Oracle SOA Suite

SOA or Service Oriented Architecture allows organizations to reduce the complexity within there IT Architecture by adopting modular standards such as web services that are adaptable and flexible. The Service Oriented Architecture aims at achieving interoperability between various prosperity software that the organization might use. The SOA makes use of web service standards like Web Services Description Language (WSDL), extensible markup language (XML), and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP).

Oracle provides an SOA Suite provides the necessary infrastructure that enables you to create, deploy and managed these SOA complaint Web services.

The main components of the Oracle SOA Suite are

• Integrated Service Environment which includes Oracle JDeveloper,Oracle Application Framework and Oracle Toplink.
• Oracle BPEL Process Manager
• Oracle Enterprise Service Bus
• Oracle Business Rules
• Oracle Business Monitoring
• Oracle Web Services Manager
• Oracle Application Server 10g Rel 3

Installing SOA Suite

The Oracle SOA suite needs an 10g infrastructure to which it can be integrated and installed. This can either be the infrastructure that come with the 10g Application Server or the Oracle Collaboration Suite infrastructure.However to install SOA suite the database of the infrastructure must be at 10.1.5 or higher.

Pre Requisites

A 10g Application Server infrastructure installed

As mentioned earlier the SOA suite will be installed on a existing infrastructure, you must install a 10g infrastructure of you already do not have one.

Upgrade Infrastructure Database

The infrastructure database that comes with Oracle Application Server or Oracle Collaboration Suite might be required to be upgraded to 10.1.5 at least.

Create the required SOA schemas In The Database

The SOA suite requires the ORABPEL,ORAESB and ORAWSM schemas to be loaded into your infrastructure database. The irca.sh script will create these schemas for you. You can find this script at install/soa_schemas/irca in your SOA Suite CD.Even if these schemas exist you must overwrite them in order for the SOA Suite to function properly.

Login to your infrastructure tier and execute this script after setting the environment.

$ ./irca.sh
Integration Repository Creation Assistant (IRCA) 10.1.3.1.0
(c) Copyright 2006 Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved.
Enter database "host port serviceName" [localhost 1521 orcl]: samlx.appsdbablog.com 1521 samdb.appsdbablog.com
Enter sys password:
Running IRCA for all product(s):
connection="samlx.appsdbablog.com 1521 samdb.appsdbablog.com", , orabpelUser=ORABPEL, esbUser=ORAESB, orawsmUser=ORAWSM
Validating database ...
Validating database character set ...
Running prerequisite checks for ORABPEL ...
WARNING: This script will overwrite the existing ORABPEL schema.
Do you wish to continue? (y/n) y
Enter password for ORABPEL:
Loading ORAESB schema (this may take a few minutes) ...
Running prerequisite checks for ORAESB ...
Enter password for ORAESB:
Loading ORAESB schema (this may take a few minutes) ...
Running prerequisite checks for ORAWSM ...
Enter password for ORAWSM:
Loading ORAWSM schema (this may take a few minutes) ...
INFO: ORABPEL schema contains 210 valid objects.
INFO: ORAESB schema contains 175 valid objects.
INFO: ORAWSM schema contains 90 valid objects.
IRCA completed.
Please check for any ERROR message above and also check the log file
irca2006-11-30_07-52-09PM.log for any error or other information.

Create OS User

Create a OS user through will the installation of SOA suite will happen.

$useradd -g dba -d /u02/orasoa orasoa

Starting The Installation

Login to the orasoa user and start the installer using the ./runInstaller command.



The first screen lets us choose between a basic installation and a advanced installation, we choose the advance installation option for more felxiblity.



The next screen presents us with the components of SOA suite which we wish to install, here we choose J2EE Server, Web Server and the SOA Suite option.



A pre installation check of the operating system is now carried out.



You must now provide a user with sys DBA privileges on your infrastructure database and the hostname for your infrastructure.



Now you must give the password for the schemas you created using the irca script.



Specify weather you want manual or automatic port selection.



Enter an instance name and the password for the OC4JADMIN super user.



In case you want this instance to be a part of the existing Application Server cluster, you must specify the details here.



The installer will now display the components that it will install and configure for you.

The OUI now start the installation showing the progress.



Like most oracle installation, the SOA also requires you to run the root.sh script as the root user.



The configuration Assistant will now start the configuration of the products and also start the associated services.



At the end of the installation information is displayed on how to access the instance.



You can access the SOA Suite with the URL from the previous screen.

Install SOA Suite Companion CDs

After having installed the SOA Suite, lets install the Companion CDs. I am listing the steps that I undertook and the steps that I skipped in this process.
The URL for downloading Oracle SOA Suite Companion CDs is Link Here
You should install the SOA Suite prior to installing Companion CDs. Link for SOA Suite is click here
There are three files that you need to download. For this, I created following Directory Structure.
c:\bpel\soa_windows_x86_companion_101310_disk1 , disk2 and disk3

Extract the three zip files into respective 3 subdirectories.

Install Apache 2.0 http server
Navigate to c:\bpel\soa_windows_x86_companion_101310_disk1, and click on setup.exe
Selected the option to Install Apache Server as prompted, in default path C:\product\10.1.3.1\companionCDHome_2
Once installed, you will get a message
The following information is available in:
C:\product\10.1.3.1\companionCDHome_1\install\setupinfo.txt
-----------------------------------------
Use the following URL to access the Oracle HTTP Server and the Welcome Page:
http://dell:7777

Install Oracle Containers for J2EE 10.1.3.1.0
Again from Companion CD1 itself, I Selected this option, and installed. Took few seconds.

