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DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

Migration to ExaCC and PCA for a Large Manufacturing Company

CONTEXT

The customer, a US-based large manufacturing and engineering company, operated various applications and databases that ran on Exadata X5 server (on-premise) and Linux-based commodity server. The customer used a combination of various versions of database 11g and 12c versions that were associated with various applications via EBS, SOA, OID/OAM, OBIEE and some non-Oracle-based applications for HRMS.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

The customer used quarter rack Exadata machines X5 (on-premise), and because of the aging of the hardware and non-scalability of current hardware against data volume growth, the customer decided to move to the Cloud.
Since the customer was more concerned about data residency and data compliance, we proposed to migrate to private cloud . For data residency and security, Oracle Cloud offers Exadata Cloud@Customer (ExaCC). This is Oracle’s private cloud offering with the best-in-class hardware and software combination for running Oracle Databases.
With Cloud@Customer, Oracle ships ExaCC hardware to the customer, which provides a private cloud offering in the customer’s data center (on-premise). This is a shared responsibility model where Oracle and the customer manage the hardware and software (as shown in the graphic below).

SOLUTION


Discovery Phase

After multiple discovery sessions with the customer, the following was assessed:

  • In Phase 1, migrate to ExaCC 70 + Oracle Databases, which were running on on-premise Exadata quarter rack)
  • Upgrade database to 19c, wherever possible and where certified options were available
  • Upgrade 5 out of 7 production databases to 19c
  • There are two data centers. The primary data center is in Denver and the secondary is in Vegas
  • In Phase 2, migrate all applications to Private Cloud Appliance (PCA)
  • Re-configure all customizations and interfaces’ endpoints
  • Create a Disaster Recovery Plan for production
  • 3 databases have multiple disaster recovery plans and are used for reporting and testing purposes

Proposal

RTS proposed the following from an infrastructure point of view:

  • 3 ExaCC 8M-2 half rack to accommodate all the databases and to fulfill the required needs
  • 1 ExaCC for Non-PROD, 1 for PROD instance, and 1 for DR solutions
  • DR ExaCC had only a few databases so only a few testing instances could be deployed on the hardware (this allowed for cost and resource optimization)
  • There are two data centers. The primary data center is in Denver and the secondary is in Vegas
  • Once databases have been migrated, move all applications to PCA in Phase 2

Strategy and Planning

Once the ExaCC setup was completed with joint efforts from Oracle’s team and the customer’s network team, and with all the required network and VM clusters creation, RTS planned the database migration strategy.
RTS considered multiple options in the initial phases – RMAN Duplication, Zero Downtime Migration Tool, and Export and Import for small databases. Also, the customer wanted to reduce the number of databases for easier maintenance, so we also considered consolidation of databases based on the instance strategy.
RTS had to unlearn on-premise aspects and adapt Cloud tools and maintenance options that result in more standardization and less changes. With this approach in mind, RTS started the migration with TEST/DEV instances, tried various migration methods, and prepared playbooks for each migration.
The diagram below illustrates our strategy:

Architecture Diagram

Cloud Service provided by Oracle in Customer Data-Center. For solution 3, ExaCC half racks were used (4 node rack) - one Private Cloud Appliances for Prod Application and one for Non-Prod Application. For Disaster Recovery, we proposed Commodity Servers so to optimize the cost.

Architecture Diagram

Key Action Steps

RTS proposed the following from an infrastructure point of view:

  • For Dev/Test, the RMAN duplicate Backup migration was used
  • Small databases were migrated via ZDM tool and Logical Migration method
  • The EBS database was migrated and later upgraded to 19c (multi-tenant)
  • TDE for on-prem was configured and the same key was used during migration
  • All databases were Transparent Data Encryption enabled post migration
  • DR setup was completed using a manual process, although one DR option was provided via OCI console
  • Applications were migrated to PCA in Phase 2
  • On-premise backup storage – Veritas was configured with automatic backup

RESULTS


Performance of daily batch jobs and reports on application and database increased about 35%
Cost savings of 30% for 5 years
Scalability Opportunities: Up to 300 TB of space is available and 200 OCPU per node available with 5TB of memory