You will be sent URLs by users, consultants and support. Being able to read one tells you which environment, which account, which region, and which generation of platform you are looking at.
The OCI pattern, component by component. Instance name. Cloud account name. Service. Data centre region. Domain. Application context.
And the part to burn in. Test environments are distinguished by a suffix on the instance name. THIS IS HOW YOU TELL, AT A GLANCE, WHETHER SOMEBODY IS ABOUT TO DO SOMETHING TO PRODUCTION.
The classic pattern, and its components: instance name, identity domain, family, data centre region. Some customers remain on the predecessor platform, so you will meet both.
The application context. Legacy contexts still work; a unified context exists. Updating is optional. Know both, so you can read old bookmarks and old documentation.
Per-business-process variations for private client connections — flagged here, built in Module 10.
BEFORE YOU ACT ON ANY URL SOMEBODY SENDS YOU, READ IT AND CONFIRM WHICH ENVIRONMENT IT IS. Three seconds. It has prevented a great many bad afternoons, and it is the habit this module refers back to twice more.