SOA and Java using Oracle technology

OSB 11g - JCA polling adapter: StuckThread trace in the server log

2010-06-13T18:30:00.006-01:00

I recently had to configure in OSB 11g the JCA AQ adapter to poll for new messages on an AQ inbound queue. This is quite easy using this tutorial.

However after I had configured the adapter and run some successful tests I saw the following stack trace in the server log after a period:


    <[STUCK] ExecuteThread: '0' for queue: 'weblogic.kernel.Default (self-tuning)' has been busy for "600" seconds working on the request "weblogic.work.SelfTuningWorkManagerImpl$WorkAdapterImpl@4b936059", which is more than the configured time (StuckThreadMaxTime) of "600" seconds. Stack trace:
        java.net.SocketInputStream.socketRead0(Native Method)
        java.net.SocketInputStream.read(SocketInputStream.java:129)
        oracle.net.nt.MetricsEnabledInputStream.read(TcpNTAdapter.java:564)
        oracle.net.ns.Packet.receive(Packet.java:295)
        oracle.net.ns.DataPacket.receive(DataPacket.java:94)
        oracle.net.ns.NetInputStream.getNextPacket(NetInputStream.java:176)
        oracle.net.ns.NetInputStream.read(NetInputStream.java:121)
        oracle.net.ns.NetInputStream.read(NetInputStream.java:96)
        oracle.net.ns.NetInputStream.read(NetInputStream.java:81)
        oracle.jdbc.driver.T4CSocketInputStreamWrapper.readNextPacket(T4CSocketInputStreamWrapper.java:124)
        oracle.jdbc.driver.T4CSocketInputStreamWrapper.read(T4CSocketInputStreamWrapper.java:80)
        oracle.jdbc.driver.T4CMAREngine.unmarshalUB1(T4CMAREngine.java:1087)
        oracle.jdbc.driver.T4CMAREngine.unmarshalSB1(T4CMAREngine.java:1062)
        oracle.jdbc.driver.T4Caqdq.receive(T4Caqdq.java:338)
        oracle.jdbc.driver.T4CConnection.doDequeue(T4CConnection.java:4067)
        oracle.jdbc.driver.PhysicalConnection.dequeue(PhysicalConnection.java:16057)
        oracle.jdbc.driver.PhysicalConnection.dequeue(PhysicalConnection.java:16138)
        oracle.jdbc.OracleConnectionWrapper.dequeue(OracleConnectionWrapper.java:1594)
        weblogic.jdbc.wrapper.XAConnection_oracle_jdbc_driver_LogicalConnection.dequeue(Unknown Source)
        weblogic.jdbc.wrapper.JTAConnection_weblogic_jdbc_wrapper_XAConnection_oracle_jdbc_driver_LogicalConnection.dequeue(Unknown Source)
        oracle.tip.adapter.aq.v2.database.AbstractDequeueAgent.dequeue(AbstractDequeueAgent.java:356)
        oracle.tip.adapter.aq.v2.database.AbstractDequeueAgent.dequeueMessage(AbstractDequeueAgent.java:259)
        oracle.tip.adapter.aq.v2.database.AbstractDequeueAgent.getInputRecord(AbstractDequeueAgent.java:232)
        oracle.tip.adapter.aq.v2.database.AbstractDequeueAgent.run(AbstractDequeueAgent.java:101)
        weblogic.work.ContextWrap.run(ContextWrap.java:41)
        weblogic.work.SelfTuningWorkManagerImpl$WorkAdapterImpl.run(SelfTuningWorkManagerImpl.java:528)
        weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.execute(ExecuteThread.java:201)
        weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.run(ExecuteThread.java:173)

Apparently, this StuckThread trace occurs 10 minutes after the server has been started and is caused by the fact that WebLogic uses by default 1 polling thread which remains active, or in other words is never released by the adapter, by design. Therefore the stuck thread trace can be ignored.

Please look in the OSB JCA transport guide for a detailed explanation and the configuration steps that can be applied to prevent stuck thread traces for polling threads (use a special configured Workmanager)

Coherence in Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g: useful tips & links

2010-06-02T18:32:00.004-01:00

Since the release of Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g the integration of Coherence in the Fusion Middleware has increased drastically with every PatchSet release. Currently in FMW 11g PS2 Coherence is used for:

Cluster Deployment

Weblogic ActiveCache/Coherence*Web integration

OSB ResultCache

This posting will contain useful pointers to documentation section that can help you with managing and using Coherence in FMW 11g...the list is not complete but a first attempt to bundle the links I have used before and which were/are very helpful for me.
Coherence Network and performance tuning

Configuration tips fo local laptop configuration - Thanks Marc;

use the tangosol.coherence.ttl (time-to-live) to prevent network traffic to different hosts - useful when working locally on laptops.

use the tangosol.coherence.localhost to force Coherence to bind to a specific address

use the tangosol.coherence.wka to force unicast cluster communication. Determine the wka addresses and the number of wka addresses carefully to avoid loss of service in case the wka nodes die.

for the OSB the coherence cache and cluster configuration files can be found in /config/osb/coherence

When encountering Coherence socket buffer warnings in the log files it is useful to increase the socket buffer size of your OS. Please have a look here to find the settings per OS

Coherence performance tuning

In my opinion it is wise not to use the Managed server JVM for cache storage in case your cache will grow to a significant size. Configure the Managed Server JVM with local-storage false and off-load storage to other cache-servers in the Coherence cluster running in separate JVMs

Active Cache - Coherence*Web

Development guide

Coherence*Web

I will update this post when I have more useful information that can be shared. In case of Coherence related questions feel free to send me an email.

Book review: Oracle Coherence 3.5: Create internet scale applications using Oracle's high-performance data grid

2010-05-30T13:20:00.005-01:00

The IT book publisher PackT asked me, based on my blog activities here, a couple of weeks ago if I was willing to review the newly published book Coherence 3.5. Being a person who works with Coherence, follows the developments around Coherence and believes in the capabilities of Oracle Coherence for building reliable scalable architectures, I was definitely willing to review this book and to bundle my feedback in a blog posting afterwards.

The book starts with an overview of what scalability, performance and high availability means and (also important) what not, what it does involve, how you achieve it and how Coherence fits into this picture. After explaining the basic concepts of performance, scalability and availability the book proceeds with explaining how easy it is to start off with Oracle Coherence to build your first 'Hello World' Coherence application.

After this overviev the book starts with the 'real stuff'. First a detailed overview is given about the different type of caching topologies and the options Coherence provide to decide for the right caching strategy. The book also provides so called 'When to use it?' chapter per topology in which it explains for which typical applications the topolgy is applicable and should be used; very useful. The following chapter explains how you can define your domain objects and make them Coherence-aware. In this chapter it uses the concepts of Domain Driven Design as the basis to construct the domain model for a sample applications. For me personally, this chapter was an eye-opener regarding building domain models for Coherence. One thing you should keep in mind, which i had learned before, when you start using Coherence is that you should keep things very simple and don't treat Coherence as an in-memory relational database. only put those things in Coherence grid which should be in the cache and avoid to think like you're going to build a database relation model. For example, store whole aggregates (Order, order items) in a single cache entry for the sake of atomicity, consistency and simplicity. The chapter also provides information about efficient object serialization using Coherence Portable Object Format (POF) and object change managements using evolvable objects.

The book continues with covering the following topics that makes the book a complete Coherence
reference :

Querying the Grid

Entry processing

Event processing

Persistency

Coherence*Extend

C++ and .Net interoperability

My final conclusion about this book is that is an excellent book to start off with in order to make yourself familiar with implementing Coherence applications. The book is complete in terms of
'should-know' features and contains useful guidelines and best-practices.

The book can be ordered from here:
- PackT site
- Amazon site

How-to: Analyzing Out-Of-Memory issues in WebLogic 10.3.3 with JRockit 4.0 Flight Recorder

2010-05-07T18:46:00.024-01:00

Oracle WebLogic Server 10.3.3 provides out-of-the box support for JRockit Flight Recorder (JFR); the new enhanced run-time JVM analyzer in JRockit 4.0 positioned as the replacement for JRA with the following points of improvement Always on, Better data, third-party application integration through an API and low-to-zero overhead. JFR integrates seamlessly with WLS 10.3.3 to produce recording images on demand or event-based to analyze and solve all kinds of JVM issues.

In this blog posting, I show how to capture automatically an overall WLS system image, including a JFR image, after an out-of-memory (OOM) exception has occured in the JVM hosting WLS 10.3.3.

Setting up WLS Diagnostic framework
To enable event generation by WLS for JFR, the Weblogic Diagnostic Volume property has to be set to the value low, medium or high indicating the amount of recorded events. The
Diagnostic Volume can be set in the WLS Administration console -> Environment -> servers -> YourServer.

