Sathyam's SOA Blog

SOA 11g DB Sequence Reset Issue

2012-02-12T17:36:00.001+05:30

Ever wondered why the primary key sequence is reset while using a DB adapter to insert records from your SOA application?

The issue is that the DB adapter pre-allocates sequence values based on the value configured in the DB Adapter's outbound connection pool.

To overcome this issue, ensure that the "sequencePreallocationSize" property value matches the value that was specified for sequence increment in DB during sequence creation. For example 1.

BPM 11g BAM Data Object not created automagically

2012-02-12T15:26:00.001+05:30

Have you ever faced a situation where the BAM DO was not getting created automagically when you deploy and run your BPM 11g (In this case I am using BPM 11.1.1.5 with FP) process as expected? Here are the list of checks that you must make to ensure that everything was setup as documented.

1. Ensure that the BAM deployment configurations are done in Oracle WebLogic Console (Go to Deployments -> BAM Adapter -> Configurations -> Outbound Connection Pool and provide the BAM connection details for eis/bam/soap and update the deployment plan)

2. Go to Oracle WebLogic EM console, ensure that the 'Disable Actions' property is empty (By default, this property will hold a value as 'BAMCommand') under the soa-infra domain 'System MBean Browser'

3. Ensure that the 'Enable BAM' option is selected. Go to 'BPM Project Navigator', right click on the process -> Project Preferences -> Select 'Enable BAM' option. Also ensure that the BAM Adapter JNDI is provided as configured in the deployments (refer step 1 above). By default the JNDI is eis/bam/soap. Leave the Data Object location to Samples/Monitor Express which would the default location where the BAM DO will be created 'automagically'

4. Ensure at least one business indicator (dimension) must have been created in the BPM process for which you would ideally pass/set values from within multiple stages in your process so that the runtime data is sent to BAM real-time

5. Before deploying the BPM process (after enabling BAM), ensure that any previous versions of the process are undeployed from Oracle WebLogic server

6. DO NOT execute the setup.bat or setup.sh script available under /Oracle_SOA1/bam/samples/bam/monitorexpress/bin

I have noticed that this had caused the following error while BAM tries to create the data object dynamically (version 11.1.1.5 with FP). On closer observation of the bam server diagnostic logs the following error is sighted which in itself is not very intuitive to fix as it complains of constraint violation in orabam MDS database during the creation of the BPM BAM DO.

Exception: oracle.bam.adc.common.exceptions.UniqueConstraintViolationException: BAM-01273: Active Data Cache unique constraint violation

at oracle.bam.adc.dse.oracle.OracleExceptionHelpers.getStorageException(OracleExceptionHelpers.java:134)

at oracle.bam.adc.dse.oracle.OracleStorageEngine.insertDataSetRow(OracleStorageEngine.java:1216)

at oracle.bam.adc.kernel.datasets.DatasetBase.insertRowInternal(DatasetBase.java:630)

at oracle.bam.adc.kernel.datasets.DatasetBase.insertRow(DatasetBase.java:592)

at oracle.bam.adc.kernel.datasets.SystemDataset.insertRowInternal(SystemDataset.java:172)

Caused by: java.sql.SQLIntegrityConstraintViolationException: SQLError(1) SQLState(23000) ORA-00001: unique constraint (DEV_ORABAM.SYS_C007296) violated

In order to fix this issue, do the following;
Go to BAM console -> Active Studio -> Delete the following reports pertaining to BAM monitor express

Monitor Express Dashboard
Monitor Express Summary
Monitor Process Details
Fault Report

Go to BAM Console -> Architect -> Delete the following Data Objects pertaining to BAM monitor express in the order specified below;

INTERVAL
COUNTER
COMPONENT

7. Undeploy existing process composite if any

8. Restart your servers

9. Deploy the BPM process

10. Trigger an instance. Voila!! the BAM Data Object should have got created in your BAM console

11. Now, play around with the BAM DO and build your custom real-time dashboard reports

BPM 11g complex human task MDSException

2012-01-29T16:40:00.000+05:30

Oracle BPM 11g offers 'complex' user tasks which are helpful in defining complex user tasks - for instance dynamically define participant list using business rules. This is all fine. However, while compiling the BPM process where complex user task builds participant list using business rules, we might stumble upon a compilation error;

Error: BPM-71504: Unexpected error parsing ‘oramds:///soa/shared/workflow/TaskEvidenceService.xsd’. Cause: oracle.mds.exception.MDSException: MDS-00054: The file to be loaded oramds:/soa/shared/workflow/TaskEvidenceService.xsd does not exist.. Action: Verify that file is valid and accessible

This is a known issue as the process is unable to read the workflow related schemas' from MDS repository. This is due to the fact that there are additional slashes added to the oramds url at design time. The fix is to manually remove them from the XSD files created. Open the generated XSD files in the BPM project and ensure that additional slashes are removed from the schema imports.

oramds:///soa/shared/workflow/TaskEvidenceService.xsd should read as oramds:/soa/shared/workflow/TaskEvidenceService.xsd [2 additional slashes must be removed manually].

JDeveloper "oramds" protocol support not available error

2012-01-29T16:00:00.001+05:30

Recently I stumbled upon an issue in JDeveloper where 'execData' element under the 'Data Associations' of user task activity would show an 'error'. This means that none of the process runtime variables available within this element could be used within the process.

On closer observation, I noticed that there were warnings when JDeveloper is booted as shown below;

"oramds" protocol support not available because no application was associated with IDE context.

Unable to open an input stream for ORAMDS URL "/soa/shared/workflow/WorkflowTask.xsd".

"oramds" protocol support not available because no application was associated with IDE context.

Unable to open an input stream for ORAMDS URL "/soa/shared/workflow/WorkflowCommon.xsd".

"oramds" protocol support not available because no application was associated with IDE context.

Unable to open an input stream for ORAMDS URL "/soa/shared/workflow/TaskEvidenceService.xsd".

"oramds" protocol support not available because no application was associated with IDE context.

Unable to open an input stream for ORAMDS URL "/soa/shared/workflow/TaskEvidenceService.xsd".

However, I was not using any MDS connections in my BPM process. Issue was that if there is any open project in JDeveloper which uses MDS and if it is not the first project to load while JDeveloper starts, other projects are unable to load the execData information.

Solution is to either close the BPM project that uses MDS connection or ensure that it is the first project to load when JDeveloper loads. Now, there would be no warnings during JDeveloper boot and execData elements are accessible within user tasks.

Note on changing BPM process outcome

2011-12-21T16:55:00.000+05:30

Have you ever wondered how to effect changes performed to the human task definitions on the corresponding ADF task iterator bindings? - particularly at a later stage after generating the ADF forms.

I encountered similar requirement where the outcome of my human task activity was to be changed. One of the ways that I discovered is to right click on the corresponding 'Data Control' and choose 'Edit Definition'. This will prompt a message stating that the bindings would be refreshed as per the latest changes on the human task definition. On confirmation, you are now free to choose the 'modified' bindings in your ADF page.

Oracle BAM ICommand by-pass credential prompts

2011-12-09T17:45:00.000+05:30

I came across a requirement where the BAM data object must be updated with new rows recursively. For this, I created the DO XML files containing the valid layout format and data. However, while calling the icommand import script recursively from a shell script, I faced credential issues as the username/password cannot be provided dynamically everytime.

In order to overcome this issue, Oracle BAM provides a feature to configure the default credentials in the config file;

<Oracle_Middleware_Home>/Oracle_SOA1/bam/config/BAMICommandConfig.xml

Open this file and add the following entries;

<ICommand_Default_User_Name>weblogic</ICommand_Default_User_Name>
<ICommand_Default_Password>your password</ICommand_Default_Password>

This would ensure that every time the icommand script is invoked, the default credentials are picked up. Happy scripting :)

ADF 11g JBO-25002: Definition "VO" of type View Definition is not found Error

2011-11-20T17:55:00.000+05:30

Generally this is an error encountered at run-time when you try to 'recreate' a VO (view object) in an ADF application. The reason is that, even though the old VO is deleted from the ADF model project, the traces are still left out under the APP Module configuration.

This usually happens when the view objects are associated to the model project App module during VO creation.

To resolve this error, open the App module XML file and remove the reference.

Redeploy the application and you are good to go.

