Here is the list of some OFM concepts that will be used in this article:
We will use the UNIX operating system for our tutorials. The following table depicts the directory environment variables used throughout the article for configuring the Oracle SOA Suite deployment:
Name | Variable | What It Is | Example |
Middleware home | MW_HOME | The top-level directory for all OFM products | |
WebLogic Server home | WL_HOME | Contains installed files necessary to host a WebLogic Server | $MW_HOME/wlserver_10.3 |
Oracle home | SOA_ORACLE_HOME | Oracle SOA Suite product directory | $MW_HOME/Oracle_SOA1 |
Oracle Common Home | ORACLE_COMMON_HOME | Contains the binary and library files required for the Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control and Java Required Files (JRF) | $MW_HOME/oracle_common |
Domain home | SOA_DOMAIN_HOME | The absolute path of the source domain containing the SOA Suite Java component | $MW_HOME/user_projects/domains/SOADomain |
Java home | JAVA_HOME | Specifies the location of JDK (must be 1.6.04 or higher) or JRockit | $MW_HOME/jdk160_29 |
Ant Home | ANT_HOME | Specifies the location of Ant archive location | $MW_HOME/org.apache.ant_1.7.1 |
The following figure depicts a snapshot of the SOA Suite directory’s hierarchical structure:
For the recommended SOA Suite directory location, please refer to the OFM Enterprise Development guide for SOA Suite that can be found at http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E16764_01/core.1111/e12036/toc.htm.
JDeveloper is a development tool that will be used in the article. It is a full service Integrated Development Environment (IDE), which allows for the development of SOA projects along with a host of other Oracle products, including Java. If it has not been installed yet, one may consider downloading and installing the VM VirtualBox (VBox) Image of the entire package of SOA Suite, B2B, and JDeveloper, provided by Oracle on the Oracle download site found at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/soasuite/learnmore/vmsoa-172279.html. All you need to do is to install Oracle VM VirtualBox, and import the SOA/BPM appliance. This is for evaluation and trial purposes, and is not recommended for production use; however, for the purpose of following, along with the tutorial in the article, it is perfect.
The following table shows minimum and recommended requirements for the VBox Image:
Minimum | Recommended | |
Memory (RAM) | 4-6 GB | 8 GB |
Disk Space | 25 GB | 50 GB |
While VM’s are convenient, they do use quite a bit of disk space and memory. If you don’t have a machine that meets the minimum requirements, it will be a challenge to try the exercises. The other alternative is to download the bits for the platform you are using from the Oracle download page, and install each software package, and configure them accordingly, including a JDK, a DB, WebLogic Server, SOA Suite, and JDeveloper, among other things you may need.
If you decide that you have enough system resources to run the VBox Image, here are some of the major steps that you need to perform to download and install it. Please follow the detailed instructions found in the Introduction and Readme file that can be downloaded from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/soasuite/learnmore/soabpmvirtualboxreadme-1612068.pdf, in order to have the complete set of instructions.
Use a ZIP tool such as 7-Zip (available as freeware for Windows), WinZip, or other to extract the .ova file from the 7 files into a single file on your platform. Using 7-Zip, if you extract from the first file; it will find the other 6 files and combine them all as it extracts.
At the time of writing, the latest available version is 11g PS5 (11.1.1.1.6). The VBox Image comes with SOA Suite, Oracle 11g XE Database, and JDeveloper, pre-installed on a Linux Virtual Machine. Using the VirtualBox technology, you can run this Linux machine virtually on your laptop, desktop, or on a variety of other platforms. For the purpose of this article, you should choose the dev_soa_osb type of domain.
Oracle B2B is installed as a part of the SOA Suite installation. The SOA Suite installation steps are well documented, and are beyond the scope of this article. If you have never installed Oracle SOA Suite 11g, check with the Installation Guide for Oracle SOA Suite and Oracle Business Process Management Suite 11g. It can be downloaded from the Oracle Technology Network (OTN) Documentation downloads page at http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23943_01/doc.1111/e13925/toc.htm.