Now we have started event generation by WLS for JFR, we have to configure a WLS Diagnostic system module with a watch rule and a notification so that image capturing is triggered whenever an OOM error happens. The image capturing mechanism captures the WLS system state together with the JFR buffered event data and generates a zip file in containing the JFR file in the image folder. The image folder is specified in the WLS adminstation console -> Diagnostics -> Diagnostic images -> YourServer

Go in the WLS Administration console to WLS adminstation console -> Diagnostics -> Diagnostic modules and create a new diagnostic module. I have called it JRFDiagnosticeModule. Click on the created diagnostic module and target it to the designated server (tab Targets). Go back to configuration tab and click on the Watches and Notifications tab to create a watch rule and a notification with following specs:

Watch rule

Type = Server Log

Expression = (MESSAGE LIKE '%OutOfMemoryError%')

Use an automatic alarm so that the rule is re-enabled each time it is triggered after a defined period

Notification

Type = Diagnostic Image

Make sure everything is enabled and the notification is associated with the watch. Leave every other setting to their defaults.

This is all we have to do in WLS 10.3.3. Before we proceed with triggering a OOM with a sample application, we first start the JRockit Mission Control (JRMC) application to verify that the JFR recording has been started. Execute the jrmc file in the folder /bin folder to start JRMC. Open the JVM browser and right-click on the WLS jvm and select view reports. In the lower-right panel you'll see that one recording has been started:

Generate an OOM error
To generate an OOM I've created a simple web application constisting of a simple page with a button that triggers a servlet that will execute the following code-snippet to generate an OOM in WLS 10.3.3.


 List list = new ArrayList();

        while(true){

          list.add("test string");

Deploy the web application to the WLS server and trigger the OOM by pressing the button on the page. After a few seconds you'll see this in console logging:

The console logging shows that the watch rule has been triggered and a image capture has been generated in the folder /servers/AdminServer/logs/diagnostic_image. Unzip the file and open the JRockitFlightRecorder.jfr file in JRMC.

In the JRMC console you are now able to analyze the root cause of the problem. For this obvious OO example (you can also get the root cause from the console output..but the intention here is to show the capabilities of JFR in general), you can have a look at the allocation tab in the Memory panel to drill down to class that causes the String object creation (It's just an example and the JFR contains a lot more information about Threads/CPU utilization and GC executions for example):

Also the Hot Method tab in the Code panel shows the servlet doPost method as a top listed hot method:

This simple and obvious example shows how easy it is to let WLS diagnostic framework continuously produce monitoring data for JFR that can be dumped to a JFR image when required, e.g. in case of OOM exception or other events. The default WLS diagnostic framework can be configured to collect a specific amount of events by using the coarse-grained Diagnostic Volume property. If you want extra events to JFR image you can start extra Recording by using the JRMC or using the command line. Also it is possible to use Java startup parameter -XX:+|-FlightRecordingDumpOnUnhandledException to trigger a JFR dump after a unhandled exception in the JVM.

Documentation:

How-to: Building REST/JSON services with OSB 11g and JAX-RS

2010-05-06T17:51:00.012-01:00

Last couple of weeks, I have read a lot of blog postings about REST services in combination with the Oracle Service Bus (like this posting). I've even made a first attempt to write a posting about this subject, but I got really constructive comments in return on that posting that I decided to write a complete new one. Thanks for the comments :)

I decided to play around with REST and OSB myself and choosed for JAX-RS (Jersey) as the Java technology to build my REST service and the brand new OSB 11g release for proxing this REST service. In this posting, I will show you how easy it is to build a REST/JSON service with the feature rich and highly flexible JAX-RS standard, deploy it to WebLogic 10.3.3 and proxy it with an OSB 11g service.

REST service in JAX-RS
Required libraries (can be downloaded from here):

jersey-bundle-1.1.5.1.jar

jsr113-api-1.1.jar

asm-3.1.jar

I build in JDeveloper a very simple REST product service with a single method to find a product by its id. The REST method returns a JSON representation of the product.

First you have to create a new web application project in JDeveloper, because the JAX-RS product service is deployed as a web application to the WebLogic Server. In the web.xml file the following things has to be specified:

the JAX-RS servlet which will handle all requests and forward them to the appropriate REST Service class.

The context path to access the servlet

The mime type application/json

The web.xml has the following content:



         xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd"  
         version="2.5" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee">  
    web.xml for 
      
        10  
      
      
        html  
        text/html  
      
      
        json  
        application/json  
          
      
        txt  
        text/plain  
      
      
        JAX-RS Servlet  
        jersey-servlet  
        com.sun.jersey.spi.container.servlet.ServletContainer
          
             com.sun.jersey.config.property.resourceConfigClass  
             com.sun.jersey.api.core.PackagesResourceConfig  
           
           
             com.sun.jersey.config.property.packages  
             nl.oracle.com.fmw.rest;nl.oracle.com.fmw.rest.model  
                 
      
      
        jersey-servlet  
        /*

Now the web.xml file is in place, two Java classes have to be implemented:

ProductResource

Product

The ProductResource class will contain the method to find a product by its id:


package nl.oracle.com.fmw.rest;

import javax.ws.rs.GET;
import javax.ws.rs.Path;
import javax.ws.rs.PathParam;
import javax.ws.rs.Produces;

import nl.oracle.com.fmw.rest.model.Product;

@Path("/products")
public class ProductResource {

@GET 
@Path("{id}")
@Produces("application/json")
public Product getProductById(@PathParam("id") int id){  
     //Return a simple new product with the provided id 
     return new Product(id, "DummyProduct");
    }
}

The code listing above shows that that getProductById method is only accessible through the HTTP GET method. Also the use of the @Path annotation on the class and method level makes it possible to set a specific relative-uri with which the service can be accessed. The {id} serves as a placeholder for the product id and can be accessed through @PathParam annotation

The Product class is shown in the following code listing and uses the JAXB XmlRootElement binding annotation to automatically map the class structure to a JSON structure. Isn't that cool :). More JSON serialization and deserialization options in JAX-RS can be found here


package nl.oracle.com.fmw.rest.model;

import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlRootElement;

@XmlRootElement
public class Product {
    
    private int id;
    private String name;
    
    public Product(){
        
    }
    
    public Product(int id, String name) {
      this.id=id;
      this.name=name;
    }

    public void setId(int id) {
        this.id = id;
    }

    public int getId() {
        return id;
    }

    public void setName(String name) {
        this.name = name;
    }

    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }
}

Coding is completed and it should be clear now that the use of annotations makes it very easy and flexible to create REST services with JAX-RS. Create a WAR deployment descriptor and make sure you add the jersey libraries to the WAR file and set the JEE web context root to services. Finally, deploy the WAR file to the WebLogic 10.3.3 server. I target the application to the osb_server1 managed server, which hosts my OSB 11g installation.

After deployment you can test the REST service using this URL where I use 1 as the id:

http://localhost:port/services/products/1

OSB 11g proxy
I used the brand new OSB 11g installation for creating a proxy service for my REST service.

The implementation is fairly simple and straight forward and follows more or less the same steps used in this excellent posting:

Business Service
The business service invokes the REST product service. Make sure you use the messaging service type with the HTTP transport protocol. Also set the HTTP method to GET.

Proxy Service
Create a proxy service in Eclipse and use the messaging service type with the HTTP transport protocol. I used request type none and Response type text. In the message flow I added a routing action to invoke the business service.
I need to mention two important things about the my Proxy service implementation

Set the endpoint /osb-services/products. This enables you to add anything to this context path, for example /{id}. This makes it also possible to use the OSB service as a proxy for different types of REST calls (make sure you can switch between HTTP methods in the message flow) to the same product service

Use the transport request element from the $inbound variable to append the relative path after /osb-services/products to the REST service endpoint. I've used an insert operation for this:

Deploy the OSB service to the OSB 11g server and use the test console to test the service. Make sure you set the relative-uri attribute in the test console transport panel:

The $body element in the response message should look like this:

The OSB service just passes the JSON response forward to the client. It is fairly simple to convert the JSON output to XML and vice versa using JSON lib in a Java service callout. How to do this is described in this posting.

Also the JSON structure returned by the product service is very simple. In most cases you have to do more work with JAX-RS in order to construct the required JSON structure. The JAX-RS libraries contain options for configuring JSON

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

2010-03-07T18:18:00.012-01:00

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.

How-to: Archiving Oracle FMW B2B 11g run-time data using data pumps

2010-02-17T18:42:00.005-01:00

In Oracle Fusion Middleware B2B 11g enhanced procedures are introduced to archive and/or purge the B2B 11g run-time data.

The procedures that take care of archiving/purging live in the SOAINFRA database schema of your FMW 11g database repository:

B2B_ARCHIVE_PROCEDURE
B2B_EXPORT_JOB

The B2B_EXPORT_JOB procedure does the actual archiving and is invoked from the B2B_ARCHIVE_PROCEDURE procedure. The B2B_EXPORT_JOB procedure uses a data pump to archive the run-time data to a file on the file system.