FMW 11g PS4 (11.1.1.5) upgrade with Feature Pack on Windows 7 and Linux

2011-11-19T18:14:00.002+05:30

With the Oracle Feature Pack for BPM being released just under 2 months ago which provides a variety of new BPM features and bug fixes, I have tried to provide a quick reference guide through this post.

Some new features (not exhaustive) below;

Enhanced BPM Process Composer
Report generation
Instance Patching (Make your in-flight instances follow a new BPM definition)
Manage attachments and documents by integrating with Oracle ECM
Ability to generate simulation reports based on run-time data
BPM workspace look & feel customization

For a exhaustive list of features refer to What's New in BPM Suite 11.1.1.5 Feature Pack

If you are currently on PS3 (11.1.1.4), then download the following patches to upgrade to PS4 (11.1.1.5) first before applying the feature pack;

Oracle SOA Suite : 12395090

Oracle OSB : 12395134

Oracle ECM Suite : 12395130

Oracle WebCenter : 12395099

(Note: These patches can be downloaded from My Oracle Support for customers)

Refer to Oracle® Fusion Middleware Patching Guide 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.5.0) for installation instructions. This should be straight forward.

Now, time to upgrade your SOA/BPM PS4 with Feature Pack. Download the following Oracle patch from My Oracle Support;

12413651

This bundles the following patches/bug fixes;

12413651 - soa bpm 11.1.1.5.0 features pack
12319055 - soa bpm 11.1.1.5.0 features pack - em support
12614083 - policy binding getting removed from jrf policy cache on undeploy

Also contains the JDeveloper extensions for SOA and BPM PS4 (11.1.1.5) Feature Pack.

Few important things to note while applying Feature Pack.

1. Ensure that you religiously follow the readme document. For example, if the document requires you to create a folder to unzip 3 zip files into the PATCH_TOP folder, then don't try to unzip other patch files into this folder or keep other stuff. Consequence will result in failure of OPatch.

2. At the end of the installation, Feature Pack requires you to execute the psa (patch set assistant) to update the schemas. New features on 'Advanced Replication' is being introduced in this release which will not work if you are running Oracle XE 11g database as 'Advanced Replication' is not supported in express editions. However, this will still work on Oracle XE 10 release but not recommended as you may violate the license restrictions. Warning: Check your license terms.

Note: This is not a 'loss' of functionality/feature in Oracle XE 11g. Oracle has just ensured that the license restrictions are reinforced at the product level starting with 11 release.

Oracle documentation recommends use of a Oracle database enterprise edition

Instructions to apply feature pack on Windows: (For linux, the instructions are pretty straight forward and clear in the patch read me. Hence not reproducing it here.)

Pre-Requisites:

1. Stop all servers
2. Important: Back up your database and middleware home

Patching oracle_common:

1. Set ORACLE_HOME environment variable to $MW_HOME/oracle_common
2. Create a folder 'Patch_Top' in the file system
3. Copy p12413651_ORACOMMON_111150_Generic.zip, p12319055_111150_Generic.zip and p12614083_111150_Generic.zip into the 'Patch_Top' folder and extract them using a recommended unzip utility (for example: 7-zip)
4. Start the command prompt ('cmd') as an 'Administrator'. You can do this by right-click on cmd and select 'Run As Administrator'. This step if not performed would result in 'OPatch' failure.
5. change to the 'Patch_Top' directory and execute the following opatch command;

%ORACLE_HOME%\OPatch\opatch napply

6. Follow the on-screen instructions and wait till the message 'OPatch Completed Successfully'.

Patching Oracle_SOA1:

1. Set ORACLE_HOME environment variable to $MW_HOME/Oracle_SOA1
2. Create a folder 'Patch_Top_SOA' in the file system
3. Copy p12413651_SOA_111150_Generic.zip into the 'Patch_Top_SOA' folder and extract using a recommended unzip utility (for example: 7-zip)
4. Start the command prompt ('cmd') as an 'Administrator'. You can do this by right-click on cmd and select 'Run As Administrator'. This step if not performed would result in 'OPatch' failure.
5. change to the 'Patch_Top_SOA' directory and execute the following opatch command;

%ORACLE_HOME%\OPatch\opatch napply

6. Follow the on-screen instructions and wait till the message 'OPatch Completed Successfully'.

Updating the schemas using PSA:

1. Set ORACLE_HOME environment variable to $MW_HOME/Oracle_SOA1
2. Start the command prompt ('cmd') as an 'Administrator'. You can do this by right-click on cmd and select 'Run As Administrator'.
3. Execute psa.bat as follows

psa.bat -dbType -dbConnectString -dbaUserName -schemaUserName

example: psa -dbType Oracle -dbConnectString //localhost:1521/ORCL -dbaUserName SYS -schemaUserName DEV_SOAINFRA

Finally, perform the post installation tasks as recommended under the following link to complete the feature pack upgrade;

www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/soasuite/documentation/bpm-postinstall-ps4fp-487857.pdf

Here we come to the end of this long post. Your environment is now ready with the latest PS4 Feature Pack. Enjoy. Write to me if you face any hurdles.

New Dimension to resolve ORA-01078 LRM-00109

2011-11-18T20:58:00.001+05:30

Not a database expert though, I came across this issue which kept me busy for some time. When trying to issue 'startup' command from sql prompt in a terminal/command prompt, I hit this issue;

ORA-01078: failure in processing system parameters
LRM-00109: could not open parameter file '/home/oracle/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1/dbs/init_orcl.ora'

A quick reference to various blogs, forums and Oracle Docs on the web advised to check few things with possible solutions like,

1.) Check whether the parameter file is present in the location mentioned above. (Solution was to generate the pfile and place it under the dbs folder)

2.) If the pfile is available, then check the permissions on the pfile specified

3.) set the ORACLE_HOME and ORACLE_SID environment variables

Although there is no denial of the aforesaid issues/solutions, I observed that the ORACLE_SID is case sensitive (which is not the case when you connect from sql developer/ other tools). When I issued the ORACLE_SID value as orcl (lower case), I got the error under consideration. However, when I changed the environment variable to hold the value as ORCL (upper case) then the issue was resolved.

You can issue lsnrctl -status command to find out the SID of your database instance and set it in ORACLE_SID variable (case sensitive !!!)

Sounds silly. Yeah. One of the small things which keep us wondering and perplexed.

JDeveloper 11g: Error Finding SOA configured servers to deploy archive

2011-09-16T16:19:00.002+05:30

While deploying a SOA composite in the SOA server, sometime the following error is encountered.

"Error finding SOA configured servers to deploy archive. Deployment cannot continue. java.lang.NullPointerException".

At first instinct, re-visiting the 'App Server Connection' and running the server connection tests in JDeveloper did not reveal any issues and all the test results were successful.

On closer observation, we can notice that proxy server settings are turned on in JDeveloper which is causing the issue during the actual SOA deployment. Disable the proxy settings Tools -> Preferences -> Web Browser and Proxy -> Uncheck 'Use HTTP Proxy Server' option.

Restart JDeveloper and deploy the SOA composite. Voila, it got deployed this time perfectly.

Oracle WebCenter 11g Frame Busting

2011-09-06T16:03:00.001+05:30

While trying to add a webpage portlet in Oracle WebCenter 11g either as a portlet or as a simple webpage hosted in the server, most of the times we encounter the following error;

"WARNING: Unable to load content in a frame. Frame content will load at the top level."

This is an obvious issue of iframe busting where the ADF layout of the webpage is unable to fit itself within the portlet container and hence is complaining. To overcome this issue, we need to add few lines of code to the web.xml file of the ADF project and redeploy the webpage.

Under the <web-app> root element of the web.xml, add the following <context-param> ;

<context-param>
<param-name>oracle.adf.view.rich.security.FRAME_BUSTING</param-name>
<param-value>never</param-value>
</context-param>

And there we go, WebCenter portal doesn't complain anymore on loading the webpage.

