1. Database Access Implementation Guide
  2. Introduction

1 Introduction

The Oracle Retail Data Store (RDS) is accessible through the APEX Developer Environment as well as through custom APEX applications and services developed by the customer. Private endpoints extend access to RDS within your virtual cloud network (VCN) on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure or to other networks peered to the VCN such as your corporate network. That is, you can access RDS from hosts within your virtual cloud network (VCN) or from your on-premises network.

Figure 1-1 RDS Access through a Private Endpoint


RDS Access through a Private Endpoint

With a private endpoint, traffic does not go over the internet. A private endpoint is a private IP address within your VCN that you can use to access a given service within Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. The service sets up the private endpoint in a subnet of your choice within the VCN. You can think of the private endpoint as just another Virtual Network Interface Card (VNIC) in your VCN. You control access to it as you would for any other VNIC by using security rules. When you set up a private endpoint for RDS, however, the VNIC is set up for you, and its availability is maintained on your behalf. Your only responsibility is to maintain the subnet and the security rules. See Figure 1.

For additional information, consult Oracle documentation on OCI networking, OCI private access, FastConnect, and site-to-site VPN.

When you request a private endpoint for RDS, you receive an endpoint for each of your environments: production, stage, and so on. You also receive a second private endpoint that gives you access to a Credential Exchange Service (discussed in more detail below). Establishing a private endpoint requires some lead time and a short outage on each environment (two to eight hours depending on environment size). The outage on each environment precedes the availability of the endpoint by several days. In short, the time between your request for private endpoint access and its availability is measured in days not hours or minutes. Oracle support will contact you to schedule environment outages.