Using services in another region

If you have a service instance that is created and bound to apps in one region, you can use this service instance in another region by one of the following methods:

• Use the service credentials to configure your app instance directly. See Connecting services to external apps for details.
• Create a user-provided service as a bridge.

To use a service instance that exists in another region, complete the following steps:

1. To switch to the region where the service instance exists, click the Navigation menu icon > Resource list. Then, expand the LOCATION menu and select the region.

2. Retrieve the credentials and the connection parameters from the VCAP_SERVICES environment variable of the service instance in the region where the service exists. Complete the following steps:

   1. In the IBM Cloud Dashboard, click View all on your apps tile. The Overview page is displayed.
   2. In the navigation pane, click Credentials. The VCAP_SERVICES environment variable details are displayed. Record the JSON content for the service instance.

3. Switch to the region where you want to use the service instance. Click the Navigation menu icon > Resource list. Then, expand the LOCATION menu and select the region where you want to use the service instance.

4. Create a user-provided service instance by using the credentials and connection parameters that you recorded from the VCAP_SERVICES environment variable.

5. Bind the user-provided service instance to your app by using the following command:

   ibmcloud service bind myapp user-provided_service_instance