TNS Listener supports no services

2011-08-24T17:26:00.000+05:30

While using Oracle 11g database, we encountered an issue where the database listener was unable to connect to any DB service although the associated database server was started, up and running. No matter how many times we issued lsnrctl start commands, the listener was unable to tie to the running database service. The listener reported the following on startup;

LSNRCTL for Linux: Version 11.2.0.1.0 - Production

Copyright (c) 1991, 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Connecting to (DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=localhost)(PORT=1521)))
STATUS of the LISTENER
------------------------
Alias                     LISTENER
Version                   TNSLSNR for Linux: Version 11.2.0.1.0 - Production
Start Date                11-AUG-2011 07:16:06
Uptime                    12 days 19 hr. 24 min. 0 sec
Trace Level               off
Security                  ON: Local OS Authentication
SNMP                      OFF
Listener Parameter File   /oracle/dbhome/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1/network/admin/listener.ora
Listener Log File         /oracle/dbhome/app/oracle/diag/tnslsnr/soabpm-vm/listener/alert/log.xml
Listening Endpoints Summary...
(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=tcp)(HOST=localhost)(PORT=1521)))
The listener supports no services
The command completed successfully

To overcome this issue, leave the listener started and reboot the 11g database. After 11g DB restart, issue the lsnrctl status command and see that the services are now registered successfully with the listener.

LSNRCTL for Linux: Version 11.2.0.1.0 - Production on 24-AUG-2011 02:40:07

Copyright (c) 1991, 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Connecting to (DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=localhost)(PORT=1521)))
STATUS of the LISTENER
------------------------
Alias                     LISTENER
Version                   TNSLSNR for Linux: Version 11.2.0.1.0 - Production
Start Date                11-AUG-2011 07:36:00
Uptime                    0 days 0 hr. 24 min. 0 sec
Trace Level               off
Security                  ON: Local OS Authentication
SNMP                      OFF
Listener Parameter File   /oracle/dbhome/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1/network/admin/listener.ora
Listener Log File         /oracle/dbhome/app/oracle/diag/tnslsnr/soabpm-vm/listener/alert/log.xml
Listening Endpoints Summary...
(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=tcp)(HOST=localhost)(PORT=1521)))
Services Summary...
Service "orcl.local" has 1 instance(s).
Instance "orcl", status READY, has 1 handler(s) for this service...
Service "orclXDB.local" has 1 instance(s).
Instance "orcl", status READY, has 1 handler(s) for this service...
The command completed successfully

Weblogic 11g Domain Creation Failed

2011-08-24T17:09:00.001+05:30

While creating domain in Weblogic server for FMW 11g, the following may be encountered if the config.cmd (or) config.sh file is executed from $MiddlewareHome/wlserver_10.3/common/bin folder.

Preparing...
Extracting Domain Contents...
Creating Domain Security Information...
Domain Creation Failed!

Domain Location: /oracle/fmwhome/user_projects/domains/base_domain

Reason: null

Exception:

Traceback (innermost last):
File "", line 17, in ?
TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for +: 'NoneType' and 'str'

To resolve this error, use the config.cmd (or) config.sh executable from $MiddlewareHome/Oracle_ECM1/common/bin folder. This error occurs because, the standard execution wizard is unable to execute the jython scripts that will get executed during domain creation.

Portletize ADF Faces jspx page

2011-08-19T16:20:00.003+05:30

In this post, let us see how to portletize an ADF 11g application. This post will demonstrate how to expose a ADF faces page as a JSR 168 standard portlet which can run within Oracle WebCenter portal.

Pre-Requisites:

Download JDev WebCenter Extension from the following link.

http://www.oracle.com/ocom/groups/public/@otn/documents/webcontent/156082.xml

Go to Help -> Check for Updates -> Choose 'Install From Local File' option and select the downloaded webcenter framework bundle zip file for install

From your ADF application, expand the ViewController project, right click on the jspx ADF faces page which you want to portletize and choose 'Create Portlet Entry...'. In the resulting popup window, enter portlet name, display name, portlet title, short title, description and click OK. This action will generate a portlet deployment descriptor automatically for the page. You can portletize 1 or more pages of your ADF application under a single portlet deployment descriptor.

While deploying the ADF application, JDeveloper will prompt for confirmation whether the JSR 168 portlet producer has to be deployed. Press OK to confirm. We now have to identify the WSRP WSDL URL which will be used to register the portlet in WebCenter. Pick up the ADF application URL from the deployment log and enter the following in a browser window;

<ADF_Application_URL>/info

Click on the WSRP v1 link and copy the WSDL URL from the resulting screen.

Let us now register the portlet producer with WebCenter spaces. Follow the steps below to achieve this;

1. Login to EM console as weblogic
2. Expand WebCenter -> WebCenter Spaces -> webcenter(11.1.1.4.0) (WC_Spaces)
3. Choose 'Register Producer' from the WebCenter dropdown option
4. Under the 'Add New Portlet Producer' screen, choose producer type as 'WSRP Producer', enter a 'connection name' and provide the WSDL URL which we copied above earlier
5. Test the portlet producer and click OK

This will ensure that the registered portlet is now available as a portlet in WebCenter portal which can be used as required.

ADF 11g "No Credential Mapper" Error on WebLogic

2011-08-18T15:52:00.004+05:30

While migrating the ADF 11g application with model project on to various environments, the following error is encountered;

"java.security.PrivilegedActionException: weblogic.common.ResourceException: java.security.PrivilegedActionException: weblogic.common.ResourceException: No credential mapper entry found for password indirection user......"

This error occurs because, JDeveloper generates an application-level data source with password indirection. JDeveloper creates a weblogic-jdbc.xml file for each database connection stored in the application resources. In order to get rid of the above error, we should ensure that the jdbc settings are not synchronized during ear generation.

Go to 'Application Properties' -> Deployment -> Uncheck the 'Auto Generate and Synchronize weblogic-jdbc.xml Descriptors During Deployment' option.

After the above setting, generate the ear file for the ADF application which can now be deployed on different environments.

ADF 11g model project generic datasource

2011-08-18T15:41:00.000+05:30

While creating a ADF model project in an ADF application, we define the connect string (hard coded) to connect to the database. However, while migrating the ADF application on to different environments, the connect string values might change and has to be referred dynamically from the data source created in the application server. To ensure that the ADF application points to the data source, we can define the configuration settings in the model project 'AppModule'.

Step 1: Right Click on the 'AppModule' and go to 'Configurations...'

Step 2: Under the 'Manage Configurations' dialog, edit the AppModuleLocal and AppModuleShared business components

Step 3: Under the 'Connection Type' panel, choose 'JDBC DataSource' and enter the data source name that is created on the application server

Step 4: Save and deploy the ADF application.

Now, we have ensured that the ADF application model refers to the application server data source. This will keep the ADF application generic as we have externalized the database connection details.

ADF generate primary key using DBSequence and display to user

2011-08-11T20:59:00.000+05:30

In this post, I am going to demonstrate a way of generating and displaying a Oracle DB sequence and show that to user in a Oracle ADF page.

Step 1: Create a DB sequence in the database. For example let us consider order_sequence as the DB sequence

Step 2: In the ADF application, under the model project create an entity object for the table which has the primary key (for example, order_id) for which the DB sequence created above will be used for data insertion

Step 3: Open the Entity Object, go to Java tab and click on the 'Edit' button to auto-generate the entity object java class
a. Select 'Generate Entity Object Class' check box
b. Under the 'Include' grouping select 'Create Method' in additions to the default selected 'Accessors' option

Step 4: Now, click on the hyperlink which shows the auto-generated entity object java class and add the following java code under the create() method that is generated

super.create(attributeList);
SequenceImpl s = new SequenceImpl("ORDER_SEQUENCE", getDBTransaction());
super.create(attributeList);
Object obj = s.getSequenceNumber();
this.setOrderId((Number)obj);

Now, drag and drop the view object from the ADF data controls as a form with input text. Everytime, the form is invoked, a new sequence number will be generated from database and will be displayed in the UI.

Migrate Oracle BAM Reports and DO across environments 11.1.1.4

2011-04-29T17:11:00.000+05:30

Today, I am blogging on the migration of Oracle BAM reports and Data Objects across environments.

First we should export the built BAM reports and data objects as XML objects from the development environment. ICommand utility bundled with Oracle SOA suite comes in handy for this purpose.

1. Ensure that the server on which Oracle BAM reports are available is up & running as the ICommand utility extracts the reports/data objects from the MDS store

2. If you have developed the BAM reports under the 'Shared Reports', issue the following icommand in the command prompt/terminal window;

change directory to \Oracle_SOA1\bam\bin

icommand -CMD EXPORT -NAME "/public/Report/Samples/<>" -TYPE report -file Report.xml

This will generate Report1.xml under the bin directory.

To export a data object issue the following icommand;

icommand -CMD EXPORT -NAME "/Samples/Monitor Express/<>" -file DO.xml

This will generate DO.xml under the bin directory.