To make use of data pumps, you first have to grant SOAINFRA with DIRECTORY object privileges in order to allow SOAINFRA to create a DIRECTORY object that points to the location on the file system in which the data pump will write the archive file (the name of the DIRECTORY object should be B2B_EXPORT_DIR):

-- I tested it on my development installation using XE, hence the 'dev' prefix
GRANT create any directory TO dev_soainfra;
GRANT drop any directory TO dev_soainfra;

after granting the right priviliges you can create the directory object with:

create or replace directory "B2B_EXPORT_DIR" as '(absolute patch to the location on the file system)'

The following script will archive and purge all the run-time data for completed messages from 19-02-2009 until 19-02-2010 and will archive the data in the file called 'b2b_runtime_export.dat':

begin
b2b_archive_procedure(to_date('19-02-2009', 'dd-mm-yyyy'),to_date('19-02-2010', 'dd-mm-yyyy'),'MSG_COMPLETE','b2b_runtime_export.dat','Y');
end;

The standard archiving script provided by Oracle FMW B2B 11g can easily be extended to fit your specific needs or to be merged into existing archiving procedures.

References:
- Oracle FMW 11g documentation

Book review: Middleware Management with Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control 10g R5

2010-01-25T19:51:00.004-01:00

In December last year the publisher of IT books Packt Publishing contacted me to ask me if I was willing to read their newly released book about Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control:

Middleware Management with Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control 10g R5

They've selected me based on the contents of my blog.

The book is well structured and written in a clear language. The book starts with explaining the main features of Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control and how they address common administration tasks and make the life of a system administrator easier. The book continues with defining and describing the main components of Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control and how they work together to enable Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Controll to fulfill its tasks. In the subsequent chapters the book covers the main Oracle middleware components and explains how they can be managed with Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control. The following components caught my specific attention:

Oracle BPEL Process Managers
Oracle Service Bus
Oracle Weblogic Server
Oracle Coherence

Each chapter contains detailed information about how to configure and use specific Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control features, like notification management, automatic provisioning and managing configuration inconsistencies. Additionaly the book cover topics like CAMM, AD4J and how to write your own monitoring plug-in.The book concludes with a best practice chapter.

To be honest, system administration is not my main focus area. I'm more on the software development side..Therefore my main intention to read this book (Oh..I agreed to review this book..) was to learn more about the concepts, capabilities and benefits of using Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control to manage the Middleware layer to broaden my view on middleware management (the area in which I mainly develop software). After reading the book, I can only conclude that this book really has helped me to understand the the true capabilities and benefits of Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control and how it can be used to manage Oracle Middleware components. This book is really a good starting point for everyone who wants to learn more about Middleware Management with Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control

You can find more info about the book and how to order it on the book's homepage

How to: OSB - FMW SCA 11g interoperability supporting transaction propagation

2010-01-13T16:07:00.002-01:00

Currently, the BPEL transport in OSB is not supporting FMW 11g. However, I just found a way, although it still is proven in theory based on my knowledge, to enable transaction propagation between OSB and FMW 11g SCA composites. The basic idea is that you have to communicate between OSB and FMW 11g SCA composites using the SDO - EJB binding in 11g. The t3 protocol used as the communication protocol between the ejb client and the SCA (soa_infra) engine should take care of the transaction context propagation.

This should do the trick until OSB gets native support for FMW 11g interoperability. One disclaimer; I still have to prove my theory by running a test, but I am quite sure that it will work so therefore I shared it already here. I also still have to elaborate on which MEPs could be supported with this solution, so any thoughts are welcome.

Oracle FMW B2B 11g: How to collect HTTP header info from inbound messages using Java Callouts

2010-01-10T10:13:00.005-01:00

In Oracle FMW B2B 11g the Java callout functionality makes it possible to add Java hooks to an inbound or oubound message flow. Callouts van be written and configured per agreement or per delivery channel (transport callouts). More info about managing callouts can be found here

In this blog posting, I will show how you how an agreement callout can be used to collect HTTP headers from an inbound message, which is received by the default B2B transportServlet. I use an agreement callout because it is not possible to define a transport callout for an inbound http host channel.

The callout implementation is rather simple:

package nl.oracle.com.b2bcallout;

import oracle.tip.b2b.callout.Callout;
import oracle.tip.b2b.callout.CalloutContext;
import oracle.tip.b2b.callout.CalloutMessage;
import oracle.tip.b2b.callout.exception.CalloutDomainException;
import oracle.tip.b2b.callout.exception.CalloutSystemException;


public class HttpHeaderAgrCallout implements Callout {

    public void execute(CalloutContext arg0, List input,
                        List output) throws CalloutDomainException,
                                            CalloutSystemException {
        try {
            CalloutMessage cm1 = (CalloutMessage)input.get(0);
            
            
            System.out.println("parameters - "+cm1.getParameters().toString());
            
            CalloutMessage cmOut = null;
            String msg = cm1.getBodyAsString();

            String headerStr = cm1.getParameters().toString();
            System.out.println("Print transport header ::");
            System.out.println(headerStr);
            

            cmOut = new CalloutMessage(msg);
            output.add(cmOut);

        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

    }

}

The getParameters() methods returns all the HTTP transport header attributes in a Properties object.

Compile the callout code and deploy it to a jar file. The jar file has to be copied a location that can be accessed by the B2B server (or all B2B nodes if you have a clustered environment). Have a look at the B2B callout documentation to find out how you configure the callout with your inbound agreement.

It is wise to put Agr or Transport in the callout name to make a clear distinction between the types of callouts as they appear together in the callout selection drop down list in the B2B management console.

So why do you need this anyway..well for example to extract a specific HTTP header attribute that is, for example, set by the front-end HTTP Server and enrich the message with it.

Some Tips on Oracle FMW 11g Clustering: deployment and configuration

2009-12-18T18:27:00.007-01:00

In this blog-posting, I share some first tips on Oracle FMW 11g (11.1.1.2/PS1) cluster-wide deployment and cluster configuration based on my first experiences with setting up such an environment.

Most tips come from these two documents:
- Enterprise Deployment Guide for Oracle SOA Suite
- Oracle FMW 11g High-Availability Guide

Cluster-wide deployment tips

More info on SCA deployment with Ant can be found through my previous posting
Deploy a composite to a specific node of the cluster: the deployment coordinator in the Oracle FMW 11g cluster infrastucture will take care of the correct propagation to all the other nodes or rollback in case of a failure on a specific node. For more info on this have a look here.
Set up Oracle Coherence for unicast communication during cluster-wide deployments. Have a look here for more details.

Configuration tips

Make sure you set the value of the serverURL and the callbackServerURL to the front-end SOA cluster location. In most cases this will be the endpint of the front-end loadbalancer. If you have set the SOA Cluster Front-End URL in the Oracle Weblogic Server Administration Console (location: Clusters -> ) its value will be used for the serverURL and callbackServerURL.
Note: For unclear reasons, I solved cluster-wide deployment problems by setting the server- and callbackServerURL.
You can apply configuration changes to any specific node in the Oracle FMW 11g SOA cluster. Oracle WebLogic Clusters takes care of automatic configuration synchronization across all the nodes of the cluster.

I hope to share more tips here in the near future.

Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g purge scripts available on Oracle Metalink

2009-12-07T18:52:00.008-01:00

On Oracle Metalink there is now a Note available that describes the usage of the FMW 11g purge scripts. Note 815896.1 contains all the details.

An OPatch patch 8328187 is available for download that contains all the scripts that are required to create the purging functionality in the SOA_INFRA schema

How to set-up a common Ant project for using the Oracle FMW 11g B2B Ant tasks

2009-12-07T17:03:00.021-01:00

Inspired by this great blog posting about how to use the FMW Ant tasks to deploy a SOA composite, I started to use that example to set up my own Ant project for B2B management purposes.

In this blog-posting, I will give an example project that is capable of importing and exporting CPAs to and from Oracle FMW 11g B2B.

Setup the build project
In JDeveloper, create an empty project and name it fmw-build for example. Create the following *.properties

env.properties
dev.jndi.properties
dev.cpacpp.properties

Also, import the ant-b2b-util.xml and the ant-soa-common.xml files that are located in JDEV_HOME\bin folder.

