Running forms in Oracle Cloud Service

Question

Since few years ago I have worked and extending a application build by Forms Builder 10g and running via Oracle Application Service 10g. The application can be launched as:

http://portal.dev:7778/forms/frmservlet?config=db

Now, we want to take a new step migrating our forms to the cloud an be accessed from anywhere. My first task was finding some resource into Oracle services, and I found Java Cloud Service - SaaS Extension:

1. This is the number of Oracle WebLogic Server Managed Server instances to which the applications are deployed (customer managed Java EE application container) Preconfigured Oracle WebLogic Server 12c or 11g cluster configured with Oracle Database Cloud Service
2. This is the amount of RAM allocated to the Java heap for all of the service's Managed Servers combined to run the Oracle WebLogic Server Managed Servers and the objects consumed by your application code

So, I decided to try the free month there. Successfully the account was created and I can navigate between all services listed there. But the real question is, which of all services there should I need to open? My first impression is to start with the "Java":

But I would like to take your advice, because I am not sure at all. Please, let me know if more details are needed.

Answer 1

Forms is a Middleware product in and of itself - not a user-developed J2EE application. http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/forms/overview/index.html is the best start page here. This means that to deploy to the cloud, you will need to deploy to a supported stack with the application server and forms runtime in place. That, in turn, most likely means that you would need to be running a custom VM at your cloud provider.

You mention as a reason access from anywhere. This is not a unique ability of the cloud. https://docs.oracle.com/middleware/12213/formsandreports/deploy-forms/using-oracle-forms-services-http-listener-and-oracle-weblogic-server.htm#FSDEP228 covers routing to forms via the HTTP Listener which you could locate in your own DMZ or in the cloud.