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Show / Hide Table of Contents Getting Started Guide for UKCloud for Oracle Software Important UKCloud for Oracle Software has been retired from sale by UKCloud. We'll continue to support all existing customers who are using this service, however, we are no longer providing this service for new workloads. This article provides existing UKCloud for Oracle Software customers with access to support documentation and we'll continue to update it as required. For new Oracle requests, contact your Client Director or Service Delivery Manager.

Overview UKCloud for Oracle Software provides Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), powered by Oracle VM (OVM) technology, that is fully compliant with the compatibility and licensing requirements of Oracle-based enterprise applications.

This Getting Started Guide provides an overview of the functionality available with UKCloud for Oracle Software.

Intended audience This guide is intended for customers who want to get up and running with UKCloud for Oracle Software.

Introduction to UKCloud for Oracle Software Many applications running in the UK Public Sector today have a backbone powered by Oracle software. They include ERP solutions, finance systems (such as payroll), HR systems and wide variety of citizen‑supporting applications.

Oracle solutions have traditionally been subject to licensing and technical requirements that have made it challenging to carry out cloud transition projects and meet the government's Cloud First policy.

UKCloud for Oracle Software enables you to start your cloud journey with your Oracle applications. It overcomes the licensing and technical barriers, and provides the trusted, connected and flexible Assured OFFICIAL and non-internet-connected Elevated OFFICIAL cloud platforms you need to deliver your critical Oracle applications in the cloud. UKCloud for Oracle Software can help you achieve the business goals at the centre of your strategy, without risking your operational ability to execute.

The service has been designed and tested for compatibility with the most popular Oracle applications used in citizen‑facing solutions today, including:

Oracle database (including features such as encryption and Data Guard)

Oracle WebLogic Server

Oracle Fusion Applications

Oracle Enterprise Manager

Oracle E-Business Suite

UKCloud for Oracle Software provides workloads with an uncontended infrastructure optimised for the performance and availability of Oracle workloads. You can right‑size the allocated resources to suit the changing demands of your application; ensuring performance and avoiding over‑capacity. You can specify the resource allocation of each workload independently: simply choose the appropriate CPU cores, amount of memory and required storage from the catalogue.

The service offers the following technical benefits specific to Oracle workloads:

Use of core-pinning technology means that Oracle workloads operating on the UKCloud platform aren't subject to the types of movement that can unbalance Oracle applications running on other cloud platforms

The scalable nature of our service enables you to add or remove cores in line with your understanding of the performance requirements of your solution

Self-service management of your environment via our Customer Portal, which you can also use to programmatically control your Oracle environment

Virtual firewalls to manage connectivity into and out of your environment -- self-service and free of charge

IPsec and SSL VPN/SDN to create secure connections between users and other environments using a variety of included tunnelling technologies

Basic load balancing to configure active/active solutions that are resilient to outages and can handle high levels of activity, using our on‑platform, out‑of‑the‑box load balancers

Persistent storage so that your data remains, even when a virtual machine (VM) is turned off, ensuring that your application data remains consistent and available

Oracle licensing compliance UKCloud for Oracle Software does not include Oracle licensing but, because the platform is powered by OVM technology, you can be assured that it is compliant with Oracle's licensing requirements and you can bring your own Oracle licensing to build your solutions.

UKCloud ensures that hard partitioning is in place in all customer guest VMs in order to conform to Oracle licensing policies. When you create or modify a VM, automatic CPU pinning ensures that the VM won't use any CPUs other than the ones specifically pinned to the VM's vCPUs.

If you have any questions about Oracle licensing, contact your Cloud Architect or Service Delivery Manager (SDM).

If you require assistance building out your Oracle solution, we can put you in contact with one or our partners who specialises in Oracle technologies.

Your UKCloud for Oracle Software estate The management of your Oracle estate is split between Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM) and VMware Cloud Director:

Use OEM to build and manage your VMs and templates

Use VMware Cloud Director to create your VM networks and configure your edge gateway, including firewall rules and VPN connections

When you first purchase UKCloud for Oracle Software, your SDM creates an Oracle tenant to act as a top‑level container for your Oracle VMs. As your estate grows, you can add more tenants to logically organise your resources.

Within your Oracle tenant you can create the VMs that comprise your Oracle applications.

Before you begin You should have received your OEM login credentials, including the URL for OEM Cloud Control. You should also have received your UKCloud Portal login credentials.

Accessing the Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control console To manage your UKCloud for Oracle Software environment, you need to log in to the Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control console. The console provides a single, browser‑based interface to monitor and manage your entire Oracle infrastructure, including databases, servers, applications and hosts.

In your browser, go to the following URL:

https://ecco.r00006.frn.ukcloud.com/em

On the log in page, enter your username and password and click Login.

Getting to know the Cloud Control console After you log in, you'll be taken to the Infrastructure -- Oracle VM Cloud Services page of the OEM Cloud Control console.

On this page, you can:

Click the Home icon at any point to return to the Infrastructure -- Oracle VM Cloud Services page.

Click the Requests icon to view and manage all your requests.

Click the Servers icon to view and manage all your VM instances.

More information! How to build an Oracle virtual machine

Click the Storage icon to view and manage all the storage associated with your VMs.

Click the Chargeback icon to view billing details.

Click the Library icon to view all public templates and templates that you own.

Click the Policies icon to view policies and schedules that you can apply to your VMs.

The Notifications section provides useful alerts about your UKCloud for Oracle Software environment.

The Usage section displays the currently available quotas for VMs, CPUs, memory and storage.

The 10 Last Requested Servers section lists the last ten VMs that you've requested. If you own more than 10 VMs, click the Servers icon to view them all. You can click the Request Servers icon to create a new VM.

