Understand the Migration Process

Migrating a Siebel Enterprise by using Oracle Cloud Infrastructure's BYOI feature, as detailed in this playbook involves these steps:

1. Preparing/exporting the source Siebel server image on-premises to create an instance in OCI.
2. Performing Post VM Migration Tasks.
3. Undeploying the Siebel profiles from SMC and redeploying them.
4. Updating Siebel CRM to the latest version

Bring Your Own Image

The BYOI feature enables you to bring your own versions of an operating system to the cloud, as long as the underlying hardware supports it. The services do not depend on the OS you run.

The BYOI feature:

• Enables virtual machine cloud migration projects.
• Supports both old and new operating systems.
• Encourages experimentation.
• Increases infrastructure flexibility.

Learn About Limitations and Considerations

Be aware of the following limitations and considerations:

• Licensing requirements: You must comply with all licensing requirements when you upload and start instances, based on OS images that you supply.
• The maximum image size is 400 GB.
• Service limits and compartment quotas apply to custom images although you can request a service limit increase. For more information, see Service Limits, which you can access from the Explore More topic of this playbook.

Understand Launch Modes

You can launch imported Linux VMs in either a paravirtualized mode or an emulated mode. On AMD and Arm-based shapes, Oracle Linux Cloud Developer images, and Windows images, imported images are supported in paravirtualized mode, only.

Paravirtualized mode offers better performance than emulated mode. Oracle recommends that you use paravirtualized mode if your OS supports it. Linux-based operating systems running the kernel version 3.4 or later support paravirtualized drivers. You can verify your system's kernel version using the uname command.

If your image supports paravirtualized drivers, you can convert your existing emulated mode instances into paravirtualized instances. After you complete the conversion, instances created from the image are launched in paravirtualized mode.

Learn Which Windows Images Support Custom Image Import

These Windows versions support custom image import:

• Windows Server 2012 Standard, Datacenter
• Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard, Datacenter
• Windows Server 2016 Standard, Datacenter
• Windows Server 2019 Standard, Datacenter

See These Additional References

Certain information helpful when using BYOI to import custom images is outside the scope of this playbook. Refer to the Explore More topic, elsewhere in this playbook, for links to the following useful content:

• For steps to import a Windows image, see Importing Custom Windows Images.
• Bring your own license (BYOL) for Windows Server is not permitted when launching a VM instance on a shared host. For more information about BYOL and the licensing requirements for Windows images, see Licensing Options for Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Licensing on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
• For further information on Linux images and their support details, please refer to BYOI official Oracle documentation.

Migrate Your Image

Migrating an image by using OCI's BYOI feature is a five-stage process, as described in the following flow diagram.

Description of the illustration byoi-sequence-flow.png

The five stages in the process are:

1. Prepare/create the image.
   Specific instructions for this stage are beyond the scope of this playbook. Refer to the following documents (listed in the Explore More topic of this playbook) to prepare and create the image on-premises as they are essential for the image to boot correctly.

   • For Windows: Importing Custom Windows Images
   • For Linux: Importing Custom Linux Images
2. Convert the image.
   When launching an instance using a custom image in OCI, the image must be either in VMDK or QCOW2 format. If the on-premises virtualization software is VMware, then by default it can generate a VMDK file. However, if the virtualization software is, for example, Oracle Virtualization Manager (OVM), then it generates a VDI file by default. In that case, those images need to be converted to VMDK or QCOW2.

   For more information on using OVM, see the My Oracle Support note, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) - How to Import OVM Guest as Custom Image on OCI (Doc ID 2422329.1), listed in the Explore More topic of this playbook.

3. Export the image to OCI Object Storage.
   Once the image has been prepared, created, and converted, it can be uploaded to the OCI object storage:

   1. Log in to the OCI Console.
   2. Navigate to Storage then Buckets.
   3. Click Create Bucket.
   4. Give a Bucket Name of your choice and Click Create.
   5. Under the Objects section, click Upload.
   6. In the window that appears, upload the file, and click Upload. Once the upload is successful, the image file will be displayed in the objects list.
4. Import the image.
   After the image is uploaded to OCI Object Storage, this must be imported to the Custom Images section:

   1. Navigate to Compute then Custom Images.
   2. Click Import.
   3. In the window that appears, give the appropriate values for Create in compartment, Name of the image, Operating System, and other fields.
   4. Click Import image.

   The image import will start, and it will take a while depending on the size of the image. It will show the status as Importing initially and once the import is done, the status changes to Available.
5. Create the instance.
   We have the custom image ready now to create a new instance.

