deltalounge

By default the Oracle BPM engine (Business Process Management) is configured so it won’t publish events to BAM (Business Activity Management). So should you choose to use BAM and use these great dashboards, you have set the DisableActions property to false/empty. Here is how it works to configure BPM to BAM:

• Log in to the Fusion Middleware Control – http://bpm-host:7001/em
• Navigate through the Farm – WebLogic Domain – select the domain and then select the Server in which BPM is running (soa_server1 in a default install)
• Use the WebLogic Server dropdown menu as shown in the first screenshot
• Select the System Mbean browser in the menu
• Expand the folder ans shown in the second screenshot: Application Defined MBeans - oracle.as.soainfra.config - BMNNConfig - bpmn
• Find the DisableActions property and remove it’s value
• Apply the changes

[Show as slideshow]

To have the BPM server push events to BAM – Business Activity Monitoring – we have to configure the BPM suite to use the BAM Adapter. The BAM Adapter is configured (like other SOA Suite and BPM Adapters) in the WebLogic Server Console.

Configure BAM Adapter

• In the WLS Console, locate the Domain structure and select Deployments.
• In the Deployments table that is shown, search and click the OracleBAMAdapter (you could filter on type Resource Adapter)
• As shown in the first screenshot: Select the Configuration tab and within that the Outbound Connection Pools tab
• Drill down on the oracle.bam.adapter.adc.soap.SOAPConnectionFactory to eis/bam/soap
• In the properties tab: fill in the details of the connection to the BAM Server (depending on how you installed it). Remember to acknowledge the changes of each field using the enter key (leaving a field without using the enter key and changes will be lost)
• Save
• First time you alter the BAM Adapter you have to create a Deployment Plan. Select the Path to the deployment plan and Save
• Since you need to update the Adapetr now, select it and chose Update
• Choose the option Update this application in place with the new deployment plan changes and click Finish.

[Show as slideshow]

In Oracle SOA Suite 10g, or more specific BPEL 10g, one could group functionality in domains. This feature has been away in the early versions of SOA Suite 11g. They have returned in more recent version and can be used for all SCA composites (instead of BPEL only). Nowadays these 10g domains are called partitions.

Create SOA Suite partition

• Login to the Fusion Middleware Enterprise Manager: http://server-name:portnr/em
• Use the tree-view on the left and select soa-infra.
• Use the SOA Infrastructure dropdown menu and select the Manage Partitions item.






















• The manage partitions page appears and you should select Create… to create your new SOA Suite partition.


















• Enter a name for the partition and press the create button.

While deploying SCA appications from JDeveloper or ANT you should add the partition from now on.

There are fine resources on how to purge SOA Suite instances. However there are case where you want to delete the instances for a specific composite deployed in the SOA Suite. An example could be after an extensive test or test load on a specific service implemented in a SCA composite.

Here is the PL/SQL we used to purge instances of the productservice composite in the test partition. It is based on the default packages that are bundled with the SOA Suite to purge instance data:

DECLARE
   l_min_creation_date   TIMESTAMP     := to_timestamp('2010-01-01','yyyy-mm-dd');
   l_max_creation_date   TIMESTAMP     := to_timestamp('2012-09-10 1600','yyyy-mm-dd hh24mi');
   l_batch_size          INTEGER       := 100;
   l_max_runtime         INTEGER       := 60;
   l_soa_partition_name  varchar2(100) := 'test';
   l_composite_name      varchar2(100) := 'productservice';
 
BEGIN
-- delete instances for specific composite
soa.delete_instances( min_creation_date => l_min_creation_date
                    , max_creation_date => l_max_creation_date
                    , batch_size => l_batch_size 
                    , max_runtime => l_max_runtime
                    --, retention_period =>
                    , purge_partitioned_component => FALSE
                    , composite_name => l_composite_name
                    --, composite_revision => 
                    , soa_partition_name => l_soa_partition_name
                    );
commit;
END;

You can use the instances tab to track the progress of the delete script:

BPMN processes created in the BPM Suite can be monitored by standardized dashboard in the BPM workspace. Besides that there a default views to export Oracle BPM metrics to a data warehouse. And there is another option: BAM – Business Activity Monitoring. BAM takes the monitoring of BPMN processes one step further. BAM allows you to create more advanced dashboards and even real-time alerts. BAM enables you to make decisions based on real-time information gathered from your running processes. With BPMN processes you can use the standard Business Indicators that the BPM Suite offers you and use them to with BAM without much extra effort. However you have to enable BAM in BPM processes.

