deltalounge

For the first time I had to make an integration to a service that had no WSDL deployed with it. Since the (SCA) Composite assumes a WSDL it takes some time to figure out how to realise this. Under default conditions a Reference in a (SCA) Composite in SOA Suite 11g looks something like:

<reference ui:wsdlLocation="SomeDataRef.wsdl"
                   name="SomeDataWebService">
  <interface.wsdl interface="http://ws.deltalounge.net/SomeDataService#wsdl.interface(SomeData)"
                  callbackInterface="http://ws.deltalounge.net/#wsdl.interface(SomeData)"/>
  <binding.ws port="http://ws.deltalounge.net/#wsdl.endpoint(SomeDataService/SomeData_pt)"
              location="http://ws.deltalounge.net/tstservices/SomeDataService?wsdl" />

The location of the binding.ws points to a WSDL. Which is no problem at compile time. However at runtime the WSDL can not be found and an error is raised.
This error can be prevented by pointing to the endpoint instead of to the WSDL. To accomplish this your Reference in a (SCA) Composite in SOA Suite 11g would look something like:

<reference ui:wsdlLocation="SomeDataRef.wsdl"
                   name="SomeDataWebService">
  <interface.wsdl interface="http://ws.deltalounge.net/SomeDataService#wsdl.interface(SomeData)"
                  callbackInterface="http://ws.deltalounge.net/#wsdl.interface(SomeData)"/>
  <binding.ws port="http://ws.deltalounge.net/#wsdl.endpoint(SomeDataService/SomeData_pt)"
              uri="http://ws.deltalounge.net/tst/services/SomeDataService"/>

Now there is an uri in the binding.ws refering to an endpoint.

In the blogpost on the release of SOA Suite 11gR1 PS2, I mentioned a link to the documentation index. Since it hasn’t been update by now, I suggest you go to the middleware documentation page. This page is more up to date and has the link to the web library and download address (Alert! approx. 860 MB) of E14571-01 – the Fusion Middleware Online Documentation Library 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.3.0).

SOA Suite 11gR1 PS2 installation notes

Besides the reference in the documentation library to the Install Guide and the Quick Install Guide, there are several blogs describing the installation of 11.1.1.3. Which is actually a patch on 11.1.1.2:

• This post by Oracle ACE Eric Elzinga;
• The installation steps described by Theo van Arem;
• Installation of 11g PatchSet 2 on Windows by Niall Commiskey, members or Oracle PTS in EMEA;
• The one on Oracle blogs by James Taylor includes OSB 11.1.1.3

SOA Suite on Amazon EC2

This week it was announced that BPM 11g R1 is available as an Amazon Machine Image (AMI). This AMI includes SOA Suite 11gR1 Patchset 2 and JDeveloper with the SOA and BPM extension. In AWS filter on 64-bit and put soa-bpm in the search box. This should enable you to find oracle-soa-bpm-11gr1-ps2-4.1-pub. Some of the tips I posted on x SOA Suite in the cloud could be useful here as well.

There are several advantages when working in a project with Oracle SOA Suite to have a local installation of the SOA Suite on your workstation. While developing and trying bits of code you can’t break other peoples work as you can on a central server. Running FMW 11g on a workstation with say memory on the low end of the spectrum can be challenging. In this blog I’ll show you some additional (to this previous post) measure that my blogless colleague Rob Heikoop came up with.

Rob came up with two things:

• Create an All in One AdminServer as described on the Oracle wiki. We skipped BAM in the installation Use only one Domain in WLS. You’ll have to combine the admin en the SOA_domain. Running just one domain saves memory.
• Keep the database centralized. In the central database each developer has it’s own SOA schema that is especially created for him. To do this run the RCU for every developer and use the prefix to reflect for example the developers initials (example of using RCU on slideshare). Not running the database on your workstation saves memory and CPU.

In order to have new developers being able to use this quickly we copy the reference installation (with plug-ins, patches and the works) and alter the configuration:

• Alter the scripts in the C:\Devel\SOAMiddleware\user_projects\domains\soa_domain\bin directory to reflect your workstation name instead of that of the reference machine. You can do this easily by using an editor like Notepad++ and use Search > Find in files > Replace in files. Otherwise you’ll be stopping your teammates server…. (again sorry Rob)
• Change the configuration files in C:\Devel\SOAMiddleware\user_projects\domains\soa_domain\config\jdbc to reflect the prefix created especially for you while using the RCU. Again Notepad++ can help you here.

Now you can start the tools:

• WebLogic Server: C:\Devel\SOAMiddleware\user_projects\domains\soa_domain\bin\startWebLogic.cmd
• JDeveloper: C:\Devel\SOAMiddleware\jdeveloper\jdeveloper.exe

Previous I mentioned a preview of the 11g R1 PS2 new features. Here are a few links for this new release – 11.1.1.3.0:

• SOA Suite 11g R1 PS2 new features.
• Download page
• The documentation index will probably be updated soon.

Existing PS1 users simply apply the patch to upgrade to 11.1.1.3.0.

Other releases

• Oracle Service Bus OSB 11g R1
• Business Process Management BPM 11g R1

SOA Suite on EC2

Setting up Amazon Web Services (EC2 and S3)

This arcticle on OTN guided me while signing up for:

• Amazon AWS
• Amazon S3 – Simple Storage Service
• Amazon EC2 – Elastic Compute Cloud

and to setup PuTTY. The only hick-up here was that I’m using the PortableApps version of PuTTY that doesn’t come with the puttygen – Key Generator.

Provisioning a SOA Server on Amazon EC2

This blogpost guided me in the provisioning of the AMI (Amazon Machine Image).

• AMIs are per region: The Amazon Machine Instance (AMI) for SOA Suite (id = ami-acb557c5) is only available in the US East (Northern Virginia) Region.
• Don’t bother to setup the Elastic Block Store (EBS) Volume. It is scripted in the latest version of the AMI, as described in step 5 of “SSH to your image and accept license”. The EBS Volume is seeded using a snapshot (id = snap-dd980db4) that is provided. This volume will be used to persist your data across sessions and AMI start/stop.
• When launching the image (during the Configure Firewall step) set the SecurityGroup to accept HTTP traffic on port 7001 in case you want to use the SOA Suite from outside the Image.

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.

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

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