Learn About Migrating to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

Why Migrate to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

Oracle encourages you to migrate your existing cloud resources to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure regions. You can gain several advantages by doing so.

In Oracle Cloud, you provision resources in specific regions, which are localized to geographic locations. Certain regions support the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure platform.

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is Oracle's modern cloud platform that's based on the latest cloud technologies and standards. It provides more consistent performance and better features at lower costs. Oracle continues to invest in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, including the addition of new regions, services, and features. See Data Regions for Platform and Infrastructure Services.

You can benefit from these additional administrative features when you migrate your cloud resources to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure:

Organize cloud resources into a hierarchy of logical compartments.
Create fine-grained access policies for each compartment.

To learn more, see Upgrade Your Classic Services to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

About the Migration Scope

You export the design-time metadata for each visual application into an archive file to then import into the new instance on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

The archive file contains the design-time metadata for the applications in your visual application, plus a variety of other files that your visual application needs once it is imported in the new instance. The following directory structure for a visual application that contains a web and mobile app, plus a business object provides an illustrative example of the type of metadata that an archive file contains.

VisualApplicationArchiveDirectory
+---businessObjects
|   \---Department
+---mobileApps
|   \---hrmobileapp
|       +---flows
|       |   \---main
|       |       \---pages
|       +---pages
|       |   \---resources
|       |       \---strings
|       |           \---app
|       |               \---nls
|       |                   \---root
|       ...
|       \---settings
|           \---mobile-build-templates
+---process
|   \---pcs
+---services
+---settings
\---webApps
    \---hrwebapp
        +---flows
        |   \---main
        |       \---pages
        +---pages
        |   \---resources
        ...
        +---resources
        |   +---css
        |   \---strings
        |       \---app
        |           \---nls
        |               \---root
        \---settings

When you export the visual application you can choose if you want the archive to include the development data contained in the application’s custom business objects. Some information, such as the user credentials to access external REST endpoints, is removed when you export a visual application. Also, mobile build configurations are not exported. A mobile configuration comprises of artifacts like keystore, iOS provisioning profiles, and passwords. Export this information and artifacts separately so that you can provide it after the archive is imported into the new instance on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

Apart from the design-time metadata for each visual application, you also need to export the application data for live applications. Before you migrate this data, you need to lock the live application which prevents end users from accessing the application.

Compare Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to Classic

Get familiar with basic Oracle Cloud Infrastructure security, network, and storage concepts, and their equivalent concepts in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Classic.

Cloud resources in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure are created in logical compartments. You also create fine-grained policies to control access to the resources within a compartment.

You create instances within an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure region. You also specify an availability domain (AD), if supported in the selected region. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Classic does not use availability domains.

A virtual cloud network (VCN) is comprised of one or more subnets, and an instance is assigned to a specific subnet. In Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Classic, you assign instances to IP networks or the shared network. Typically, you create one subnet for the shared network, and create a separate subnet for each IP network in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Classic. Note that unlike Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Classic, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure does not allow you to reserve IP addresses for platform services.

A subnet's security lists permit and block traffic to and from specific IP addresses and ports. In Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Classic, an instance's access rules provide similar capabilities, although security lists are configured at the subnet level.

Instances can communicate with resources outside of Oracle Cloud by using Oracle Cloud Infrastructure FastConnect, which provides a fast, dedicated connection to your on-premises network. This service is equivalent to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure FastConnect Classic. Alternatively, use IPSec VPN in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure as a replacement for VPN as a Service (VPNaaS) or Corente in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Classic.

A bucket in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage can be used to store files and share them with multiple instances. A user's generated authentication token (auth token) is required to access the bucket. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic provides the same service in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Classic, but does not use auth tokens.

To learn more, see Key Concepts and Terminology in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure documentation.

About the Migration Task Flow

Review the following list to understand the tasks that you need to complete to migrate Visual Builder applications from your Oracle Visual Builder Classic instance to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

The task list assumes you have provisioned the new instance.

Review the entries for users and roles in Oracle Identity Cloud Service to ensure that the instance of Oracle Identity Cloud Service that the new instance uses matches the entries in the instance of Oracle Identity Cloud Service used by Oracle Visual Builder Classic. This task is not necessary if both old and new instances use the same instance of Oracle Identity Cloud Service. If you use a new instance of Oracle Identity Cloud Service, make sure that your application users are granted access to the new instance with the appropriate roles.
For each visual application (and for each version of each visual application that you wants to migrate), export the visual application from the Oracle Visual Builder Classic instance.
If you use build tools and pipelines from Oracle Developer Cloud Service, configure build jobs to point to your new instance and rebuild. Otherwise, follow the next steps to manually export and import visual applications.
If you use Oracle Developer Cloud Service with a connection to a Git repository to manage visual applications, use Visual Builder's Import menu in the new instance to import the visual application. Each user who collaborates on a Git-managed visual application needs to perform this import. Otherwise, follow the next steps to manually export and import visual applications.
For each application (and for each version of each visual application you want to migrate), export the visual application from the old instance.
For each visual application, import the visual application into the Oracle Visual Builder instance.

Note:
It is not possible today to import a version of a visual application; import always creates a new visual application in the Oracle Visual Builder instance.
For each visual application, ensure proper mapping of virtual roles to Oracle Identity Cloud Service groups and app roles.
If using team collaboration features, add team members to the newly-imported visual application as necessary.
For each visual application, re-enter security-related details for your visual application that are not captured during export from the old instance. This includes any client IDs and basic authentication details, along with build configurations entries needed to build mobile apps.
For each visual application, stage and publish the visual application in the Oracle Visual Builder instance.
Test the behavior of the migrated visual application. To perform testing, you may want to export application data from the visual application on the classic instance and import it to the new visual application on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. When you complete testing, perform the following post-migration steps to finish the migration of your visual applications.
If your application is embedded with an iFrame in a Fusion Application, update and test your Fusion Application to ensure your embedded application continues to function post-migration.
For each migrated visual application, lock the visual application on the old instance.
For each migrated visual application, use the Data Manager screen to export live data from the old instance.
For each migrated visual application, use the Data Manager screen to import live data to your new instance.
Inform end user clients to use the URL for the new service instance and to update any bookmarks they may have.

Note:
This applies to accessing apps through a browser and client applications that may access business object REST APIs hosted in the new instance.
Mobile apps that do not use business object REST APIs and bypass Oracle Visual Builder authentication proxy should continue working the same post-migration. Otherwise, build a new version of your mobile app on the new instance and submit it to the appropriate app store for distribution to end users.
Migration is complete. Delete the Oracle Visual Builder Classic instance.