About Platform Differences Between the On-Premises and Cloud Environments

This table describes high-level differences between running Oracle SOA on-premises and in the cloud.

Oracle SOA Suite On-Premises	Oracle SOA Cloud Service
You install Oracle SOA Suite on your own hardware.	Available by subscription.
You create the complete domain.	Provisioning of Oracle SOA Cloud Service automatically includes Oracle Java Cloud Service, which provides an Oracle WebLogic Server domain.
You must develop your own archival infrastructure.	Oracle SOA Cloud Service provides OPC-based backup services.
You must install a database.	During Oracle SOA Cloud Service provisioning, you select the database to use. Note: You must provision the database prior to provisioning Oracle SOA Cloud Service.
You must set up an environment based on your high availability requirements.	High availability functionality is provided by default using a virtual machine restart.
Oracle HTTP Server serves as the load balancer.	Supports the Oracle Traffic Director (OTD) load balancer during provisioning. Also supports Oracle Cloud Infrastructure load balancer, which must be configured manually post-provisioning.
You typically use shared storage.	Shared storage is available through Database File System (DBFS) or OCI File Storage Service (FSS) in the cloud: You can use a combination of database direct configuration for JMS and JTA logs and use DBFS for other shared file use cases. Any custom software or “one-off” patches must be installed on each virtual machine in the cloud. Log files are local to each virtual machine. Managed Servers by default will write to a file on their own local disks. Optionally, you can configure adapters to read/write files from shared storage (DBFS/FSS). Ephemeral storage vs. block storage vs. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic: Ephemeral storage is built every time the virtual machine is started — nothing is saved (stateless). Block storage is similar to regular file storage. The Oracle SOA code and your data is written from your virtual machine (stateful) to file storage. The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic is used for long term storage and backups. This service is accessible through the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic Console. Note: You must provision Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic prior to provisioning Oracle SOA Cloud Service. During Oracle SOA Cloud Service provisioning, you select the storage container (Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic) to use.
Network access for on-premises networks varies from site to site, as well as logic processes. Usually it is completely open to employees, as long as they have the right credentials.	External network access must be configured at the virtual machine level and the Oracle Traffic Director level. Logins to the virtual machine can be done through an SSH tunnel.
There should not be any connectivity issues blocking Oracle SOA Cloud Service and your on-premises applications.	Connectivity between Oracle SOA Cloud Service adapters and on-premises applications may be blocked by your corporate firewall. Connections can be established by using an SSH tunnel from the application server to which the adapter connects.
When using the File Adapter, each Managed Server can read from a shared directory.	When using the File Adapter, each Managed Server should be configured to read files from File Storage Server (FSS).
The SOA debugger and automatic SOA composite application tester (unit tester) in Oracle JDeveloper are supported when connecting to on-premises SOA Server.	The SOA debugger and automatic SOA composite application tester (unit tester) in Oracle JDeveloper are not supported when connecting to SOA Server in the cloud.
JMS store and JTA transaction logs can use either Oracle database or file stores.	JMS store and JTA transaction logs will use Oracle database instead of file stores.
Supports Oracle SOA for Healthcare.	Oracle SOA for Healthcare is not available.
After installing Oracle SOA Suite, you can install Oracle Business Process Management Suite on top of it.	Oracle Business Process Management Suite is not available with Oracle SOA Cloud Service. Instead, you can subscribe to Oracle Process Cloud Service or run Oracle Business Process Management Suite on Oracle Java Cloud Service. Tutorial