Database Migration terminology

The following concepts are essential for working with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Database Migration service.

Migration

Represents a single migration operation and contains the specifications by which the migration should run. Migration specifications include whether or not to perform bulk data copy, and/or capture ongoing changes, and the source and target database selections.

Migration Job

Represents an active or past migration execution. A migration job is created implicitly when you start a migration. A migration job is a snapshot with runtime information about the migration. You use this information to audit logs and investigate failures.

Validation Job

Validates the prerequisites and connectivity for source and target databases, Oracle GoldenGate instances, and Oracle Data Pump. A validation job is created when you evaluate the migration.

Connections

Represents a database instance, containing the database metadata and connection details. A data asset can have one or many connections to include all schemas within a database that need to be migrated.

Agent

The OCI Database Migration Agent is only required in rare, offline scenarios where your on-premises database cannot be accessed directly from OCI.

Typical use cases include:

• When OCI cannot initiate inbound connections due to strict firewall rules.
• When no VPN or FastConnect exists between your on-premises environment and OCI.

The agent runs in your local environment and securely initiates outbound communication to OCI, acting on behalf of the OCI Database Migration Service. It executes Data Pump exports locally and transfers the resulting data back to OCI under OCI's direction.

Note:

In most scenarios, agent installation is not necessary. You should only use it when direct connectivity to the source database from OCI is not possible.

Private Endpoint

Private Endpoint (PE) is a networking feature by which you can allow OCI Services to access resources (database instances for example) in your VCN which are configured with only Private IP addresses. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Database Migration service makes it easy to enable this ability though the use Database Connection Resources.

Gives hosts within your virtual cloud network (VCN) and your on-premises network access to a single resource within the Oracle service of interest (for example, one Autonomous Database with shared Exadata infrastructure). Connection to either a source or target database in the migration is currently supported by the service. Make sure security rules or network security groups allow traffic required for database migration jobs. Learn more at Port requirements.

Schema

Organizational concepts of databases to hold database objects such as tables, views, stored procedures, and so on.