More information! How to build an Oracle virtual machine

The 10 Latest Requests section lists the details and status of the last ten requests you've made. To view all requests, click the Requests icon.

Click the All Cloud Services icon at any point to go to the All Cloud Services page. On the All Cloud Services page, click Infrastructure -- Oracle VM Cloud Services to return to the Infrastructure -- Oracle VM Cloud Services page.

Click the Notification Center icon to access the Notification Center where you can view alerts about the objects within your UKCloud for Oracle Software environment.

More information! Viewing notifications

Click your username to access your account settings to, for example, change your account preferences or password.

More information! Changing your account settings

Viewing notifications UKCloud uses The Notification Center to communicate alerts about the objects in your UKCloud for Oracle Software environment.

Note For notifications about Planned Maintenance and service incidents, see the UKCloud Service Status page.

In the Cloud Control console, click the notifications icon.

Alternatively, you can click your username and select Notification Center.

The Notification Center lists your alerts.

Changing your account settings From the user account menu, you can:

Change your password

Change your accessibility preferences

Change system broadcast preferences

Change your console settings

Log out of the console

You can also access online help and display information about your version of OEM.

Changing your password You are required to change your password every 60 days and also if you have 3 successive failed login attempts.

If you want to change your password for any other reason, you can do so via the user account menu.

In the Cloud Control console, click your username and select Change Password.

On the Change Password page, enter your Current Password then enter and confirm your New Password.

Note You cannot use the same password in a 365‑day period until the password has been changed 10 times.

Changing your accessibility preferences You can change your accessibility preferences to indicate any assistive technology that you use.

In the Cloud Control console, click your username and select Preferences and then Accessibility.

In the Accessibility Preference dialog, select the assistive technologies that you use, for example, a screen reader, high contrast settings or large fonts.

Select Show me the Accessibility Preference options after I log in if you want the option to select accessibility options each time you log in to the console.

When you're done, click OK.

Changing system broadcast preferences System broadcasts are popup messages sent by the UKCloud administrator to immediately notify users with important information.

Note We highly recommend that you do not change these settings. If you do change these settings, you may miss important information about your UKCloud for Oracle Software environment.

In the Cloud Control console, click your username and select Preferences and then System Broadcast.

Change the settings as required.

When you're done, click Save.

Changing your console settings You can set various options to personalise your experience in the Cloud Control console. For example, you can choose when to receive VM request, expiry and quota notifications and specify an email address to receive selected notifications. You can also define the default values to use when creating VMs.

In the Cloud Control console, click your username and select Preferences and then SSA Portal Settings.

On the General tab of the Preferences dialog box, specify your notification settings.

On the Infrastructure -- Oracle VM tab, specify default options for new VMs.

When you're done, click Apply.

Building virtual machines Your Oracle applications will consist of one or more VMs. Due to the core pinning required to create Oracle VMs on the cloud, you'll need to raise a ticket so we can create the VMs on your behalf, which you can then configure.

On the Infrastructure -- Oracle VM Cloud Services page you can view and manage all your Oracle VMs.

More information! How to build an Oracle virtual machine

Setting up your network Before you can start using the VMs in your Oracle environment, you need to create the network that connects the VMs to each other, and potentially also to the outside world. This network enables your VMs to communicate with each other or access external networks. A single Oracle tenant can have multiple networks. When UKCloud sets up a new Oracle tenant for you, we'll usually create an edge gateway for that tenant, but the creation of any networks is your responsibility.

Networking and connectivity for UKCloud for Oracle Software is managed within VMware Cloud Director, which you access through the UKCloud Portal rather than Enterprise Manager Cloud Control.

Note Because you create your network in VMware Cloud Director, you'll see references to VMware terminology, such as organisations and virtual data centres (VDCs). In UKCloud for Oracle Software, an Oracle tenant is equivalent to a VDC.

There are two types of network:

An isolated (internally connected) network provides access only to the VMs within the Oracle tenant (see How to create an isolated VDC network).

A routed (externally connected) network provides access to machines and networks outside the Oracle tenant via the edge gateway. You can have up to nine usable routed networks per tenant: one for each connectivity type (see How to create a routed VDC network).

Configuring your edge gateway An edge gateway controls how traffic from the outside world comes into and out of your environment. It is very important to make sure that your edge gateway is configured correctly to make your applications available but also secure.

The tools for configuring your edge gateway are provided within VMware Cloud Director, which you access through the UKCloud Portal rather than Enterprise Manager Cloud Control.

Your edge gateway provides the following services:

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) --- The edge gateway can act as a DHCP server for VMs connected to VDC networks connected to an edge (see How to create a DHCP pool).

Network address translation (NAT) --- NAT rules determine where to direct inbound and outbound traffic (see How to create NAT rules).

Firewall --- The firewall controls which networks and ports can communicate through the edge gateway (see How to create firewall rules).

Static routing --- Provides static routes from the edge gateway to other networks, for example, networks in other VDCs in your compute service (see How to create a static route).

VPN --- IPsec site-to-site VPN is available on the edge gateway (see How to configure IPsec VPN).

Load balancing --- The edge gateway provides simple HTTP and HTTPS load balancing using round robin (see How to configure a load balancer).

Logging out of the Cloud Control console When you're done working in the Cloud Control console, we recommend that you log out to prevent unauthorised access.

To log out of the Cloud Control console, click your user name and select Log Out.

Next steps In this Getting Started Guide, you've learned the basics about UKCloud for Oracle Software.

For more detailed information about building Oracle applications in your UKCloud for Oracle Software estate, see the following articles:

VM networking How to create an isolated VDC network