SOA Suite 12.2.1 | PaaS Community Blog

SOA Suite 12.2.1 New Features by Sandra Flores

November 3, 2016 Leave a comment

I recently had the opportunity to see version 12.2.1 of Oracle’s SOA Suite in action–and I can say it offers some very nice features that we developers have been waiting for. These features will make our lives much easier, especially when working with Cloud integrations, using REST and locating failures in BPEL instances.

These are some of the new features:

JavaScript support for SOA Composites and OSB Pipelines. Besides REST support for OSB and BPEL (which comes from a previous version), now we have a JavaScript activity for BPEL flows and another one for OSB Pipeline components. With this activity it is possible to handle payload with native and custom functions of this language without converting from JSON to XML (i.e., we are able to create REST BPEL orchestrations and OSB flows using JSON and work with this structure in a natural way with JavaScript). You can read more about using JavaScript in SOA Composites in the well-explained and complete article found here: https://technology.amis.nl/2015/11/02/soa-suite-12-2-1-a-first-look-at-end-to-end-json-and-javascript-support-in-soa-composites/.
XSLT Mapping Debug. XSLT transformations now have debug functionality. We can set breakpoints to check a function’s input and output data at runtime. This feature is available for applications deployed in local and remote servers, and for BPEL and Mediator components as well as for OSB projects.
Oracle Integration Continuous Availability. This complete solution comprises a set of SOA Suite operative functionality, including diagnosis, performance, availability, scalability among other operative aspects. Its main purpose is to provide tools and capabilities to solve issues arising from failures and improve our implementations. The following are part of this group:

In-Memory SOA. When we create a BPEL in JDev, a new tab called In-Memory SOA lets us choose from three persistence options: immediate, deferred and faulted. This functionality uses Coherence cache associated with WebLogic Server to run non-transactional short-running BPEL processes in-memory. This helps improve performance, lighten the DB job and make its maintenance easier. State data is stored and read from Coherence cache according to the option we choose: Read the complete article here.

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SOA Suite 12.2.1 VirtualBox Image available for download

September 12, 2016 1 Comment

Thanks to the product management team the latest SOA Suite 12.2.1 VirtualBox image is available for download here.

Overview

Please note that this appliance is for testing purposes only, as such it is unsupported and should not to be used in a production environment.

This VirtualBox appliance contains a fully-configured, ready-to-use SOA Suite 12.2.1 installation.

All you need is to install Oracle VM VirtualBox on your desktop/laptop and import the SOA Suite appliance and you are ready to try out SOA Suite 12.2.1 — no installation and configuration required!

The following software is installed in this VirtualBox image:

Oracle Enterprise Linux (64-bit) EL 6 Update 7
Oracle Database, Enterprise Edition 12.1.0.2
Oracle SOA Suite 12.2.1 (includes Service Bus, B2B, Oracle Enterprise Scheduler (ESS) and Business Activity Monitoring)
Oracle Managed File Transfer 12.2.1
Oracle Stream Explorer 12.2.1
Oracle JDeveloper 12.2.1
Sun Java 1.8.0_51-b16 (64-bit)

Please check the Introduction and Readme document for detailed instructions on downloading and importing the VirtualBox image. Get the VirtualBox image here.

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SOA 12.2.1 New Feature – End to End JSON and Javascript Example by Krishna Hanumantharao

May 18, 2016 Leave a comment

SOA 12.2.1 provides support for end-to-end JSON and Javascript. We don’t have do internal mapping between XML and JSON as in 12.1.3.

As part of this post, let us implement a simple REST service to demonstrate this new feature – End to End JSON with Javascript.

Let us create a very simple SOA Composite which exposes a JSON based REST interface, manipulates the values using Javascript and calls an external JSON based service.

Rest Service

External JSON Service Setup

For external JSON based REST service let us use a dummy Read the complete article here.

