Updating SOA 12c Domain for MFT

Introduction:
This is the last step required for MFT. After this is complete you can go ahead and use MFT.

Prerequisites:
You should complete steps specified earlier such as SOA 12c Installation with Default local server setup, Database Installation, MFT Installation and RCU creation.

Steps for Updating Domain:

1) Open cmd for Administrator and navigate to ORACLE_HOME\oracle_common\common\bin, as shown below.

Note: ORACLE_HOME is the location where your SOA12c is installed.

2) You need to set JVM argument as -

SET CONFIG_JVM_ARGS=-Dcom.oracle.cie.config.showProfile=true

3) Then run config.cmd

4) This will open Wizard, as you have already a domain setup (your local SOA server), we will update the existing domain for MFT. Make sure the Domain location is your local server location. Choose Next

5) Choose the check boxes as shown below for MFT, click Next

6) Here choose AutoConfiguration option as RCU
Vendor: Oracle
DBMS/Service: This will be the SID which you had used during Database installation time. IN my case this was orcl.
Give Hostname, Port, User name and password
Schema Owner: It should be the Schema which was created during RCU creation. In my case it was DEV_STB and then provide schema password.

Once this is done press Get RCU Configuration. Once it is all OK, Click Next

7) Choose MFT specific check boxes as specified in screen shot, Click Next

8) Choose as per the Screen shot below, Click Next

9) Leave this page as it is and Click Next

10) Now click Update on the summary page

11) This will update the existing domain, and shows its progress, Click Next once done

12)  Thats all, click Finish.

So that's it. You are all good to use MFT.

You can open MFT Console using URL: http://hostname:port/mftconsole
You can change Hostname & port according to your environment setup. By default for local system port will be 7101

RCU Creation for Oracle 12c MFT

Introduction:
This is continuation of my previous blog which is about MFT installation. We have already covered Database 12c installation and MFT installation, now lets focus on RCU creation for MFT.

Step by Step:

RCU file resides under your ORACLE_HOME\oracle_common\bin
ORACLE_HOME here is place where your SOA is installed

1) To start with, first of all you will have to set your Java Jdk Home and Oracle Home (Oracle Database home). I have configured it based on the plave where I had installed Java and Database, as shown in below screen shot.

2) Navigate to ORACLE_HOME\oracle_common\bin and run rcu.bat (for Windows)

3) This will open RCU welcome window as shown below, Click Next

4) This window you will have to provide your database details, like port, SID, sys username and its password (which you have given during Database installation). Choose Role as Sysdba and click Next

5) DEV_MFT for MFT RCU is selected, Click Next. After this Prerequisite check window will appear, click Ok once complete

6) Choose Schema Password, Click Next

7) Click Next, Click OK on confirmation window, which will then create Tablespace

8) Once Summary is displayed, verify the details (keep a screen shot of this window, it will be required during MFT Domain creation), and Click on Create

Once this is complete, Completion Summary page will appear showing status of the RCU run. Choose Close button, RCU run is completed successfully.

Now refer to my next blog which will talk about updating the existing Domain for MFT.

Oracle 12c MFT Installation

Introduction:
Oracle MFT is new featured product which is used for File transfers. You can transfer files, Encrypt/Decrypt, Compress/Decompress, Schedule, Archive and do much more.

This blog is in continuation of my last blog where Oracle Database 12c installation steps were shown.
Lets explore steps for Installing Oracle MFT.

Installation Steps:
We will be installing MFT for local SOA 12c setup i.e. local server domain which got created as a result of local SOA 12c installation along with JDeveloper. Before proceeding make sure that your local domain is Stopped and close Jdeveloper.

1) If you have not yet downloaded the installation file, download it from Oracle site:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/mft/downloads/index.html

2) It will download fmw_12.1.3.0.0_mft_Disk1_1of1.zip file, Unzip this file, it will contain a jar file with name fmw_12.1.3.0.0_mft.jar

Caution: If your Jdeveloper is already open and SOA server is running, it is recommended to Stop SOA Server and close JDeveloper before going for MFT Installation.

3) Open cmd in Administrator mode, and navigate to your Java jdk location and run the jar file

4) This will open Oracle Universal Installer,

5) Select Oracle Home, This is same home were SOA 12c is installed.

6) Now it will be simply Next -- Install -- Next -- Finish

Now MFT is installed, you can start your Jdeveloper but wait there are many more things to do. It is not yet ready for use. Lets go for RCU installation.

Oracle 12c "Composite Lazy Loading" Feature

Introduction:
I had struggled in the past till 11g, where I had seen Server start up taking time when I have more numbers of composites deployed on the server.

With SOA 12c, Oracle has introduced a new feature known as 'Composite Lazy loading'. This is one of the nice features, in which any server initialization tasks such as loading components and resources like WSDLs and XSDs, are loaded later at first-request time when they are needed, which means that server will only create in-memory java models and MBeans. It improves server startup time when there is a large number of composites deployed on it.

Details:
Composite Lazy Loading can be configured at two levels - 1) Domain 2) Component Level

Lazy Loading at Domain Level:
This setting can be disabled/enabled from System MBean Browser in FMW EM console. Follow below steps:
1. Login to EM Console, right-click on the domain you want to tune and select System MBean Browser from the drop-down menu

2. In the System MBean Browser folder structure, navigate through: Application Defined MBeans --  oracle.as.soainfra.config -- Server: ServerName -- SoaInfraConfig -- soa-infra

3. When you click on soa-infra, its attributes will be listed in on the right. Look for the CompositeLazyLoading attribute and click on it. You can set the value to true to enable it or
false to disable it

4. Click Apply and restart the server for changes to take effect.

Lazy Loading at the Component level:
To enable/disable it at component level, you need to follow below steps:
1. Open composite.xml file
2.  Add the new property lazyLoading="false" to override the default behaviour at the domain level, as shown in screen shot

3. Redeploy your code

By default, composites will inherit the lazy loading setting from the domain level.

