including temporary files
Modify Oracle Linux operating system privileges
Modify SSH keys

Unsupported Platform Layer Administration Actions

WARNING:

Don’t perform any of the following actions at the Platform layer. These actions are unsupported and may make it difficult or impossible to migrate your service instance to newer versions of the product.

Install custom certificates in the Management Tier

You can install custom certificates for accessing secured backend services on each gateway node. See Configure SSL Certificates to Pass Requests to Services Over HTTPS.
Open additional ports on the Management Tier VMs
Install custom applications to WebLogic Server or to service VMs
Change the WebLogic Server topology, including adding or deleting managed servers
Change the WebLogic Server JVM settings
Create or modify WebLogic Server resources, like data sources, connection pools, JMS servers, work managers, and partitions.
Modify WebLogic Server MBean settings
Modify OPSS permissions

Oracle API Platform Cloud Service - Classic Layer Administration Guidelines

WARNING:

Follow these guidelines when creating and managing users and groups in Oracle API Platform Cloud Service - Classic. Failing to follow these guidelines may make it difficult or impossible to migrate your service instance to newer versions of the product.

Do use email addresses for user names: Ensure you use email addresses for all user accounts you create in Fusion Middleware Control for accessing the Oracle API Platform Cloud Service - Classic Management and Developer Portals. See Adding Users.
Don’t create nested groups: Ensure that every group you create in Fusion Middleware Control is not a member of any other group. This includes the pre-seeded role groups. For example, if you create a new Operators group, you should not add this group to an existing group, like APICSAdministrators. See Adding Users to a Group.

Oracle Database Cloud Service Best Practices

Follow these best practices to ensure disk space does not fill up on your Database Cloud Service VMs.

Clean up the archived logs periodically.
If you have configured a longer retention policy, increase the storage volume used by the fast recovery area by extending the backup storage volume. See Scaling a Database Deployment in Using Oracle Database Cloud Service.