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SOA 12.2.1 – Awesome features! by Rama Rimmalapudi

May 15, 2016 Leave a comment

Here is a quick overview of some of the new features of Oracle SOA 12.2.1 that we are excited about. We are looking forward to using the new features with our customers; they will provide significant benefits!

Integration Workload Statistics in EM

Workload metrics are very useful for high volume implementations. BPEL 10g had some of these metrics and they were not available in SOA 11g. Now we can search and view these metrics in EM. Workload metrics help in planning capacity of SOA servers. One suggestion to Oracle: it would be nice be able to monitor these metrics and alert by setting thresholds. Here are the few useful metrics:

Internal Queue metrics
BPEL Activity metrics
Service/Reference/Wire metrics
CPU and Memory for specific time
Dehydration metrics

Resiliency: Circuit Breaker

Failing instances consume resources and slows down SOA servers. This was problem in prior releases if you have failing instances due to external services issues etc. This enhancement allows you to monitor and suspend upstream services and then resume them after period of time that you configured. This helps in eliminating system outages due to one or more bad services. Note that Circuit Breaker is not enabled by default.

Several other things that I like about this feature:

We can enable this feature globally or at service level
Alerts can be sent when endpoint suspended.

Composite instance patching

Another excellent feature is modifying a composite without redeploying, so that pending instances can use updated service using patch artifact (SCA-INF/patch.xml). It creates sparse patch archive. WLST commands are available to validate and apply (deploy) the patch. This feature is only supported in production mode with database based MDS.

SOA in-memory

This is another useful feature for high volume implementations, which uses a coherence cache and configurable write-behind thread to defer DB writes for completed instances. Note that EM only reads from Database, not from coherence cache. Read the complete article here.

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New Oracle Fusion Middleware 12c (12.2.1.0.0) Released!! by Bruno Neves Alves

May 14, 2016 Leave a comment

The version 12.2.1 is officially and finally out! Check what’s new:
Oracle B2B
Moving B2B Agreement from a Test to a Production Environment – Test to production (T2P) process is now simpler with the use of configuration plans to change the endpoints

Enabling AS4–Based Message Exchange – Applicability Statement 4 (AS4) standard is now supported!
Message Flow Throttling – Oracle B2B can pause, or throttle, the endpoint to publish messages
Securing Messages with PGP – Oracle B2B and Healthcare support message level security using PGP

Oracle SSHI (Soa Suite for Healthcare Integration)
Cloning Endpoints – As possible with B2B agreements, its now possible to clone SSHI endpoints

Synchronous Request/Reply over MLLP – Request/reply communication between two MLLP endpoints is not facilitated by the introduction of the sync communication feature at the endpoint configuration
Message Flow Throttling – same as B2B
Securing Messages with PGP – Same as B2B

Oracle SOA Suite (BPEL, Mediator, Business Rules and Human Workflow)
Support for patching running composite instances – Enabling the patching of running instances of a composite and recover faulted instances after patching

Support for In-Memory SOA Using In-Memory SOA – Improve System Performance executing short living processes only in memory

Read the complete article here.

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SOA Suite 12.2.1: Failure resiliency by Marcel van de Glind

May 13, 2016 Leave a comment

Adjust the situation that from a business process various service endpoints are invoked, where one of them is shown unstable behavior. The unstable service is regularly for short and sometimes long time not available. This may result in a large number of instances end in the error hospital. At the time that the endpoint is not available, resources are used to process instances which will not end successfully. Failure resiliency solution helps to avoid this situation. The failure resiliency solution is to suspend upstream inbound adapters, or EDN subscriptions, or web services. In the case of web services, clients are given errors right away. In the case of EDN and Adapters, messages wait in directory/queue/topic etc. until the endpoint is resumed.

IWS can also help in this situation (see also my IWS blog). Use IWS to examine what happened at various points in the business process to analyze the behavior.

By default, failure resiliency is switched off. Zo to start using it, the first step is to enable failure resiliency. You can enable it globally (as shown below). Each downstream endpoint inherits this configuration, but you can override it for an endpoint. Read the complete article here.