There are several important topics that did not have enough coverage in the SOA Suite Installation Guide. One of them is how to prepare the environment for the SOA/B2B installation. To begin, it is important to validate whether your environment meets the minimum requirements specified in the Oracle Fusion Middleware System Requirements and Specifications document. It can be downloaded from the Oracle Technology Network (OTN) Documentation downloads page at http://docs.oracle.com/html/E18558_01/fusion_requirements.htm.
The spreadsheet provides very important SOA Suite installation recommendations, such as the minimum disk space information and memory requirements that could help the IT hardware team with its procurement planning process. For instance, the Oracle recommended hardware and system requirements for SOA Suite are:
This document also has information about supported databases and database versions.
Another important document that has plenty of relevant information is Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.x) Certification Matrix. It can be downloaded from the Oracle Technology Network (OTN) Documentation downloads page at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/downloads/fmw-11gr1certmatrix.xls.
It is indeed a treasure chest of information. This spreadsheet may save you from a lot of headache. The last thing someone wants to run into is the need to re-install, just because they did not properly read and /or missed some recommendations. Here are some important points from the spreadsheet you don’t want to miss:
In conclusion, the following list includes a complete SOA Suite software stack (as used in the article):
There are several important installation and post-installation steps that may directly or indirectly impact the B2B component’s behavior.
Creating a WebLogic domain is one of the most important SOA Suite 11g installation steps. The BEA engineers, who used to work with WebLogic prior to 11g, never before had to select SOA Suite components while creating a domain. This process is completely new for the Oracle engineers who are familiar only with prior releases of SOA Suite. There are several steps in this process that, if missed, might require a complete re-installation.
A common mistake that people make when creating a new domain is that they don’t check the Enterprise Manager checkbox. As a result, Enterprise Manager is not available, meaning that neither instance monitoring and tracking, nor access to the B2B configuration properties is available. Make sure you do not make such a mistake by selecting the Oracle Enterprise Manager checkbox.
Oracle Enterprise Manager has been assigned a new name: Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control.
While planning SOA Suite deployment architecture, it is recommended to choose ahead of time between the following two WebLogic domain configurations:
In the Developers domain configuration, SOA Suite is installed as part of the administration server, implying that a separate managed server will not be created. This configuration could be a good choice for a development server, or a personal laptop, or any environment where available memory is limited. One should always keep in mind that SOA Suite requires up to 4 gigabytes of available memory.
To set up the Developers domain, select the Oracle SOA Suite for developers checkbox on the Select Domain Source page, as shown in the following screenshot:
Oracle strongly recommends against using this configuration in a production environment by warning that it will not be supported; that is, Oracle Support won’t be able to provide assistance for any issues that happen to occur in this environment.
Conversely, if the Oracle SOA Suite checkbox is selected, as shown in the following screenshot, a managed server will be created with a default name soa_server1. Creating a separate managed server (which is a WebLogic Java Virtual Machine) and deploying SOA Suite to this managed server, provides a more scalable configuration.
If SOA Suite for developers was installed, you need to perform the following steps to activate the B2B user interface:
If the SOA Suite production configuration was chosen, these steps are no longer necessary. However, you must first configure Node Manager. To do that, execute the setNMProps script and start Node Manager.
$ORACLE_COMMON_HOME/common/bin/setNMProps.sh
$MW_HOME/wlserver_n/server/bin/startNodeManager.sh
Oracle B2B Gateway is deployed as part of the Oracle SOA Service Infrastructure, or SOA-Infra. SOA Infrastructure is a Java EE compliant application running on Oracle WebLogic Server.
The following table shows a list of B2B web components installed as part of the SOA Infrastructure application. They include an enterprise application, several EJBs, a web application, and a web service. The B2B web application provides a link to the B2B Interface. The B2B MetadataWS Web Service provides Oracle SOA Service Infrastructure with access to the metadata repository. Stateless EJBs are used by the B2B Engine. This table might be helpful to understand how Oracle B2B integrates with Oracle SOA Suite. It could also be useful while developing B2B high availability architecture.
Name | Application Type |
b2b | Web Application |
b2bui | JEE Application |
B2BInstanceMessageBean | EJB |
B2BStarterBeanWLS | EJB |
B2BUtilityBean | EJB |
B2BMetadataWS | Web Service |
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