Importance of Tagging

Using the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) tagging system, you can tag resources per your organizational scheme allowing you to group resources, manage costs, and give insights into usage. Tags also help you build a governance model around security and Maximum Availability Architecture (MAA). As your organization expands its cloud footprint, it can become challenging to keep track of the deployment architectures, security best practices, MAA, application tier, and so on. Using metadata tags to identify workload attributes can help keep up with the security and availability of your tenancy without cost overruns.

To enable customers to manage OCI resources securely and cost-effectively, Oracle provides a set of pre-defined tags in line with best practices for tagging resources. These tags are grouped into two namespaces, the oracleStandard namespace, and the OracleApplicationName namespace. You can think of a tag namespace as a container for your tag keys.

Consider a scenario where your organization has multiple cloud resources such as Exadata Infrastructure, VM Cluster, DB Home, Oracle Database, Autonomous Exadata VM Cluster, Autonomous Container Database, Autonomous Database, and VM Cluster Networks across multiple compartments in your tenancy. across multiple compartments in your tenancy. Suppose you wish to track these cloud resources for specific purposes, report on them, or take bulk actions. In that case, you will need a system that lets you group these resources based on different criteria such as environment, criticality, target users, application, etc. You can achieve this by applying appropriate tags to these resources.

For example, you may tag all resources in your development stack with Oracle-Standard.Environment=Dev or for a business-critical application stack set Oracle-Standard.Criticality=High or Extreme. In the event of service disruptions due to various reasons, you would then be able to quickly identify all OCI resources associated with an application or business function or be able to separate critical and non-critical workloads.

Tagging can also help you deploy optimized configurations based on workload attributes identified via tags. For example, database deployments for the PeopleSoft application require a specific configuration. Setting the ApplicationName and AppMajorVersion tags while deploying an Oracle Database or an Oracle Autonomous Database can ensure that the database is configured and ready for the particular application, for example, PeopleSoft out of the box.

Moreover, integration with the Cloud Advisor OCI service can provide you with direct, deep insight into how well your cloud services adhere to the corporate guidelines and help your management govern with a vision. See Cloud Advisor Overview for more details.

Adding Tags

You can tag resources using the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) console, command-line interface, or SDK.

There are many cloud resources that can be tagged in an Oracle Exadata Database Service on Cloud@Customer deployment. Exadata Infrastructure, VM Cluster, DB Home, Oracle Database, Autonomous Exadata VM Cluster, Autonomous Container Database, Autonomous Database, and VM Cluster Networks are some of them. Tags can either be applied while creating the resources or modified later. For example, you can apply tags to an Autonomous Container Database (ACD) while provisioning the ACD or add them later from its Details page.

See How Tagging Works for more details on using tags. Tagging integrates with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure authorization system. You can use IAM policy controls to enable delegation or restriction of tag manipulation. See Authentication and Authorization to learn about the permissions required to work with defined and free-form tags. (Required) Enter introductory text here, including the definition and purpose of the concept.

Your tenancies come with a library of standard tags that would apply to most resources. These tags are currently available as a set of Tag Namespaces that your governance administrators can deploy. OCI best practices recommend applying these tags to all resources a standard tag can be applied to. Besides reporting and governance, OCI service automation can deliver workload-specific optimizations based on standard tag values.

For example, database deployments for the PeopleSoft application require a specific configuration. By setting the appropriate application tag key in the Oracle-ApplicationName tag namespace while deploying an Autonomous Database, can ensure that the database is configured ready for the particular application, for example, PeopleSoft out of the box.

Figure 4-1 Tagging Example

Oracle Standard Tags

Your tenancy governance administrators can deploy the standard tags at the tenancy level and may also mark certain tags as required, thereby enforcing tags on resources in those compartments. The following are the standard tags defined in the namespace called OracleStandard. For more information about importing standard tags, see To import standard tags under the Managing Tag Namespaces section.

List of Compliance Regulations

Oracle Application Name Tags