The b2bmanagement.properties files contains all the enviroment specific properties and I used the following contents:


deployment.plan.environment=dev
  
#dev deployment server weblogic
dev.serverURL=http://localhost:8001
dev.overwrite=true
dev.user=weblogic
dev.password=welcome1
dev.forceDefault=true


# global
wn.bea.home=/home/tomhofte/oracle/fmw11gr2
oracle_home=${wn.bea.home}/Oracle_SOA1
java.passed.home=/home/tomhofte/java/jdk1.6.0_17
wl_home=${wn.bea.home}/wlserver_10.3

libs=/home/tomhofte/libs
path.to.antcontrib.lib=${libs}/ant-contrib/ant-contrib-1.0b3.jar


dev.JAVA_HOME=/home/tomhofte/java/jdk1.6.0_17
#Empty home is enough to let it work
dev.ANT_HOME=

The dev.jndi.properties file contains the jndi properties of my local development environment. I used the following contents:


java.naming.provider.url=t3://localhost:8001
java.naming.factory.initial=weblogic.jndi.WLInitialContextFactory
java.naming.security.principal=weblogic
java.naming.security.credentials=welcome1

The dev.cpacpp.properties contains the cpa/cpp import/export properties for my local development environment. Please have a look here for more information about this part. Please note that for importing exporting a CPA you first have to export the design repository and specify the resulting zip file as the input for the CPA/CPP export utility. The contents I used are:


# CPP/A Output files
oracle.tip.b2b.ebms.OutputFolder=b2b-tmp/output/

# Oracle B2B Metadata File in case of CPA Export
oracle.tip.b2b.ebms.Document=b2b-tmp/output/Paris.zip

# ebXML CPA File incase of CPA Import
#oracle.tip.b2b.ebms.Document=/tmp/input/cpa-example-2_0.xml


# Host Name
oracle.tip.b2b.ebms.Host=Berlin
# Host endPoint Details
oracle.tip.b2b.ebms.HostEndPoint=http://localhost:8001/b2b/transportServlet
# Host Certificate Alias
oracle.tip.b2b.ebms.HostCertificateAlias=Berlin
# Trading Partner Certificate Alias
oracle.tip.b2b.ebms.TPCertificateAlias=Paris
# BPSS Export
oracle.tip.b2b.ebms.BPSSExport=false

#Log config
oracle.tip.b2b.ebms.LogFolder=b2b-tmp/output/log/
# DEBUG|INFO|ERROR
oracle.tip.b2b.ebms.LogLevel=DEBUG
# text|xml
oracle.tip.b2b.ebms.LogType=text

Now that all required property files are in place, I use an Ant wrapper script to call the tasks in the ant-b2b-util.xml file and provide the necessary properties. Just as is done in this posting. Here are the contents of my b2b-management.xml file:

(Note: for layout purposes I had to use explicit XML end tags..:()

Note: In the ant-b2b-util.xml I had to replace the oracle.home property with a oracle_home named property to be able to use my own oracle home property. At least, this is the case when I execute the script from JDeveloper 11g. Apparently, the oracle.home property file is predefined by JDeveloper, because I get an "Override ignored" message.. I think it won't matter when you execute the script from the command line..

More info about the usage of the tasks defined in the ant-b2b-util.xml can be found here:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E15523_01/integration.1111/e10229/scrpt_imp_exp_dep.htm#CEGBDIDB

How to change BPEL 11g preference values during deployment time

2009-11-25T20:23:00.006-01:00

How you can set BPEL preferences in 11g during design time in JDeveloper and run-time in the EM console is described here (for the latter look in the comments for a reference).

Sometimes it is useful to change the preference values during deployment time, because preferences hold environment specific values. Actually, this is pretty easy by using composite deployment configuration plan(s). One for each target environment.

Right-click on the composite file and generate a deployment configuration plan for your composite. When you open the file, you will find a search/replace construction for the preference.



someValue

Now change the value to the environment specific value, save the config plan and use the config plan during deployment to a specifc environment.

Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g end-to-end tracking using the ECID

2009-11-23T19:24:00.009-01:00

In a previous posting I described how you could use composite sensors to enable end-to-end tracking for messages that move through the Oracle Fusion Middleware SCA engine and the B2B engine.

Today, I discovered that you can also use ECID for end-to-end tracking. The B2B application message contains all the tracking properties that are originated from the SCA composite that submitted the message to the B2B engine. With the B2B Report console you are able to search for messages using the ECID. To enable searching on ECID, you have to add the ECID search field to the search panel (use the Add fields button ):

So, the ECID also enables end-to-end message tracking in Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g when message move through the B2B engine. This time completely out-of-the-box.

UPDATE 25-11-2O09: The application message holds the fabric data for in and outbound message from the SCA FMW11g fabric [OLD Disclaimer: I only tested it for outbound communication using the native B2B adapter. Still have to test it for inbound communication and AQ and JMS interfacing with the B2B engine.]

How to configure an ebXML communication in Oracle Fusion Middleware B2B 11g

2009-11-23T18:00:00.015-01:00

Oracle Fusion Middleware (OFM) B2B 11g supports many business document and messaging standards. ebXML (Electronic Business using Extensible Markup Language is a B2B messaging standard that is also supported by OFM B2B 11g. Shortly described ebXML enables XML messaging over the Electronic Business messaging Service (basically a SOAP extension), abbreviated as ebMS.

This posting describes how to set-up ebXML messaging using two local OFM B2B 11g (PS1) domains. For simplicity, I will extend my previous B2B example.

Please refer to my previous postings for more info about specific B2B 11g configuration concepts:

- http://tomhofte.blogspot.com/2009/10/how-to-set-up-xml-document-exchange.html

- http://tomhofte.blogspot.com/2009/10/easy-binding-of-oracle-fusion.html

Note
You have to configure both Paris and Berlin. Both configurations are mirrored. Normally, you would use the CPA/CPP import functionality of OFM B2B 11g for this. Unfortunately, I don't have a CPA availabe for this simple demo.

Trading Partners
Configure the hosts and TP in both B2B installations:

Paris (receiving role)
Berlin (sending role)

(Just use all the defaults, including the TP identification type 'Name')

Configure the document
An ebXML document is defined as a Custom document protocol in OFM B2B 11g. For simplicity, I have used my previous Order document example. I only have to change the document type and definition to resp. configure the ebMS specific properties

Action
Service
ServiceType
From role
To role

and to configure the inbound document identification. I used the XPATH Identification Expression for identifying inbound documents. Also specify a document routing id in the routing tab (I used Berlin_Order). The routing id can be used to route inbound messages to specific applications.

Delivery Channels
For both Berlin and Paris, I have specified Delivery Channels that uses the ebMS 2.0 protocol (I could use ebMS 1.0..but I prefer newest versions :)). Configuring an ebMS 2.0 delivery channel requires some specific settings. Here are the transport protocol settings that I have used:

url: http://host:port/b2b/transportServlet for receiving messages over http
Ack mode: async
Response mode: none
Retry count: 4
Retry interval: 2
-- Leave all the other setting to their default

Deployment and testing
Deploy the agreements (make sure you configure the capabilities correctly: Berlin is the sender and Paris the receiver in this scenario) on both sides (look here how to configure capabilities and agreements). To test the ebXML configuration, I have used my previous SCA example and modified it for this example. The modifications are in the mediator component, because I have to specify extra B2B adapter properties to allow the B2B engine to identify the agreement. For outbound communication there are two ways to identify an agreement using the B2B adapter in a OFM composite:

1. To and From party + document type and revision. B2B properties:
- b2b.documentTypeName
- b2b.documentProtocolRevision
- b2b.fromTradingPartnerId
- b2b.toTradingPartnerId

2. To and From party + ebMS Action, Service and Service Type:
- b2b.ebms.Service*
- b2b.ebms.ServiceType*
- b2b.ebms.action*
- b2b.fromTradingPartnerId
- b2b.toTradingPartnerId

(*) Those properties are not defined in the JDeveloper Assign activity wizard. You have to manually type in the names in the property selection panel

I used the second option with the following values:

action = Order_Action
Service = Order_Service
Service Type = Order_Service_Type
To party = Paris
From party = Berlin

Deploy the SCA composite and use the Test functionality of the EM console to run a test case. You can see the exact ebMS message when you click the packed message link in the wire message details screen.

Installing Oracle Fusion Middleware 11.1.1.2: Tips based on my experience with installing on Kubuntu 9.10

2009-11-14T19:11:00.011-01:00

I have installed Oracle Fusion Middleware 11.1.1.2 on my local Kubuntu 9.10 (64bit). This posting contains some tips based on my experience.

Please have a look here to find more details about where to find the new Oracle Fusion Middleware Release.

To install the new release you have to upgrade WLS to 10.3.2 and install the new SOA component again. I decided to throw everything away, download the complete new release including the new RCU and JDeveloper release (don't forget this component!) and install everything again..

Required software:
- Weblogic Server 10.3.2 generic (I have a 64 bit config)
- JDeveloper 11.1.1.2
- SOA Suite 11.1.1.2
- RCU (See additional software section)

Please follow the installation instructions, which can be found here, to install the components in the correct order.

JDK issues
With my default OpenJDK version (build#16) I encountered problems with the WLS installer and with starting the installer of the SOA Suite component.

The WLS installer only started in console mode:


tomhofte@tomhofte-laptop:~/downloads$ java -jar wls1032_generic.jar
Unable to instantiate GUI, defaulting to console mode.     
Extracting 0%....................................................................................................100%                                                                                       

<-------------------- Oracle Installer - WebLogic 10.3.2.0 ------------------->

Welcome:
--------

This installer will guide you through the installation of WebLogic 10.3.2.0.
Type "Next" or enter to proceed to the next prompt.  If you want to change data entered previously, type "Previous".  You may quit the installer at any time by typing "Exit".                              