Transfer the generated xml files to the destination server (As per the following example, the xmls are migrated into the bin directory)

3. Now, login to the server where the exported BAM reports and DOs should be installed

4. Ensure that the server is up & running. Change directory to \Oracle_SOA1\bam\bin

5. Issue the following icommand to import the DO & report XMLs

icommand -CMD IMPORT -file DO.xml

icommand -CMD IMPORT -file Report1.xml

Wait for the success message and verify the successful import of

reports & DOs in the destination server

BEA-280101 Persistent File Store using Bufferd I/O

2011-04-08T16:24:00.000+05:30

While installing the Oracle SOA suite 11g on a 64-bit environment (using a 64-bit JVM), 64-bit native server libraries are created automatically in the Middleware home. However, these may not get referenced during the SOA domain startup. As a result of this, you may encounter the following Weblogic 'Warning' message in the server logs. Although being a warning message that our intuition immediately asks to ignore, this particular warning makes us inquisitive as it threatens of a 'Significantly degraded performance'.

<BEA-280101> <The persistent file store "_WLS_xxxdomain" is forced to use buffered I/O and so may have significantly degraded performance. Either the OS/hardware environment does not support the chosen write policy or the native wlfileio library is missing. See store open log messages for the requested and final write policies. See the documentation on store synchronous write policy configuration for advice.>

To overcome this Weblogic warning, ensure that the generated 64-bit native libraries are referenced during server start-up.

Go to <Middleware_Home>\user_projects\domains\<SOA Domain>\bin\SetSOADomainEnv.cmd (or SetSOADomainEnv.sh if Linux) and add the -Djava.library.path to JAVA_OPTIONS as shown below;

set JAVA_OPTIONS=%JAVA_OPTIONS% -Djava.library.path=<Middleware_Home>\wlserver_10.3\server\native\win\x64 [Depending on whether your OS is Windows or Linux the path might slightly change]

After performing the above configuration, restart the server and Weblogic warning should now disappear.

Oracle BPM 11g ORABPEL-02118 Variant not found Exception

2011-03-20T16:30:00.000+05:30

While modelling the BPM workflow, there might be few service tasks to call external services. These services would essentially be referenced in the SCA composite.xml (External References Swim Lane). These would then be wired to the BPMN workflow when the service task is added on the BPM process and the service is referred. Until this moment everything is fine as expected.

However, when the external service definitions change, we will have to rebuild/refresh the adapters in the SCA so that the service definition changes are reflected properly. Now, everything seems good but at run-time, the process throws ORABPEL-02118 Variant not found exception (Detailed exception looks as below)

<Error> <oracle.soa.bpel.engine.dispatch> <BEA-000000> <failed to handle message

ORABPEL-02118 Variant not found.

The variable "Services.Externals.UpdateDBRecord.reference" is not declared in the current scope. All variables must be declared in the scope before being accessed.

This was an internal error. The flow was not generated correctly by the BPMN compiler.

Contact Oracle Support Services. Provide the error message, the composite source, and the exception stack trace in the log files (with the logging level set to debug mode).

On closer look at the Composite.xml we can notice that the wiring between the service adapters and BPMN workflow component missing. This is an intermittent issue. Solution would be to manually add the 'wiring' information into the Composite.xml and re-deploy. [Where UpdateDBRecord is the external service referenced]

<wire> <source.uri>BPMProcess/Services.Externals.UpdateDBRecord.reference</source.uri>
<target.uri>UpdateDBRecord</target.uri>
</wire>

ADF Runtime DB Connection Error

2011-03-16T16:52:00.004+05:30

While creating an ADF Fusion Web Application with a database datacontrol, the following error is encountered while running the application.

oracle.jbo.DMLException: JBO-26061: Error while opening JDBC connection.
at oracle.jbo.server.ConnectionPool.createConnection(ConnectionPool.java:253)
at oracle.jbo.server.ConnectionPool.instantiateResource(ConnectionPool.java:168)
at oracle.jbo.pool.ResourcePool.createResource(ResourcePool.java:546)
at oracle.jbo.pool.ResourcePool.useResource(ResourcePool.java:327)
at oracle.jbo.server.ConnectionPool.getConnectionInternal(ConnectionPool.java:104)
Truncated. see log file for complete stacktrace
java.sql.SQLException: ORA-01005: null password given; logon denied

This is because, the ADF model project fails to register the password with the app server which cause this SQL exception.

In order to overcome this error, edit the EXTRA_JAVA_PROPERTIES and append -Djps.app.credential.overwrite.allowed=true property under the setSOADomainEnv.cmd (In Windows) or setSOADomainEnv.sh (In Linux) file as follows. This file will be located under <<Middleware_Home>>\user_projects\domains\<Your_Domain_Name>\bin folder.

set EXTRA_JAVA_PROPERTIES=%EXTRA_JAVA_PROPERTIES% -Djps.app.credential.overwrite.allowed=true -da:org.apache.xmlbeans...

Restart the Oracle Weblogic server.

Weblogic 10.3.4 Installation & Configuration on 64-bit windows

2011-03-11T23:34:00.008+05:30

Today, I am going to explain the installation steps & configuration of Oracle Weblogic 10.3.4 for SOA suite 11g (11.1.1.4) in a 64-bit windows environment. Because, of late, I have been seeing a lots of queries in forums with same query/issue (BEA-000438: loading performance pack issue) with no relevant answers. Probably this post would help in resolving all the issues;

1. First things first; Ensure that you download the correct version of the Weblogic installer (wls1034_generic.jar)
2. Download the 64-bit JDK/JRE of Oracle Java (Latest version on date is jdk-6u24-windows-x64.exe)
3. The generic 64-bit Weblogic installer doesn't come bundled with a 64-bit JVM. Hence install the Java downloaded in step 2 on your windows environment. Care must be taken to ensure that the default installation directory (C:\Program Files) is changed - Catch here is that Weblogic doesn't recognize WELL the Java installation directory with a space in folder name. So be sure to install the Java in a folder path where none of the folder names have a space (Eg. C:\Java)
4. Now from the command prompt, execute the following command to install the Weblogic 10.3.4 64-bit;
java -D64 -jar wls1034_generic.jar
[-D64 ensures that the weblogic installation is going to be on the 64-bit JDK.]
5. Follow steps to install the Weblogic 10.3.4 server - Installation will prompt for the JDK selection, choose C:\Java (You will find this information in documentation)
6. Now, when you start the server, you may find the following error;

<Error> <Socket> <BEA-000438> <Unable to load perf
ormance pack. Using Java I/O instead. Please ensure that wlntio.dll is in: 'C:\O
racle\fmwhome\wlserver_10.3\server\native\win\32;C:\Oracle\fmwhome\wlserver_10.3
\server\bin;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\Oracle\fmwhome\wlserver_10.3\serve
r\native\win\32\;C:\Oracle\fmwhome\wlserver_10.3\server\bin;C:\Program~\Java\jdk
1.6.0_24\jre\bin;C:\Program~\Java\jdk1.6.0_24\bin;C:\Oracle\fmwhome\wlserver_10.
3\server\native\win\32\oci920_8;C:\oraclexe\app\oracle\product\10.2.0\server\bin
;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem'

7. Go to the following location <<Weblogic_Home_Directory>>\wlserver_10.3\server\native\win\x64. Copy the wlntio.dll file and paste it under C:\Java\bin directory (if you have choosen to install Java in C:\Java).
8. Now, start the server and the error must be gone - Performance pack is now loaded in Weblogic 10.3.4

Oracle SOA Suite 11g Flex Fields

2011-03-04T12:02:00.002+05:30

Hello All,
Its been a long time since I wrote a blog entry and the rather elaborate pause was due to lots of travelling around. Now I am back and hopefully will blog on latest Oracle FMW techniques that I find interesting or worth sharing.

In this blog, I am going to demonstrate the concept of Flex Fields in Oracle SOA suite 11g. The latest release is 11.1.1.4. Flex Fields are one of the useful features available for a manual/human task activity where the worklistapp user will be able to search for a task available under his 'Tasks' based on a value from the payload. This sounds really interesting because, if the user has huge list of tasks and wants to attend to few tasks on priority (probably based on the PO amount) - Flex Fields comes handy to help.

While defining a human task activity under the SCA composite, add the parameters under the data tab, which has to be made available as flex fields for the user. Define the parameters as simple types (Complex type parameters are not supported as flex fields). We will assign values to these parameters from the payload request in the BPEL process. Under the assignments tab, create a role and assign the task to be handled by the user (eg., weblogic, jcooper) and complete the definition.

