1. Best practices for operating cloud deployments efficiently
  2. Plan Your Deployment Strategy

Plan Your Deployment Strategy

Determine how you want to define and deploy your workload. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure provides capabilities where you can define your workload infrastructure in code. Various tools are available to help you to configure your workloads and maintain deployment efficiency.

Choose a Region Based on Your Customers and Data

Cloud Architect, Network Architect

When choosing a region, be aware of who is going to be accessing your resources and from which region of the country or world. Take privacy and regulatory requirements into account when making your selection.

Adopt an Infrastructure as Code Methodology

Cloud Architect, Infrastructure Architect, DevOps Architect

When you adopt an infrastructure as code methodology in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), you can define your entire application infrastructure in the form of code. You can perform operational procedures as code and implement them in response to events-based notifications.

The following services enable you to define and manage your infrastructure using code:

  • Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Resource Manager

    Resource Manager automates the process of provisioning your OCI resources by using Terraform to help you install, configure, and manage resources through the infrastructure-as-code model.

  • Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Events

    Events automate the response to resource changes in your tenancy. OCI services emit event messages, which are structured messages that indicate changes in resources. You can create automation based on the state changes of resources throughout your tenancy and allow your development teams to automatically respond when a resource changes its state.

  • Oracle Functions

    Functions provide a highly scalable and fully managed serverless platform. After you deploy your code, you can use events to trigger operational procedures that are coded as functions.

Adopt Terraform to Implement Repeatable Workflows

DevOps Architect, Application Architect

Terraform is an open source tool that allows you to programmatically manage, version, and persist infrastructure through the infrastructure-as-code model. Terraform configurations codify your infrastructure in declarative files that define your infrastructure and maintain its state.
You can share these files among team members, treat them as code, edit, review, and version them.

You can use the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Terraform provider to manage OCI resources wherever you use a Terraform distribution, including Terraform Cloud and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Resource Manager. Oracle Cloud has its own Terraform provider.

When using Terraform with OCI, consider the following:

  • Treat Terraform like source code by deploying files in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Resource Manager. You can store files in a secure location, limit access based on requirements, and audit changes regularly.
  • Consider using Instance Principal as authentication for the OCI Provider if you're running on a VM Compute Instance in OCI.
  • Maintain Terraform state files in a shared, centralized location using either Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage or Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Resource Manager.

Adopt the OCI Designer Toolkit (OKIT)

DevOps Architect, Infrastructure Architect

The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Designer and visualization toolKIT (OKIT) is a browser-based tool that allows you to design, deploy and visualize (introspect/query) OCI environments through a graphical web-based interface.

The web-based interface enables architects and designers to build a visual representation of their infrastructure and then export this in a number of formats. Once completed, you can enhance the design to add key property information allowing you to export the designed infrastructure to a number of DevOps frameworks.

You can use OKIT to introspect existing OCI environments, through simple query functionality embedded within the web interface, to provide a portable generic JSON file. You can use the JSON file to visualize existing systems or generate a set of Terraform or Ansible scripts that you can use to build the designed OCI infrastructure as a zip file.

OKIT models supports the use of Cloud Init scripts to further automate compute resource deployments. OKIT is essentially a single user tool best suited to run locally, as it's using a user's personal keys to authenticate to a tenancy. Using Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Resource Manager allows you to share designs. You can export OKIT designs in JSON format, which you can version control.

Automate Simple and Repeatable Actions

DevOps Architect

Consider using the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) command-line interface (CLI) for scripting repeatable actions and to orchestrate several tasks. Working with the OCI CLI can allow for streamlined operations through automation.
The CLI provides the same core functionality as the Console, plus additional commands. Some of these, such as the ability to run scripts, extend the OCI Console functionality. The CLI supports Python versions 3.6 and later running on MacOS, Windows, or a supported Linux distribution. Additionally, you can configure it to leverage federated identities instead of relying on static credentials.

Adopt Configuration Management Tools

DevOps Architect, Infrastructure Architect

Consider adopting management tools, such as Ansible Modules, to help you with provisioning, orchestration, and configuration management.
Ansible modules enable you to automate configuring and provisioning your cloud infrastructure, deploying and updating software assets, and orchestrating your complex operational processes to reduce risk and achieve agility with workloads deployment and configuration. Ansible playbooks automate configuration, deployment, and orchestration tasks.

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) supports the use of Ansible modules to automate cloud infrastructure provisioning and configuration, orchestration of complex operational processes, and deployment and update of your software assets. The OCI Ansible collection supports Ansible Tower and AWX.

Adopt Build and Deployment Management Systems

DevOps Architect

Improve efficiency by using build and deployment management systems, such as Ansible Tower or Jenkins. These systems reduce errors caused by manual processes and reduce the level of effort to deploy changes.

Test and Validate Changes

DevOps Architect

To detect errors, always track, test, and validate changes.

You can use a version control system to track changes in your code. Consider using a deployment management system to automate your testing process.

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