Download the tool here. The readme is over here. The script runs on Linux/Unix and has primarily been tested with Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g applications but should work with other BPEL or SOA frameworks.

Clients today prefer to buy SOA governance solutions that will serve their purpose throughout the whole SOA endeavor, governing services and artifacts through different projects from planning and design all the way to implementation operation and retirement.

The most important change that I see at our customers compared with two year ago is that they more more interested and willing to invest in governance technologies.

What is SOA Governance about

SOA governance technology is about:

• Tracking and monitoring the artifacts in a SOA
• Enforcing and ensuring compliance with the policies associated with the artifacts
• Measuring the outcomes related to their use

Oracle’s SOA governance offering

Oracle’s offering in the Governance technologies market is part of it’s Fusion Middleware product line. It includes the following products (see this this blog):

• Oracle Enterprise Gateway and Oracle Web Services Manager – Full life cycle policy management
• Oracle Enterprise Repository
• Oracle Service Registry
• Oracle SOA Management Pack

This number of products and the complexity of Oracle’s offering can make it hard to get a good grasp of what product will cater your specific needs. Should you need more insight visit our SOA governance seminar.

Some of the topics:

• What is SOA Governance and Why do we need it?
• SOA reference architecture – The importance of solid standardization.
• Service life-cycle governance – Design and build the right services and the proper way to reuse them.
• Service repository – With examples of repositories based on Oracle Enterprise Repository (OER) and a wiki.

rsvp.

The value of reference models whether it contains data models, standardized messages, processes of a reference architecture, is or should be in a faster time to market and better quality of the solution.

Handle with care

What makes it hard to achieve this value, is the fact that these models contain always far more than is needed. That can be considered a waste. Even the parts that are not used still require attention while implementing and maintaining. This incurs work to understand the complex model, hide the details you don’t need, and customize and extend the parts you need.

Implementing a reference model requires spending time to determine how and to what extend this model meets the needs of your business? That is typically something you have to discover for yourself. It is where the majority of the time is spend! If you don’t go through the effort of understanding your business requirements, you are missing understanding of how the business can and should use the model. That makes it very hard to determine the value of the end solution to the business.

When using a reference models you should be aware that your business is not average. In some shape or form it delivers value to your customers in away a reference model doesn’t provide. Reference models should be used with care your business deserves.

Prepare – database

The most important part of the preparation for the installation of Oracle Enterprise Repository is the creation of tablespaces and the user that will hold the database objects.
Create the required tablespaces
You can change the names of the tablespaces and alter the path and names of the data files according to your needs. The example is based on an installation on the Windows OS. If your on Linux/Unix you probably know what to do to make it work on your platform…

CREATE TABLESPACE OER_DATA
    DATAFILE 'D:\oracle\oraclexe\oradata\XE\oer_data.dbf' SIZE 300M
 AUTOEXTEND ON NEXT 10240K MAXSIZE UNLIMITED
    EXTENT MANAGEMENT LOCAL AUTOALLOCATE
    LOGGING
    ONLINE
    SEGMENT SPACE MANAGEMENT AUTO;
 
CREATE TABLESPACE OER_LOB
    DATAFILE 'D:\oracle\oraclexe\oradata\XE\oer_lob.dbf' SIZE 300M
 AUTOEXTEND ON NEXT 10240K MAXSIZE UNLIMITED
    EXTENT MANAGEMENT LOCAL AUTOALLOCATE
    LOGGING
    ONLINE
    SEGMENT SPACE MANAGEMENT AUTO;
 
CREATE TABLESPACE OER_INDEX
    DATAFILE 'D:\oracle\oraclexe\oradata\XE\oer_index.dbf' SIZE 300M
 AUTOEXTEND ON NEXT 5120K MAXSIZE UNLIMITED
    EXTENT MANAGEMENT LOCAL AUTOALLOCATE
    LOGGING
    ONLINE
    SEGMENT SPACE MANAGEMENT AUTO;

Create the user
Change the user name and password (both OER in this case) to cater your needs.

CREATE USER OER IDENTIFIED BY OER
DEFAULT TABLESPACE OER_DATA
    TEMPORARY TABLESPACE TEMP;
 
GRANT CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW TO OER;
GRANT CREATE SEQUENCE TO OER;
GRANT CREATE SESSION TO OER;
GRANT CREATE SYNONYM TO OER;
GRANT CREATE TABLE TO OER;
GRANT CREATE TRIGGER TO OER;
GRANT CREATE VIEW TO OER;
GRANT UNLIMITED TABLESPACE TO OER;

Install OER

Us the follwing command from a dos prompt to start the OER installation. By default it will start in graphical mode. You can use the -mode option to start it in console or silent mode.

java -jar OER111150_generic.jar -log=C:\installSOA\logs\OER_install.log

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Run WebLogic Server Domain Configuration Wizard

To run the Domain Configuration Wizard on Windows you can click: Start > Programs > Oracle Products > Tools > Configuration Wizard. On any platform you can run the config script in the /common/bin/config.cmd. For example:

> cd oracle\Middleware\wlserver_10.3\common\bin
> config.cmd

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Post Install actions

To use all options in the Repository you need to install Java Web Start. To check whether Java Web Start is installed correctly use the test Java link.

