What you need to know about migrating to the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)?

Environment: 

All US Government Oracle B2C Service sites, and US Government OPA/Intelligent Advisor sites

Resolution:

Below are the answers to some frequently asked questions, intended to provide you with basic information you may want to know about the planned migration of Oracle B2C Service and Intelligent Advisor environments to the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).

GENERAL INFORMATION

Why are Oracle B2C Service and Intelligent Advisor migrating to OCI?
Oracle has developed OCI as its first cloud specifically built to host enterprise systems like Oracle B2C Service.  The new infrastructure should provide unmatched reliability, scalability and performance for mission-critical applications, and it will be built on state-of-the-art hardware and networking technologies.  

When will my site/service migrate, and can I schedule it?
Your Migration Manager for this project would have communicated your site's/service's scheduled migration dates in a recent/upcoming conversation or you may have received an email. If you have questions about the migration or schedule, please contact your Migration Manager (or Oracle B2C Service Support here).  Keep in mind the migration process is mandatory, as eventually the current hosted environment will be disabled, and the U.S. Government Authorizing Official is only permitting simultaneous environments for a short period. 

Are there any changes to the terms of my Oracle B2C Service contract?
No, this migration involves no changes to the support and/or hosting contract you currently have with Oracle.

Will there be any downtime caused by the migration?
Yes, this migration will be a bit different than the usual quarterly update process and will include downtime based on the size of your site. Preparing ahead of time will help minimize the disruption.  Please contact your Migration Manager for this project (or Oracle B2C Service Support here) for more details.

What about a scheduled version update?
The Oracle B2C Service update scheduled during the quarter that your site migrates should be skipped or delayed, as you won't be able to migrate while your site is going through an update process.  There are no extensions or changes to the End of Life policy, so if you are at risk of going end of life you are encouraged to update as soon as possible.

What if there are major issues after the transport? Will my site be "rolled back" to the legacy data center?
Oracle will re-enable your site in the legacy data center in the worst case scenario when a site is fully down and the underlying issue cannot be resolved in a timely manner.

What if I need to rebrand an interface?
It will not be possible to create or edit any interfaces until the production transport is complete.  As a result, changing the primary vhost (rebranding the URL) is not possible during a transport.

To help to ensure a smooth migration/transport, please note following items that should be avoided during a pod migration/transport.

• Please do not submit any upgrade site requests until after all pod migration tasks are completed. An upgrade and pod migration/transport cannot occur simultaneously. 
• Please refrain from altering the database for 7 days prior to the scheduled time of migration.  Please do not make changes, updates, or deployments to the following:
  • Custom Objects
  • Custom Fields
  • Custom Process Models
• Refrain from executing broadcast mailings during the 24 hour period prior to the cutover to ensure mailings aren't interrupted as part of the migration cutover.
• Please refrain from adjusting custom code or making custom file changes 24 hours prior to the scheduled time of migration. This includes changes and/or deployments to the following:
  • Customer Portal
  • Custom Scripts

TECHNICAL INFORMATION

Will my customizations continue to function after migration?
Customizations should continue to function as before. There will be no change to actual product functionality (ex: behavior of managed frameworks, availability of particular functionality) as part of this migration.  However, your IP address as well as your site domain will change as part of this process.  If you have customizations or network configurations that safelist or reference specific static IP addresses then you will want to make sure those are updated as part of the migration process. Additionally, please speak with your Migration Manager for this project (or contact B2C Service Technical Support here) for your site’s new domain. Your organization is responsible for reviewing your customizations and network configuration to ensure they meet this requirement!

Are there any changes to my hosted environment I need to know about?
All databases on the new OCI environment will be running MySQL 8.

Will this change my ability to administer my site(s)/service(s)?
No, all functionality available via Configuration Assistant previously will also be available to you post-migration.  However - the URL you use to log into configuration assistant will change when your site migrates. Please speak with your Migration Manager for this project (or contact B2C Service Technical Support here) for your new Configuration Assistant URL.

Will I have to download and reinstall the console after migrating to OCI?
Yes, due to domain changes, you will be required to reinstall the console (.Net client) post-migration.

Will my Cron Scripts continue to execute at the same time after migrating to OCI?
Your site(s) will be hosted in a new time zone; Cron Scripts will run an hour earlier. If you have concerns about this, please contact your Migration Manager for this project (or Oracle B2C Service Technical Support here).

Could scheduled data exports/imports and other cron jobs be impacted?
If your customizations include scheduled scripts that communicate with external servers (e.g. to transfer data) then it is particularly important to take note of the network changes.  As described above your Oracle B2C Service IP address will change as well as the access URL.  

If you have customizations or network configurations that safelist or reference specific static IP addresses or specific URLs, then you must make sure those are updated as part of the migration process.  If you do not update your network configuration then your scheduled data exports/imports, and any other communication with external servers, may fail.

Will the migration affect replication?
Following an OCI migration cutover it is possible that database replication will be a bit behind temporarily on the new database server due to the amount of work required to complete the final sync of the database and complete the migration cutover.  If replication does get behind it will return report results that are not up to date if that report is set to get data from the replication server.  Please see this additional information about replication delay on this answer: Answer ID 2817: Reporting data seems incorrect or behind

How will email delivery be affected?
Inbound and outbound email will eventually be received and sent out of your new OCI environment. For outbound email this switch will happen gradually over a period of time in order to properly warm the IP addresses from the new OCI environment. As part of the last step of migration, Mail Forwarding will be established from your old mailbox(es).  However, you should update to the proper mailbox domain after migration to enable quicker receipt.  Please speak with your Migration Manager for this project (or contact B2C Service Technical Support here) for your new mailbox domain.

*Note: If you are forwarding mail to an Oracle hosted mailbox, please change the forward to match the new pod designation as well to improve email performance. Email will still be processed if sent to the old pod designation, but it will take more hops to get to where it needs to be.