33 Overview of Oracle Database Cloud Best Practices

Oracle Cloud and MAA collaborate closely to enable customer success using the various Oracle Database Cloud services.

This partnership ensures

• Databases, Grid Infrastructure, Exadata, and infrastructure are deployed and configured with MAA best practices in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, including public cloud, OCI Dedicated Region, Oracle Database@Azure, and Exadata Cloud@Customer.
• Cloud life cycle practices such as patching, backup and restore, disaster recovery, and pluggable database management incorporate MAA optimizations as new features and capabilities are introduced into the Oracle cloud.
• Oracle owns and manages network, system, and Exadata infrastructure using MAA practices and optimizations.
• Oracle high availability and disaster recovery (HA/DR) solutions meet our Enterprise customer standards for Gold and Platinum MAA solutions.

For the latest details, see Oracle Cloud Maximum Availability Architecture.

The following table outlines MAA validated solutions and guidance for Oracle Database Cloud services.

Service	Bronze	Silver	Gold	Platinum
Oracle Base Database Service (BaseDB)	Base DB – Single Instance Use Oracle Database cloud automation to configure the network and create DB Systems and databases Use Oracle Database cloud automation for system and database life cycle operations including software updates, upgrades, monitoring, alerting and database administration and management. Use cloud-managed backup service. Recommended: Use (Zero Data Loss) Autonomous Recovery Service and real time redo to reduce data loss in case of disasters Customer's responsibilities Create test systems to evaluate application, configuration or software changes Execute System and database sizing, resource management and monitoring	Base DB – 2-Nodes Oracle RAC Bronze, plus the following: Use Oracle Database cloud automation to create multi-node RAC DB systems on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Customer's responsibilities Maximize application failover and uptime with Achieving Continuous Availability For Your Applications	Base DB – 2-Nodes Oracle RAC with Active Data Guard Silver, plus the following: Recommended: primary and standby database systems are symmetric in shape and system resources. Use cloud automation to create and manage standby database. The location can be in another Availability Domain or Region for better fault isolation. Customer's responsibilities: Configure Fast Start Failover (automatic failover) with MAA practices to bound RTO after database, cluster, potentially Availability Domain or regional failure Tune Data Guard if lagging (see Tune and Troubleshoot Oracle Data Guard Extend application failover to standby with Achieving Continuous Availability For Your Applications or use Full Stack Disaster Recovery Service.	Base DB – 2-Nodes Oracle RAC with Active Data Guard and Oracle GoldenGate Gold, plus the following: Customer's responsibilities: Set up GoldenGate Cloud Within Region: Configuring Oracle GoldenGate Hub for MAA Platinum. GoldenGate management and tuning. Extend application failover to Oracle GoldenGate replica with Achieving Continuous Availability For Your Applications Optionally use Global Data Services for smart workload management between GoldenGate replicas and standby databases
Oracle Exadata Database Service on Dedicated Infrastructure (ExaDB-D)	NA	ExaDB-D (Default) Use Oracle Database cloud automation to create Exadata infrastructure, VM cluster, and RAC databases. Use Oracle Database cloud automation for system and database life cycle operations including software updates, upgrades, monitoring, service events and health alerts, and database administration and management. Use cloud-managed backup service. Recommended: Use (Zero Data Loss) Autonomous Recovery Service and real time redo to reduce data loss in case of disasters Customer Responsibilities: Create test systems to evaluate application, configuration or software changes. Execute system and database sizing, resource management and monitoring and reviewing exachk (holistic health) Maximize application failover and uptime with Achieving Continuous Availability For Your Applications	ExaDB-D with Active Data Guard Silver, plus the following: Recommended: primary and standby database systems are symmetric in shape and system resources. Use cloud automation to create and manage standby database. The location can be in another Availability Domain or Region for better fault isolation. Customer's responsibilities: Configure Fast Start Failover (automatic failover) with MAA practices to bound RTO after database, cluster, potentially Availability Domain or regional failure Tune Data Guard if lagging (see Tune and Troubleshoot Oracle Data Guard Extend application failover to standby with Achieving Continuous Availability For Your Applications or use Full Stack Disaster Recovery Service.	ExaDB-D with Active Data Guard and Oracle GoldenGate Gold, plus the following: Customer's responsibilities: Set up GoldenGate Cloud Within Region: Configuring Oracle GoldenGate Hub for MAA Platinum. GoldenGate management and tuning. Extend application failover to Oracle GoldenGate replica with Achieving Continuous Availability For Your Applications Optionally use Global Data Services for smart workload management between GoldenGate replicas and standby databases