Under the BPEL process drag drop the human task activity into the process flow from the SOA constructs panel and map the human task to the activity we defined earlier in the composite. This human task activity will also ask for parameter value definition that we defined as flex field params - Map the variables from payload appropriately to these flex fields.

Now, lets perform the critical piece of assigning the payload variables (that are required as flex fields) to the systemManagedAttributes. This will help in defining the labels for the flex fields in the BPM worklistapp which can be shown to the user for performing a search. Expand the human task activity and in the first assign node, create a copy operation and assign the payload variables to the /task:task/task:systemManagedAttributes/task:textAttribute1. [Important thing to note is Oracle SOA provides set of system attributes in various datatypes such as text, number, date, url etc.. We should be mapping our payload variables to appropriate datatype attributes]. Save and deploy the composite.

We now have to perform a final mapping in the BPM worklistapp in order to define the labels for the flex fields. Login as weblogic user into the BPM worklistapp and click on administration link. Select 'Public Flex Fields' in the left panel and search for the human task for which the flex fields must be defined (Edit Mappings for task link) . This will bring up the map attributes page where we can create labels for the flex fields. These have to be mapped to the systemManagedAttributes [Remember the assign copy operation where we assigned the payload variables to the systemManagedAttributes]. Once done for all flex fields, save and close.

Try creating an instance of the process and when the tasks come into the BPM worklistapp for the user, the user will be able to search the tasks based on the flex field values. Some more sophistication can be achieved by way of advanced search where the labels will appear as search criteria and different logical conditions can be used to perform the search. (For eg. PO Value - greater than - 50000 will show all tasks whose PO value is > 50000).

Oracle BPEL Correlation Exemplified

2009-10-04T14:16:00.006+05:30

Correlation is one of the important & tricky technique available within Oracle BPEL PM. In this blog, I have taken a simple route to explain the correlation technique.

Synchronous & Asynchronous web services:

Whenever a synchronous web service is invoked from Oracle BPEL via a partnerlink, only one port is established for communication with the exposed web service which is used by both request & response messages.
However, when an asynchronous web service is invoked, two ports are opened for communcation: one for request & one for response messages.

How does Oracle BPEL identify asynchronous responses?

As response from an asynchronous web service is not guaranteed to be received within a specified time frame, and many instances of the same service might be invoked before even a response can be obtained, how does Oracle BPEL identify and relate the responses to the appropriate requests and proceed for completion of further activities that may be scheduled? The answer is "WS-Addressing".

What is WS-Addressing?

WS-Addressing is a transport-neutral mechanism by which web services communicate addressing information. SOAP envelopes & headers used within web services for transporting data throught transport layers like HTTP does not possess intelligence to specify unique addressing information. Hence, WS-Addressing evolved which contained endpoint references (EPR) and message information headers for identification. This information is processed independently of the transport mechanism or application.
For reference on WS-Addressing click here

By default, Oracle BPEL PM implements WS-Addressing for all asynchronous web service calls, hence we don't have to explicitly implement identification relationship between the incoming & outgoing messages.

Correlation:

In short, Correlation is a BPEL technique which provides correlation of asynchronous messages based on the content of the message.

Why & Where Correlation?

The following are few scenarios in which we would be required to implement Correlation to identify & relate message communication;
1. When the external web service called doesn't have WS-Addressing capability
2. When the message travels through several services and response is solicited by the initial service from the last service directly
For instance, request flow pro1 -> pro2 -> pro3 and response is received from pro3 ->pro1

Implementing Correlation:

a.) Creating Correlation Sets:

In Structure Window of the JDeveloper IDE, right click on the Correlation Sets and choose 'Create Correlation Set'
Provide a name for your correlation set being created.
In the properties section, select 'Add' to display the property chooser window
Choose 'Create' to create a property on which the correlation has to be initiated. Provide a name and type for the property.

b.) Associating the Correlation set on receive/invoke, pick activities

Go the the correlations tab on the activity (invoke/receive/pick) on which you need to set & validate the correlation
Add the created correlation set to the activity

Initiate Attribute: (Value Set - yes, no)
When set to yes, correlation set is initiated with the values of the properties available in the message being transferred
When set to no, correlation set validates the value of the property available in the message

Pattern Attribute: (Value Set - in, out, in-out)
When the value is 'in', it means that the correlation property is set/validated on the incoming message
When the value is 'out', it means that the correlation property is set/validated on the message going out of BPEL
In case of 'in-out', the property will be set/validated on both incoming & outgoing messages

c.) Creating Propery Alias:

In the Structure Window of the JDeveloper, right click on the 'Property Aliases' and select 'Create Propery Alias'
Select the message type that you want to set to the correlation propery (already created)

Now, correlation design is complete. However, correlation will not be established unless we reference the correlations on the WSDL file of the BPEL process. To do this, import the correlation WSDL file (created under the project) in the BPEL process main WSDL.

BPEL Process Manager Server (10.1.3.4) Connection Failed

2009-09-08T18:16:00.004+05:30

After upgrading to Oracle SOA 10.1.3.4 Integration Server connection cannot be established through JDeveloper. When looking into the OPMN log files the following error was logged;

java.lang.IllegalStateException: MessageDrivenHome:: application state=3 - Application: 'hw_services' is not in RUNNING state.
at com.evermind.server.ejb.MessageDrivenHome.checkRunningState(MessageDrivenHome.java:1216)
at com.evermind.server.ejb.MessageDrivenConsumer.run(MessageDrivenConsumer.java:162)
at com.evermind.util.ReleasableResourcePooledExecutor$MyWorker.run(ReleasableResourcePooledExecutor.java:298)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:595)

To overcome this issue, login to the em console (Application Manager) [http://hostname:portname/em] and restart the hw_services available under the oc4j_soa instance. This should resolve the connection issue & a retry for establishing connection via JDeveloper will succeed.

Oracle ESB 10.1.3.4 ConsoleTransactionException

2009-09-08T12:07:00.006+05:30

While starting Oracle SOA instance, all ESB services are not getting started & refreshed before orabpel service starts. When this happens no service can be accessed from the Oracle ESB and the following exception is sighted in the ESB Console.

An unhandled exception has been thrown in the ESB system. The exception reported is: "oracle.tip.esb.console.exception.ConsoleTransactionException: File repository not initialized.May be ESB bootstrap failed Please review ESB prameters for their correctness. at oracle.tip.esb.console.XMLConsoleManagerImpl.commit(XMLConsoleManagerImpl.java:2317) at oracle.tip.esb.console.XMLConsoleManagerImpl.deleteSystem(XMLConsoleManagerImpl.java:637) at oracle.tip.esb.configuration.servlet.command.DeleteSystemCommand.execute(DeleteSystemCommand.java:34) at oracle.tip.esb.configuration.servlet.CommandServlet.doJob(CommandServlet.java:109) at oracle.tip.esb.configuration.servlet.CommandServlet.doPost(CommandServlet.java:76) at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:763) at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:856) at com.evermind.server.http.ResourceFilterChain.doFilter(ResourceFilterChain.java:64) at oracle.security.jazn.oc4j.JAZNFilter$1.run(JAZNFilter.java:400) at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method) at javax.security.auth.Subject.doAsPrivileged(Subject.java:517) at oracle.security.jazn.oc4j.JAZNFilter.doFilter(JAZNFilter.java:414) at com.evermind.server.http.ServletRequestDispatcher.invoke(ServletRequestDispatcher.java:623) at com.evermind.server.http.ServletRequestDispatcher.forwardInternal(ServletRequestDispatcher.java:370) at com.evermind.server.http.HttpRequestHandler.doProcessRequest(HttpRequestHandler.java:871) at com.evermind.server.http.HttpRequestHandler.processRequest(HttpRequestHandler.java:453) at com.evermind.server.http.AJPRequestHandler.run(AJPRequestHandler.java:313) at com.evermind.server.http.AJPRequestHandler.run(AJPRequestHandler.java:199) at oracle.oc4j.network.ServerSocketReadHandler$SafeRunnable.run(ServerSocketReadHandler.java:260) at com.evermind.util.ReleasableResourcePooledExecutor$MyWorker.run(ReleasableResourcePooledExecutor.java:303) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:595) ".

