OraNA :: Middleware and SOA

It's not you, it's me - Check the bugs log before going crazy

Peter O'Brien — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:25:17 PST

How many times have you been working on implementing, unsuccessfully, a feature in your application which relies on a framework, container, or some other indirection layer? You've studied the specifications, memorised the API and you're following the developers guide which are all telling you that what you are trying to implement is taken care of, but it still does not work!

While recently working on a really simple application feature using ADF data model validation I had just this experience. The feature just did not work and there was nothing in the logs to indicate what the problem was or that there was even a problem. Admittedly, I was using an internal development build, so it would not have been a fully tested version. I checked, and double checked everything, the documentation, searched through forums and blogs, trying to find out what I was doing wrong.

By the way, while searching I did come across an interesting blog about ADF bugs and workarounds. Steve Muench's Dive into ADF blog is probably the most comprehensive on ADF features though.

It turned out I wasn't doing anything wrong but I only found this out when a colleague suggested I check the bugs database. And there it was! The exact scenario I was trying to implement had a bug against it. What a relief, because I thought I was missing or skipping over something really obvious and fundamental and that's why it wasn't working for me. Better still, the defect was marked as closed so it will be available in the next internal developers build.

This got me thinking about all the documentation sources I had been to and how useful it would be to have a cross reference between the structured and unstructured text of developer guides, API, forums, blogs and bug databases. Isn't that what search engines are for?

New projects – OIF

Espen Barroso-Gomez — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:27:43 PST

Periods of silence shouldn’t last more than a few weeks..

Anyway, I’m busy planning aspects of a Oracle Identity Federation implementation, so that’s the current status. Further out, I’ll supply more details of how OIF is to work with, but if someone has specific OIF related questions, I’d be glad to try to help.

Version used in our project, by the way, will be 11.1.1.

InfoQ on the SOA Manifesto

PeterPaul — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:34:20 PST

In October 2009 I posted about the announcement of the SOA Manifesto during the SOA Symposium 2009. For those of you interested, InfoQ has interviewed the original author’s and in some cases pulled in their comments on the manifesto from the web to get insight into the motivations and the process behind the initiative. The answers are gathered under the name SOA Manifesto – 4 months after. The article looks into the following subjects:

The philosophy
The process
The goals

Find the complete article here.

upgrade 10.1.2.x to 10.1.2.3: Oracle Internet Directory Patch Configuration Assistant fails

Arjan Goos — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:58:56 PST

When I upgraded the infra 10.1.2.x to 10.1.2.3 I got an failed on Oracle Internet Directory Patch Configuration Assistant. I found out that in the $ORACLE_HOME/ldap/log/patchca.log there was an error:


Wed Mar 10 09:51:41 CET 2010OID PatchCA started..
Check if OID is configured.
oracle.sysman.assistants.util.NetAPIException: TNS-04404: no error
  caused by: oracle.net.config.ConfigException: TNS-04414: File error
  caused by: TNS-04612: Null RHS for "oaiinfra"
        at oracle.sysman.assistants.util.NetworkUtils.getNetServiceNameValue(NetworkUtils.java:2241)
        at oracle.ldap.oidinstall.OIDPatchCA.run(OIDPatchCA.java:255)
        at oracle.ldap.oidinstall.OIDPatchCA.main(OIDPatchCA.java:443)

After some investigation I found out that the tnsnames.ora was not correct. We changed this an now everything is working.

Did this post help you in any way can you please leave a comment? This will motivate me writing more posts.

New features in Oracle SOA Suite 11gR1 patchset 2

Eric Elzinga — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:22:13 PST

Clemens published a list of the new features coming up in the patchset 2 of SOA Suite 11gR1.

short overview

SOA Infra’s Spring C&I implementation (based on weblogic sca for java) becomes full production.
Full and complete support for BPEL 2.0
Reintroduction of “BPEL domains”, now to be called “partitions”
Enhancements to BPEL’s transactional behavior and audit-trail
Oracle Mediator, support for re-sequencing
XML / http – get and post support on binding level
Support for direct bindings
Full BPMN 2.0 support (as part of BPM 11g which runs on top of 11g PS2 SOA core), including design time and runtime

Check his blog for details on the new features!

