Migrate Oracle RAC Databases
The following architecture diagram shows an Oracle RAC database in an on-premises deployment:
Description of the illustration migrate-orclracdb-vmware-premises.png
You have the following options to ensure database high availability when migrating this deployment to OCI:
- Migrate to Oracle Exadata Database Service on Dedicated Infrastructure
- Migrate to Oracle Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastructure
- Migrate to Oracle Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure
- Migrate to a two-node Oracle RAC Database on Oracle Base Database Service
- Migrate to Oracle Cloud VMware Solution
Migrate to Oracle Exadata Database Service on Dedicated Infrastructure
Oracle Exadata Database Service on Dedicated Infrastructure runs on Oracle Exadata and Oracle RAC, benefits from their high availability, scalability, and redundancy, and complies with the Oracle MAA Silver Level by default.
The following architecture shows an Oracle RAC database on Oracle Exadata Database Service on Dedicated Infrastructure:
Description of the illustration migrate-orclracdb-exadbdisrv.png
This architecture consists of the following components:
- VCN with three subnets and a Service Gateway to access OCI-managed services.
- Application on OCI Compute VM running in the application subnet.
- Oracle Exadata Cloud Infrastructure and Exadata VM Cluster deployed in the client and backup subnet.
- Oracle RAC database deployed in the Exadata VM Cluster with an Oracle RAC node on each VM of the VM Cluster.
- Oracle Database Autonomous Recovery Service for database automatic backups.
- (Optional) OCI Object Storage service as an alternative solution for database automatic backups.
- (Optional) OCI Vault for Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) key management.
This architecture benefits from:
- Built-in high availability and redundancy provided by Oracle Exadata and Oracle RAC.
- Application protection from interruptions during outages and maintenance operations with Application Continuity.
- Enhanced data protection with Oracle Database Autonomous Recovery Service.
- Online scalability of compute and storage resources.
- Automated database provisioning and lifecycle operations.
- TDE is enabled by default with the option to use OCI Vault for key management.
- Automated migrations using ZDM.
- Oracle Cloud licensing models.
Recommendations
- Configure automatic backup to Oracle Database Autonomous Recovery Service to minimize the backup workload on the database by implementing the incremental forever backup strategy that eliminates weekly full backups. Additionally, it enables a faster restore and recovery by providing a virtual full backup copy and eliminating the need to recover incremental backups.
- Enable Oracle Database Autonomous Recovery Service real-time data protection to synchronize your transactions in real time to the recovery service. Real-time data protection minimizes the possibility of data loss to achieve a sub-second Recovery Point Objective (RPO).
-
Enable Application Continuity to mask database outages during planned and unplanned events from end-users and ensure uninterrupted applications.
Migrate to Oracle Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastructure
Oracle Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastructure provides the same cloud service experience as Oracle Exadata Database Service on Dedicated Infrastructure, but without requiring you to subscribe to dedicated infrastructure. You can start with a small virtual machine (VM) cluster, and easily scale as your needs grow. Oracle manages all the physical infrastructure in a shared multitenancy infrastructure service model. Oracle Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastructure is available for Oracle Database version 23ai only.
Oracle Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastructure runs on Oracle Exadata and Oracle RAC, benefits from their high availability, scalability, and redundancy, and complies with the Oracle MAA Silver Level by default.
The following architecture diagram shows Oracle RAC database on Oracle Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastructure:
Description of the illustration migrate-orclracdb-exadbsrv-exascale-infra.png
This architecture consists of the following components:
- VCN with three subnets and a Service Gateway to access OCI-managed services.
- Application on OCI Compute VM running in the application subnet.
- Exadata VM Cluster deployed in the client and backup subnet.
- Oracle RAC database deployed in the Exadata VM Cluster with an Oracle RAC node on each VM of the VM Cluster.
- Oracle Database Autonomous Recovery Service for database automatic backups.
- (Optional) OCI Object Storage service as an alternative solution for database automatic backups.
- (Optional) OCI Vault for Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) key management.
This architecture benefits from:
- Built-in high availability and redundancy provided by Oracle Exadata and Oracle RAC.
- Application protection from interruptions during outages and maintenance operations with Application Continuity.
- Enhanced data protection with Oracle Database Autonomous Recovery Service.
- Online scalability of compute and storage resources.
- Automated database provisioning and lifecycle operations.
- TDE is enabled by default with the option to use OCI Vault for key management.
- Automated migrations using ZDM.
- Oracle Cloud licensing models.
- Lower entry size and cost than Oracle Exadata Database Service on Dedicated Infrastructure.
