Preparing architecture for APEX 5.0 upgrade

I doubted to set the title of this post to "Running APEX 4.2 and 5.0 in the same Oracle instance", but decided not to do that, but that is basically what I will do. Before going into details, I'll share my architecture.

In December 2013 I wrote it was time to update your APEX environment and I gave a quick overview of the architecture we're using. I thought it's time to review that post, so below you find how my preferred APEX architecture is today and tomorrow (once APEX 5 is production).

I'm using Apache as a reverse proxy in front of Tomcat. I'm not going in too much detail about which version to take: Apache v2.2 vs 2.4 and Tomcat v7 vs 8. There're many threads on the internet about that and I guess it depends your environment and your personal feeling. I've been using both versions but currently I'm on Apache v2.2 because it comes as a default with RHEL / OEL6 and SELinux is configured out of the box to protect the webserver. And for Tomcat I'm using v8 as that's the basis for the future versions of Tomcat (v9) and when you want to do Websockets for example, v8 has a more improved spec.

A few years ago we had the discussion about mod_plsql vs APEX Listener (now Oracle REST Data Services - ORDS). I think today, it's clear ORDS is the way to go as it gives you much more features and is proven technology.

For APEX I'm always on the latest version as fast as I can, as with every new release there're great improvements and fixes.

And finally the Oracle Database I'm on 12cR1 because I like the pluggable database concept and the other features it brings. I guess most people will go to 12c very soon, as 11.2 premier support ends this month. You can read more about when what is still supported in this doc.

But in this post I want to show you how easy it is to prepare your environment for APEX 5 and to test the upgrade with an architecture as above. I basically want to run APEX 4.2 and 5.0 next to each other. I'll clone my PDB and apply the APEX 5 installation on the new PDB. Next I'll configure ORDS so it knows to which database it needs to point to depending the url I'll call.

Step 1. Clone the PDB 

sqlplus / as sysdba

create pluggable database APEX50_PDB from APEX42_PDB file_name_convert=('/u01/app/oracle/oradata/cdb/APEX42_PDB','/u01/app/oracle/oradata/cdb/APEX50_PDB');


Step 2. Open the PDB and install APEX 5.0

alter pluggable database apex50_pdb open;

So now we have a new database which is a copy of our existing database open and ready to be used. Next we will need to install APEX 5.0. As the time of writing APEX 5.0 is not available yet, but it will probably be - connect to the new PDB and run @apexins... (follow the installation guide of APEX 5.0 once available!)

Step 3. Configure ORDS

With SQL Developer you can configure ORDS and add the connection to the new PDB.
In SQL Developer 4.1, first setup a connection to your ORDS (Tools > Manage REST Data Services Connections > Add Connection). Next open the ORDS Administration window (View > REST Data Services > Administration). Right click on the REST Data Services and Connect to ORDS:

You'll see the current configuration.

In order to connect to the new database we need to add a Database. Right click in Database Settings and add a new database. Before writing it back (the icon with the green up arrow - click the Test Settings button first (the icon with a v) to make sure everything is fine.

Final step is to let ORDS know that if we put in our url /apex50 we want to connect to the new database. You can do that by adding an entry in URL Mapping:

That's it...

Note: sometimes I've issues with adding the database and URL Mapping in SQL Developer, but it's as fast to do it command line too. The doc has a great example which commands to run: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E37099_01/doc.20/e25066/config.htm#AELIG7191


Step 4. Test

When you navigate to your normal url e.g. http://localhost/ords/f?p=ABC you will see your APEX 4.2 instance, but if you navigate to http://localhost/ords/apex50/f?p=ABC you'll see the APEX 5.0 instance.

You can play a bit more with making it nicer urls or do some redirects in Apache, but I hope you get the idea how to start testing APEX 5.0 while still running APEX 4.2 too.