Install TopLink 10g Runtime and Developer
Again from Companion CD1 itself, clicked on setup.exe and then I Selected this option, and installed. This tool approx 30 seconds.
The homepage for TopLink was created in location file:///C:/product/10.1.3.1/companionCDHome_3/toplink/doc/index.html.html

Companion CD2
Next, navigated to C:\bpel\soa_windows_x86_companion_101310_disk2\asg\Disk1\install
Clicked on Setup.exe, and noticed that Disk2 contained Application Server Guard, which I did not need. Hence I skipped this step.
Note: Companion CD2 delivers jDeveloper as file jdevstudio10131. This is where BPEL diagrams will be developed.
I had downloaded this separately anyway to install/extract on c:\jdev

Companion CD3
Next, navigated to C:\bpel\soa_windows_x86_companion_101310_disk3\failsafe\install
Clicked on Setup.exe, and noticed that Disk3, contained Oracle Fail Safe, that which I did not need. Hence I skipped this step too.

Validate your SOA Suite Install on PC

Before we can begin design and development in SOA, we must first ensure that SOA Suite was installed correctly on your Machine.

In this article, I will demonstrate the below:-
1. Start your SOA Console
2. Once you have installed SOA Suite and Companion CD, quickly validate that BPEL Server works as expected.


Step 1. In your Program Menu of [Windows in this case], Click on Start SOA Suite.


Step 2. Click on Menu SOA Launch Console [above the menu in Step 1]

Step 3. The Step 2 above would have displayed the SOA Suite in the browser.
Let's validate that your BPEL Server is up and running.
In the right hand side window, you would see BPEL Control and also Application Server Control


On the right hand side of the browser window, click on BPEL Control under Manage Your SOA Suite.
You will be prompted for User-Id and Password, which will be oc4jadmin/xx23xx23 as defined in article for SOA Installation

Keep patience when logging in for the very first time.
This completes the validation of your BPEL Server.

Step 4. Next, go back to SOA Console [which in my case is http://dell:8888/]
Click on Application Server Control
Login and password once again is oc4jadmin and xx23xx23
Scroll down and click on link "Runtime Ports"
Under "OC4J Home", note down the Port Number for RMI

This completes the validation of Key Processes that have been installed on your PC.
In the next training article, we will learn how to configure Database Connection to OracleLite and Application Server using jDeveloper 10g.

SOA Suite Installation

To download the BPEL Process Manager [SOA Suite],
follow the link http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/tech/webservices/index.html
http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/ias/htdocs/101310.html
Alternately follow the above link[ I am not installing the Companion CDs as yet].

First install the SOA Suite as shown below.
I have listed the installation steps. The install was very straightforward, and does not really need a supporting article.

Salient feature of this install are:-
**This will install the BPEL Server, which is equivalent to the Workflow Engine[just in case you wish to make comparison].
**SOA Suite comes bundled with a Oracle Lite database, which should sufffice for your tutorials etc.
**SOA Suite will not have jDeveloper. jDeveloper can either be installed separately, or as a part of Companion CD.

What is the Difference between BPEL Server and jDeveloper?
Both are needed for you to practice BPEL design/development. jDeveloper will be used to make Service Orchestration diagrams.

Unzip the SOA Suite to c:\bpel and run the install.
For this I doubleclicked on C:\bpel\soa_windows_x86_101310_disk1\setup.exe


Password lets say xx123xx123

The installation of Oracle Application Server 10g 10.1.3.1.0 was successful.
These instructions are located in C:\product\10.1.3.1\OracleAS_1\install\readme.txt for your future reference.

You can view the status of the server with the following command:
C:\product\10.1.3.1\OracleAS_1\opmn\bin\opmnctl status


Access the Oracle SOA Suite 10g Application Server Welcome Page via the following URL:
http://dell:8888


Access the Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control via the following URL:
http://dell:8888/em



Installation Details:

Installation Directory: C:\product\10.1.3.1\OracleAS_1
Installation Type: J2EE Server and SOA Suite
Installed Components: SOA Suite, Oracle Containers for J2EE (OC4J) and Oracle Process Manager and Notification Server (OPMN)
Instance Name: anilpassi.dell
Administrator Username: oc4jadmin

The log file containing the details of Configuration Asistants is located in C:\product\10.1.3.1\OracleAS_1\cfgtoollogs



Documentation
Online documentation for Oracle Application Server is available at:
http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B31017-01/index.htm.

In order to keep your system up-to-date we encourage you to regularly check for the latest certification and software updates via Oracle Metalink.


Oracle Metalink (http://metalink.oracle.com) will help you get the most out of your Oracle products by providing access to technical information and assistance from Oracle Support Services, including information about: product availability, certification, product alerts, bug information, patches, technical solutions, logging service requests, and more.



If you need to find more information on Oracle Integration Products please visit (http://otn.oracle.com/products/integration)



You can access the list of ports used by the following command :
C:\product\10.1.3.1\OracleAS_1\opmn\bin\opmnctl status -l


Access the Oracle Web Services Manager through the following URL
http://dell:8888/ccore

Access the Oracle Business Rules Author through the following URL
http://dell:8888/ruleauthor

Access the Oracle Enterprise Service Bus through the following URL
http://dell:8888/esb


Access the Oracle BPEL Process Manager Control through the following URL
http://dell:8888/BPELConsole


Please refer to the following file for a summary of this installation.
This file also contains the URLs for the various OWSM components.

Filename: owsmsetupinfo.txt
Location: C:/product/10.1.3.1/OracleAS_1/install