• In the BPM Project Navigator right click the BPM project
• Select Project Preferences
• In the Category tree, select Process Analytics Summary
• Click the Data Targets tab
• Check the Enable BAM checkbox
• Select the JNDI name of the BAM Adapter labeled as eis/bam/soap
• Click OK

When you run a process that has Oracle BAM enabled the BPMN Service Engine populates Oracle BAM database with information about the business indicators measured in that process. The BPMN Service Engine generates this information based on the Sampling Points preference you defined in your project.

Also read the blog post on how to configure your SOA server to know where your BAM server is running. This is also needed to use BAM for BPM metrics.

Managers and teamleads rely on measurements to know how processes and teams are performing. With an increased BPM effort and automated support of processes, more and more questions on solid information from these systems rise. Oracle BPM offers an easy way to export metrics to a data warehouse. Oracle BPM captures standard and business specific metrics and exposes these through a BPM process star schema.

Export Oracle BPM metrics to a data warehouse

To export Oracle BPM metrics to a data warehouse the SOAINFRA schema in which all configuration and (runtime) instance data is stored offers a number fact tables. These standard views enable the extraction of information for BI usage. For Oracle BPM release prior to PS4FP (11.1.1.5.1) the views have to be created manually. From patchset 4 onwards the process has been automated. Please note that it is not recommended to run the BI reports on the BPM process database.

An overview of the standard fact tables:

• BPM_PROCESS_PERFORMANCE_V – offers standard metrics (like start and end time and running time in seconds) for completed processes.
• BPM_ACTIVITY_PERFORMANCE_V – offers standard metrics for completed activities, completed intervals, measurement marks and counters for both in-flight and completed process instances.
• BPM_PROCESS_INSTANCE_V – offers standard metrics for in-flight process instances. Because of that the information is only relevant at the time the view is queried. When processes move forward the information in this view refelcts the progress.
• BPM_ACTIVITY_INSTANCE_V – offers standard metrics for in-flight activities and interval instances.

An overview of the dimension tables:

• BPM_PROCESS_DEFINITION_V – including data on domain, composite, label and revision.
• BPM_ACTIVITY_DEFINITION_V – including the type of activity: UserTask, Gateway, Event, Measurement interval, etc.
• BPM_ROLE_DEFINITION_V – also allows you to see whether the role is the process owner.
• CUBE_INSTANCE
• COMPOSITE_INSTANCE

Example queries of BPM process metrics

Average process running time by process:

SELECT process_name
,      avg(process_running_time_in_msec)
FROM   bpm_process_performance_v 
GROUP  BY process_name
;

The number of faults by process:

SELECT process_name
,      COUNT(sequence_id)
FROM   bpm_process_performance_v
WHERE  process_discriminator = 'instance_system_fault'
GROUP BY process_name
;

When you run the process in multiple domains on the same server join with the BPM_PROCESS_DEFINITION_V and differentiate on DOMAINNAME.

Example queries of task performance metrics

Average, minimum and maximum time taken by a participant in a process per activity:

SELECT process_name
,      activity_label
,      role_name
,      avg(activity_running_time_in_msec)
,      MIN(activity_running_time_in_msec)
,      MAX(activity_running_time_in_msec)
FROM   bpm_activity_performance_v
GROUP BY process_name
,      activity_label
,      role_name
;

You could add the revision to see whether certain improvements in the process resulted in faster handling of activities by joining with the BPM_PROCESS_DEFINITION_V. It could also be usefull to join with the BPM_ACTIVITY_DEFINITION_V and discriminate on ACTIVITYTYPE.

To create Oracle BPM processess with JDeveloper you need to install the BPM Studio extension. This is similar to installing the SOA Suite extension.

Ensure that the desired version of JDeveloper is installed. You can download JDeveloper here. Should you be unsure on how to install JDeveloper check the SOA Suite quick start guide to guide you.

Install JDeveloper BPM Studio extension

Install JDeveloper in a seperate Middleware Home. When starting JDeveloper choose the “Default” role. To enable JDeveloper to perform development for the SOA Suite and develop and deploy SCA composites you have to install an extension called SOA Composite Editor. When you want to develop BPM processess you need to install BPM Studio extension following these steps:

• Select Help > Check for Updates
• Click Next
• Select Oracle Fusion Middleware Products and Official Oracle Extensions and Updates and click Next
• Select Oracle SOA Composite Editor and Oracle BPM Studio 11g and click Next
• Check the update has finished and click finished
• Restart JDeveloper and you’re good to go

Should you choose to install these extensions from a local file make shure you have the correct version for your JDeveloper and SOA Suite install. You can find these extensions in the JDeveloper Update Center. There is also a JDev extensions blog.

