3 Differences Between the Cloud and On-Premises Environments

Many of the Oracle SOA Cloud Service components differ slightly depending on which environment you are using. This chapter highlight these differences.

Topics

• Platform Differences Between the Cloud and On-Premises Environments

• Differences Between the Cloud and On-Premises Environments

Platform Differences Between the Cloud and On-Premises Environments

This table describes high-level differences between running Oracle SOA in the cloud and on-premises environments.

Oracle SOA Cloud Service	Oracle SOA Suite On-Premises
Available by subscription.	You install Oracle SOA Suite on your own hardware.
Provisioning of Oracle SOA Cloud Service automatically includes Oracle Java Cloud Service, which provides an Oracle WebLogic Server domain.	You create the complete domain.
Oracle SOA Cloud Service provides OPC-based backup services.	You must develop your own archival infrastructure.
During Oracle SOA Cloud Service provisioning, you select the database (Oracle Database Cloud Service) to use. Note: You must provision Oracle Database Cloud Service prior to provisioning Oracle SOA Cloud Service.	You must install a database.
High availability functionality is provided by default using a virtual machine restart.	You must set up an environment based on your high availability requirements.
Load balancing is provided by the built-in Oracle Traffic Director.	Oracle HTTP Server serves as the load balancer.
Shared storage is not available in the cloud: You can use a combination of database direct configuration for JMS and JTA logs and use DBFS for other shared file use cases. Any custom software or “one-off” patches must be installed on each virtual machine in the cloud. Log files are local to each virtual machine. Ephemeral storage vs. block storage vs. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic: Ephemeral storage is built every time the virtual machine is started — nothing is saved (stateless). Block storage is similar to regular file storage. The Oracle SOA code and your data is written from your virtual machine (stateful) to file storage. The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic is used for long term storage and backups. This service is accessible through the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic Console. Note: You must provision Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic prior to provisioning Oracle SOA Cloud Service. During Oracle SOA Cloud Service provisioning, you select the storage container (Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic) to use.	You typically use shared storage.
External network access must be configured at the virtual machine level and the Oracle Traffic Director level. Logins to the virtual machine can be done through an SSH tunnel.	Network access for on-premises networks varies from site to site, as well as logic processes. Usually it is completely open to employees, as long as they have the right credentials.
Oracle SOA for Healthcare is not available with Oracle SOA Cloud Service.	N/A
Oracle Business Process Management Suite is not available with Oracle SOA Cloud Service. Instead, you can subscribe to Oracle Process Cloud Service or run Oracle Business Process Management Suite on Oracle Java Cloud Service. Tutorial	After installing Oracle SOA Suite Cloud Service, you can install Oracle Business Process Management Suite on top of it.

For information about specific feature differences between the Oracle SOA and Oracle Service Bus cloud and on-premises environments, see Differences in Oracle SOA Behavior in the Cloud.

Differences in Oracle SOA Behavior in the Cloud

Some features of Oracle SOA behave differently in the cloud than in an on-premises environment.

• Because shared disk is currently not available, writing to a shared file from multiple managed servers running in a cluster is not possible. To make this work in the cloud, managed servers would have to write to a file on their own local disks, and then an additional process would have to consolidate the files on one of the VMs.

• File adapter read actions — each managed server only reads from its local directory.

• JMS store and JTA transaction logs must use the Oracle database instead of file stores.

• Connectivity between Oracle SOA Cloud Service adapters and on-premises applications might be blocked by your corporate firewall. Connections can be established by using an SSH tunnel from the application server to which the adapter connects.

• The SOA debugger and automatic SOA composite application tester (unit tester) in Oracle JDeveloper are not supported when connecting to the SOA Cloud Service server.

• Reports are not supported in Oracle Real-Time Integration Business Insight, installed as part of the Integration Analytics Cluster service type.

• The iWay application adapters listed under Application Adapters (iWay) on Oracle Cloud Adapters Documentation are not supported by Oracle SOA Cloud Service.

• The Oracle Traffic Director high availability features 12.2.1.2/12.1.3 are not supported with Oracle SOA Cloud Service.

• Dehydration does work in the cloud as it does in the on-premises environment as described in Fusion Middleware Administering Oracle SOA Suite and Oracle Business Process Management Suite 12.2.1.2/12.1.3