About Migrating a PeopleSoft Database to Oracle Autonomous Database Using Oracle Zero Downtime Migration

Migrate your full-tier PeopleSoft environment to a self-driving, self-securing, and self-repairing capable database, without having to worry about downtime during migration.

Data migration is moving data with or without its schema from one system, location, or application to another. When migrating to Oracle Autonomous Database, you can use Oracle Zero Downtime Migration to ensure a secure migration to Oracle Autonomous Database.

Oracle Autonomous Database is a private database service within the Oracle Public Cloud, which helps customers exercise stronger security measures for enterprise applications, and to comply to the regulations of their industry pertaining to using cloud database management services.

In this solution playbook, we walkthrough how to migrate a full-tier PeopleSoft HCM environment running on an Oracle Linux virtual machine to Oracle Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure for online transaction processing, provisioned on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). Zero Downtime Migration Logical Offline Migration is used for the migration.

Before You Begin

Before you begin, review the requirements and download the required software packages.

Review Requirements

Here are the minimum requirements for PeopleTools to support Oracle Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure.

• PeopleTools
  • For version 8.57, 8.57.16 and above.
  • For version 8.58, 8.58.05 and above.
  • For version 8.59, 8.59.01 and above.
• Oracle Database Client

  To obtain required Oracle Client levels, update the client on the middle tier by applying a database release update patch on the mid tiers. The minimum level required is 19.13. See Oracle Database 19c Release Update & Release Update in Download Software Packages for details.

  Oracle Call Interface clients support TLS authentication without a wallet if you are using the following client versions:

  • Oracle Instant Client/Oracle Database Client 19.13 - only on Linux x64.
  • Oracle Instant Client/Oracle Database Client 19.14 (or later) and 21.5 (or later) - only on Linux x64 and Windows.

Download Software Packages

Download the following software packages, to be installed later in this solution playbook.

• Oracle Database 19c Release Update & Release Update

  Update the client on the middle tier by applying a database release update patch on the mid tiers. The minimum level required is 19.13.

• Oracle Instant Client Downloads for Linux x86-64 (64-bit)
• Oracle Zero Downtime Migration Software

Considerations for Architecture Changes in Oracle Autonomous Database

Database account

The predefined administrative user is ADMIN. Because Oracle Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure imposes security controls and performs administrative database tasks for the customer, the ADMIN user does not have as many privileges as the SYS user. See The ADMIN User and the SYS User in Explore More for details.

Database character set

Oracle Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure uses AL32UTF8 as the default database character set and AL16UTF16 as the default national character set. As part of Zero Downtime Migration's prerequisites, the character set on the source database must be the same as the target database. However, for on-premises customers, with existing applications (and databases) using other character sets, migrating to a Unicode character set can be a convoluted process with complex data analysis to avoid data truncation and corruption due to replacement characters. For enterprise customers using PeopleSoft, for instance, the prerequisite to converting their data to the AL32UTF8 character set as part of their migration to an autonomous database is quite complex. For this playbook, the source database character set is Unicode AL32UTF8. See the My Oracle Support article Doc ID 788156.1 in Explore More for details.

Database initialization parameters

See Database Initialization Parameters in Explore More for the initialization parameters, which can be modified. PeopleSoft recommends database patch and parameters from the My Oracle Support (Doc ID 1100831.1) article in Explore More for details.

Database time zone

The default autonomous database time zone is driven by the Autonomous VM Cluster OS Timezone. In this solution playbook, this is Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) and by default calls to SYSDATE. SYSTIMESTAMP returns the date and time in UTC.

Database service

Oracle Autonomous Database provides multiple sets of database services to use when connecting a database to support different kinds of database operations. In each set, one service provides a secure TCP (TCPS) connection using the TLS protocol, and another provides a TCP connection. Oracle Autonomous Transaction Processing supports all connection services as tpurgent, tp, high, medium, and low. Although connection services those are designed for typical transaction processing operations are: tp_tls, tp, tp_ro_tls, tp_ro, tp_ss_tls, and tp_ss.