Trying to keep up with Java versions that are supported for JDeveloper and SOA Suite, like in JDeveloper now supports 64 bit Windows and Java. Redstack pointed me to the OFM supported systems configurations that show that Fusion Middleware is supported on JDK7. The XLS showing certification with OS etc can be found:

• Fusion Middleware 11g
• Fusion Middleware 12c

Installing PS5 (11.1.1.6) can cause some problems when using Oracle XE as the infrastucture database. The solution is described in this SOA Suite / BPM blog by Niall Commiskey.

More tips on upgrading OFM 11g to patch set 5

My colleague Laurens van der Starre published a serie of tips and tricks on upgrading Oracle Fusion Middleware to PS5 on the Whitehorses blog.

More considerations on upgrading to OFM 11.1.1.6.0

There is an additional article on upgrading to OFM 11.1.1.6 on the Whitehorses blog. It goes into more detail on JDK 7 support, OWSM in SOA Suite, the combination of OSB en OWSM and for example the PSA (Patch Set Assistant) performance.

Java memory arguments in OFM 11.1.1.6.0

More on setting Java memory arguments in SOA Suite 11.1.1.6.0.

Recently I read Do more with SOA integration that was published December 2011. This book is a mash-up of eight earlier published works from Packt, including Service Oriented Architecture: An Integration Blueprint, Oracle SOA Suite Developer’s Guide, WS-BPEL 2.0 for SOA Composite Applications with Oracle SOA Suite 11g, and SOA governance. More details on this title:

• Table of contents
• Free sample chapter – Loosely coupling services.

Target audience according to the publisher:

If you are a SOA architect or consultant who wants to extend your knowledge of SOA integration with the help of a wide variety of Packt books, particularly covering Oracle tools and products, then “Do more with SOA Integration: Best of Packt” is for you. You should have a good grasp of Service Oriented Architecture, but not necessarily of integration principles. Knowledge of vendor-specific tools would be an advantage but is not essential.

My thoughts

My assumption is that most people won’t read the around 700 pages of this book cover to cover. In my view it is a good reference book to get a solid introduction to SOA and integration in general.

To deepen you knowledge on real world scenario’s there a good examples eg given in the chapters on Extending enterprise application integration and Service oriented ERP integration. The first gives an example of of BPEL orchestrating various web service exposed on ERP systems (SAP, Siebel) using EAI (TIBCO, webMethods). This sample includes an example of centralized error handling. The latter shows an integration of PeolpleSoft CRM 8.9 and Oracle Applications 11g using BPEL 10g. The ideas and mechanismes of the integration will also hold in the 11g version.

Chapter 14 on SOA Integration a Scenario in detail, offers another example on how to use Oracle SOA technology (10g again) to integrate legacy systems into a more modern application landscape. It does a thorough job.

The chapter on Base Technologies has parts that are based on the Trivadis Integration Architecture Blueprint. Beside that it offers a good introduction on transactions, JCA, SCA and SDO. Their fundamentals are well explained without getting too technical. So should you be looking for coding examples on these topics, there are other great sources.

When reading about XML for integration I noticed that it answers questions we get from our customers on a regular basis like: How to design XSDs – XML Schema Definitions. Questions on when to use a type or an Element, chose targetNamespace or XMLSchema as the default namespace, the number of namespaces to use. These are all well adressed in the book.

Where on the other hand a complete view on the following statement could fill at least a whitepaper:

Adopt and develop design techniques, naming conventions, and other best practices similar to those used in object-oriented modelling to address the issues of reuse, modularization, and extensibility. Some of the common design techniques are discussed in the later sections.

The chapter on loose coupling offers an example of how to achieve this using the Oracle Service Bus. It is hard to overrate the importance of loose coupling since a lot of both the technical and the business advantage rely on whether or not this loose coupling is achieved.

Bottomline

As a reference this is a good starting point to learn about SOA and integration in general. It could be more consistent on some details and with the great BPEL and BPM tooling these days I wouldn’t implement processes in an ESB. Of course there is a good chapter (12) with an eaxmple of using both BPM and BPEL. As mentioned before it has some great illustrative examples of real world scenarios. The bottom line is that I would recommend this book to people looking for a reference on SOA and integration.

Cons:
Some text seems a little dated.

Pros:
Good description of SOA and integration in general; practical ; solid introduction on the XML stuff, transactions, JCA and SCA; nice real world integration examples.

Additional reviews

If you’re interested in other reviews on this book, visit the ADF Code Corner blog by Frank Nimphius, AMIS blog by Lucas Jellema, or this SOA / BPM on Fusion Middleware blog by Niall Commiskey.