One of the solution to overcome this issue is to ensure that the ESB services are getting started successfully before orabpel service starts. One can follow the following steps to overcome this issue;

1. Login to the 'Application Manager' (em console) and stop the orabpel service under oc4j_soa. Ensure that the hw_service is also stopped.
2. Now change to the \opmn\bin directory via command prompt and issue the following command
opmnctl stopall
3. Once all services are stopped, issue the following command to start all services
opmnctl startall
4. Login back to the Application Manager console and start the orabpel service under oc4j_soa instance

Now, things should work fine.

Oracle ESB org.apache.slide.structure.ObjectNotFoundException

2009-09-02T13:48:00.004+05:30

"org.apache.slide.structure.ObjectNotFoundException" exception is thrown in ESB console during runtime. This error occurs when ESB artifacts are developed on JDeveloper and moved from one workspace to another. The JDeveloper will not be able to eventually update the file locations in the related artifacts when the project is moved from one application/workspace to another.

Detailed Error Description: (As logged in ESB Error Trace)

Error occured while transforming payload using XSL "esb:///ESB_Projects/Application1_***/***.xsl". Reason : Could not load XSL transform into the cache for XSL/XSLT "esb:///ESB_Projects/Application1_***/***.xsl"! Reason : org.apache.slide.structure.ObjectNotFoundException: No object found at /files/ESB_Projects/Application1_***!

Solution:

DO NOT move the ESB projects to a different JDeveloper workspace, as this is not supported by Oracle ESB (till 10.1.3.4)

Import DVM using Java-Ant

2009-05-27T21:38:00.003+05:30

While writing an Ant build script to deploy the BPEL/ESB processes, it became absolutely important to deploy/import the DVMs automatically using Ant build scripts. While surfing thru the web, I came across a piece of Java code that will accomplish this task. I have made few enhancements to the code which will dynamically get the DVM file details from a property file for import.

Pre-Requisites:

1. You will need to import the commons-codec-1.3.jar available in the SOA suite ($SOA_Home\Integration\esb\lib)
2. Download the commons-httpclient-3.1.jar from the internet (Any older version will throw errors!)
3. Import commons-logging.jar from $SOA_Home\Integration\esb\lib folder

Functional Aspects:

a.) The following piece of code will use a property file called ImportDVM.properties which will contain the dynamic parameters such as hostname, port number, username, password and more importantly the dvm file(s) location

b.) Multiple DVM files can be imported at a time by providing a comma (,) separated list of DVM file locations for the "dvm" parameter in the properties file

Java Source Code:

import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.util.Properties;
import java.util.StringTokenizer;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpClient;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.methods.GetMethod;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.methods.PostMethod;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.methods.multipart.FilePart;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.methods.multipart.MultipartRequestEntity;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.methods.multipart.Part;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.methods.multipart.StringPart;

public class ImportDVM {
public static void main(String[] args) {
Properties props = new Properties();
try {
InputStream in = Class.forName("ImportDVM").getResourceAsStream("ImportDVM.properties"); // Properties file to define your dynamic parameters
props.load(in);
String esbHost = props.getProperty("hostname");
int esbPort = Integer.parseInt(props.getProperty("port"));
String username = props.getProperty("username");
String password = props.getProperty("password");
String fileLocation = props.getProperty("dvm"); //dvm file location
StringTokenizer st = new StringTokenizer(fileLocation, ",");
while (st.hasMoreTokens()) {
String dvm = st.nextToken();
importDVM(esbHost, esbPort, username, password, dvm);
}
} catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
public static void importDVM(String esbHost, int esbPort, String username, String password, String fileLocation) {
try {
InputStream is = null;
HttpClient client = new HttpClient();
int responseCode = 0;
client.getHttpConnectionManager().getParams().setConnectionTimeout(90000);

// Authenticate
String authUrl = "http://"+esbHost+":"+esbPort+"/esb/j_security_check?j_username="+username+"&j_password="+password;
GetMethod auth = new GetMethod(authUrl);
responseCode = client.executeMethod(auth);

// ImportDVM
File targetFile = new File(fileLocation);
PostMethod post = new PostMethod("http://"+esbHost+":"+esbPort+"/esb/esbConfiguration/executeCommand?action=ImportDVM");
post.setRequestHeader("User-Agent", "ESB Client/1.0");
//StringPart s1 = new StringPart("importType","map");
//StringPart s2 = new StringPart("importMode","overwrite");
//FilePart f1 = new FilePart(targetFile.getName(), targetFile);
Part[] parts = {new StringPart("importType","map"), new StringPart("importMode","overwrite"), new FilePart(targetFile.getName(), targetFile)};
System.out.println(Part.getLengthOfParts(parts));
post.setRequestEntity(new MultipartRequestEntity(parts, post.getParams()));
responseCode = client.executeMethod(post);
System.out.println("Response code: " + responseCode);
is = post.getResponseBodyAsStream();
ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
int c;
while ((c = is.read()) != -1) {
baos.write((char)c);
}
byte[] responseBody = baos.toByteArray();
post.releaseConnection();
String response = new String(responseBody);
System.out.println(response);
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}

Executing from Ant:

So far so good. Now it turns out to be very simple. Just compile the class and call this using the "java" ANT task.
You got a class not found exception huh? Yup, you have forgotten to keep the Java class location in your classpath.

We are now good to go!

Issue with BPEL Date Functions

2009-05-11T23:57:00.005+05:30

The Oracle BPEL date function xp20:current-dateTime() comes in very handy whenever we require to track/print the current system timestamp inside a BPEL process at runtime. However, there is a glitch with this function during the daylight savings timezone settings, as this function returns the timestamp 1 hr ahead of the actual time during the daylight savings. This issue was logged with Oracle and the issue was attributed to the JDK version (1.5.0_06) bundled with the SOA suite 10.1.3.3. To resolve this issue at hand, an upgrade to at least JDK version 1.5.0_16 is recommended.

However, to overcome this issue even more easily, you can use the Oracle BPEL XPath extension function ora:getCurrentDateTime() to get the current system timestamp exactly even during daylight saving settings. If you have the same issue, try this out and this should work as it worked fine for me ;)

Passing BPEL variables to XSL

2009-05-09T01:10:00.005+05:30

I have always wondered, it would be great to pass runtime variable data from the BPEL process to a XSL file for processing within the transformation. To achieve this you can follow the steps as given below;

1. Create a custom schema (namely xslproperties.xsd) as given below & import this schema into your BPEL process.

<xml version="1.0" encoding="windows-1252" ?>
<xsd:schema xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
xmlns:p="http://schemas.oracle.com/service/bpel/common"
xmlns="http://schemas.oracle.com/service/bpel/common"
targetNamespace="http://schemas.oracle.com/service/bpel/common"
elementFormDefault="qualified">
<xsd:element name="parameters">
<xsd:complexType>
<xsd:sequence>
<xsd:element name="item" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="unbounded">
<xsd:complexType>
<xsd:sequence>
<xsd:element name="name" type="xsd:string"/>
<xsd:element name="value" type="xsd:string"/>
</xsd:sequence>
</xsd:complexType>
</xsd:element>
</xsd:sequence>
</xsd:complexType>
</xsd:element>
</xsd:schema>

2. Create a variable (for instance, xslParameters) in your BPEL process of type xslproperties.xsd
3. Now, assign the values to this schema using a transformation activity. You can assign the variable name to the <name> element & variable value to the <value> element
4. If you have to pass multiple variables to the XSL, use the for-each element in the transformation. Optionally you can also build the schema using the "XML Fragment" assign operation and assign values to it
5. The processXSLT() function has 3 parameters. The first parameter holds the XSL file name, the second parameter is the input variable/data for the XSLT to process and the third parameter is the properties. We are now interested in the third parameter which helps us to pass the BPEL variables to the XSLT.
6. Pass the variable xslParameters (As created in step 2) as the third parameter as shown below;
ora:processXSLT('XSLT_File.xsl',bpws:getVariableData(’inputVariable’,'payload’),bpws:getVariableData('xslParameters '))
7. Now, you can obtain all the variable values inside the XSLT file using the <xsl:param name="variable1"/> instruction and you can use this just like a variable inside your XSL file

Customizing BPEL Process Instance Titles

2009-04-23T02:00:00.003+05:30

When there were several BPEL process instances getting created in the BPEL console, it often really becomes hard to identify a instance for tracking/debugging purposes. Since, all the BPEL process instances use a generic naming convention consisting of an unique instance id (sequence generated within Oracle BPEL PM) and the BPEL process name; all instances would hold the same name except for the change in instance id.