Oracle SOA 12c- What's New in store for Developers

I had been researching for quite a sometime on Oracle SOA 12c and have found some cool features for Developers in terms of development ease, user experience, integration, performance, management, mobile, cloud and many more. Here is the compilation of the same.

Note: As there are many features, to make this blog to the point and readable, I have just presented features summary. Details of each feature will be published in my subsequent blogs later.

Single Installer: Oracle Suite 12c comes as single installer for developers. It’s one single package which include JDeveloper, a integrated Weblogic service with SOA Suite (including OSB), JavaDB (Database) and the Enterprise Manager. In JDeveloper, the WebLogic Integrated Server is pre-configured with SOA Suite components runtime and JavaDB.

No Eclipse: For OSB development we need not have to use Eclipse IDE anymore, we can develop OSB application in Jdeveloper itself. OSB development now also uses similar terminology and layout as the SOA Suite SCA composite application development.

Just like OSB, even for OEP (Oracle Event Processing), we do not have to use Eclipse anymore. The new version is not just a simple port to JDeveloper, it has gotta major face lift.

New DB connection Types: SOA Suite 12c adds two new Database connection types when creating Database connections.
a. JavaDB - JavaDB (Derby) is used to run SOA Suite repository on that is used for the integrated server. It is a development database that allows one to start development with SOA Suite without the need to run RCU. Java Derby database, which is file based and that makes it really fast.

b. JDE World - JDE World connection you have easy access to the data in the JD Edwards database.

New Technology Adapters: 
a. Coherence Adapter
b. Salesforce cloud Adapter
c. REST Adapter
d. MFT
e. LDAP
f. Healthcare
g. MSMQ
h. JDE World
i. SAP
j. UMS (SMS support)

Support for Maven: Like ANT for deployment, now Oracle 12c supports Maven explicitly. Whenever an Application or Project is created, automatically pom.xml gets created which can be used for deployments using Maven.

JDeveloper Debugging and Testing: One of the most useful improvements made to JDeveloper is the inclusion of a debugger. With the help of debugger we can debug our code before deploying it, this saves lot of development efforts. It allows you to set breakpoints within a SOA composite, BPEL process or OSB.

Improved Test suite: The SOA Suite test framework has also been improved, with the ability to run the tests within JDeveloper with detailed reports of every test run, instead of having to perform the testing from within Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control.

Improved XSLT Mapper: In this release I can see much better support for complex stylesheets with multiple templates, user defined functions (also recursive functions). I can also see a better functioning of XSLT when we switch between Design and Source mode, which was an issue till 11g.

New Xquery Mapper: In this release Xquery mapper is newly introduced which provide XQuery support. BPEL  has a dedicated activity to use XQuery in your BPEL code for transformations.  The XQuery mapper has support for XPath 2.0 and user defined functions. The mapper is really user friendly and it’s made consistent with the XSLT mapper interface. The mapper also has an integrated Test framework and is build for reuse in both SOA & OSB.

Translate Activity:  New Activity in 12c which is used for Native to XML and XML to Native transformations.

MDS goes Graphical: Now with 12c, you can publish, search and consume files from MDS and OER. Its quite user friendly.

Templates for SOA: By using SOA Templates, you can start developing a composite application and can easily add reusable components or activities to an existing composite application. You can create and apply templates at three levels within a composite application, these are:
a. Project Template
b. Component Template
c. Custom Activity Template

Note: More details of it will be publish in my subsequent blogs

Templates for OSB: Oracle Service Bus templates are also supported in Oracle SOA Suite 12c. They are similar to SOA Suite SCA composite templates but with minor differences. OSB templates are created at the pipeline level and can be either linked or unlined.

OSB - MDS support: Now MDS support is provided for OSB in 12c, unlike 11g.

BPEL Sub-process: Sub-process is new introduction in this release which provides a mechanism for reusing BPEL code within a BPEL process. A BPEL sub-process can be described as a unit of encapsulated logic that can be called zero to many times within a BPEL process.
There are two types of sub-processes.
a. Inline subprocess
b. Standalone subprocess

Managed File Transfer (MFT) 12c: MFT is a simple and secure End-to-End Managed File Gateway. It is used for transferring files between a source and one or more targets. It integrates with (s)FTP, File, B2B, ODI, Healthcare and SOA, B2B and web services. MFT runs as an application on WebLogic 12c and has a lightweight Web based Design Time interface to easily build, edit and deploy end-to-end transfers and a Run Time interface to monitor running / failed transfer instances. It runs on its own managed server.

Enterprise Service Scheduler (ESS): ESS is out of box scheduler which comes as a new feature of 12c (only supports weblogic and oracle DB in 12c). ESS is part of the SOA Suite license and with it you can create & schedule jobs through the EM. By using this we can schedule the services. It is automatically installed as part of SOA Suite (optional), Service Bus (optional) and MFT (mandatory).

Resequencing in OSB: Resequencing functionality was in 11g Mediator, now this feature is introduced in OSB as well with 12c release. Now with the help of this feature we will be able to process the request message in proper sequence.

Better BAM in 12c

Auto Purge functionality: In 12c Auto purge of SOA DB is enabled by default for new installations. Purging of the SOA DB can now be scheduled through EM Console.

EM Console: In 12c EM console is also enhanced with its features. A lot have been modified like Search option, Flow view etc.