   1. Navigate to Compute then Custom Images.
   2. Choose the appropriate Compartment from the left panel drop down and then go to the custom image that we have imported.
   3. In the custom image’s details page, click Create Instance.
   4. In the window that appears, enter the appropriate values for the Instance name, networking details, shape, SSH Keys, etc.
   5. Click Create.
   6. Log in to the VM as the Administrator and run Sysprep to generalize the new Windows VM. This will create a new Windows System Identifier (SID) prior to the VM joining the network. If the Sysprep is performed after the new server has joined the network, the Sysprep procedure will generalize the on-premises server too, therefore, you need to be cautious.
   7. Install Oracle Cloud Agent software in the VM by following the instructions in Installing the Oracle Cloud Agent Software (see the link in the Explore More topic of this playbook). Oracle Cloud Agent is a lightweight process that manages plug-ins running on compute instances. Plug-ins collect performance metrics, install OS updates, and perform other instance management tasks.
   8. Add the firewall rules to allow the VM communicate with the Active Directory (AD) using security lists or Network Security Groups (NSG)
   9. Set up the DNS details in the Ethernet Properties and add the server to the domain using the System Properties. A domain admin user credential is required to complete this task.
   10. Once the server is added to the domain, you can complete the Siebel VM post-migration tasks.

Complete Siebel VM Post Migration Tasks

Once you've migrated the image, you need to complete the following series of post-migration tasks before you can undeploy and deploy the Siebel profiles from the SMC.

Edit hosts and tnsnames.ora Files

In OCI, both the Database Server and the Siebel server VMs have new hostnames. To bring up the application as-is and to gracefully undeploy the profiles in the migrated VM, you need to edit the hosts file (%windir%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts) and tnsnames.ora (ORACLE_HOME\network\admin).

1. Go to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts.
2. To edit the hosts file, first copy it to the desktop because the original path might not allow editing.
3. Add hostnames and IP of the old database, new DB host (if required), and the on-premises Siebel server.
4. Edit the Oracle Database Client 's tnsnames.ora to reflect the new TNS entries.

Add Windows User to the Administrators’ Group

Now, add to the administrators’ group in Computer Management the Windows account on which you're going to install the image and perform other activities. This ensures you don’t run into any privilege issues while updating via the Siebel Install wizard.

1. Launch Computer Management from the control panel.
2. Expand Local Users and Groups, click Groups, and then, from the list, double click Administrators.
3. Click Add. If the value is a domain user, enter the username with the domain name; otherwise, just enter the username.
4. Click OK.

Disable User Account Control in Windows

As described in the My Oracle Support (MOS) note, Doc ID 2502825.1 and Doc ID 2472250.2, disable User Account Control (UAC) in Windows so that necessary changes to the operating system, system files, and registry by the Siebel install wizard can occur seamlessly. However, for security reasons, once the update is done, re-enable it.

Note:

You can find links to both of these MOS notes in the Explore More topic elsewhere in this playbook.

From a command prompt, enter the following commands:.

%windir%\System32\cmd.exe /k %windir%\System32\reg.exe ADD HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v EnableLUA /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f %windir%\System32\cmd.exe /k 

%windir%\System32\reg.exe ADD HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v ConsentPromptBehaviorAdmin /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f 

Validate Database Connectivity by Using SQLPlus and ODBC

Next, useSQLPlus and ODBC to ensure proper database connectivity.

1. Open a command prompt and enter the following command:

   sqlplus <DBUser>/<DBUserPassword>@SID

2. Launch ODBC Data Source Administrator (32-bit) from C:\windows\syswow64\odbcad32.exe.
3. Navigate to the System DSN tab and double-click the data source that you need to validate.
4. Click Test Connect, enter DB credentials, and click OK.

Remove and Recreate Siebel Gateway Security Profile

In OCI, the hostname of the DB has changed. As a result, you need to accommodate this change by deleting and recreating the Siebel Gateway Security profile. Refer to MOS Doc ID 2371577.1.

Note:

See the Explore More topic elsewhere in this playbook for a link to the aforementioned MOS note.

Siebel 19.11 and above introduced a new functionality called Safe Mode, which enables administrators to preemptively set up a safe mode user in SMC with which they can log in in the future if the DB’s hostname changes. Ensure the Siebel Gateway Registry Service is up and running and that the version-2 folder is backed up before proceeding.

1. From a command prompt, run the following commands, line by line:

   cd $SIEBEL_SES_ROOT\gtwysrvr\zookeeper\bin 
   set JAVA_HOME=$SIEBEL_SES_ROOT\jre 
   zkenv.cmd 
   zkCli.cmd -server SiebelAppVM:2320 
   addauth digest SADMIN:***** 
   (regusername:password, please refer gateway.properties for regusername) 
   delete /Config/Profiles/Security/Gateway 
   quit

2. Restart Siebel Gateway Registry and Apache Tomcat services.
3. Log in to SMC with the SMC admin credentials (not the database credentials) and recreate the Gateway Security Profile, using these new DB details:

   Attribute	Value/Comments
   Host Name	Provide the hostname of the Database server
   Database Service Name	Give the new Database Service Name
   Port	1521 (Default)

4. Click Submit to create the security profile.

   Note:

   Occasionally, this might result in an error popup. If this happens, log in again to SMC and you should be able to see the Security Profile.
5. As the SADMIN user, log in again to SMC to verify that the database credentials are working.