Enter [Exit][Next]>

<-------------------- Oracle Installer - WebLogic 10.3.2.0 ------------------->

Not really convenient...

When I tried to start the SOA Suite installer using my OpenJDK as the java runtime the following problem showed up in the console and the installer UI did not show up.


Starting Oracle Universal Installer...
                                               

Checking if CPU speed is above 300 MHz.    Actual 800 MHz    Passed
Checking Temp space: must be greater than 150 MB.   Actual 47087 MB    Passed
Checking swap space: must be greater than 500 MB.   Actual 9507 MB    Passed
Checking monitor: must be configured to display at least 256 colors.    Actual 16777216    Passed
Preparing to launch Oracle Universal Installer from /tmp/OraInstall2009-11-14_08-16-57PM. Please wait ...
Please specify JRE/JDK location ( Ex. /home/jre ), /bin/java should exist :/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk                                                                                            
tomhofte@tomhofte-laptop:~/downloads/soa_11112/Disk1$ Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: Can't load library: /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk/jre/lib/amd64/xawt/libmawt.so

I assumed that something was wrong with my JDK version so I decided to install JRockit Realtime JVM version 6. After installing JRockit Realtime JVM version 6 and using this Java distribution for installing WLS and SOA Suite everything was able to install without any problems. The JRockit version I used is available from here.

Note: this will definitely not mean that FMW 11.1.1.2 will only install with JRockit Realtime JVM version 6! It is only that this made it work for me and in case you hit the same issue you now how I solved it :)

Configuring JDeveloper
After I had installed JDeveloper, I noticed that the SOA Composite editor extension is not part of the JDeveloper 11.1.1.2 bundle as it was with the previous version...so...Go to Help -> Check for Updates and select the SOA Composite editor extension:

Install the extension and restart JDeveloper to activate the update.

Activate the Preview Spring component designer
(Thanks to this posting)
To activate the Spring component in the Component palette of the Composite editor in JDeveloper, you have to change the soa-config.xml file that can be found in JDEV_HOME/integration/seed/soa/configuration. Uncomment the following the part and restart JDeveloper




${SPRING_COMPONENT_NAME_L}
${SPRING_COMPONENT_FOLDER_NAME_L}
spring
.xml
oracle.tip.tools.ide.spring.sca.SCAComponentSpring
${SPRING_COMPONENT_DESC}
${SPRING_COMPONENT_DESC}
/oracle/tip/tools/ide/spring/sca/images/springcomponent.png
/oracle/tip/tools/ide/spring/sca/images/springcomponenticon_dia.png

/oracle/tip/tools/ide/spring/sca/images/springTop.png
/oracle/tip/tools/ide/spring/sca/images/springMiddle.png
/oracle/tip/tools/ide/spring/sca/images/springMiddleShort.png
/oracle/tip/tools/ide/spring/sca/images/springBottom.png
231,231,234
192,194,203

All of the above did the job for me.

Monitoring Oracle AQ message systems with SQL based User defined Metrics in Oracle Enterprise Manager

2009-11-10T19:11:00.006-01:00

By default Oracle Advanced Queueing (AQ) provides monitoring views (in this posting we use the V_$AQ view) to monitor things like

Number of waiting messages per queue
Number of expired messages per queue
Number of messages on status ready per queue
Average waiting time per queue
Total waiting time per queue

In large messaging systems it is important to detect possible delays and bottlenecks at an early stage. The above metrics can help you with this. Of course it is possible to write a custom monitoring application to make monitoring information accessible, but in most large environments it makes more sense to use a dedicated monitoring product that is able to monitor your complete application environment and provides a single monitoring console.

Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM) is such a tool. OEM provides functionality to specify User-defined SQL-based metrics that allows you to easily integrate your own SQL monitoring scripts in OEM together with defined thresholds on the metrics, OEM will trigger alert notifications. The SQL queries below can be used for creating SQL based User-defined metrics in OEM to monitor specific queues on specific aspects:


-- Average wait metric
select dbaq.name, vaq.average_wait from sys.dba_queues dbaq, sys.V_$AQ vaq where dbaq.name in ('SOME_Q_A', 'SOME_Q_B') and dbaq.qid = vaq.qid

-- Total wait metric
select dbaq.name, vaq.total_wait from sys.dba_queues dbaq, sys.V_$AQ vaq where dbaq.name in ('SOME_Q_A', 'SOME_Q_B') and dbaq.qid = vaq.qid

-- Expired messages metric
select dbaq.name, vaq.expired from sys.dba_queues dbaq, sys.V_$AQ vaq where dbaq.name in ('SOME_Q_A', 'SOME_Q_B') and dbaq.qid = vaq.qid

-- Ready messages metric
select dbaq.name, vaq.ready from sys.dba_queues dbaq, sys.V_$AQ vaq where dbaq.name in ('SOME_Q_A', 'SOME_Q_B') and dbaq.qid = vaq.qid;

Notes:

The queries are Two-Column queries and the Metric type is Number
Determine a correct value for Consecutive Occurrences Preceding Notification option to prevent false positives
Set a correct interval. Keep in mind that monitoring causes some minor overhead...so don't set the interval too small.. 30 minutes should be sufficient in most scenario's

Set up a Weblogic Server 11g (10.3.1) JMS Store and Forward demo

2009-11-10T16:45:00.017-01:00

Weblogic Server (supported from 9.x) contains JMS Store-and-Forward (JMS SAF) functionality. Basically this functionality makes it possible to receive messages on a specific server instance (proxy), forward the messages to different Weblogic server instances and process them on those 'hidden' instances or forward them again...In case the processing server is unavailable the message will be automatically redelivered when the server is available again..You can think about many use cases in which JMS SAF can be very useful. For example, in the situation in which you don't want to stop the message communication when an update of 'processing logic/functionality is needed, JMS SAF can increase the high-availability of your messaging solution. Also it can be used to off-load complex message processing to dedicated servers.

In this posting I will describe how you can set up JMS SAF using Weblogic Server 11g (10.3.1) with a domain configuration consisting out of 1 AdminServer and 2 non-clustered Managed Servers serve in the roles of sender (or actually the forwarder) and receiver.

I skip the domain set up and assume you are familiar with it. To define the JMS SAF resources the best thing to do is to follow the steps that are described Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g SAF guide. I will a not repeat them in this blog.. In its place, I will give additional explanation about specific configuration steps and things you have to do but which are not covered completely in the guide.

Receiving Side - Extra

Create a JMS Server
Create a Subdeployment in the receiving JMS module and target it to the JMS Server
Create a destination queue and remember the JNDI name that you choose. We need it when the sending side will be configured. Target the queue to the JMS module's Subdeployment
Create also Connection factory at the receiving side (At least I did it. However, you could try not to create a connection factory, because the sending side never uses it..). In the picture below you can see the configuration of the JMS resources at the receiving side that I have used in my demo:

Sending Side - Extra

Create a JMS Connection Factory in the sender JMS module. Use the default settings and and choose a easy-to-remember JNDI name. We need it in the Java client to test the JMS SAF configuration.

Sending Side - Additional notes
- I simply used the default settings for

the persistent store of the SAF agent
targeting and subdeployment
the type of error handling (log). If you decide to use an Error destination, make sure that the queue is targeted to same JMS server/Subdeployment as used for the SAF queue. Most probably, this will mean that you have to create a Subdeployment instead of using the default as I did :)

- For the SAF queue you have to use the JNDI name that you have chosen during the configuration of the destination queue at the receiving side for the remote JNDI location. For simplicity, you can use the same for the local JNDI name
- The JNDI name of the SAF Remote Destination will serve as the prefix of the local JNDI name that you defined for your SAF queue. Keep that in mind when you try to connect to the SAF remote queue (see further on in this posting for in the Java example)

Here's the overview of the JMS SAF resources in the JMS module, which is targeted to the sending server, that I have used in my demo set up:

JMS SAF remote Java client
Now that we have finished the Weblogic Server 11g JMS SAF configuration, we can test it by using a simple Java client. The code fragment below shows the code that you can use to test your configuration. Please note:

Import the J2EE 1.5 and Weblogic Remote client libraries in JDeveloper 11g
If you are not sure about the exact JNDI binding names for the Connection Factory and JMS destination, you can browse the JNDI tree of the sending server (Admin Console -> Environment -> servers -> -> Configuration/General tab)
You can either use '.' or '/' as the separator in your JNDI name


   String CFName = "jms/ConnectionFactorySending";
   String destName = "jmssaf.RemoteDestjms.Queue_Receiving";

   Connection conn = null;
   Session session = null;
   MessageProducer prod = null;
   try{
       //Set the Initial Context properties
       Properties env = new Properties( );
       env.put(Context.SECURITY_PRINCIPAL, "weblogic");
       env.put(Context.SECURITY_CREDENTIALS, "welcome1");
       env.put(Context.INITIAL_CONTEXT_FACTORY,
      "weblogic.jndi.WLInitialContextFactory");
       env.put(Context.PROVIDER_URL,
      "t3://localhost:7004");

