The operator supports running on production grade Kubernetes environments, including on-premises, cloud offerings where Kubernetes is supplied for you, and cloud offerings where you set up Kubernetes yourself. Please refer to the support statement Doc ID 2790123.1.
These include, but are not limited to:
Oracle Cloud certified offerings, such as:
Other certified offerings, such as:
Offerings which deploy the WebLogic Server and the operator for you. These include:
Development-focused Kubernetes distributions are also supported.
Notes:
Important: Some supported environments have additional help or samples that are specific to the operator, or are subject to limitations and restrictions; see Important notes about specific environments.
For detailed virtualization licensing, cloud licensing, and support descriptions, see Pricing and licensing.
The operator is subject to Kubernetes, WebLogic Server, and operating system versioning prerequisites; see Operator prerequisites.
Here are some important considerations for specific environments:
Note: This section does not list all supported environments. See the Overview for a list of all supported environments.
The operator and WebLogic Server are supported on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure using Oracle Container Engine for Kubernetes, or in a cluster running Oracle Linux Container Services for use with Kubernetes on OCI Compute, and on any other OCI “Authorized Cloud Environments” as described in the Overview.
Operator v3.4.4 is certified for use on OKE with Kubernetes 1.24.1.
Oracle Linux Cloud Native Environment is a fully integrated suite for the development and management of cloud-native applications. Based on Open Container Initiative (OCI) and Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) standards, Oracle Linux Cloud Native Environment delivers a simplified framework for installations, updates, upgrades, and configuration of key features for orchestrating microservices.
WebLogic Server and the WebLogic Kubernetes Operator are certified and supported on Oracle Linux Cloud Native Environment:
The Oracle Private Cloud Appliance (PCA) and Oracle Private Cloud at Customer (OPCC) fully support Oracle Linux Cloud Native Environment (OLCNE), including Oracle Container Runtime for Docker and Oracle Container Services for Use with Kubernetes. They provide an ideal runtime for Oracle WebLogic Server applications to run in Docker and Kubernetes with full, integrated system support from Oracle. For operator certifications that are specific to OLCNE, see Oracle Linux Cloud Native Environment (OLCNE).
The Oracle WebLogic Server on Oracle Private Cloud Appliance and Kubernetes document describes how to deploy Oracle WebLogic Server applications on Kubernetes on PCA or OPCC, enabling you to run these applications in cloud native infrastructure that is fully supported by Oracle, and that is portable across cloud environments. The document also highlights how applications deployed on Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud systems can be migrated to this infrastructure without application changes, enabling you to preserve your application investment as you adopt modern cloud native infrastructure.
Operator v3.4.4 is certified for use on PCA X9 with Kubernetes 1.24.5 and Istio 1.14.
There are three different approaches for deploying the operator to Microsoft Azure:
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is a hosted Kubernetes environment. The WebLogic Kubernetes Operator, Oracle WebLogic Server 12c, and Oracle Fusion Middleware Infrastructure 12c are fully supported and certified on Azure Kubernetes Service (as per the documents referenced in the Overview). In this environment, it is the customer’s responsibility to install the operator and supply WebLogic Server or Fusion Middleware Infrastructure images.
AKS support and limitations:
type=LoadBalancer.The WebLogic Server on AKS Azure Marketplace offer lets you embrace cloud computing by providing greater choice and flexibility for deploying your WLS domains and applications. The offer leverages the WebLogic Kubernetes Toolkit to automate the provisioning of WebLogic Server and Azure resources so that you can easily move WLS workloads to AKS. The automatically provisioned resources include an AKS cluster, the WebLogic Kubernetes Operator, WebLogic Server images, and the Azure Container Registry (ACR). It is possible to use an existing AKS cluster or ACR instance with the offer if desired. The offer also supports configuring load balancing with Azure App Gateway or the Azure Load Balancer, DNS configuration, SSL/TLS configuration, easing database connectivity, publishing metrics to Azure Monitor as well as mounting Azure Files as Kubernetes Persistent Volumes.
For details, see WebLogic Server on AKS Marketplace.
Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKG) is a managed Kubernetes Service that lets you quickly deploy and manage Kubernetes clusters. The WebLogic Kubernetes Operator and Oracle WebLogic Server are fully supported and certified on VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Multicloud 1.1.3 (with vSphere 6.7U3).