Oracle Exadata Database Service on Cloud@Customer (ExaDB-C@C)	NA	ExaDB-CC (Default) Use Oracle Database cloud automation to create Exadata infrastructure, VM cluster, and RAC databases. Use Oracle Database cloud automation for system and database life cycle operations including software updates, upgrades, monitoring, service events and health alerts, and database administration and management. Use cloud-managed backup service. Recommended: Use Zero Data Loss Recovery Server and real time redo to reduce data loss in case of disasters Customer Responsibilities: Create test systems to evaluate application, configuration or software changes. Execute system and database sizing, resource management and monitoring and reviewing exachk (holistic health) Maximize application failover and uptime with Achieving Continuous Availability For Your Applications	ExaDB-CC with Active Data Guard Silver, plus the following: Recommended: primary and standby database systems are symmetric in shape and system resources. Use cloud automation to create and manage standby database. The location can be in another Availability Domain or Region for better fault isolation. Customer's responsibilities: Configure Fast Start Failover (automatic failover) with MAA practices to bound RTO after database, cluster, potentially Availability Domain or regional failure Tune Data Guard if lagging (see Tune and Troubleshoot Oracle Data Guard Extend application failover to standby with Achieving Continuous Availability For Your Applications or use Full Stack Disaster Recovery Service.	ExaDB-CC with Active Data Guard and Oracle GoldenGate Gold, plus the following: Customer's responsibilities: Set up On-Premises: Configuring Oracle GoldenGate Hub Extend application failover to Oracle GoldenGate replica with Achieving Continuous Availability For Your Applications Optionally use Global Data Services for smart workload management between GoldenGate replicas and standby databases
Autonomous Database Serverless (ADB-S)	NA	ADB-S (Default) Use Oracle Database cloud automation life cycle operations including software updates, upgrades, monitoring, and database administration and management. Auto scaling CPU and storage resizing is possible Customer Responsibilities: Create test systems to evaluate application changes Maximize application failover and uptime with Achieving Continuous Availability For Your Applications Customer can update compute and storage limits when required	ADB-S with Autonomous Data Guard Silver, plus the following: Enable Autonomous Data Guard, choose automatic failover and data loss tolerance to bound and meet RTO and RPO SLAs. The location can be in another Availability Domain for better fault isolation. Automatic standby failover is only available for a standby within the same region and is required for meeting Gold MAA solution. Customer's responsibility: Extend application failover to local standby or use Full Stack Disaster Recovery Service. for cross region standby. MAA Gold certification includes Option 1: a standby database within the same region (preferably cross Availability-Domains) Option 2: a standby database within the same region with an additional Cross-Region Autonomous Data Guard.	Planned Goal: RTO = zero or near-zero for all local failures using the Oracle Exadata Database Machine platform with its inherent Oracle RAC, full-stack redundancy, and failover capabilities RTO = zero or near-zero for disasters, such as database, cluster, or site failures, achieved by redirecting the application to an active Oracle GoldenGate source or target Zero downtime maintenance for software and hardware updates using Oracle RAC and Exadata Database Machine platform Zero downtime database upgrade or application upgrade by redirecting the application to an upgraded Oracle GoldenGate source or target database RPO = zero or near-zero data loss, depending on the Oracle Data Guard protection mode setting, which dictates the redo transport (SYNC, FAR SYNC, or ASYNC) Fast re-synchronization and zero or near-zero RPO between Oracle GoldenGate source and target databases after a disaster. After any database failure, automatic failover to its standby database occurs automatically. Subsequently, automatic re-synchronization between Oracle GoldenGate source and target databases will resume. For SYNC transport, this leads to eventual zero data loss. Env: Region 1: ADBS Pod with Primary (PDB active replica) and automatic local standby in a separate ADBS Pod (bounded RTO and RPO) Region 2: ADBS Pod with Primary (PDB active replica) and automatic local standby in a separate ADBS Pod (bounded RTO/RPO) MAA GGhub as mandatory (MAA GGHub marketplace). You need bi-directional. Unidirectional is minimum required.
Autonomous Database on Dedicated Infrastructure (ADB-D)	NA	ADB-D (Default) Use Oracle Database cloud automation life cycle operations including software updates, upgrades, monitoring, and database administration and management. Customer Responsibilities: Create test systems to evaluate application changes Maximize application failover and uptime with Achieving Continuous Availability For Your Applications	ADB-D with Autonomous Data Guard Silver, plus the following: Enable Autonomous Data Guard, choose protection mode, data loss tolerance, and enable automatic failover. The location can be in another Availability Domain or Region for better fault isolation. Customer's responsibility: Extend application failover to standby with Achieving Continuous Availability For Your Applications or use Full Stack Disaster Recovery Service.	ADB-D with Autonomous Data Guard and Oracle GoldenGate Gold, plus the following: Customer's responsibilities: Set up GoldenGate Cloud Within Region: Configuring Oracle GoldenGate Hub for MAA Platinum. GoldenGate management and tuning. Extend application failover to Oracle GoldenGate replica with Achieving Continuous Availability For Your Applications