   InitialContext context = new InitialContext(env);  

   //Lookup connection factory
   QueueConnectionFactory queueConnectionFactory =
    (QueueConnectionFactory) context.lookup(CFName);
 
   //Create a connection and session
   conn = queueConnectionFactory.createConnection();
  session = conn.createSession(false, 0);

   //Lookup queue
   Queue q = (Queue) context.lookup(destName);

   //Send message
   prod = session.createProducer(q);
   TextMessage msg = session.createTextMessage();
   msg.setJMSMessageID(Guid.newInstance().toString());
   msg.setText("SAF Test message");
   prod.send(msg);
 
   }
   catch(NamingException ne){
       System.out.println("NamingException: "+ne.toString());
   }
   catch(JMSException jmse){
       System.out.println("NamingException: "+jmse.toString());
   }
   finally{
       try{
       prod.close();
       session.close();
       conn.close();
       }
       catch(Exception e){
           System.out.println("Excepion in finally branch: "+e.toString());
       }
   }

Run your program to send a message to the sending server. Before you do this make sure the receiving server is not running to check if SAF is working as expected. When the message is submitted, check the Monitoring tab in the Sending SAF agent configuration screen to check if the message is stored and waits for redelivery (from here you are able to perform more management tasks, like pausing forwarding etc.). When you start the receiving server the message will be redelivered automatically to the receiving server..

This blog serves as a starting point for using JMS SAF. More info about all the specific configuration options and monitoring/management options can be found here.

SOA Suite 10.3.5.1 released: certified with Weblogic Server 10.3.1

2009-11-05T04:37:00.004-01:00

SOA Suite 10.1.3.5.1 (aka Oracle Fusion Middleware 1ogr3) has been released. Finally, Oracle BPEL Manager, Oracle ESB, Oracle Rules, OWSM components and all versioned 10.1.3.5.1 are certified with WLS 10.3.1.

Oracle Coherence*Web: easy in-memory session management in a clustered environment

2009-11-03T19:45:00.010-01:00

Oracle Coherence contains the Oracle Coherence*Web session management module. Oracle Coherence*Web provides in-memory session data management that allows your website to benefit from the high-performance, reliable, high available and scalable data grid solution provided by Oracle Coherence to easily share and manage session data in an application server cluster

In this blog posting, I will use a simple JSF web application deployed on a Weblogic Server 11g instance to show you how easy it is to set-up Oracle Coherence*Web to store session data in a Oracle Coherence data grid.

Coherence and Weblogic 11g configuration
I have used Coherence 3.5.2 and Weblogic 11g (10.3.1) to set up this demo. Coherence 3.5.2 can be downloaded from here and Weblogic Server 11g (10.3.1) from here. Make sure you have patched your weblogic server with patch 6W2W if you use Weblogic Server 10.3

Deploy the coherence-web-spi.war as a shared library to your Weblogic server instance. To start a Oracle Coherence web-session cache server, create a cache-websession-server.sh in the root of your COHERENCE_HOME. Copy/paste the following contents to cache-websession-server.sh:


#!/bin/sh

# This will start a cache server

# specify the Coherence installation directory
COHERENCE_HOME=.

# specify the JVM heap size
MEMORY=512m

if [ ! -f ${COHERENCE_HOME}/bin/cache-server.sh ]; then
echo "coherence.sh: must be run from the Coherence installation directory."
exit
fi

if [ -f $JAVA_HOME/bin/java ]; then
JAVAEXEC=$JAVA_HOME/bin/java
else
JAVAEXEC=java
fi

JAVA_OPTS="-Xms$MEMORY -Xmx$MEMORY"

$JAVAEXEC -server -showversion $JAVA_OPTS -cp "$COHERENCE_HOME/lib/coherence.jar:$COHERENCE_HOME/lib/coherence-web-spi.war" -Dtangosol.coherence.management.remote=true -Dtangosol.coherence.cacheconfig=WEB-INF/classes/session-cache-config.xml -Dtangosol.coherence.session.localstorage=true com.tangosol.net.DefaultCacheServer

That's all what's needed to set up your test environment.

JSF
The web application is a JSF web application consisting of a simple JSF page that displays a button to increase a counter. The counter value is stored in a JSF managed bean (session-scoped) attribute. The managed bean is session scoped to ensure that the counter is saved in the Coherence data grid. Storing the complete managed bean is not a must-have requirement, but it is an easy way and suitable for this simple case. Oracle Coherence provides functionality to determine which objects have to be stored in the Oracle Coherence data grid and which not. This is explained later in this posting.

I assume you know how to make such a simple JSF application so I will skip that. The only thing you have to make sure is that you add the coherence.jar library to your project.

To enable Coherence*Web for in-memory session management, the only thing you have to add is a weblogic.xml file and add the following library reference to it:


<library-ref>
   <library-name>coherence-web-spi</library-name>
   <specification-version>1.0.0.0</specification-version>
   <implementation-version>1.0.0.0</implementation-version>
   <exact-match>false</exact-match>

<

/library-ref>
 <library-ref>
   <library-name>jsf</library-name>
   <specification-version>1.2</specification-version>
   <implementation-version>1.2.3.2</implementation-version>
   <exact-match>false</exact-match>
 </library-ref>

(The JSF reference makes the JSF libraries available to web application)

Bundle the application in a war file and deploy it to the Weblogic Server Domain in the same server in which you have deployed the coherence-web-spi.war.

Note: The JSF application makes use of WAR-scoped Coherence session management. Other variants are EAR-scoped and application server scoped. The last two variant allows you to share session data between web applications...but be careful with this feature!

Test
Start 1 or more Coherence web-session-cache instances to create a Oracle Coherence data-grid by executing the cache-websession-server.sh several times...(notice how easy it is to create a Oracle Coherence cluster and check the logging output to see the Coherence actions to manage the cluster) . Now we have a data grid to store the session data in, you can browse to your web application and hit the button several times to set the counter value. As a final test: shutdown the Weblogic server....wait a second...start the server again and open your web application...the previous counter value is still there!

Other features & benefits
- Session management models
Oracle Coherence*Web supports three different session management models to support different types of web applications:

The traditional model -> suitable for small applications with small session objects

The monolithic model -> same as traditional model but without object sharing issues

The split model -> suitable for web applications with large session object

- Distribution controller
The Coherence*Web distributed controller functionality allows you to manage which objects has to be stored locally in the server heap (only local accessible) or distributed (shared across multiple servers) in the Coherence data grid and at what moment in the life-cycle of a user session a object should be stored in a Coherence data grid. This feature has several useful use cases, for example to reduce the migration effort to migrate a non-distributed application to a distributed one.

How to use composite sensors to enable end-to-end tracking of B2B messages in SOA Suite 11g

2009-10-31T10:33:00.001-01:00

Prior to the 11g release of the SOA Suite end-to-end trackig&tracing of messages send out from OESB or BPEL via Oracle Integration B2B 10g, was not supported out-of-the box, because Oracle Integration B2B 10g was/is not part of the 10.1.3.x SOA Suite Suite. You always had to build custom code to enable end-to-end tracking & tracing of messages in such environments.

Because B2B is now fully integrated into the SOA Suite, it becomes possible to easily end-to-end B2B messages using composite sensors.

How to use composite sensors in common is described here by the Oracle SOA Suite PM team. Ok..but how can you use this feature to end-to-end track B2B messages that are submitted from a composite to Oracle B2B or vice-versa? Actually, it's quite simple. Below I will describe what you have to do at design-time and run-time to track B2B messages using the B2B message id as an example.

Design-time
At the B2B adapter in JDeveloper composite editor we define a composite sensor named order_msgid (assuming you are using the example that I have given in a previous posting on this blog) and assign it the value of the b2b property b2b.messageId. In my example I use an outbound scenario, so to make it work I have to set the message id in the composite instead of delegating the creation of the message id to B2B. In the mediator component I set the value of the b2b.messageId to the compositeInstanceId. At design time, we are finished now..so deploy your sensorized composite to the server.

Run-time
At run-time we have to add a search field for the defined sensor to be able to search on message ids in the composite instances tab. Go to the instances tab of the composite and click on 'Add fields' and select 'order_msgid'. It will be added to the search form. Note that the SOA engine automatically detects composite sensors! The instances tab should look as follows:

Test the composite by using the EM test screen. Select the new instance and open the instance flow. Unfold the payload of the B2B adapter message and verify that the b2b.messageId property has been set in the properties header:

Log in to the b2b management console (my B2B url: http://localhost:8001/b2b) and open the reports tab and select the business message tab. Select the details of the corresponding B2B message and discover that it has used the message id that has been set by the composite :)

You now can search in the EM composite instances tab for a specific instance using the B2B message id. This becomes very useful when the number of composite instances becomes very large in a production environment and maintenance team quickly wants to track down the flow of a specific B2B message in case of issues with that message..

