Oracle APEX on AWS

Oracle Application Express (APEX), a feature of the Oracle Database 11g, combines rapid web application development with the power of the Oracle database.  Application Builder features an easy-to-use browser-based interface which enables developers and non-programmers to develop and deploy data driven web applications in very little time. 

Oracle Application Express doesn’t depend on any client software for developing or deploying web applications. Simple architecture, and browser-based features make the transition for developers and end-users seamless- simply provide the URL for the cloud environment.

Oracle APEX is made for the cloud. It contains cloud development environment, built-in multi-tenancy capabilities, and end-to-end disk to application management and migration for high availability and DR purposes.  Disk-to-application management and migration allows for the entire system to be viewed as one integrated unit, which makes it easy to manage, provision, and monitor the database and application as one unit. 

The multi-tenant capabilities of Oracle Application Express allow multiple users and their associated applications to co-exist within one Oracle Database, minimizing cost. Only one instance is needed and users work in a dedicated work area called a workspace. An added advantage, when you create a database backup you also create backup of application source. Oracle Application Express can integrate with other applications by consuming web services.

Oracle Application Express can be deployed to Amazon EC2 or Amazon Oracle Relational Database Service (RDS).  EC2 is an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) product and RDS is a Database as a Service (DaaS) product.  APEX on EC2 allows greater flexibility as the database environment is controlled by the client.  APEX on Oracle RDS provides a managed database service so there are less moving parts for the client to manage.

Oracle APEX on AWS allows for maximum flexibility and elasticity, for example:

•        Turn off development instance over the weekend when developers not working. This is possible for AWS EC2 but not for AWS RDS.  With RDS, you can snapshot your environment  (then then terminate the current environment) and then re-instantiate that snapshot in the same AZ, a different AZ or a different region.

•        Change from large instance to small instance for production applications after hours.

•        As application workload increases upgrade from medium instance to large instance.

•        When running the HTTP Listener on EC2, the ability to load balance the web traffic using AWS Elastic Load Balancer (ELB) and increase the number of HTTP Listeners supporting the web traffic by using AWS Auto Scaling.