TKG support and limitations:
See also the Tanzu Kubernetes Grid sample.
OpenShift can be a cloud platform or can be deployed on premises.
To accommodate OpenShift security requirements:
kubernetesPlatform Helm chart property with value OpenShift. For more information, see Operator Helm configuration values.We have certified support for WebLogic Server domains, managed by the WebLogic Kubernetes Operator (operator), connecting to an Oracle Database, managed by the Oracle Database Operator for Kubernetes (OraOperator). For details on the supported WLS and database versions, see the following:
The certification includes support for both application data access and all WLS database-dependent features supported in Kubernetes. For more information, see WebLogic Server Certifications on Kubernetes in My Oracle Support Doc ID 2349228.1.
Included in the certification is support for the following topologies:
There are a number of development-focused distributions of Kubernetes, like kind, Minikube, Minishift, and so on. Often these run Kubernetes in a virtual machine on your development machine. We have found that these distributions present some extra challenges in areas like:
As such, we do not recommend using these distributions to run the operator or WebLogic Server. While we do not provide support for WebLogic Server or the operator running in production in these distributions, we do support some (such as, kind and Minikube) in a development or test environment.
We have found that Docker for Desktop does not seem to suffer the same limitations, and we do support that as a development or test option.
The WebLogic Kubernetes Operator and Oracle Linux are open source and free; WebLogic Server requires licenses in any environment. All WebLogic Server licenses are suitable for deploying WebLogic to containers and Kubernetes, including free single desktop Oracle Technology Network (OTN) developer licenses. See the following sections for more detailed information:
The WebLogic Kubernetes Operator (the “operator”) is open source and free, licensed under the Universal Permissive license (UPL), Version 1.0. For support details, see Get help.
WebLogic Server is not open source:
Licensing is required to run WebLogic Server instances in Kubernetes, just as with any deployment of WebLogic Server.
Licensing is free for a single developer desktop development environment when using an Oracle Technology Network (OTN) developer license.
For more information, see the Fusion Middleware Licensing Information User Manual - Application Server Products and the following sections.
Oracle Linux is under open source license and is completely free to download and use.
Note that WebLogic Server licenses that include support do not include customer entitlements for direct access to Oracle Linux support or Unbreakable Linux Network (to directly access the standalone Oracle Linux patches). The latest Oracle Linux patches are included with the latest WebLogic Server or Fusion Middleware Infrastructure Images.
Oracle support for Java is included with WebLogic Server licenses when Java is used for running WebLogic and Coherence servers or clients.
For more information, see the Fusion Middleware Licensing Information User Manual - Application Server Products.
Oracle provides two different types of WebLogic Server or Fusion Middleware (FMW) Infrastructure images:
Critical Patch Update (CPU) images: Images with the latest WebLogic Server (or Fusion Middleware Infrastructure) and Coherence PSU and other fixes released by the Critical Patch Update (CPU) program. CPU images are intended for production use.
General Availability (GA) WebLogic Server (or Fusion Middleware Infrastructure) images: Images which are not intended for production use and do not include WebLogic, Fusion Middleware Infrastructure, or Coherence PSUs.
All WebLogic Server and Fusion Middleware Infrastructure licenses, including free Oracle Technology Network (OTN) developer licenses, include access to the latest General Availability (GA) WebLogic Server or Fusion Middleware Infrastructure images which bundle Java SE.
Customers with access to WebLogic Server support additionally have:
(Customers with access to Fusion Middleware Infrastructure support have similar access to its CPU images, patches, and support.)
You can use the free and open source WebLogic Image Tool to create new or updated (patched) WebLogic or Fusion Middleware Infrastructure images. See My Oracle Support (MOS) Doc ID 2790123.1 for community and Oracle support policies for the WebLogic Kubernetes Toolkit.
See WebLogic images for information about obtaining WebLogic Server or Fusion Middleware Infrastructure images, developer and production licensing details, the different types of images, creating custom images, and patching images.
The latest Oracle Container Registry (OCR) GA images include the latest security patches for Oracle Linux and Java, and do not include the latest security patches for WebLogic Server. Oracle strongly recommends using images with the latest security patches, such as OCR Critical Patch Updates (CPU) images or custom generated images. See Ensure you are using recently patched images.