SOA 11g PS2: Patch set 2, new features

Marc Kelderman SOA Blog — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 05:09:10 PST

Read this:

http://blogs.oracle.com/soabpm/2010/03/11gr1_patchset_2_111130_soa_fe.html

Summary:

Re-Introduction of BPEL domains, now called partitions
Spring Component Implementation
Full and complete BPEL 2.0
Improved audit trailing
Improved transaction handling
Support of Get/Post binding level
Full BPMN 2.0 support

Upcoming SOA Suite 11g PS2 features

PeterPaul — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:59:01 PST

Yesterday Clemens Utschig posted a list of SOA Suite 11gR1 Patchset 2 ~ 11.1.1.3.0 (SOA) features. He says it is a non-exhaustive list. It contains features like:

Full and complete support for BPEL 2.0 (designtime and runtime)
Reintroduction of “BPEL domains” – that are called Partitions because there are already WebLogic Domains
Enhancements to BPEL’s transactional behavior and audit-trail
Full BPMN 2.0 support – part of BPM 11g which runs on top of 11g PS2 SOA core

Update: for the Java developer

In an additional post the features for the Java developer were announced. These include:

Support for interface.java as a first class citizen next to interface.wsdl
Full support for Spring as component implementation
Support for EJB bindings (binding.ejb)
Invocation of a composite service

How-to: Oracle Service Bus 10gR3 - Oracle FMW B2B 11g interoperability

Tom Hofte — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 12:20:26 PST

In this posting I will describe how you can integrate Oracle B2B 11g and Oracle Service Bus 10gR3 to send messages to Oracle B2B 11g from an OSB 10gR3 service.

The most easy way to integrate Oracle B2B 11g and OSB 10gR3 is by using JMS. Oracle B2B 11g supports JMS as protocol for its internal inbound and outbound delivery channels out-of-the-box.To enable JMS set the Use JMS Queue as default property to true in the Administration -> Configuration tab in the Oracle B2B 11g management console in order to switch on the usage of the JMS queues B2B_IN_QUEUE and B2B_OUT_QUEUE.

I have reused the ebXML configuration that I have described in a previous blog posting in this example. In Oracle Workshop 10gR3 (shipped with OSB 10gR3) you now have to make a simple OSB service that accepts a message through a proxy service and enqueues the message on the B2B_OUT_QUEUE of Oracle B2B 11g using a business service. Below I will describe the details that require special attention while implementing the OSB 10gR3 service.

Business Service - JNDI string
The BS serves as a JMS wrapper for the B2B_OUT_QUEUE. Use the following JNDI string to locate the
ConnectionFactory and Destination:


    jms://(ofm b2b 11g host):(port)/jms.b2b.B2BQueueConnectionFactory/jms.b2b.B2B_OUT_QUEUE

Proxy Service - message flow
Oracle B2B 11g expects several user header properties in the JMS transport header to be set. A list of the required properties can be found here. You have to use the property names defined in the second column. To set the user header properties use the Transport Header action in the request lane of the Routing action (assumed you use a Routing action). Click on Add Header to add a new header property and select Other to define a custom header property. Add header properties for all listed properties in the table expect the last four in the table (at least I didn't set them)

Here's a screen shot of my OSB 10gR3 configuration:

After you have completed the message flow publish your configuration to the server and use the SB console test functionality to execute a test.

Anti-Principles

Steve Jones — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 03:15:49 PST

Okay so everyone knows what a principle is, its a core concept that you are going to measure things about. I've seen projects littered with the buggers.The problem is that there is another concept that is rarely listed, what are your anti-principles?In the same way as Anti-Patterns give you pointers when its all gone wrong then Anti-Principles are the things that you will actively aim to avoid

SOA still a hype?

Marc Kelderman SOA Blog — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 01:54:31 PST

Introduction

Some people are thinking dat Service Oriented Architecture is a hype while for others it's common sense. I often hear this comment from customers not from partners. I heard this signal at an Oracle Event "Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g: Weblogic or Wait".

As I work as consultant with this Oracle SOA technology for many years, for me this is common knowledge. As this is also the case by partners and colleagues, I assume this is also the case at the customer.

So is SOA a hype or not? How about technologies as complex Event Procesessing (CEP), Service Composed Architecture (SCA). It depends from which perspective you look at it. Every customer is different and unique. Depending on on the technology that the customer is using, the knowledge of the staff , the past experiences the SOA technology and the branch of the customer. Some of them will find it a hype, while for others it is obvious.