Easy binding of Oracle Fusion Middleware B2B 11g with a SCA composite using the B2B adapter

2009-10-27T19:12:00.002-01:00

In my previous posting,I have described how to set up a simple XML document exchange configuratation in Oracle Fusion Middleware B2B 11g. In this posting I will show how to use the new B2B adapter part of SOA Suite 11g to easily send out XML orders from a SCA composite.

The SCA that we are going to build will consist of a simple SOAP interface that accepts new orders. A mediator component will route the order directly to Oracle Fusion Middleware B2B using the B2B adapter. For simplicity, we will use the same XSD structures.

JDeveloper Project and the mediator component
The first step is to create a new JDeveloper SOA project. Start with an empty composite. Drag and drop a new mediator component from the component onto the component panel of the composite diagram. Name the component ProcessOrder. Select the one-way interface type and use the same XSD input structure for the order as used in the B2B document definition configuration. Also create a composite service with SOAP bindings (checkbox). Click on 'Ok' to create the mediator component. In a later step we will specify the necessary assign and transformation actions.

B2B adapter
In Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g the B2B adapter is introduced to make the binding of the B2B component with a SCA composite more native. The B2B adapter wizard allows the developer to browse the B2B document repository to easily select the right document type for inbound or outbound messaging with a trading partner.

Drag a B2B adapter from the component palette and drop it onto the reference service swimlane. A wizard will automatically pop up. Name the service B2B_Order_Gateway. Click 'next' and choose default as the integration type. The integration type specifies how SCA will communicate with B2B. Default means that a WSDL file with a native B2B binding will be constructed. AQ means that a JCA AQ WSDL file will be constructed. Click next and select the Fusion middleware server connection for browsing the B2B repository and click next. Choose for the option 'Send', because the composite is going to send out orders and click on next and again on next in the following screen (we use the defaults in that screen :)). In the wizard-screen Document Definition you have to browse to the ComplexOrder_Def and select it as the document definition. Click on next and on finish to complete the wizard. The B2B binding reference service will now be created and added to the SCA composite and the required artifacts will be generated.

Figure 1

Wiring everything together
As one of the last steps, we need to wire the mediator component to the B2B binding reference. You can do this by selecting the orange arrow (will pop-up when you hover over the Mediator component) of the mediator component and hold the left mouse button pressed, drag the mouse to the B2B binding reference service and drop the line on the orange arrow of the B2B binding component. Figure 2 shows the end result.

Figure 2

Double click the mediator component and generate a standard XSLT transformation to transform the input order structure to the expected order structure of the B2B reference service (Note: that JDeveloper recognises that the B2B binding reference expects a specific XML structure. Magic, isn't it? :)). Instead of using XSLT, we could also use an Assign action here.
The last thing we have to do is to inform the B2B binding reference service that we want to send an order to Acme from the host MyComposite. We use the Assign values option of the mediator component and two of the available B2B properties for this. Assign:

Acme -> b2b.toTradingPartnerId
MyCompany -> b2b.fromTradingPartnerId

(See Figure 3 for assigning properties)

Figure 3

Save your project and deploy it to your Oracle Fusion Middleware server and use the built-in composite test functionality of the EM console to test your SCA composite. If you have implemented the composite correctly and configured B2B correctly as well (as described in my previous posting) you will see an order in the Acme outbound file directory that you have chosen during B2B configuration after you have executed test.

'A child can do the laundry' as we name easy procedures like this in my country :)

How to set up a XML document exchange configuration in Oracle Fusion Middleware B2B 11g

2009-10-25T13:00:00.008-01:00

In the new 11g release of the Oracle SOA Suite, B2B is fully integrated in Oracle's SOA stack. The engine and the UI console are enhanced and improved on several parts compared to the 10g release of Oracle Integration B2B.

In this blog posting, I show you how to set up a XML document exchange configuration. It will also let you experience the renewed B2B Console based on ADF Faces technology. The case will consist of a custom XML document (Order), a single trading partner Acme and an agreement that specifies that MyCompany (the default host) is capable of sending out XML orders to Acme.

Log on to the B2B console. If you are familiar with the 10g console, you will immediately notice the new look-and-feel and the way things are organized (see figure 1).

Figure 1

Trading Partner
First we have to create a new trading partner. Click on the green plus sign on top of the Trading Partner (TP) panel on the left side of the screen. Name the new TP Acme and click on ok. The next thing we have to configure is the type of document that we want to exchange with Acme.

Document definition
Documents are managed in the Administration window. So click on the Adminstration link at the top of the screen and open the Documents tab on new page. The left panel shows the supported document protocols. Select the Custom protocol and click on the green plus sign to add a new Custom Revision. In the form set the name to Custom_1.0 and click on save. Select the Custom_1.0 revision in the left panel and again click on green sign to add a document type. In the form set the name to XMLDocumentType and click on save. In the left panel select the XMLDocumentType and click on the plus sign to add a document definition. In the form set the name to ComplexOrder_Def, the Identification Type to XML. In the Definition field you have to the set the xsd structure of the complexOrder. Can be anything and I assume you know how to define a XSD structure. Leave all the other fields untouched, because we don't need them for this simple case. See figure 3 for an example of the protocol tree in the left panel and the completed Document definition form.

Figure2

Ok, by know you have probably experienced the usability of the renewed B2B console. In my opinion the new Oracle Integration B2B 11g console enables you to keep a better overview of what you have configured and where you are in a specific configuration part, e.g. setting up new documents.

Document capability

Now we have to add a capability to the TP Acme to inform the B2B engine that Acme is capable of receiving XML orders from our side. Go back to the Partner page (Partner link at the top of the page). Select Acme in the trading partner and in the right panel select the Document tab and click on the green plus sign at the Documents overview to add new a document capability. In the Select document definition pop-up screen unfold the Custom tree and select the ComplexOrder_Def definition and click on Add. Make sure that only the receiver checkbox is checked; we are only going to send orders to Acme. Click on save to save the capability. B2B automatically adds a dual capability to MyCompany for the same document definition and the dual direction that you have specified at the trading partner side. Check it. Figure 3 shows the Trading Partner document screen

Figure 3

Delivery Channel

The next thing that we need to configure is the channel on which Acme wants to receive the orders. For simplicity, we use the file system as the transport protocol. Oracle B2B also supports e.g. FTP, JMS, Email, HTTP. Click on the channels tab in the right panel of Trading Partner Acme. Click on the green plus sign and set the protocol to file and the name to Acme_File_Channel. At the bottom of the page set the transport protocol parameters and the channel parameters to your own need. Note: you can use placeholders in the filename format field. I used this format:

order_%MSG_ID%.xml

More available placeholder can be found here. Click on save when you are done.

Agreement and deployment

At this point we have set uo the exchange document type, TP capabilities and the Acme delivery channel. We are now ready to create an agreement. On the Partner page click on the green plus sign to add a new agreement. Figure 4 shows you how to fill in all the fields in the Agreement form.

Figure 4

After you have completed the form, save the agreement. Before we can deploy the agreement we first have to validate it; click on validate and finally on deploy to make the agreement active. We are now ready to send out orders to Acme :)

This blog has shown how to setup a simple document exchange configuration in Oracle Fusion Middleware B2B 11g. In a next posting I will describe how the new B2B adapter in 11g can be used to construct and send out orders from a composite using a BPEL or Mediator component.

Link: Oracle Fusion Middleware B2B 11g developer guide

Oracle Coherence 3.5.2 available

2009-10-22T17:08:00.005-01:00

Last week Oracle released Oracle Coherence 3.5.2. The version contains several improvements and enhancements for Oracle Coherence 3.5. The improvements and enhancements are listed here. You can download the new version from here.

More info about Oracle Coherence 3.5, user guides etc, can be found on the Oracle Coherence wiki.

SOA Suite 11g: Coordination between two BPEL processes

2009-10-21T19:34:00.001-01:00

While scanning the FMW 11g SOA Suite developer guide, I noticed the feature that enables coordination between master and detail BPEL processes by using so- called signals.

As far as I know, this feature is introduced in 11g and is very useful in situations where a parent process has to control the processing of the child processes. And, vice versa, where child processes has to notify their parent process when a specific task is completed. Most of the time a signal is enough and no additional information has to be sent along. Therefore, for example, a BPEL invoke activity with correlation might be a bit too complex for this purpose.

Ok how does it work? The tutorial gives you a clear explanation how to use signaling in Oracle BPEL so I will describe the rough details about how you can use signaling and also some limitations that I discovered while praticing with this feature.

How-to

Create a BPEL master detail proces in the composite.

Use the process type asynchronous for the master process and the the type one-way for the detail

Add an Invoke activity to the master process to invoke the detail process

Open the source view of the BPEL editor and add the following property to the invoke activity:
```
bpelx:invokeAsDetail="true"
```

Add a Wait activity to the master process for demo purposes
Add a Signal activity to the master process

Remember the Label value
Set the To value to details

Add a Receive Signal activity to the master process

Remember the Label value
Set the From value to details

Add a Receive Signal activity to the detail process

Use the Label value used in step 4
Set the From value to master

Add a Wait activity to the detail process for demo purposes
Add a Signal activity to the detail process

Use the Label value used in step 5
Set the To value to master

You're done! Deploy the composite to the server and test your composite.