Database user password policy

Oracle Autonomous Database requires strong passwords that must meet the following default complexity rules:

• The password must be between 12 and 30 characters long and must include at least one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter, and one numeric character.
• The password cannot contain the username.
• The password cannot be one of the last four passwords used for the same username.
• The password cannot contain the double quote (") character.
• The password must not be the same password that was set within the last 24 hours.

To change the password complexity rules and password parameter values, you can alter the default profile, or create a new profile and assign it to users. See Create Database Users in Explore More for details.

Note:

You can also create a password verify function (PVF) and associate it with a profile to manage the complexity of user passwords. See Manage Password Complexity on Autonomous Database in Explore More for details.

Data Pump can import a database user with a weak password to ease migration. For security purposes, it provides a 30-days time window to reset the password as per the Oracle Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure password policy.

Automatic indexing

Automatic indexing automates the index management tasks in Autonomous Database. Auto indexing is disabled by default in Autonomous Database. For PeopleSoft, it is recommended to rely upon application-provided indexes.

Optimizer hints

Optimizer hints are special comments in a SQL statement that pass instructions to the optimizer. Autonomous Database honors optimizer hints and parallel hints in SQL statements by default.

Optimizer statistics

Autonomous Database gathers optimizer statistics automatically so that users don't need to perform this task manually, helping to ensure database statistics are current.

Data encryption

Autonomous Database uses always-on encryption that protects data at rest and in transit. All data stored in and all network communications with Oracle Cloud are encrypted by default. Encryption cannot be turned off.

Certificate management

When a client attempts to connect to an Autonomous Database through a TCPS (Secure TCP) database connection service, Oracle Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure uses standard TLS 1.2 certificate-based authentication to authenticate the connection. Regardless of whether the client attempts to connect through a TCPS or TCP database connection service, the access the client has to the database is restricted by the access rights of the database user the client uses to connect. By default, Autonomous Database uses self-signed certificates. However, users can also install their CA-signed, server-side certificate from the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) console.

Database features not supported

To ensure the security and the performance of Oracle Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure, some of the following PeopleSoft-relevant Oracle Database features, options, and packs, being used with an on-premises database are not supported:

• Root container (CDB$ROOT) access
• Clusters (groups of tables)
• Common users
• Manual undo management
• Dictionary-managed tablespaces
• Manual segment space management
• Transportable tablespaces
• Logical standby databases
• Database access. Users do not have direct access to the database node, the local file system, SYSTEM, and SYSAUX tablespaces.

See Oracle Database Features That Are Not Supported in Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure in Explore More for details.

Database features with limited support

In addition to the above-mentioned restrictions, Oracle Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure comes with certain limitations that are required to protect security and for performance integrity. See Oracle Database Features That Are Not Supported in Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure in Explore More for details.

About Logical Offline Migration

We are migrating a PeopleSoft environment using a database migration procedure for Oracle Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure using Oracle Zero Downtime Migration's logical offline migration.

Zero Downtime Migration provides a robust, flexible, and resumable migration process. Zero Downtime Migration integrates Oracle Maximum Availability Architecture (MAA) and supports Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2.0.4) and later database releases.

Using Zero Downtime Migration, users can migrate Oracle Database from a variety of on-premises and cloud sources to Oracle Database cloud-managed, co-managed, and user-managed databases, including Oracle Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure, or any Exadata database machine in the cloud or on-premises.

The Zero Downtime Migration software is a service with a command line interface (CLI) you install and run on a provisioned host. The server where Zero Downtime Migration software is installed is called the Zero Downtime Migration service host. You can run one or more database migration jobs from the Zero Downtime Migration service host simultaneously.

About Required Services and Roles

This solution requires the following services and roles:

• Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
• Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Identity and Access Management
• Oracle Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure
• PeopleSoft

These are the roles needed for each service.

Service Name: Role	Required to...
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure: Tenancy administrator	Performs the initial deployment of the Landing Zone for the PeopleSoft stack. Create policies for users and groups.
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure: Network administrator	Manage the network components including VCNs, subnets, security rules, and bastions.
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure: Infrastructure administrator	Manage access to resources such as compute, storage, and database services.
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure: Apps and database Administrator	User access to compute, storage, database, and network to provision application and database.
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Identity and Access Management: IAM Administrator	Manage users, groups, applications, system configuration, and security settings.

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