[Update] Create architectural diagrams for Oracle Cloud by adapting the official reference architectures

My original article about creating architectural diagrams with draw.io for Oracle Cloud is (according to Google Search Console) the most popular article on this blog.

However, I felt the need to provide an update to this article, since there is a new (and in most cases better) way to get started creating diagrams and architectures for Oracle Cloud.

Note: Alternatively, you can also check out the draw.io starter template for Oracle Cloud that I have created.

Get started with Oracle Architecture Center

In case you didn’t know, Oracle Architecture Center is a site where Oracle publishes reference architectures, solution playbooks (customer best practices) and Terraform automation scripts. The architectures published there are made using draw.io and recently Oracle has started to publish the draw.io source files for download.

For example: This is the reference architecture for deploying microservices to a Kubernetes cluster.

Use reference architectures as a starting point for creating new diagrams with draw.io

To create an architectural diagram for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, head to Oracle Architecture Center and find a reference architecture similar to what you want to design. Here are a few examples:

• Deploy a PostgreSQL database: Good starting point for any architecture using multiple availability domains.
• Deploy microservices to a Kubernetes cluster: Use this diagram for small and simple deployments.
• Build a geospatial platform on Oracle Autonomous Database: Use this diagram as a starting point to model data movement in cloud environments, data warehousing and integration use cases.

Download the draw.io source files using the download button below the diagram.

Note: Not all reference architectures have a download button. However, newly published reference architectures do have a download option.

Adapting the reference architecture to your needs with draw.io

After downloading the ZIP file, unzip the folder and you will find a .drawio file. You can use this .drawio file as a starting point to create you diagram. You will need to download the draw.io app or alternatively head over to draw.io to edit in your web browser.

I have also created a detailed article on how to use draw.io to create diagrams for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. That article outlines how to import an icon library into draw.io and how to use some advanced draw.io features such as layers.

Update: You can now find official graphics for designing topologies and diagrams for OCI in the Oracle Cloud documentation.