SOA is not a just walk in the park. Every one carries his own bag of experience. Starting with SOA technolgy will take through a learning curve. This curve is as follows:
At the beginning you will be dissapointed on on the new technology. You need to implement more steps for a simple action, for example an insert in a table. But during time and experience you will see the benefits; such as re-usability, business process flow implementation. What I see at most customers using the SOA technolgoy, they need to step out of the current view to the application and think in business process flow. Most users run monolithic applications, or silo apoplication, for many many years. The often result thar functional owners of these application are think in entities and screens. The business process flow is within their head and implemnented over different applications. This is were SOA comes in. It can/must/will/is able to take over the process control of this functional business flow.

So how do we implement a service oriented architecture successfully? There are three subjects to cover:

Organisation
People
Project

Organisation
The organisation must be ready for these type of projects. Therefore the organisation should execute a SOA assesment. In this assessment various parts of the organisation is measured on their maturity on SOA. This assessment show the current status to SOA and what steps to take to increase the maturity level.

People
The people should be trained, from technical point of view as well from functional point of view. Technical training can be done via the normal ways; Oracle University; hire consultants to train the technical people. The functional people should also be trained. They should now the new way of approaching this new implementation and usage of this architecture. The should be trained to think and describe in processes and business flows.

Project
In the beginning, start with a small project that is easy to implement and add values to the business. This project should create a win-win situation for every one. Because these type of projects is new, everyone should learn and benefit from it. Design and Implement this project with expiernced people. The are able to succeed in these kind of projects and they can guide and train the organisation.

Overview Java Web Frameworks

PeterPaul — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 03:14:52 PST

This week I came across a good overview of Java Web Frameworks:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mraible/4378559350/

The presentation (that will be given at TSSJS Las Vegas 2010) this time-line originates from, can be found here. The overview was created by Matt Raible of Raible Designs.

What is soa-infra?

It's Santy — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:08:10 PST

Well,This post is to explain very shortly about soa-infra.

Heard of it? It's an J2EE Compliant application and can be deployed over Weblogic Server.It's responsible for managing composites that you deploy and it manages composites life cycle.

Generally, during development phase, you deploy soa composite application designed in Oracle JDeveloper to soa-infra.using soa-infra application we should be able to monitor soa composite apps or individual composite instances.

Using Enterprise Manager(EM) one can configure soa-infra to it and monitor the states of composites that's being deployed.

Easing the skinning process

George Maggessy — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:41:12 PST

Skinning is not an easy thing, since there aren't many docs out there to help us with this process, let alone detailed ones. My Faces does a pretty good on documenting skinning, but it's almost impossible to cover every single different selector, pseudo-classes, and pseudo-elements.

However, there is a simple trick that helps us discover which selector we need to change to achieve our desired look and feel. Basically, we only need to add a parameter in the web.xml file:

<context-param>
<param-name>org.apache.myfaces.trinidad.DISABLE_CONTENT_COMPRESSION</param-name>
<param-value>true</param-value>
</context-param>

You can do the same thing on the Extending Spaces application. Noticed that we are changing the web.xml file under CustomWebCenterSpacesWAR project:

Once you've done the change, redeploy your app and with the help of our best friend, Firebug, let's check how the selectors' name look like now.

On the botom right panel you can see classes like .af_panelTabbed_tab, .af_panelTabbed_tab-content, and .af_panelTabbed_tab-text-link, which can be converted into jsf selectors using the following rule:

.adf becomes af| and _panelTabbed_ becomes panelTabbed::

Using this simple rule, classes like .af_panelTabbed_tab-text-link turn into af|panelTabbed::tab-text-link; the same way .af_navigationPane-buttons_link:hover becomes af|navigationPane-buttons::link:hover. All the attributes that can be applied to those selectors follow the CSS3 rules.

Create and Deploy a JAX-RS REST service on Google App Engine

Tug — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 05:33:16 PST

In this article you will learn how to create a REST service using JAX-RS reference implementation (Jersey) and deploy it on Google AppEngine.
Prerequisites
For this tutorial you will need:

a Google AppEngine account : http://code.google.com/appengine/
Eclipse Galileo (3.5.x)
Google App Engine SDK for Java

Install the Google Plugin for Eclipse as documented here
(Check that you are using the

Make Access Server debug log (oblog.log) more readable

Arjan Goos — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:21:18 PST

Cloud Computing

It's Santy — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:16:17 PST

There is lot of buzz going on with cloud computing.
In very basic terms cloud computing indicates - cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to shared pool of configurable resources such as networks,servers,storage or any kind of applications which can be provisioned to customers rapidly on need basis.

