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

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

Update: for the Java developer

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

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

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

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

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

Magic Quadrant BPA tools 2010

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

ARIS Express

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

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

1. Oracle Enterprise Repository – OER
2. Oracle Service Registry
3. SOA Management with Oracle Enterprise Manager (SOA Management Pack)
4. Web Service Manager

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

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

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

For a lot of us the migration to Windows7 will be the first time we get easy access to a 64-bit desktop OS. One of the first things after an upgrade like that is to get your tools, like in my case JDeveloper, working again. First step is to download the jdevinstall jar, and the Sun JDK. The installation worked fine:

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java -jar jdevstudio11112install.jar

Running JDeveloper on 64-bit JVM

Running JDeveloper with the 64-bit JVM resulted in an error:

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Unable TO launch the Java Virtual Machine  
located at path:  
C:\Java\jdk1.6.0_18\jre\bin\server\jvm.dll

A solution is to use the 32-bit JVM. To do this change the SetJavaHome in thejdev.conf that is located in the {JDEV_HOME}\jdev\bin\jdev.conf.

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SetJavaHome C:\Java\jdk1.6.0_18_x86

Where the jdk1.6.0_18_x86 is a 32-bits JVM version.

After installing JDeveloper 11G successfully, we encountered the following error while starting JDeveloper:

Unable to create an instance on the Java Virtual Machine located on c:\jdeveloper11g\Middleware\jdk160_05\jre\bin\client\jvm.dll

Using Google and Oracle Support showed us that the virtual memory for the PC was not set to level that allowed the JVM to initialise.
The solution is to increase the virtual memory or swap area. To do this on Vista:

My Computer > Properties > Advanced System Settings > tab Advanced > Performance - Settings > tab Advanced > Virtual memory - Change

The webcast of the SOA and Integration strategy was a few days later available as the overall strategy. You can find the entire webcast here.

SOA Platform

The combined Oracle Sun solution focus boils down to the following bullets:

• Oracle SOA Suite continues as the strategic product.
• Sun JCAPS continues to be supported and maintained
• GlassFish ESB continues as an open source project
• A bridging technology is planned to support collaboration between JCAPS and Oracle SOA Suite.
• Key functions from the Sun SOA products will be incorporated in the Oracle SOA products.

Portal technologies

Oracle WebCenter stays the strategic portal offering. Support for both GlassFish Web Space Server and Sun Portal Server will be continued. An upgrade path to WebCenter is planned for both. The IP (Intellectual Property) for Sun’s Web Space Server will be released into the Liferay open source community.

On January 27th Larry Ellison and other Oracle executives outlined the Oracle Sun strategy in a live event. The webcast and sheets are available online. There is also a FAQ overview available.

Besides that there is the Oracle + Sun Product Strategy Webcast Series. If you are into Java or Middleware developement, I think the message boils down to these few sheets:

Development Tools

Development Tools Strategy

Application Server

Glassfish and WebLogic will coexist and share logic/components.

AS strategy

SOA products

Oh, and WebCenter will be the strategic portal offering.

SOA product strategy

• Integration perspective
• Oracle gets MySQL for free

First a short note on both BPMN and BPEL. BPMN is a modeling notation for business processes. OMG on it’s BPMN pages puts it:

The primary goal of BPMN is to provide a notation that is readily understandable by all business users, from the business analysts that create the initial drafts of the processes, to the technical developers responsible for implementing the technology that will perform those processes, and finally, to the business people who will manage and monitor those processes.

BPEL is an execution language. There is for example no standard graphical notation in the BPEL standard. The main focus is not on readability, it is on execution.
So BPMN and BPEL aim for different goals. It should come as no surprise that there is gap. There are several resources that describe the mapping, provide translation, or transforming BPMN to BPEL.

Guidelines

Here are some guidelines that help you bridge the BPMN to BPEL gap:

• Be as specific as possible in BPMN diagrams (In Oracle Business Process Analysis Suite you can use e.g. automated activity, notification , and human tasks.).
• Add additional information in BPMN activities. Sure this doesn’t enable automatic transformation, but it does reduce the need for additional design documentation. This will improve documentation consistency, and reduce the required governance.
• Use templates in your BPMN activities. Structure and check completeness of your descriptions.
• Use a Service repository. This will enable both designers and developer to communicate about “the same thing”
• Use a GUI components reposity, for the same reasons as you use a Service repository

This evening while playing with WinDirStat (using the Portable Apps version) I took the following screenshot:

JDeveloper Stats