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.

ELB : Some common questions

Q: Is a straight through reverse proxy possible with ELB? For example, a Wordpress instance that lives at my domain.com/blog.  Is it possible with ELB similar to apaches mod_proxy passthru functionality?

A: ELB does not support this feature.  Suggestions: Create a sub-domain like blogs.crafsy.com and have a separate DNS record + ELB for it.

Q: Is there a way to force traffic to a particular backend app server when fronted with ELB? 

A: ELB supports sticky sessions for ensuring that traffic within the same session flows to the same box.  For software release purposes, you could have a subdomain like test.craftsy.com and a separate DNS record + ELB.

Q: Can you have a zone apex in Route53 point at multiple ELB's? I assume this is so. (e.g. craftsy.com -> ELB1 (production a), ELB2 (production b)

A: Yes, if you use non-simple routing policy (weighted, latency or failover). 

Hosting prefixed domain name web site on S3 using Route 53

This the process for hosting a domain with a prefix.  For example, you have the domain name migrating2cloud.com already hosted.  Assuming you also have core prefix (aws.migrating2cloud.com) already built.  You now want to create specific prefixes (for example boston.aws.migrating2cloud.com) to hold localized information.

1. Create in S3 bucket in the account where the web site on S3 will be hosted. The bucket name needs to the same name as the web site. In this example: boston.aws.migrating2cloud.com
2. Check radial button next to "Enable website hosting" to make this a S3 bucket that holds a web site. Type in a name for the base html page. In this case, index.html
3. Upload the index.html file into the bucket. Example HTML file is below:
4. Try accessing the web site boston.aws.migrating2cloud.com. It will not work. There is nothing pointing the ‘internet’ (no DNS Name mapping in our DNS provider which in this case is AWS Route 53) to your web site on S3.
5. Create a record set in your Route 53 Hosted zone for aws.migrating2cloud.com for your S3 web site bucket.
A. Go into the Route 53 service
B.Go into the record sets by checking the box next to the hosted zone (aws.migrating2cloud.com) and clicking on “Go to Record Sets”
C. Click “Create Record Set”
The record set has the following values:
- Name: boston
- Type: A- IPv4 address
- Alias with target name: Click and drop down box will show you boston.aws.migrating2cloud.com S3 endpoint
6. Does it work … no … set permissions on the index.html
7. Set permissions on the index.html as well. For open/download by everyone.


More on how point your zone apex and zone www records to Route 53 from your domain name is parked (AWS is not a domain registry)

http://cloudconclave.blogspot.com/2012/10/aws-route-53-domain-name-configuration.html
http://cloudconclave.blogspot.com/2012/07/aws-ec2-amazon-cloud-domain-name-and-ip_11.html

<head> <title>Boston AWS Training</title> </head> <h1> Boston AWS Training </h1> <body> <a href="http://migrating2cloud.com">Main Site</a> </body> <br> <br> <a href="http://cloudconclave.blogspot.com">Cloud Blog</a> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B005350FIO">Amazon Author Central</a> </html>

Oracle APEX on AWS

I only know of one documented public case study, but it is documented very well!  While at Oracle, I co-authored the book Migrating to the Cloud.  The Oracle partner JSA2 (http://www.jsa2.com) authored a chapter (13) in the book which goes into extensive detail on moving a Powerbuilder/Oracle/on premise application to APEX/Oracle/AWS.  The book can be found here:  http://www.amazon.com/Migrating-Cloud-Oracle-Client-Modernization/dp/1597496472/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355941590&sr=8-1&keywords=migrating+to+the+cloud

Oracle APEX on AWS Oracle RDS

Oracle APEX on AWS Oracle RDS requires the APEX HTTP Listener to be installed on an EC2 Instance.  It also requires the that the Oracle RDS instance is setup to run APEX.  This is done by adding an APEX XMLDB option group to the Oracle RDS Instance.  Details can be found here:
http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2012/08/additional-rds-features-oracle-xml-db-and-oracle-application-express-apex.html

Currently, AWS Oracle RDS supports APEX 4.11.

AWS Oracle Test Drive Labs

Want to see Oracle Secure Backup (OSB), Oracle DataGuard, Oracle APEX, Oracle Peoplesoft, Oracle Siebel, Oracle EBusiness Suite or other Oracle technologies and applications running on AWS in the public cloud.  Then go here:
http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/global-solution-providers/oracle/labs/