1. Import Workloads to Oracle Private Cloud Appliance
  2. Learn About Importing Workloads to Oracle Private Cloud Appliance

Learn About Importing Workloads to Oracle Private Cloud Appliance

This solution provides a methodology and workflow that architects and system administrators can use to migrate virtual machine workloads to Oracle Private Cloud Appliance X9-2.

You can use these best practices and guidance for importing virtual machines from legacy hypervisor platforms to Oracle Private Cloud Appliance X9-2 (PCA) in "lift and shift" migration.

PCA has emerged as the premier platform for WebLogic, Fusion Applications and other application tier software, often in conjunction with Oracle Exadata Database Service - the premier database platform. Many of those applications have been deployed on other servers and are now being deployed on PCA for increased performance, scale, and manageability.

About Oracle Private Cloud Appliance

Oracle Private Cloud Appliance is an Oracle-engineered system designed for implementing the application and middleware tiers.

Private Cloud Appliance provides the following operational benefits of public cloud deployments to customers who prefer or require an on-premises solution:

  • A private cloud infrastructure and architecture consistent with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).
  • APIs and SDKs compatible with OCI to an on-premises implementation at rack scale, making workloads, user experience, tool sets, and skills portable between private and public clouds.
  • Reduced infrastructure complexity and deployment time for virtualized workloads in private clouds with an integrated hardware and software system.
  • A complete platform with optimal performance for a wide range of application types and workloads, with built-in management, compute, storage, and networking resources.
  • Cloud and administrative services for modernized cloud-native applications.
  • A modern microservices architecture, Kubernetes, and related technologies, for a future-proofed software stack.
  • Directly connect to Oracle Exadata and Oracle Database Appliance to create an ideal infrastructure for scalable, multitier applications.

Before You Begin

Before you begin your migration, learn about the definitions used in this solution playbook, check your license details, and review the product documentation for later reference.

Learn about platform images in the Private Cloud Appliance 3.0 release notes.

About the Terms Used in This Solution

Review the definitions of the terms used throughout this solution playbook.

  • The source system is the platform where the virtual machine is currently running, and the target is the Private Cloud Appliance system it will be moved to.
  • An instance is a virtual machine on Private Cloud Appliance. An instance has a lifecycle: it can be created, started (or launched), stopped, and terminated (removed from the PCA system). Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) uses the term instance instead of virtual machine because an instance could potentially be on bare metal. Private Cloud Appliance conforms to the same definition.
  • Every instance has a shape, which describes its CPU, memory, network and disk configuration. PCA has a list of standard shapes, described in the topic Choose a Private Cloud Appliance Shape.
  • An image is the template of a virtual disk, containing the operating system and preinstalled applications, plus descriptive metadata.
  • An instance is created by creating a boot volume from an image, and immediately launched. Other disks belonging to the instance are called block volumes and are created after the instance is launched.
  • Private Cloud Appliance provides platform images for Oracle Linux 7, Oracle Linux 8, and Oracle Solaris 11.4.
  • Custom images can be created from an instance running on Private Cloud Appliance, making it possible to use an image as the basis for cloned instances with customized contents.
  • Bring Your Own Image (BYOI) images are imported from a different platform.

About Bring Your Own Image (BYOI)

This solution focuses on BYOI using a lift and shift approach in which an OS instance is moved to Private Cloud Appliance with as few OS and configuration changes as possible.

It focuses on the steps needed to make an OS instance boot and operate on Private Cloud Appliance X9-2, with details based on the operating system and source platform. Application migration is discussed here but is out of scope.

Private Cloud Appliance provides platform images for Oracle Linux 7, Oracle Linux 8, and Oracle Solaris 11.4. You must comply with all licensing requirements when you upload and start instances based on OS images that you supply.

Note:

For purposes of this document, instructions for Linux mostly apply to Oracle Linux, Red Hat and other Red Hat based distributions. Other Linux types such as Debian-based or SUSE are out of scope.

Note:

If you have installation media (a USB or DVD ISO image) for an operating system, you can create an OS instance using a hypervisor and then follow the steps in this guide to create a PCA image. Oracle VM VirtualBox provides a convenient platform for this, or you could use a hypervisor you already have. If you use KVM you have the benefit of installing with the same hypervisor as on Private Cloud Appliance.

Another approach is to create entirely new images based on the latest version of the desired operating system and application software. Use this when you want to perform a technology refresh and modernize the entire hardware and software stack. Both approaches are valid and widely used, depending on your business and technical needs.

See the Bring Your Own Image (BYOI) section in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Documentation to learn more.

Review Documentation

This solution playbook provides instructions for performing your migration. You may find these additional resources helpful for context, details, and reference.

References for Oracle Private Cloud Appliance:

References for Linux:

References for Solaris:

References for Windows:

About Required Products, Services, and Roles

This solution requires one or more of the following products and services:

  • Oracle Private Cloud Appliance X9-2

    Oracle Compute Cloud@Customer

  • Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

These are the roles needed for each product or service.

Product Name: Role Required to...
Oracle Private Cloud Appliance: Compute Enclave Create network, compute, and storage constructs.
Oracle Compute Cloud@Customer: Administrators Access Oracle Compute Cloud@Customer Console, CLI, and APIs.
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure: Administrators Access Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console, CLI, and APIs.

See Oracle Products, Solutions, and Services to get what you need.