Installing Oracle Database 12c for SOA & MFT

Introduction:
This is with reference to my last post of Installation of MFT, for which Oracle Database is required. This blog aims at explaining the steps for Installation Oracle Database 12c, which will be used by Oracle MFT later.

Steps for Installation:

1) Download Oracle 12c from following location:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/enterprise-edition/downloads/database12c-win64-download-1968077.html

2) There will be two files downloaded, unzip those files

3) Open command line, choose Run as Administrator

4) Now navigate to the location of Unzipped file and run Setup.exe

5) This will open the Universal installer

6) Follow the installation window, step wise as shown in below screen shots

(Note: I was running this for my learning purpose, so I have tried skipping some of the steps which were recommended by Oracle. But as it was for my local system, I choose quick and dirty way. Its your choice, you can go by the recommended steps)

Below are some quick and dirty steps of its installation, don't worry this will not impact running of your Database, anyhow this is done for learning purpose.

a) Uncheck the box and click Next

b) There will be Warning, just Click Yes and proceed

c) Select Skip software updates Radio button, click Next

d) As we will Create and will have to configure the database, choose the first option and click Next

e) Choose Desktop class and click Next

f) Choose Use Windows Built-in Account and click Next (You can even use the first option)

g) You will will again prompted with message box, Click Yes and Next

h) This is an important page, you need to do some changes here. By default Oracle base, edition, character set will be different. I have selected my own folder in Oracle base (once you provide this, automatically Software location and Database file location will get updated).

As my Database usage is going to be minimal, I selected Personal Edition (which takes less space), and Character set as AL32UTF8. Choose proper SID name and its password. (Password should be as per Oracle standard, but I have given my own short password, there will be a warning message coming but you can neglect it). Click Next

i) Click Next and then press Install

j) Click Next

k) Click Next, here once you click Next Password Management screen will appear. You can either just press Ok or press the Password Management button to set passwords for some of the Schemas like sys, system, scott etc. Its your choice after all.

l) Click Next

m) And that's it.

Database 12c is all set and installed for use now.

Exploring MFT in 12c

Introduction:
I have been doing some good amount of work on Oracle 12c new product MFT - 'Managed File Transfer' recently. Let me share the experiences with you all. I will start giving details on its installation and then will share some good posts on its working

To Start:
Before starting MFT installation, you need to have certain products already installed on your system.
Make sure you have following installed:
1) Java 7
2) SOA 12c along with Domain creation (Refer my blog on its installation)
3) Oracle Database (I have used Oracle 12c as Database)
4) RCU for MFT (This actually can be done after MFT installation also)

To cover the whole MFT installation to make it ready for use, I am going to write separate blogs which will contain steps for
1) Installing Oracle Database 12c
2) Installing MFT
3) Running RCU on Database for MFT
4) Updating your local development Domain for MFT

By covering above 4 steps you will ready with MFT.

You can also go for creation of seperate domain for SOA and MFT, although it is not required, but you can learn on how to setup the environment. This will be optional step.

So, keep watching the space for my next blog entry.

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.

Installing Oracle 12c

Introduction:

In continuation to my last blog posted on 6th Oct 2014 on Oracle 12c, this article will detail the steps of installation which will bundle JDeveloper, Weblogic, SOA, OSB, Java DB (Derby).
Note: This installation was carried out on WIndows 7 for Studio Edition version 12.1.3.0.0

Prerequisites to Kick-Start:

1) JAVA 7: You need Java 7 installed on your system. I would recommend to use Java 7 for now, with Java 8 we did faced some installation issues. If it is not installed yet, you can refer to below link to get hold of the software (File name: jdk-7u67-windows-x64.exe): http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html

2) SOA 12c: You need to have the software for SOA 12c (fmw_12.1.3.0.0_soaqs_Disk1_1of1.zip) installation. You can download this from below location: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/soasuite/downloads/index.html?ssSourceSiteId=opn

3) Database: This is OPTIONAL. Oracle 12c comes along with default Java DB (Derby) as Database. So this is not required. I had to explore SOA 12c and MFT, hence I have gone for Derby and local 12c Database. Choice is yours. You can download this from Oracle site, two files will be downloaded i.e. winx64_12c_database_1of2.zip and winx64_12c_database_2of2.zip.

4) You should have enough RAM like 8GB or 16GB, 64 bit configured with good system specifications

Steps of Installation:

1) Type cmd in start menu and once it appears, right click and choose ‘Run as administrator’, as shown below

2) Once command prompt is opened, navigate to your Java Jdk, as shown below

3) Navigate to the folder where your SOA setup is. Extract the zip file, Copy the folder location, this will be handy while giving command for installation

4) Go back to Command prompt and type command as (make sure you are under Java\jdk\bin): java –jar
Below Screenshot explains the same

This will open Quick Start Installer for 12c with Welcome page

5) Click Next, it will ask you for Oracle Home location, i.e. the place where it will install

6) If you follow the above screen shot Left hand panel, 3rd step is for checking Prerequisites, where it will check for operating system certifications and Java versions. Simply click next once it passes these checks

7) 4th step shows Installation Summary, i.e. what all feature it is going to Install. Simply click on Install button

8) 5th Step shows Installation Progress, where it will prepare, copy libraries and will run the setup. Once this completes it will show you success as

9) Click Next and it will show you the final Page as below. Unckeck Start Jdeveloper and click Finish.

Word of Advice: On the final page if you see below, there is a check box for Starting Jdeveloper. I would recommend to uncheck that for a moment. We will start it once configurations are done

Steps for Local Domain Setup

1) If you Start Jdeveloper and then start the server, by default it creates your domain under hidden folder:

C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\JDeveloper\system11.1.1.7.40.64.93\DefaultDomain

This will be a problem. I would recommend to have your domain in same place, where your Oracle Home is.

2) To do the same, set the System Environment Variable. Goto Environment Variable (Computer -Properties -Advanced system settings -Advanced -Environment Variables -System Variables)

Create folder like user_projects\domains under OracleWls_Home. In the Variable value give the same folder path value as OracleWls_Home\user_projects\domains

Once this is set, means now whenever you will start Jdeveloper server, it will by default create the domain under your Oracle Home

3) Save it and naviagte to open Jdeveloper. Your Jdeveloper will be under \jdeveloper\jdeveloper.exe

4) Once Jdeveloper is opened, Navigate to Window - Application Servers

5) It will open a Tab on left hand side, right click on IntegratedWeblogicServer and start the server. It will by default create the domain. For first time set up it will ask you to enter weblogic details

Enter the password which you will be using for all Weblogic, EM operations.

6) Once done, click OK and you are all good to go.

7) Whenever you want to switch off/bring down your server, just right click on there server and choose Terminate

So, its all done. You are all set to explore SOA 12c. Go.. Go..Go

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.

Welcome to Oracle SOA 12c

Introduction:
New version from Oracle (SOA 12c) was out few months back - Lets explore it with me. Oracle SOA 12c comes with loads of new good features and enhancements.

Prerequisites to Kick-Start:
Lets start with prerequisites which is needed for learning 12c. This section gives required links, all in one place, so that you don't have to wonder places to gather information.

First of all, you need to check your system requirement, if all ok, then you need to have JDK 7 for 12c. Upgrade it, if not yet done.

Link for checking your system requirements:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/ias/downloads/fusion-certification-100350.html

Once you open the link, there are xls files which contains Certification Matrix. Check that out for reference

Link for JDK 7 download:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html

(Note: Detailed step for installing it will be presented in another follow up blog entry)

Once JDK is downloaded, go for SOA 12c download. Keep both ready, so that we can install it altogether.

Link for SOA 12c download:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/soasuite/downloads/index.html?ssSourceSiteId=opn

With Oracle Suite 12c its all easy. All your installation, a sample Hello world, deploy and test will happen with in 30 mins only, its fast. Oracle SOA 12c use Java Derby database, which is file based and that makes it really fast. With 12c, it is now a single installer for developers - means your JDeveloper (IDE), Weblogic, Database and SOA is now integrated, no need to install it separately.

(Note: Detailed step for installing it will be presented in another follow up blog entry)