The signaling feature also supports correlation to correlate signals between the master and different detail process types. It seems that correlation of signals between different composite master/detail instances are correlated automagically.

Unfortunately, the coordination functionality has some limitations:

Labels can not be set dynamically using XPath
Correlation labels can not be set dynamically using XPath
Only a single signal pair (signal/receive signal) can be used for a unique label

These limitations make it, for example, not possible to coordinate by using signals between a master and multiple detail instances of the same BPEL process type which are invoked in parallel or even sequential..

Oh..I still have to figure out how signaling is implemented 'under the hood'.. However, happy signaling...

Oracle SOA Suite 11g: Manipulate the SCA composite name at design time

2009-10-20T18:47:00.009-01:00

By default no composite name is set when a SCA composite is executed. For runtime monitoring and tracking purposes it might be useful to set a custom name at design time for your SCA composite. Especially, when the number of instances increases in production.

By using embedded Java for BPEL components and XPath for Mediator components you are able to manipulate the title of a SCA composite during design time.

XPath for Mediator components:
Use the the following XPath expression in an Assign value dialog when you define a routing rule.

med:setCompositeInstanceTitle(title string)

and use the following target tracking.compositeInstanceTitle.
Note: this property will not appear in the property selection dialog, but can be used though.

Java for BPEL components
Add an Embedded Java activity inside your process flow and add the following function to it:

setCompositeInstanceTitle(title string);

(Ok..here it is my first real blog-posting. Any comments on the layout are welcome)

Restart blogging

2009-10-20T17:54:00.002-01:00

Hi all,

I recently have decided to start blogging again. I don't no exactly why, but most probably it's due to the fact that I want to share my enthusiasm for SOA and Java technology with you. Especially those with an Oracle flavor..

The main topics of this blog will be:

Oracle Service Bus
Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g
Oracle Coherence
other SOA and Java topics
and best practices on all of the above named topics

Enjoy reading and don't forget to add this blog to your RSS reader :)

SOA Best Practice: Integrate early

2007-07-01T12:59:00.000-01:00

For a traditional homogeneous application it is sufficient to test the application with unit tests and system tests. The application is tested in isolations on several aspects like security, availability and functional correctness. A SOA landscape is heterogamous in which applications cooperate through services to support a specific business process. Testing applications in isolation will not be sufficient for SOA landscapes, so another test procedure will be needed.

Testing all the services in a SOA landscape in isolation will not ensure that the services will work correctly in composition. Compositional problems can be caused by incorrect assumptions between services. Integration tests can be used to filter out these incorrect assumptions. I recommend adapting integration tests in a early phase in the development cycle to prevent situations in which the cause detection is time consuming and the problem solving even more.

The use of mock-up services will help you to build the integrations tests. I also advice to add the integration tests in the build proces, so that possible problems are detected in an early stage.

JavaFX: Sun announces Java RIA extension

2007-05-10T11:29:00.001-01:00

There is a lot of rumour and development in the RIA world. Microsoft recently released SilverLight and Adobe Flex is nowadays an established and popular RIA development environment.

Today, I read that Sun roles out it's own RIA development product. JavaFX is Sun's answer on Adobe Flex and Microsoft Silverlight. JavaFX is a product-line that can be used for building RIAs rich web/desktop apps all the way down to to handheld device applications. FX script will become the tool to for creating your RIAs. The first product that will be releaded is JavaFX mobile, the kit for developing RIAs for mobile devices

FX script is the tool for content-authoring with a main focus on UI experience and making the RIAs highly animated. FX script make is possible to use every library in SE or ME. No bridging-code is needed. FX script will deal with this. To use FX Script you only need to install one library with the standard SE or ME installation.

With JavaFX, Sun now has its own Java-based RIA platform to compete with Adobe and Microsoft on the RIA market. According to this, there are three main players now on the RIA market: .Net, Adobe and Sun. Forget to mention AJAX, but in my opinion this is more a technology than a product for building RIAs. Also, Grails and Ruby on Rails in combination with AJAX are very usefull frameworks for building RIAs.

I believe that accessing, displaying and more important sharing non-structured data, like sound images and video on any platform is now very important and will become more important in the near future. So the RIA market will also emerge in the near future. The more players enter the RIA market the more choices we will have to develop RIA applications. I do not have an appropriate answer on the question which product is best. Maybe, there isn't and will the choice depends on your situation and project demands.

Use processScope in ADF faces

2005-12-18T19:32:00.000-01:00

Today, I read a good article about how to use the processScope feature in Oracle JSF implementation: ADF faces.

The processScope is not a standard feature in of JSF, but is added by Oracle to overcome the problems with using the request or session objects to pass data between pages.

Currently, I'm playing with EJB3.0 and JSF and I certainly going to use the processScope to implement master-detail pages.

Resource Injection in Servlet 2.5

2005-12-17T15:03:00.000-01:00

In a posting on Meeraj Kunnumpurath's weblog , I read that the Java Servlet specification 2.5 (still in maintaince version) will have the ability to inject dependencies to classes whose lifecycle are maintained by the container. This means that you can just inject and use resources, like EJBs and DataSources, in the same way as you can do now in the EJB3.o specification (still in beta-version).

Currently, I'm experimenting with Oracle's EJB3.o implemention and I have to say my first impressions are quite hopefull. Especially the simple way of using resources in an EJB, like an EntityManager or another EJB, is a feature I really like as a J2ee developer. I think dependency Injection, and IoC in general, is really a great feature that increases the flexibillity and development speed of a Web Application Framework (WAF)..For example look at how popular Spring is these days...

Downloading with 150 gigabits per second..

2005-12-11T19:20:00.000-01:00

Today, I read on Fermilab the news that the California Institute of Technology as won SC|05 Bandwidth Challenge in Seatlte last November. The team of high energy physicists, computer scientists and network engineers led by the California Institute of Technology transferred physics data at a rate of over 150 gigabits per second--equivalent to downloading over 130 DVD movies in one minute.

The entry by the team is part of the preparation for a new particle accelerator, called the Large Hadron Collider, which will begin operating in 2007 at the CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. Data provided by the LHC shall be accessed by thousands of scientist around the world to help finding answers at questions concerning (e.g. ) the universe. The processing, distribution and analysis of the data will be completed using high-speed optical networks, software to monitor and manage the data flows across the networks, and grid computing.

I wonder when I as a internet user will see my bandwith increased due to these kinds of developments in the world of network technology..;)

First experience JSF in Java Studio Creator

2005-12-07T18:50:00.000-01:00

In a previous post, I noticed that Sun made several of its development tools free. I have downloaded the free Sun Java Studio Creator tool and started to play around with it.

I started to build a simple JSF application and I immediately noticed how easy it is to set things up and to add JSF components to your page. I also noticed that this tool is optimized for the development of web GUIs and it is clearly not meant to build EJB modules with it. (however you can import them and use them in your webapp as the model.)

I also like the rich property palettes, which appear at the side of your screen when you drag a JSF component on your page. They gave the ability to the programmer to easily manage the page layout.

As an experienced user of Oracle's JDeveloper, I more or less compared both tools while playing around with this new (for me) developement tool. I noticed that JDeveloper nowadays still offers more options (e.g. like automatically generation of import-statements) than JSC, for so far I can judge now. It also includes more vendor-plugins than JSC. However, I already noticed that, for my feeling, JSC performs much better than JDev ( 1GB of memory is the minimum for proper use of JDev).

My first impression of JSC is that JSC is certainly a nice to tool for building webapps in JSF, but there are other tools in the area of IDEs, which are much more completer...like JDeveloper..

But wait.. there is more from Sun..As I have said before JSC is optimized for building front-ends in JSF. Sun Java Creator Enterprise is a more complete tool, which you can use to build EJB modules..So left with a positive feeling about JSC, I wonder what my experiences with JCE will be..

I'll keep you posted..for now try JSC yourself

Sun made award-winning Java tools free!

2005-12-05T18:53:00.000-01:00

Today, I read on Sun's java homepage that Sun provides free-downloads of it's award winning development tools:

Sun Java Studio Creator 2004Q2 (full license),
Sun Java Studio Enterprise 8 (full license)
Sun Studio 11 (full-license) software

Sun's follows Microsoft (with their express editions) to make their tools available for free-download. This is a great sign for developers like me, who want to try new technologies but do not have the money (or do not want to pay for it ;)) to buy all the handy development tools..They can now easily choose the right tool for their job!

Thank's a lot Sun and Microsoft

First message

2005-12-04T15:57:00.000-01:00

Hi all,

this is my first posting on my new weblog. In the future, I will post messages at a regular base on this blog. The main subject of the postings will be about my life on this planet..

Hope to see you back at my blog soon!