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Oracle Cloud AR study materials
Oracle Cloud AR study resources

Oracle Cloud AR: Architecting Secure and Resilient Cloud Infrastructure on OCI

Oracle Cloud AR · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.

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Architecting Secure and Resilient Cloud Infrastructure on OCI

This domain tests whether you can layer identity, network, data and detection controls on OCI, and then design for failure of a fault domain, an availability domain (AD) or an entire region. Expect scenario questions that trade cost against RTO/RPO.

Security layers

  • IAM: least-privilege policies, MFA on local users, federation through identity domains with a SAML 2.0 IdP.
  • Network: private subnets, NSGs attached to VNICs, security lists as subnet-level backstop, and no 0.0.0.0/0 ingress on 22/3389 - use the OCI Bastion service for admin access.
  • Data: encryption at rest is on by default (AES-256, Oracle-managed keys); Vault provides customer-managed keys in an HSM with rotation.
  • Detection and prevention: Cloud Guard detector recipes, Security Zones (block public buckets, require encryption), Vulnerability Scanning Service, WAF in front of public HTTP.
  • Egress: NAT gateway is outbound-only; a service gateway keeps traffic to OCI services off the internet entirely.

Resilience building blocks

Fault domains sit inside an AD; ADs sit inside a region; some regions have only one AD, so never assume three. DR patterns run from backup/restore (slowest) through pilot light and warm standby to active-active (costliest). Cross-region options include Object Storage replication, Block Volume replication, Autonomous Data Guard, and Full Stack Disaster Recovery to orchestrate prechecks and switchover.

Worked example

A three-tier app needs RTO 15 minutes and RPO 5 minutes in a three-AD region. Put the web/app tier in an instance pool behind a regional load balancer spanning ADs. Run the database on Autonomous Database with an Autonomous Data Guard standby in a second region. Add a Full Stack DR plan with prechecks, replicate the media bucket cross-region, and replicate Vault keys. Reasoning: a 15-minute RTO rules out backup/restore, and warm standby meets the 5-minute RPO without active-active spend.

Traps

NSGs attach to VNICs; security lists attach to subnets - both are stateful. Compartments are governance containers, not network boundaries. A service gateway is regional and never carries internet traffic.