Cloud computing can be deliverd into different model depending on requirement.
It defines basically three models where industries are looking over.

1) Software as a Service(SaaS)
2) Platform as a Service(PaaS)
3) Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Here,to explain briefly

SaaS is basically about sharing an application to customers.But,Customer or end user will not be having access to operating system being used or any kind of hardware or network infrastructure on which it's running. Customer just uses the application.
Here, SaaS provider installs, manages and maintains the software. The provider does not necessarily own the physical infrastructure in which the software is running. Regardless, the consumer does not have access to the infrastructure; they can access only the application.

PaaS is basically about sharing a hosted environment to run their applications.But,Here customer can have control over application being used.
Here, PaaS provider manages the cloud infrastructure for the platform, typically a framework for a particular type of application. The consumer’s application cannot access the infrastructure underneath the platform.

IaaS is basically about sharing or providing infrastructure related resources such as storage,networking components or may be middleware too.Major difference here is customer can have control over Operating system, storage, deployed applications, network resources being used.
Here, IaaS provider maintains the storage, database, message queue or other middleware, or the hosting environment for virtual machines. The consumer uses that service as if it were a disk drive, database, message queue, or machine, but they cannot access the infrastructure that hosts it.

With all this,The most important concern is about security of cloud services. I am gonna discuss in great details on this with certain customer use cases.But,Finally to achieve cloud computing "Service Management" really plays a very important role.In addition to that, SLA's, Lifecycle management,Governance plays the key.

I am really not impressed with cloud computing as it's just term used as how IT trend is going on. you must have heard about IaaS long term ago ?

Oracle Certified SOA Architect.

It's Santy — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 04:39:29 PST

Welcome Techies.

I am happy to share that i am now certified as Oracle SOA Architect Expert. :-)

From hereon,I would be sharing many more intretesting and hot topics in IT world happenings..

IDS Scheer BPA tool leader

PeterPaul — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:17:50 PST

Magic Quadrant BPA tools 2010

Few days ago Gartner published it’s Magic Quadrant for Business Process Analysis tools. ARIS is one of the most comprehensive enterprise and BP architecture toolsets on the market, with strong support for a wide variety of standards, methods and frameworks.

IDS Scheer OEMed ARIS to both SAP and Oracle. Oracle and SAP use ARIS as the EA and BPA modeling tool. This will probably be continued even now that Software AG has acquired IDS Scheer. This acquisition can introduce a period of organization and product integration. Gartner suggests that customers monitor the situation.

ARIS Express

Earlier IDS Scheer has released ARIS Express, as free BPM software product to the market. Gartner sees the Express product as a lightweight BPA product for low maturity or occasional use. It can be used for commercial use and has an upgrade path to ARIS professional products. A great product for anyone starting on the BPM track.

VirtualBox: How to clone a virtual machine?

Tug — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 06:47:00 PST

During some testing I had to put in place a cluster on my network. So I create a first virtual machine. It is not possible to directly copy the Virtual Disk Image (*.vdi). VirtualBox saved in each disk image a UUID that is also store inside the virtual machine image. VirtualBox does not support two images with the same number. So to clone the an image you need to use the VBoxManage clonehd

Oracle SOA Governance 11g release?

PeterPaul — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 05:01:42 PST

Recently, in a press release, Oracle introduced Oracle SOA Governance. This component of Fusion Middleware consist of the following components:

Oracle Enterprise Repository – OER
Oracle Service Registry
SOA Management with Oracle Enterprise Manager (SOA Management Pack)
Web Service Manager

According to the press release it is already fully integrated with Oracle Amberpoint:

Oracle SOA Goverance 11g is fully integrated with Oracle AmberPoint, a leader in Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) Management. The new solution provides organizations more continuity of closed-loop governance processes across both Oracle and third party applications.

Besides that it is not clear to me what is new. The latest version of the Enterprise Repository was release a month ago. Any ideas? Please leave them in the comments.