- Advanced space-efficient snapshot and cloning capabilities that are tightly integrated with Oracle Database and eliminate the need for a test master database to support snapshots and clones on Exadata.
Recommendations
- Configure automatic backup to Oracle Database Autonomous Recovery Service to minimize the backup workload on the database by implementing the incremental forever backup strategy that eliminates weekly full backups. Additionally, it enables a faster restore and recovery by providing a virtual full backup copy and eliminating the need to recover incremental backups.
- Enable Oracle Database Autonomous Recovery Service real-time data protection to synchronize your transactions in real time to the recovery service. Real-time data protection minimizes the possibility of data loss to achieve a sub-second Recovery Point Objective (RPO).
- Enable Application Continuity to mask database outages during planned and unplanned events from end-users to ensure uninterrupted applications.
Migrate to Oracle Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure
Oracle Autonomous Database provides an easy-to-use, fully autonomous database that scales elastically, delivers fast query performance, and requires no database administration. Oracle Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure is a highly automated, fully managed database environment running on OCI with committed hardware and software resources. These isolated resources enable your organization to meet stringent security, availability, and performance requirements while reducing cost and complexity.
Oracle Autonomous Database always runs on Oracle Exadata and Oracle RAC, benefits from their high availability, scalability, and redundancy, and complies with the Oracle MAA Silver Level by default.
The following architecture diagram shows Oracle Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure:
Description of the illustration migrate-autonomousdb-dedicated-infra.png
This architecture consists of the following components:
- VCN with two subnets with access to OCI-managed services.
- Application on OCI Compute VM running in the application subnet.
- Autonomous Exadata Infrastructure and Autonomous Exadata VM Cluster deployed in the client subnet.
- Oracle Autonomous Database deployed in the Autonomous Exadata VM Cluster.
- Oracle Database Autonomous Recovery Service for database automatic backups.
- (Optional) OCI Object Storage service as an alternative solution for database automatic backups.
- (Optional) OCI Vault for Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) key management.
This architecture benefits from:
- Built-in high availability and redundancy provided by Oracle Exadata and Oracle RAC.
- Application protection from interruptions during outages and maintenance operations with Application Continuity.
- Enhanced data protection with Oracle Database Autonomous Recovery Service.
- Online and automatic scalability of compute and storage resources.
- Automated database provisioning and autonomous lifecycle operations.
- TDE is enabled by default with the option to use OCI Vault for key management.
- Automated migrations using ZDM.
- OCI licensing models and Enterprise Edition options are included at no additional cost.
Recommendations
- Configure automatic backup to Oracle Database Autonomous Recovery Service to minimize the backup workload on the database by implementing the incremental forever backup strategy that eliminates weekly full backups. Additionally, it enables a faster restore and recovery by providing a virtual full backup copy and eliminating the need to recover incremental backups.
- Enable Oracle Database Autonomous Recovery Service real-time data protection to synchronize your transactions in real time to the recovery service. Real-time data protection minimizes the possibility of data loss to achieve a sub-second Recovery Point Objective (RPO).
-
Enable Application Continuity to mask database outages during planned and unplanned events from end-users and ensure uninterrupted applications.
- Optionally, you can migrate to Oracle Autonomous Database Serverless.
Migrate to a Two-Node Oracle RAC Database on Oracle Base Database Service
Two-node Oracle RAC database on Oracle Base Database Service provides Oracle RAC high availability and complies with the Oracle MAA Silver Level when deployed with Oracle Data Guard.
The following architecture diagram shows a two-node Oracle RAC database on Oracle Base Database Service:
Description of the illustration migrate-two-node-orclracdb-basedbsrv.png
This architecture consists of the following components:
- VCN with two subnets and a Service Gateway to access OCI-managed services.
- Application on OCI Compute VM running in the application subnet.
- Two-node Oracle RAC database deployed on Oracle Base Database Service in the database subnet, each node deployed on a different Fault Domain.
- Oracle Database Autonomous Recovery Service for database automatic backups.
- (Optional) OCI Object Storage service as an alternative solution for database automatic backups.
- (Optional) OCI Vault for Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) key management.
Note:
When migrating to Virtual Machines instead of Exadata, you will miss the Exadata redundancy and performance benefits.This architecture benefits from:
- High availability with Oracle RAC deployed across two Fault Domains.
- Application protection from interruptions during outages and maintenance operations with Application Continuity.
- Enhanced data protection with Oracle Database Autonomous Recovery Service.
- Automated database provisioning and lifecycle operations.
- TDE is enabled by default with the option to use OCI Vault for key management.
- Automated migrations using ZDM.
- Oracle Cloud licensing models.