In case the JNLP stuff (needed for java Web Start) doesn’t work. This Firefox JNLP fix might help you (via Andreas).

And even though there can be just as many parameters in the larger equations, architecture isn’t exactly rocket science either…

Locate and copy the WSDL

Locate the WSDL file in your project on the local file system, for example: C:\JDeveloper\mywork\AIApocBOUW\CreateInventoryTransactionRIBRMSProvABCSImpl.wsdl. In which a convention like C:\JDeveloper\mywork\__Workspace__\__project__ is used. You can also determine this path in JDeveloper by selecting the WSDL file and use CRTL-SHIFT-C (or by selecting contextmenu – Copy Path).

Use an FTP tool to move the file to the server running the SOA Suite. The path to use on the server depends on the application, version and component type. Typically in AIA there is a structure like $AIA_HOME/AIAMetaData/AIAComponents/ApplicationConnectorServiceLibrary/__Application__/__version__/__componentType__ . Where in AIA component types are ABCS Provider, ABCS Requestor, EBS, et cetera. In other environments you can create your own structure. Since you no longer need a local copy of the WSDL, remove it from your local file system.

Load the WSDL in the MDS Repository

To load the WSDL and other artifacts to the MDS repository there is an ANT script available on the server. To use ANT, make sure the needed environment settings are made correctly. When you installed AIA there is a Shell script available the will source both AIA and ANT environments: aiaenv.sh. This script can be found in ...../weblogic/aia30/aia_instances/aia30poc/bin. It can be convenient to copy this to your home directory.

• Source AIA and ANT environment: source ./aiaenv.sh.
• Alter the UpdateMetaDataDP.xml configuration file. It can be found in ...../weblogic/aia30/aia_instances/aia30poc/config.

In case your vi isn’t up to par use a tool like WinSCP and choose Edit in the context menu:

In the UpdateMetaDataDP.xml file alter the file set. In the example on which the screenshot is based
AIAComponents/ApplicationConnectorServiceLibrary/Retail/V1/RequesterABCS/CreateStockChangeLOCUSReqABCSImpl.wsdl is added.

And now you are ready to run ANT using the actual loading script:
ant –f /fs01/app/oracle/esbtst01/weblogic/aia30/Infrastructure/Install/scripts/UpdateMetaData.xml

Check the output of the ANT script:

• check that the correct number of files has been copied.
• the server gave a HTTP response 200.
• The deployment of the composite was successful.

Another check to verify a correct load into the MDS Repository is to use the MDS Browser in JDeveloper to find the file you just uploaded. A refresh of the view could be needed to include the latest changes and additions.

Using the WSDL in the MDS Repository in your source code

The last step is to reference to the WSDL in the MDS Repository, since the file has been removed from the local file system. Double click the Exposed Service to open the wizard:













Choose Existing WSDL to select the WSDL from the MDS Repository:



















Check the change using the source view. In the import of the WSDL in the composite.xml there should now be an URL referring to oramds:, like in the example below:

<import namespace="http://xmlns.oracle.com/ABCSImpl/LOCUS/Core/CreateStockChangeLOCUSReqABCSImpl/V1"
        location="oramds:/apps/AIAMetaData/AIAComponents/ApplicationConnectorServiceLibrary/Locus/V1/RequesterABCS/CreateStockChangeLOCUSReqABCSImpl.wsdl"
        importType="wsdl"/>

As was stated in a previous blogpost on measuring the business value of SOA, project metrics for business value created by SOA projects, IT projects, or even projects in general are rare. If I were a CFO this would worry me.
Besides that SOA efforts in a way also demand a different way of cost accounting than the traditional silo based. If my organizational unit owned (and had to account for the costs) of a rather popular often reused service, I would like to charge them. Say for example in a pay-per-service-call way. How do the financial systems under the responsibility of the CFO facilitate this?

Of course there will be lots of other stuff on your agenda if you are the CFO. But hey due to the crisis interest rates are low, labor is cheap, as are materials, so why not invest now in the foundation/infrastructure for the future
If you’re a CFO and – by incident – are reading this blogpost please let me know what you think, and add a comment…

1. Oracle AIA – Application Integration Architecture
2. Architects and architecture
3. BPM – Business Process Management
4. Cloud Computing
5. Data Integration
6. EDA – Event Driven Architecture
7. Fusion Middleware development
8. Java EE
9. Middleware for Enterprise Applications
10. SOA – Service Oriented Architecture

Plug

Okay, i’ll plug two sessions:

• Customer – S314708 – Transform Your Business with Oracle Application Integration Architecture | Monday, September 20, 14:00 | Moscone West L3, Rm 3011
• Colleague – S316135 – From Oracle Forms to a Service-Oriented Architecture with Oracle SOA Suite 11g | Tuesday, September 21, 5:00PM | Marriott Marquis, Salon 9

Have Fun