With the End of Life (EoL) for Oracle Content and Experience (CEC) set for December 31, 2025, organizations face a critical deadline. This guide outlines the strategic imperative for migration, emphasizes the urgency of data extraction, and details the technical steps required to transition to Oracle WebCenter Content (WCC) on OCI. This post is structured to serve as a blueprint for a migration project, covering analysis, preparation, execution, and operational transition.
1. The Strategic Imperative: Why You Should Migrate
The primary driver for this migration is the definitive lifecycle status of Oracle Content and Experience (CEC). Oracle has officially set the End of Life date to December 31, 2025.
Why action is required now:
- Service Termination: On this date, the cloud service will cease operations. Access to the user interface, APIs, and most importantly, the underlying data, will be revoked.
- Business Continuity: For organizations using CEC as a repository for critical business documents (e.g., invoices, contracts, project files linked to ERPs like JD Edwards), inaction will result in broken processes and data loss.
- Target Platform Maturity: Oracle positions WebCenter Content (WCC) on OCI Marketplace as the successor. It offers a robust, "customer-managed" PaaS solution that retains the enterprise features of CEC while allowing for deeper customization and integration control.
Fortunately, the latest versions of WebCenter Content provide quite nice end user experience as well:
File Browser of latest WebCenter Content version
PDF Viewer showing Document including Metadata
2. The Hard Deadline: Extraction Must Be Complete by 31.12.2025
It is crucial to understand that 31.12.2025 is not the "start date" for your project – it is the date by which the lights go out.
- Extraction Window: All data extraction activities must be completely finished before this date. If your migration project encounters delays and you are still exporting data on January 1, 2026, you will likely find the endpoints unresponsive.
- Volume Considerations: For repositories with many documents (for a recent Broadpin customer we had to handle roughly ~60,000 documents), export jobs take time. API rate limits, network bandwidth, and verification steps mean that extracting data is a longer process, not a last-minute task.
- Recommendation: Even though the documentation 2981930.1 suggests, “you will have 60 days from the termination of the Oracle Content Management Cloud Services to retrieve your data/content” I would recommend to complete the migration before the termination of the service (31.12.2025)
3. Detailed Migration Project Plan
The following sections detail the execution steps based on the official OCM to WCC Migration Guide.
1. Analysis of Current System and Creation of Detailed Concept
Before touching a server, a mapping exercise is required to translate CEC concepts to WCC concepts.
1.1. Analysis and Future Concept for Authentication and Authorization
- Identity Provider: CEC uses Oracle Identity Cloud Service (IDCS). WCC on OCI can also integrate with IDCS for authentication (SAML2).
- User Migration: You must ensure that the users and groups defined in IDCS for CEC are mapped to WCC Roles and Accounts. Note: Private/Public groups created by end-users in the CEC UI are not automatically reflected in IDCS. These must be manually re-created or scripted into the target identity store if they are needed for security in WCC.
- Authorization Model: CEC: Uses "Repository" membership (Manager, Contributor, Downloader). WCC: Uses "Security Groups," "Roles," and "Accounts." Concept: Map your CEC Repository roles to WCC Security Groups (e.g., a "Contributor" in CEC becomes a user with RW access to the specific Security Group in WCC).
1.2. Analysis of Folder Structure and Mapping to WCC
- Repositories to Security Groups: In CEC, content lives in Repositories. In WCC, the equivalent container for security and organization is the Security Group. You will map CEC Repository Name -> WCC Security Group.
- Asset Types to Content Types: CEC "Digital Asset Types" (e.g., "Invoice", "Contract") map to WCC Content Types.
- Metadata: Custom attributes in CEC (e.g., InvoiceNumber, VendorName) must be mapped to Custom Information Fields (Metadata) in WCC. Task: Create a spreadsheet mapping every CEC Asset Type attribute to a corresponding xFieldName in WCC.
2. Preparation of Target System
2.1. Adjustments in OCI Tenant
- Object Storage: WCC on Marketplace uses OCI Object Storage for file content.
- Buckets: You must provision OCI Storage Buckets for WCC.
- IAM Policies: Create specific IAM groups (e.g., WCCMigrationAdministrators) and policies to allow the WCC instance to read/write to these buckets. This is critical for the "Bulk Object Copy" tool used later.
2.2. Installation and Basic Setup of WebCenter Content
- Marketplace Provisioning: Deploy "WebCenter Content" from the OCI Marketplace.
- Patching: Ensure the instance is on the June 2024 Release (or later). This specific release includes "Large dID" support and the necessary migration tools/patches required for the OCM migration scripts.
- Database: Ensure the underlying Oracle Database is 12c or above and configured to support Extended Data Types (MAX_STRING_SIZE=EXTENDED) if you have long metadata fields.