In order to give a valid instance name for the BPEL processes, you can make use of the setTitle(String str1); method inside a Java Embedding activity inside the BPEL process, which will ensure that the 'str1' parameter is set as the instance title for all instances created for this BPEL process. You can pass dynamic run-time parameters and customize the BPEL instance titles, so that the BPEL instances can be identified more uniquely in a business sense. This also enables easy & effective instance tracking from the BPEL console.

Pass Variables between Java & BPEL Process

2009-03-15T16:39:00.006+05:30

When using Java embedding activity in a BPEL process for processing BPEL variables , it will be required to pass the variables between Java and the BPEL process. In such cases, you can use
the following methods to get/set the variables;

getVariableData(bpelVariable); method will fetch that variable value to be used inside the Java embedding activity

setVariableData(bpelVariable, Value); method sets the Value (processed in the Java embedding activity) to the bpelVariable, which can be used in the BPEL process for further processing.

However, the variable datatype conversions should be properly handled in BPEL process and Java embedding activity.

Lost BPEL Instances? - Use Force Dehydration

2009-03-14T23:09:00.004+05:30

There will be many instances when it will be really puzzling to find out whether the BPEL instance was triggered or not, where we often say that the "BPEL instance is lost". Actually, in reality, the BPEL process could have resulted in some kind of exception during the process which gets suppressed completely by the BPEL PM and the instance neither gets persisted or dehydrated in the orabpel schema nor shown up in BPELConsole.

This will be really troublesome, as we will not be able to identify whether the problem lies in the external system driving the BPEL instance or within the BPEL process itself after consumption of data. In such cases, you can use the checkpoint(); Java method inside a Java embedding activity to force the instance to be dehydrated as soon as the instance gets triggered in BPEL. This will ensure that the BPEL instance is shown up in the BPEL console if it is instantiated. You can use the following piece of code in your BPEL process to force dehydration.

<bpelx:exec name="CheckPointOne" language="java" version="1.5">
<![CDATA[checkpoint();]]>
</bpelx:exec>

Now, all your BPEL instances will be available in the BPELConsole for debugging issues that are not actually propagated/thrown to BPELConsole by the OPMN.

However, there are certain drawbacks while using the force dehydration mechanism, as this will cause drop in performance of the BPEL process during run-time due to the additional overhead of persisting the instance whenever this method is called. So please make justified use of this method before using this.

Load XSL at runtime on the fly

2009-02-22T16:24:00.002+05:30

While working for a project objective, we had lots of stylesheet (XSLT) files in the BPEL processes, which underwent frequent modifications. The XSL files were created and stored under a common folder inside the BPEL process, which required deployment of the BPEL process everytime we made changes to the stylesheets.

This seemed very bad and time consuming, as we were compiling and deploying the entire BPEL process even for the smallest change in the stylesheet. Then I found a solution where the BPEL process would be made to pick up / load the stylesheet during runtime which will be stored at some physical location under the $SOA_Home accessible via a http URL.

By dynamically constructing the http URL in the BPEL process, the BPEL process was able to load the stylesheets dynamically thereby eliminating the tight coupling between the stylesheet configuration & BPEL process.

# Create a folder called "xsl" (user-defined) under the following location;
$SOA_Home\bpel\system\xmllib

# Place all your XSLT files under the xsl folder

# Construct the dynamic HTTP URL as shown below for this folder location in your BPEL process

1. Create a copy operation under the Assign activity which will construct and store the http URL for the xsl folder, and assign the value to a variable; say xsl_variable
concat(substring-before(ora:getProcessURL(),ora:getDomainId()),'xmllib/xsl/',bpws:getVariableData('stylesheet1'))
2. Pass this variable (In this example xsl_variable) as the first parameter to the ora:processXSLT() function

After the above said modifications are performed, the stylesheets can be modified and copied into the xsl folder which will be loaded & transformed by the BPEL processes on the fly.

Oracle BPEL HTTP Server Down after applying patch 10.1.3.3

2009-02-08T11:02:00.008+05:30

We have encountered few issues while starting the oracle SOA suite after applying SOA patch 10.1.3.3. The HTTP server was still down after the SOA suite restart.

On analyzing the HTTP_Server~1.log file available under $SOA_Home\opmn\logs, the following error was logged.

Syntax error on line 278 of $SOA_Home/apache/apache/conf/httpd.conf:Cannot load $SOA_Home/apache/apache/modules/apachemoduleossl.dll into server: (127) The specified procedure could not be found

This issue might occur if there are few DLL files pertaining to SSL missing or unavailable for the HTTP server start. If you are not using the SSL advantage, then the quick fix is to comment out the following sections of httpd.conf file (Key in # infront of the line to comment).

<ifdefine>
LoadModule ossl_module modules/ApacheModuleOSSL.DLL
</ifdefine>

# Include the SSL definitions and Virtual Host container

include "D:\product\10.1.3.1\OracleAS_1\Apache\Apache\conf\ssl.conf"

Now, restart the Oracle SOA instance & the Http Server should run.

Oracle BPEL Remote Deployment using Ant

2009-02-03T15:51:00.008+05:30

In the last post, we have seen how to compile & deploy the Oracle BPEL & ESB processes in the local OAS (Oracle Application Server on SOA Suite 10.1.3.3) using automated Ant build scripts. In this blog, I will try to explain the remote server deployment of Oracle BPEL processes.

This essentially means that we will be able to run the Ant build script on local machine & deploy the compiled code on to remotely located servers on the network. To explain this with a practical scenario, we can have a build server which has the completed build setup with 2 build scripts - One which will run at regular time intervals (Daily) to check for the integrity of builds & another which can be triggered at desired time to deploy on to test environments.

The following segment of code must be added on to the build script which does the remote server deployments.

Step 1:

Download the classes here and place them in the following location;

$Oracle_SOA_Home\bpel\system\classes\com\collaxa\cube\ant\taskdefs

Step 2:

Add the following task definition to your Ant build script.

<taskdef classname="com.collaxa.cube.ant.taskdefs.RemoteDeployOverHttp"
name="deploySuitcase">

Step 3:

Compile all the required BPEL processes, so that the corresponding jar files are generated in the output folders.

Step 4:

Add a target element in the Ant build script as shown below, which takes care of deploying the compiled BPEL processes to the remote Oracle SOA @ the domain specified.

<target name="deploy">
<deploySuitcase host="$host_ip" port="$SOA_port"
domain="default" password="$SOA_pwd">
<fileset dir="${basedir}">
<include name="bpel_Process1_1.0.jar"/>
</fileset>
</deploySuitcase>
</target>

The host_ip, SOA_port, SOA_pwd are parameters that will be extracted from the external properties file during run-time.

The <deploySuitcase> is the custom Ant task which takes care of deploying the jar files of compiles BPEL processes defined within the <fileset> element. You can included any number of BPEL jars that will be deployed to the remote server specified.

Courtesy: Clemen's SOA Blog

Oracle BPEL/ESB Automated Build using Ant

2009-01-12T22:27:00.017+05:30

In this post, we will see how to use Apache Ant effectively in compiling & deploying Oracle BPEL/ESB projects. In any SDLC, we come across situations where it becomes very hard to detect the integrity of builds at earlier stages which leads to eleventh hour hiccups.

Ant build scripts comes to the rescue, providing custom tasks for compiling & deploying the Oracle BPEL & ESB projects in the OAS (We will see remote server deployments in subsequent posts).

Think of a script which runs at regular time intervals; say 2300 hrs every day and reports if there are any issues during compilation/deployment time. Wouldn't that be great to see the reports at your sight before getting along with development activities everyday. We made use of an open-source utility called "CruiseControl" for automating the Ant build scripts which we will see how to orchestrate.

Pre-Requisites:

Oracle SOA suite 10.1.3.3 installed and configured
Apache Ant 1.7.0
jaxb 2.0.0
commons-httpclient-3.0.1.jar

Identification of BPEL & ESB processes:

Before preparing the Ant build scripts, it is very essential to identify the Oracle BPEL & ESB candidates that would be subject to continuous integration. Also, it is important to capture the order of deployments of these processes.

Wrapper Ant build script:

We can write a wrapper Ant build script which will call the "automatically created" Ant build scripts while creation of BPEL processes & we will leverage the Ant task described in the next section to register ESB projects wherever required.

