What about to upgrade to Oracle SOA Suite 12.2.1? by Rolando Carrasco

September 22, 2016 Leave a comment

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This is my last post of the year.
Strangely this was the year with less posts here in Oracle Radio. And not only that, but I started to do it in English.
Since 2007 I’ve been feeding this blog in Spanish, but for some specific posts I just decided to do it in English to get to a greater audience.
So what about to upgrade to Oracle SOA Site 12.2.1? Is the name of this post.
For the last 7 weeks or so I’ve been upgrading, together with one of my colleagues, around 5 domains of SOA Suite 12.1.3 to 12.2.1. It’s been quite an effort, because those very same domains, were upgraded from 11.1.1.7, so there is a lot of history in them.
They’ve been serving a large SOA implementation, a mission critical implementation that is part of the core for this institution. So the challenge was an important one.
To fail and not be able to rollback was not an option, the maintenance window for the production environment was not that large.
But I insist: what about upgrading it? Does it really work? Is it well documented? Why doing so? 
Well, it is definitely documented by Oracle. It really works. That is the reality. Doing this must be something to have in mind for anyone using 12.1.3.x, I really encourage you to do it. Do not hesitate to do it. It will give you much more stability to your SOA platform.
If you are using Oracle BAM 12c, then this is something you need to do, a lot of bugs were solved with this upgrade. Same thing with BPM. The UI has changed for the ADF ALTA version, which is very clean and even elegant, I would say:
If you are already using Oracle Cloud products, this will be very familiar for you. Oracle Enterprise Manger – Fusion Middleware Control has been always an slow UI. Now is not the exception, but seems to be little less slow. But it is definitive much more intuitive and easy to use, take a look at this: Read the complete article here.

SOA & BPM Partner Community

For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center.

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Upgrading to SOA 12c and details of the next UKOUG Middleware SIG by Simon Haslam

August 18, 2015 Leave a comment

clip_image002SOA 12c is the most important release of Oracle’s flagship integration product set that we’ve seen for 5 years (when 11g was launched). Oracle has also now produced the first SOA 12c bundle patch-set (12.1.3.0.1) so in my opinion any new SOA installations should definitely be using 12c, and existing 11g users should be seriously considering upgrading to take advantage of the many new features.

For administrators what is particularly nice about this release is that a lot of work has clearly been put into the upgrade process, building on some of the changes introduced in WebLogic 12.1.2. The upgrade is actually surprisingly straightforward – in outline you have to:

  • Carefully review pre-requisites and do any purging of old instances
  • Install Fusion Middleware Infrastructure and SOA Suite 12c into a new Oracle home
  • Shut down SOA 11g, backup repository and domain home
  • Run RCU to install the new 12c schemas into the existing repository alongside the 11g ones
  • Run the Upgrade Assistant to upgrade the 11g schemas, including running instance data, to 12c format
  • Run the new Reconfiguration Wizard against the 11g domain home to rewire for the 12c home
  • Run the Upgrade Assistant a second time to upgrade some infrastructure components
  • If you have modified setDomainEnv,sh etc you will need to re-apply the changes
  • Backup repository and domain home, then start up SOA

Of course you may only have short-lived processes so be able to drain down the old SOA 11g system and switch over to a brand new SOA 12c system running in parallel, in which case the above upgrade is probably unnecessary.

The above does not consider migration from SOA Suite 10g to 11g/12c which is much more complicated and, if you’ve not already done it by now, a project in itself. Plus I’ve not mentioned Service Bus or BAM yet but we’ll describe in more detail in a week’s time…

UKOUG Middleware SIG – 25 March 2015

If you’re a UKOUG member and interested in SOA have a look at next week’s UKOUG Middleware SIG, themed around SOA 12c.  We’ve split the day into two – during the morning we will have several sessions by Oracle’s Yogesh Sontakke and Sid Joshi. These will review the new SOA 12c features, focus on the changes to Service Bus which will be very relevant to administrators, look at improvements to EDN and describe the new MFT product. As you might expect my interest mostly lies in the non-functional features of the platform, which happily has also been a focus for 12c under the moniker "Industrial SOA". Therefore I will be presenting some Oracle slides about changes in this area and will include some of my own 12c observations from project and O-box development work. Read the complete article here.

SOA & BPM Partner Community

For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center.

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SOA Transformation through SOA Upgrade by Luis Augusto Weir

August 4, 2014 Leave a comment

10gTo11gMuch has been said about Oracle SOA Suite 10g (or JCaps) upgrades to 11g and how features map between both versions. There is also plenty of information online about this topic both official and unofficial. It’s not news to many that for example SOA Suite 10g is currently in extended support and product will enter sustaining support by the end of 2014 (I will explain more about what extended and sustaining support means later in the blog). However one fact remains truth: There are still many companies out there running platforms that are (or soon will be) in sustaining support, and that don’t yet have an upgrade strategy. I say this based on my own experience as I am currently helping several customers do exactly this.

Having said that,  I wrote this blog in an attempt to give SOA experts, Integration Leads and Architects key pointers that can serve as inspiration to come up with a transformational approach when defining an upgrade strategy. Note that I am using the word “transformation” deliberately and I will explain why shortly.

Note that although this article is mainly related to the Oracle SOA 10g to 11g technology stacks, the approaches, tips and information provided in this blog should also be applicable when defining any technology upgrade. In fact, once 12c is more mature I will probably refresh this blog to cover 11g to 12c upgrades.

Following my key pointers to help you define your upgrade as a SOA Transformation:

    1)Understand the product roadmaps and planning to move in advance
    2)Take a SOA Transformation approach and not just a technology upgrade
    3)Elaborate a SOA Transformation Roadmap
    4)Understand current and future technology stacks and identify potential risks and challenges in advance
    5)Define a service transformation methodology
    6)SOA transformation also requires organisational changes and maturity

1) Understand the product roadmaps and planning to move in advance

This is one of the most important points and one that many have either failed to understand or have just ignored (hence why many companies still stuck in 10g and have no plan to upgrade yet). This is important because by understanding the product releases and features, release dates, and support lifeline you can plan in advance an upgrade approach and avoid having to do something tactically, in a rush and with limited budget.

Before getting further into this topic, it is critical that you understand the basics of Oracle product releases: Read the complete article here.

SOA & BPM Partner Community

For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center.

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