A primary Oracle database server on an EC2 instance with an Oracle database fully deployed and running.

An Amazon FSx ONTAP cluster deployed in AWS that is hosting the database volumes above.

An optional database server on an EC2 instance that can be used for testing the cloning of an Oracle database to an alternate host for the purpose of supporting a dev/test workload or any use cases that requires a full data set of a production Oracle database.

If you need help to meet the above prerequisites for Oracle database deployment on Amazon FSx ONTAP and EC2 compute instance, see Oracle Database Deployment and Protection in AWS FSx/EC2 with iSCSI/ASM or white paper Oracle Database Deployment on EC2 and FSx Best Practices

Use the link NetApp BlueXP to sign up for BlueXP console access.

Login to your AWS account to create an IAM policy with proper permissions and assign the policy to the AWS account that will be used for BlueXP connector deployment.

You also need the AWS VPC, subnet, security group, an AWS user account access key and secrets, an SSH key for ec2-user, and so on ready for connector provisioning.

Login to the BlueXP console. For a shared account, it is a best practice to create an individual workspace by clicking Account > Manage Account > Workspace to add a new workspace.

Click Add a Connector to launch the connector provisioning workflow.

Choose your cloud provider (in this case, Amazon Web Services).

Skip the Permission, Authentication, and Networking steps if you already have them set up in your AWS account. If not, you must configure these before proceeding. From here, you could also retrieve the permissions for the AWS policy that is referenced in the previous section "Onboarding to BlueXP preparation."

Enter your AWS account authentication with Access Key and Secret Key.

Name the connector instance and select Create Role under Details.

Configure networking with the proper VPC, Subnet, and SSH Key Pair for connector access.

Set the Security Group for the connector.

Review the summary page and click Add to start connector creation. It generally takes about 10 mins to complete deployment. Once completed, the connector instance appears in the AWS EC2 dashboard.

First, from AWS EC2 console, create a role in Identity and Access Management (IAM) menu Roles, Create role to start role creation workflow.

In Select trusted entity page, choose AWS account, Another AWS account, and paste in the BlueXP account ID, which can be retrieved from BlueXP console.

Filter permission policies by fsx and add Permissions policies to the role.

In Role details page, name the role, add a description, then click Create role.

Back to BlueXP console, click on setting icon on top right corner of the console to open Account credentials page, click Add credentials to start credential configuration workflow.

Choose credential location as - Amazon Web Services - BlueXP.

Define AWS credentials with proper Role ARN, which can be retrieved from AWS IAM role created in step one above. BlueXP account ID, which is used for creating AWS IAM role in step one.

Review and Add.

From My Working Environment click Add working Environment to discover FSx deployed in AWS.

Choose Amazon Web Services as the location.

Click Discover Existing next to Amazon FSx ONTAP.

Select the Credentials Name that you have created in previous section to grant BlueXP with the permissions that it needs to manage FSx ONTAP. If you have not added credentials, you can add it from the Settings menu at the top right corner of the BlueXP console.

Choose the AWS region where Amazon FSx ONTAP is deployed, select the FSx cluster that is hosting the Oracle database and click Add.

The discovered Amazon FSx ONTAP instance now appears in the working environment.

You can log into the FSx cluster with your fsxadmin account credentials.

After you log into Amazon FSx ONTAP, review your database storage information (such as database volumes).

From the left-hand sidebar of the console, hover your mouse over the protection icon, and then click Protection > Applications to open the Applications launch page. Click Discover Applications.

Select Cloud Native as the application source type.

Choose Oracle for the application type.

Fill in the AWS EC2 Oracle application host details. Choose Using SSH as Host Installation Type for one step plugin installation and database discovery. Then, click on Add SSH Private Key.

Paste in your ec2-user SSH key for the database EC2 host and click on Validate to proceed.

You will be prompted for Validating fingerprint to proceed.

Click on Next to install an Oracle database plugin and discover the Oracle databases on the EC2 host. Discovered databases are added to Applications. The database Protection Status shows as Unprotected when initially discovered.

Click the three dots next to the database Protection Status, and then click Polices to view the default preloaded database protection policies that can be applied to protect your Oracle databases.

You can also create your own policy with a customized backup frequency and backup data-retention window.

When you are happy with the policy configuration, you can then assign your policy of choice to protect the database.

Choose the policy to assign to the database.

After the policy is applied, the database protection status changed to Protected with a green check mark.

The database backup runs on a predefined schedule. You can also run a one-off on-demand backup as shown below.

The database backups details can be viewed by clicking View Details from the menu list. This includes the backup name, backup type, SCN, and backup date. A backup set covers a snapshot for both data volume and log volume. A log volume snapshot takes place right after a database volume snapshot. You can apply a filter if you are looking for a particular backup in a long list.

For a database restore, choose the right backup, either by the SCN or backup time. Click the three dots from the database data backup, and then click Restore to initiate database restore and recovery.

Choose your restore setting. If you are sure that nothing has changed in the physical database structure after the backup (such as the addition of a data file or a disk group), you can use the Force in place restore option, which is generally faster. Otherwise, do not check this box.

Review and start database restore and recovery.

From the Job Monitoring tab, you can view the status of the restore job as well as any details while it is running.

Select the right database backup copy, click the three dots to view the menu, and choose the Clone option.

Select the Basic option if you don't need to change any cloned database parameters.

Alternatively, select Specification file, which gives you the option of downloading the current init file, making changes, and then uploading it back to the job.

Review and launch the job.

Monitor the cloning job status from the Job Monitoring tab.

Validate the cloned database on the EC2 instance host.