2.3. Functional Setup of WCC
Configuration Manager: Create Security Groups matching your CEC Repositories (e.g., InvoiceRepository). Create Content Types matching your CEC Asset Types (e.g., Invoice). Create Custom Metadata Fields (e.g., xInvoiceNumber, xInvoiceDate). Ensure the data types (Date, Integer, Text) match the source. Tip: Set the "Memo Field Size" in WCC config to 32000 to handle large text fields from CEC.
3. Migration to Target System
3.1. Perform Data Migration for ~60,000 Documents
This is a 4-step technical process described in the guide:
- Export (Source): Use the CEC CSV Export REST API. Submit a job: POST /content/system/api/v1.1/exportJobs. Specify the repository (InvoiceRepository) and assetTypes. Output: This generates CSV files containing metadata and a SQL*Loader control file. It does not export the binary files (PDFs, etc.) directly; it exports pointers to their location in OCI Object Storage.
- Stage (Target): Download the sqlldr.ctl and staging_table.sql scripts generated by the export. Run the SQL script to create a staging table in the WCC Database (e.g., OCM_IMPORT_STAGE_...). Run SQL*Loader to load the CSV metadata into this staging table. Even some basic consolidation of the metadata from CEC is possible by simple PL/SQL on the staging tables in the process of the migration.
- Move Binaries: Use the WCC Bulk Object Copy Tool (wcc-object-copy.jar). This Java tool reads the staging table, finds the file location in the Source OCM Bucket, and copies it directly to the Target WCC Bucket. Benefit: Data moves cloud-to-cloud (backbone), not through your local laptop.
- Import (Target): Execute the PL/SQL procedure OCM_CSV_IMPORT.IMPORT_ASSETS (or IMPORT_FILES). Map the staging columns to WCC metadata (e.g., FieldMap => 'M_INVOICE_NUM:xInvoiceNum'). Result: WCC "Check-ins" are created. The system links the metadata to the binary files already sitting in the bucket.
3.2. Modification in JD Edwards (Link Updates)
- The Challenge: Your ERP (JD Edwards) likely links to documents using CEC URLs.
- The Solution (GUID Preservation): The migration process preserves the original GUID (Global Unique Identifier) of the file in the dDocName or specific metadata field in WCC.
- Action: Update the "Media Object" configuration or the specific database records in JDE. Old Pattern: https://<OCM_Instance>/documents/file/<GUID> New Pattern: https://<WCC_Instance>/cs/idcplg?IdcService=GET_FILE&dDocName=<GUID>&RevisionSelectionMethod=LatestReleased.
- Rendering: If JDE displayed the file inline, ensure the WCC URL returns the native file (PDF). The GET_FILE service handles this.
3.3. Replace File Upload from CEC to WCC
- Switching the "Pipe": The migration only moves historic data. You must stop the bleeding.
- New Integration: Deprecate the CEC API calls in your integration layer. Implement WCC RIDC (Remote Intradoc Client) or REST API calls. Logic: When JDE generates a new PDF: Call WCC CHECKIN_UNIVERSAL. Pass the file stream. Pass metadata (dDocTitle, dSecurityGroup, xInvoiceNumber). Receive the dDocName (Content ID) back. Store this dDocName in JDE for future retrieval.
4. Additional Tasks
4.1. Documentation of System Setup
Create a "Configuration Specification" document detailing the WCC Metadata model, Security Group logic, and the mapping table used during migration.
4.2. Creation of Operations Manual
Define procedures for: User Onboarding (IDCS + WCC Roles). Troubleshooting "Stuck" Conversions (Inbound Refinery). Managing Storage Buckets.
4.3. Setup of Monitoring, Backup, and Recovery
- Backup: Configure OCI Database Backup for the WCC schema and OCI Object Storage Lifecycle policies for the content buckets.
- Monitoring: Set up OCI Alarms to monitor the WCC Compute instance (CPU/Memory) and the Database. Use WCC logs to monitor for "Indexer" errors.
4.4. Testing Support
- Data Validation: Randomly sample 100 documents. Compare Metadata and File Integrity between CEC and WCC.
- Integration Test: Verify JDE links open the correct document in WCC. Verify new JDE uploads appear in WCC.
- Load Test: Ensure WCC response times meet user expectations.
4.5. Project Management
- Track the hard deadline (31.12.2025).
- Manage communication with business users (downtime for cutover).
- Coordinate between the Oracle Infrastructure team (OCI), the ERP team (JDE), and the Content team.
Summary
If you're still running Content and Experience Cloud it is very critical to find an alternative solution quickly. With the latest release of WebCenter Content a powerful alternative is available. As shown above, the migration is quite straightforward; especially the setup of WCC is surprisingly easy with the WCC on Cloud Marketplace solution. Reach out if you need any help!