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SOA Suite 12.2.1: A first look at end-to-end JSON and JavaScript support in SOA Composites by Maarten Smeets

May 12, 2016 Leave a comment

SOA Suite 12.2.1 introduces end-to-end JSON support in composites and support for JavaScript in composites. The REST-binding (which can be used by Service Bus, BPEL, BPM) can receive and send untyped JSON without the need to translate it to XML. In BPEL, JavaScript can be used as expression language in various activities and there is a JavaScript embedding activity available.

In this article I’ll show some examples on what you can do with this end-to-end JSON support and give some examples on how to use JavaScript in your BPEL process.

About the implementation

Oracle has used the Mozilla Rhino JavaScript engine which is embedded in Java SE 6 and 7. WebLogic Server 12.2.1 and thus also SOA Suite 12.2.1, runs on Java SE 8 (Java EE 7). Java SE 8 has a new JavaScript engine Nashorn embedded (see here). A possible reason of Oracle for choosing Rhino could be that Nashorn is not thread safe. See here. You can imagine you need thread safety in an environment like SOA Suite.

SOAIncomingRequests_maxThreads is a property indicating the number of threads available to handle incoming requests. It is by default set to the same value as the connection pool size of the SOADataSource. This might not be enough for REST/JSON services. You can find this setting by going to the MBean browser, Configuration MBeans, com.bea, SelfTuning, (domain), MaxThreadsConstraint.

Use untyped JSON

You can use untyped JSON in various BPEL activities such as assign and assert activities. Since the JSON is untyped, you can assign values to elements which do not exist yet and they will be created; there is no message definition. Payload validation will cause a NullPointerException. Read the complete article here.

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SOA Suite 12.2.1: Resiliency updates on the operations side of life by Robert van Molken

May 11, 2016 Leave a comment

On the 25th of October at Open World 2015, Oracle released the 12.2.1 version of SOA Suite 12c. This release is full of resiliency updates on the operation side of life.

The operations of integration are critical and Oracle listened to the business requirement of customers while developing this release. Here are few of these operations.

Usually many hardware/software systems are managed by a small team.
With minimum need for admin intervention an integration needs to run silently, automatically and smoothly.
When things do go wrong, a console is needed that quickly allows identification and resolution of exceptions.
Without a lot of admin training it should be relatively simple to manage integrations.
An integration needs to scale, perform and provide continuous availability to process high workloads.
Ability to patch applications/composites for emergency fixes.

It isn’t the first time in the life cycle of SOA Suite 12c that Oracle is working on the operations of the product.

SOA Operations in 12.1.3

In the previous 12.1.3 release Oracle already targeted the IT operations. Read my blog about it for more details. But for a quick reference, here are the major updates.

Automated Operations
- Auto Purge: Old data past the retention point are periodically on schedule to be automatically be purged.
Performance
- Modularity Profile: Startup time and memoty is reduced by starting up components that are used (depends on the selected profile).
- Lazy Loading: Startup time is reduced by loading composites only on first use.
Problem Identification & Resolution
- Centered Error Hospital: The EM is reworked to be centered around exception conditions instead of business as usual, including a centralised Error Hospital.
- Better Flow Trace: A flow trace with multiple composites shows both in a single trace for better troubleshooting.
Simplified Tuning
- Work Managers: Simplify and improve thread tuning by switching to work managers. In 12.1.3 it is possible to assign a work manager per soa-infra partition.

SOA Operations in 12.2.1

Now in this 12.2.1 release Oracle has targeted the IT operations again, but with more focus on resiliency. First lets look at the major updates.

Resiliency
- Circuit Breaker: Improved resiliency when downstream services go down by suspending inbound services.
Performance
- In-Memory SOA: Optimize performance and scalability by reducing database growth.
- Integration Workload Statistics: Diagnostic tool for analysing performance similar to DB AWR.
- Parallel Deployment: Faster SOA and Service Bus startup time.
Availability
- Composite Instance Patching: Patch (long running) instances immediately without redeploying new composite version and stalling instances.
- Automatic Service Migration (ASM): Reduce the failover time and amount of machine resources needed for deployment.