Recommendations
- Configure automatic backup to Oracle Database Autonomous Recovery Service to minimize the backup workload on the database by implementing the incremental forever backup strategy that eliminates weekly full backups. Additionally, it enables a faster restore and recovery by providing a virtual full backup copy and eliminating the need to recover incremental backups.
- Enable Oracle Database Autonomous Recovery Service real-time data protection to synchronize your transactions in real time to the recovery service. Real-time data protection minimizes the possibility of data loss to achieve a sub-second Recovery Point Objective (RPO).
- Consider configuring automatic backup to the OCI Object Storage service as an alternative, which provides three-way mirroring across Availability Domains or Fault Domains.
- Enable Application Continuity to mask database outages during planned and unplanned events from end-users to ensure uninterrupted applications.
Migrate to Oracle Cloud VMware Solution
Similar to on-premises deployments, database provisioning and all database maintenance and lifecycle operations are usually manual and your full responsibility. You must consider Oracle Database licensing on OCVS and the separation of OCVS clusters for Oracle Databases. Compute VMs use a local file system without restart capabilities provided by Oracle Grid Infrastructure. You must manually set up Oracle Data Guard.
This architecture uses Oracle Data Guard to ensure high availability, as Oracle RAC is not available on OCVS.
The following architecture diagram shows a single-instance Oracle Database on OCVS with Oracle Data Guard across Availability Domains:
Description of the illustration migrate-single-ociregion-odb-ovcs-dg-ads.png
This architecture consists of the following components in each region:
- VCN with a Service Gateway to access OCI-managed services.
- OCVS Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC).
- Primary application on OCI Compute VM provided by OCVS in the primary Availability Domain.
- Standby application on OCI Compute VM provided by OCVS in the standby Availability Domain.
- Primary single-instance Oracle Database on OCI Compute VM provided by OCVS in the primary Availability Domain.
- Standby single-instance Oracle Database on OCI Compute VM provided by OCVS in the standby Availability Domain.
- Oracle Data Guard to replicate data from the Primary to the Standby database.
- OCI Object Storage for database backups.
Recommendations
- Set up Oracle Data Guard between two Availability Domains to protect from site failures. Alternatively, you can set up Oracle Data Guard across two Fault Domains in OCI regions with a single Availability Domain.
-
Use the Oracle Database Cloud Backup Module to configure database backups to OCI Object Storage and benefit from three-way mirroring across Availability Domains or Fault Domains.
-
Enable Application Continuity to mask database outages during planned and unplanned events from end-users and ensure uninterrupted applications.
Options Comparison
OCI provides various options for your VMware-based workloads with different features for high availability, disaster recovery, migration, automation, and more.
The following table compares the Oracle RAC Database migration options using Oracle Exadata Database Service on Dedicated
Infrastructure/Oracle Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastructure, Oracle Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure, two-node Oracle RAC on Oracle Base Database Service, and Oracle Cloud VMware Solution:
| Feature | Oracle Exadata Database Service on Dedicated Infrastructure/Oracle Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastructure | Oracle Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure | Two-node Oracle RAC on Oracle Base Database Service | Oracle Cloud VMware Solution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Database deployment | Comanaged | Autonomous | Comanaged | Manual |
| Lifecycle operations | Automated | Autonomous | Automated | Manual |
| Licensing | BYOL and license included | BYOL and license included | BYOL and license included | BYOL |
| TDE encryption | Default and included | Default and included | Default and included | Manual, paid option |
| TDE Key Store | Local wallet and OCI Vault | Local wallet and OCI Vault | Local wallet and OCI Vault | Local wallet |
| Database migration | Automated using Oracle ZDM | Automated using Oracle ZDM | Automated using Oracle ZDM | Manual |
| Oracle MAA Level | Silver | Silver | Silver | Bronze + Oracle Data Guard (customer responsibility) |
| High availability | Oracle Exadata and Oracle RAC | Oracle Exadata and Oracle RAC | Oracle RAC | VM restart |
| Disaster Recovery | Fast restore from backup with Oracle Database Autonomous Recovery Service | Backup-based DR with Oracle Database Autonomous Recovery Service | Fast restore from backup with Oracle Database Autonomous Recovery Service | Restore from backup |
| Backup operations | Automated | Autonomous | Automated | Manual |
| Restore operations | Automated | Automated | Automated | Manual |
| RPO (local outage) | Zero with Oracle Database Autonomous Recovery Service | 10s with backup-based DR | Zero with Oracle Database Autonomous Recovery Service | Last backup |
| RTO (local outage) | Time to restore | Zero (or 1h +
1h/5TB)
|
Time to restore | Time to restore |
| Application Continuity | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |