Oracle SOA essential for SOA Administrators and Developers

Hi,
Oracle SOA 11g essential which can ge useful for SOA Administrators and Developers
can be listed as given below:

Understanding web services:

Useful links are:

http://www.w3schools.com/wsdl/wsdl_intro.asp
http://www.w3schools.com/wsdl/wsdl_uddi.asp
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/3343/oasis-200304-wsrp-specification-1.0.pdf
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bpa/overview/index.html
http://www.w3schools.com/xsl/

Understand ESB:

An "Enterprise Service Bus" (ESB) is a system to which all services are connected.
Through the enterprise service bus all connected services can also be accessed.

Here is an illustration of an enterprise service bus which acts as central "bridge" or "gateway" to all applications exposing services
underneath it.


Understand BPEL:

BPEL (Business Process Execution Language) for Web services is an XML-based language designed to enable task-sharing
for a distributed computing or grid computing environment which can be use evenly across multiple organizations and using a combination of Web service.
BPEL is the most feature rich component in SOA suite.
BPEL is use in large extent to orchestrate the web services.

Understanding synchronous and Asynchronous BPEL process:

Link which will be useful.

http://suryaveer-chauhan.blogspot.com/2009/06/asynchronous-process-vs.html

Understand BAM:

Oracle Business Activity Monitoring (Oracle BAM) gives business executives the ability to monitor their business services and processes in the enterprise, to correlate KPIs down to the actual business process themselves, and most important,
to change business processes quickly or to take corrective action if the business environment changes.

Note: Oracle BAM is a component of both SOA Suite and BPM Suite.

when we install Oracle SOA suite 11g,we can install BAM component if we have enough memory in our Operating system(Usully required 8 GB of RAM
for good functioning) as I implemented in RHEL 5.3 (64-bit) machine.It is good practise to involve the latest version of Oracle SOA suite
always.I've installed 11.1.1.5.0 on Windows and Unix-based machines.

Understand OWSM:

Oracle Web Services Manager(OWSM) offers a comprehensive and easy-to-use solution for policy management and security of service infrastructure. It provides visibility and control of the policies through a centralized administration
interface offered by Oracle Enterprise Manager.

We will get OEM console link when we configure the weblogic domain.When we see the Home page after login after login with Oracle Fusion Middleware
11g OEM console.The admin console is also useful for lot of SOA admin tasks as well as OEM console.

Understanding ODI:
*ODI stands for Oracle Data Integrator.This application is useful in processing large amount of data.
*It works on the principle of Estraction,Loading and Transformation(ELT) unlike ETL tools where we have extract transform and load.
*In short ODI can be called as 'ELT tool of SOA'

Understanding OBR:
*OBR stands for Oracle Business Rules is a tool for writing the Business rules seperately from the code.
*This becomes very vital when you want to understand the Business rules and code of development separately.
*We can see Business rules with the help of User Interface provided by this tool.

Understanding SR:
*SR stands for Service Registry.It is used to keep track of all the services that are present in my portfolio(Which consists of past,present and future services).

Oracle JDeveloper:
*As the name says it stands for Oracle Java Developer where you integrate Oracle,java,web,web services and XML services.
*Oracle JDeveloper integrates development features for Java, SOA, Web 2.0,Database, XML and Web services into a single development tool.
*Oracle JDeveloper integrates the full set of features needed for developing composite applications with specific features that address the technologies like Database,java,web,web services and XML.
*Oracle JDeveloper integrates the full set of features needed for developing composite applications with specific features that address the technologies like Database,java,web,web services and XML
*Oracle JDeveloper is the development environment for Oracle SOA Suite and the Oracle WebCenter Suite.

Understanding Oracle WebLogic Server:

*An enterprise-ready Java application server.
*Supports the deployment of mission-critical applications in a robust,secure,highly available and scalable environment.
*Oracle WebLogic Server is an ideal foundation for building
applications based on service-oriented architecture (SOA).

Understanding Domain,Admin server and Managed servers in Weblogic Server:

Domain:
*Logically related group of Java components.

Administration Server:
*Special WebLogic Server instance which is the central point from which you
configure and manage all resources in the domain.

Managed Servers:

*Additional WebLogic Server instances where we deploy Java components,
such as Web applications, EJBs, and Web services.

*For production environments that require increased application performance,throughput, or high availability, you can configure
two or more Managed Servers to operate as a cluster.

*Oracle instance contains one or more system components

Understanding Oracle SOA Suite:

*Complete set of service infrastructure components for designing,
deploying, and managing composite applications.
*Enables services to be created, managed, and orchestrated into
composite applications and business processes.
*Composites enable you to easily assemble multiple technology
components into one SOA composite application.

Understanding SOA Development Challenge:

*There are various standards such as BPEL, WSDL, JCA,
Human workflow, Rules etc in the SOA solution
*As number of technologies increase, so does number of tools a
and skills required to build, deploy and manage them.
*Because each tool throws its own data, it can be
frustrating trying to make all of them work together.

Understanding What is needed?:

*There should be a “standardized way” by which disparate SOA components like BPEL, OSB, Adapters, Human workflow, Rules etc can work together.

*They should be managed from a single console.

*Logically related components should be deployable together,if possible.

*This “standardized way” is a framework called SCA.

Understanding SCA:

*Stands for Service Component Architecture

*SCA proposes the concept of “Composite”

*SCA is actually the platform on which the components come together,
and create a composite.It is technology and vendor neutral.

*SCA Programming Model provides the following
->Creating service components written with a wide range of technologies,
including programming languages such as Java, BPEL, C++, and declarative languages such as XSLT.
->The use of specific programming languages and technologies (including web services)is not required with SCA.
->Assembling the service components into a SOA composite application.
In the SCA environment,service components are the building blocks of applications.

Note: Oracle SOA Suite 11g leverages SCA

Understanding How Oracle SOA Suite 11g leverages SCA:

SCA simplified the entire lifecycle:

1)Development
->JDeveloper can be used to develop all components.

2)Deployment
->All components are grouped together in a composite and
during compilation,we get a single file called SAR.
->SAR can be versioned as one, deployed as one and managed as one

3)Monitoring
->EM allows to trace the entire flow,giving ability to drill down into
components of a composite.

Understanding Service Components:

*Service components are the building blocks that you use to
construct a SOA composite application.

The following service components are available:

*BPEL- provide process orchestration.

*Human Task =>provide workflow modeling.

*Business Rules =>enable designing a business decision based on rules.

*Mediators =>route events (messages) between different components.

*Spring =>enables you to integrate Java interfaces into SOA composite applications

->There is a corresponding service engine of the same name for each service component.

->All service engines can interact in a single composite.

Understanding Binding Components:

*Binding components establish a connection between a SOA composite and the external world.

There are two types of binding components
The following service components are available:

1)Services provide the outside world with an entry point to the SOA composite application.
2)References enable messages to be sent from the SOA composite application to
external services in the outside world

*There is a corresponding service engine of the same name for each service component.

*All service engines can interact in a single composite.

Examples of Binding Components are:


1)Web service SOAP over Http:Use for connecting to standards-based services using SOAP

2)JCA Adapters:Use for integrationg services and references with technologies(like databases,file systems ftp servers)

3)B2B Binding component:Use for browsing B2B metadata in the MDS repository and selecting document defintions

4)ADF -BC Service:Use forconnecting Oracle Application Development Framework(ADF) applications using SDO(Service Data Object) with SOA platform.

5)Oracle Applications:Use for integrating Oracle Application Adapter with Oracle Applications.

Like these se have lot of Binding components.We have to explore each and every component in SOA Suite 11g,Design various composite applications,
Deploy them on weblogic by using Oracle JDeveloper or Weblogic server.
SR(Service Registry) can be useful to keep track of all the web services and orchestrating this web services using BPEL.



Happy SOA learning...

Best regards,

Rafi.