Lets look at them in more details in same order as above.

Resiliency

Circuit Breaker

A problem we all have experienced is when services more downstream get unavailable cause instances to failt and fill up the error hospital. Manual recovery is sometimes difficult and time consuming. These failing instances consume unnecessary resources.

Because of these failing instances the operational costs to recover instances in the error hospital are greater. There is also a potential instability of the system due to the errors on business critical instances.

In the 12.2.1 release Oracle introduces Circuit Breaker. It automatically suspend upstream inbound services and the messages are added in queues on disk for later processing. The inbound services automatically resume when the downstream service endpoint is up. Read the complete article here.

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Quick overview of SOA Suite 12.2.1 new features by Maarten Smeets

May 10, 2016 Leave a comment

Oracle has just released SOA Suite 12.2.1 which contains several exciting new features. The below entries have shamelessly copied from the developers guide in order to provide a quick overview of highlights for this release of the SOA Suite. Also at the end of the article some links for new features of WebLogic Server 12.2.1 which has also been released.

Patching running instances

See Patching Running Instances of a SOA Composite

Oracle SOA Suite 12c (12.2.1) supports Composite Instance Patching, which enables you to patch running instances of a composite and recover faulted instances after patching the runtime. You can only include those fixes in the patch that are compatible with Composite Instance Patching. Use the SOA Patch Developer role in Oracle JDeveloper to make the fixes and create the patch.

Composite Instance Patching enables you to deliver urgent composite fixes that can be picked up by long running instances. You can make compatible/allowed changes without aborting in-flight instances. If a patched running instance comes across a business process that has been fixed by the patch, say a BPEL transformation, then it picks up the fixes applied to the business process.

When designing the patch, the SOA Patch Developer mode in JDeveloper automatically disables changes that cannot be made to the patch. Some of the compatible changes that you can make include:

Non-schema related XSLT changes, changes to fault policy, sensor data, and analytics data.
Compatible BPEL changes such as transformation activity, assign operations, etc.
JCA Adapter configuration properties.

In-Memory SOA

See Using In-Memory SOA to Improve System Performance

You can leverage the Coherence cache associated with WebLogic Server to run your non-transactional business processes in memory. This improves performance and scalability for these business processes, as read and write operations are performed out of the cache. Database performance and management also improves, as the costs associated with continuous disk reads and writes are significantly reduced.

In-memory SOA enables short-running processes to live in memory. The process state gets written to the database only when faulted, or at regular, deferred intervals using a write-behind thread. The BPEL state information is dehydrated and rehydrated to/from the Coherence cache.

Support for debugging XSLT maps

See Debugging the XSLT Map

Starting in 12.2.1, you can debug your XSLT maps using the SOA Debugger. You can add breakpoints at strategic locations in the XSLT map. When debugging, the debugger halts execution at the breakpoints, enabling you to verify the data and output.

XSLT maps can be complex, making them difficult to debug. For example, you may have a Java function, or other functionality, that is best tested in the application server. Also, you might find it easier to debug in the application environment, as the XSLT may be invoked from many different applications in the server. The SOA debugger provides remote debugging capability for XSLT maps that have been deployed in the application server.

You can also use the debugger with your Oracle Service Bus projects.

Support for End-to-End JSON and JavaScript

See Integrating REST Operations in SOA Composite Applications

Starting in 12.2.1, your SOA composites can use end-to-end JSON. This means that the REST service can receive the REST request and route it to the BPEL engine without translating it to XML. The BPEL component can use the JavaScript action, and also use JavaScript in conditional and iterative constructs, to work on JSON objects directly. The REST reference can receive the REST message from the BPEL engine and route it to an external REST endpoint without translation. Read the complete article here.

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