Compiling & Deploying Oracle BPEL processes:

By default, whenever an Oracle BPEL process is created in JDeveloper, an ant build script will be created which takes care of compiling and deploying that particular BPEL. For orchestrating the automated builds, we will take advantage of these build scripts to continuously integrate the BPEL processes.

Following piece of code shows the process of triggering the process-deploy Ant task available within the BPEL_Process1 BPEL project from the wrapper Ant script.

<target name="BPEL_Process1" description="run BPEL_Process1">
<property name="BPEL_Process1.file.path" value="#Location of BPEL_Process1"/>
<xmlproperty file="${BPEL_Process1.file.path}/bpel/bpel.xml"/>
<echo>Building BPEL_Process1...</echo>
<ant antfile="${BPEL_Process1.file.path}/build.xml" target="process-deploy">
<property name="basedir" value="${process.dir}/${BPEL_Process1.file.path}" />
<property name="process.name" value="BPEL_Process1"/>
</ant>
</target>

Registration of ESB Projects:

Ant comes up with a specialized task for registering the Oracle ESB projects into the SOA server.

1. Extract ESBMetadataMigration.jar from $SOA_Home\Integration\esb\deployment\documentation.zip

2. Modify the following properties in the ESBMetadataMigrationTaskdefs.xml

3. Import the following config files in your ant build script

4. Final step to register the ESB projects;

<target name="ESB_1" description="run ESB_1">
<echo>Registering ESB_1...</echo>
<deployESBProjects esbMetadataServerHostname="${http.hostname}"
esbMetadataServerPort="${http.port}"
userName="${admin.user}"
password="${admin.password}">
<esbProject directory="${ESB_1.file.path}"/>
</deployESBProjects>
</target>

Configuring CruiseControl:

Now that we have written the wrapper Ant build script to orchestrate the Oracle BPEL/ESB deployments, we can make use of the <target> task to call each of the other targets in the necessary sequence using the 'depends' attribute.

This Ant script can now be made available in the CruiseControl tool which will take care of executing this build script at specified time intervals. config.xml is the CruiseControl configuration file available within the CruiseControl installation directory where we can configure various settings like time of build, mail triggers, reports etc...

A little deep dive into the CruiseControl configurations will allow you to configure css settings, mail templates etc...

Please post your comments if you need clarifications/help which I will try to resolve ASAP.

Oracle BPEL console throws 'No domains accessible to the user logged in.'

2009-01-01T19:53:00.006+05:30

A common issue that is faced in Oracle BPEL development phase by a developer is "No domains accessible to the user logged in." This might be due to several reasons which I will try to elaborate in this blog based on my past experience in resolving this issue.

Check 1:
First checkpoint where we can identify the detail of error description is checking the following log files;
Domain Log: $SOA_Home\bpel\domains\default\logs\domain.log ('default' is the default domain name)
- This log file will be created everytime the SOA service is started and will log any domain level startup issues
OPMN Log: $SOA_Home\opmn\logs\OC4J~oc4j_soa~default_group~1.log
- This log file will log all the BPEL process specific logs (creation/termination)
System Log: $SOA_Home\bpel\system\logs\orabpel.log
- System level logging is provided for infrastructure, AXIS, and WSIF issues

All these log files should give a clear picture about the error which might be causing this issue, based on which you can take necessary actions.

Check 2:
Check whether the database on top of which Oracle SOA suite was installed is up & running. If not, ensure the RDBMS listener is running & restart SOA service.

Check 3:
The Oracle SOA suite will be installed on top of a database (Oracle Lite/external Oracle DB), where three schemas would have been created during installation namely Orabpel, Oraesb, Orawsm. These schemas might have got corrupted (or) their passwords might have got changed which throws "No domains accessible to the user logged in." error in Oracle BPEL console. Ensure all 3 schemas are present in the database and their passwords are intact as specified in the datasources.xml/during installation and restart SOA service after corrections.

Check 4:
If any class files have been added in the SOA suite, ensure they are properly compiled and deployed @ $SOA_Home\bpel\system\classes.

Check 5:
If you have added any custom xpath functions for use in the BPEL process, you might have added entries in the $SOA_Home/bpel/system/config/xpath-functions.xml. Ensure that this file is well formed.

Check 6:
If you have deployed any BPEL process recently after which the Oracle BPEL console throws this error, there might be high chance for issues in the deployed BPEL process.
All deployed BPEL processes will be picked up from the following location. Take backup of the existing processes, delete all entries and then restart SOA service.
$SOA_Home\bpel\domains\default\tmp ('default' is the default domain name)

One or more of the above described checks should resolve this issue.

Dealing Transaction time-out(s) in Oracle BPEL & ESB processes

2008-12-29T13:28:00.017+05:30

This post would cover the various transaction timeout properties & configurations of Oracle BPEL/ESB projects that can be of great help mitigating timeout issues during runtime arising due to several performance issues.

We had a synchronous BPEL process which would calculate, extract and generate generic XML content for use by other child BPEL processes, which were designated for various operations. The synchronous BPEL process would be called by main BPEL process which will manage the entire workflow. We had no issues in this process until the XML content generated by the synchronous process was fast & within the transaction time-out limits.

For transactions involving complex logic calculations & huge data extractions, the synchronous BPEL process took plenty of time to respond which resulted in transaction time-outs and the BPEL processes never proceeded to completeness.

To overcome this issue, we increased the transaction time-out parameters which can be configured in the Oracle SOA suite. Please note that the following settings are applicable for Oracle SOA suite 10.1.3.3 advanced installation.....

Config 1:

While introducing receive activity in a BPEL process anticipating a response from an Asynchronous BPEL process after an invoke, if the transaction times out; configure the following setting in the BPEL console which will increase the time-out duration.

This is the maximum time the process receiver will wait for a result before returning. Results from asynchronous BPEL processes are retrieved synchronously via a receiver that will wait for a result from the container.

Login to BPEL Console
Click on Manage BPEL Domain
Update the syncMaxWaitTime property to an increased value (Default is 45 sec) depending on the requirement

Config 2:

Modify the transaction-timeout property in the orion-ejb-jar.xml file available under the following location;
$SOA_Home\j2ee\oc4j_soa\application-deployments\orabpel\ejb_ob_engine\orion-ejb-jar.xml

There will be several session beans available in this config file - all of which should be configured with the same value for the transaction-timeout.

Config 3:

Modify the transaction-timeout property in the transaction-manager.xml file available under the following location;
$SOA_Home\j2ee\oc4j_soa\config\transaction-manager.xml

Please note that this timeout value should be greater than the values configured in Config 1 & 2. In essence this value should be larger than syncMaxWaitTime & transaction-timeout configured in orion-ejb-jar.xml file [Config 2].

Config 4:

While using Oracle Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), there can be transcation timeouts while transacting with other BPEL processes or during deployment of ESB projects via Oracle JDeveloper. For the former, Config 3 would suffice & for the latter, configure the xa_timeout parameter in esb_config.ini located in SOA suite at the following location;
$SOA_Home\integration\esb\esb_config.ini

Note that whenever an ESB initiates a transaction, timeout specified in the esb_config.ini will take precedence.

The above specs are gathered from the following resources;
http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B31018_01/relnotes.1013/relnotes/esb.htm
http://download-west.oracle.com/docs/cd/B31017_01/integrate.1013/b28981/app_trblshoot.htm#sthref3957

Storing CLOB data in DB - Oracle BPEL

2008-12-25T00:40:00.006+05:30

While working at the clients' place an year ago, being newly exposed to Oracle SOA & BPEL, we had a requirement to store large objects which were purely XML content in database tables. Hence, I created a column in the oracle database of CLOB datatype which can fit data upto 4GB and a DB Adapter in my BPEL process which will execute a query to insert data into the database column with CLOB datatype. So far so good.

This seemed to work fine for quite some time until the data was not more than 32766 bytes, which triggered my mind that there ought to be some issue with the Oracle SOA settings, as I was able to insert very large payloads (Obviously more than 32766 bytes) using the same sql query executed via SQL developer. The Oracle BPEL PM also threw the following exception when the BPEL process tried to invoke the DB adapter for large payloads;

java.sql.SQLException: setString can only process strings of less than 32766 chararacters

Internal Exception: java.sql.SQLException: setString can only process strings of less than 32766 chararacters

Error Code: 17157 when trying to insert record in clob type of size more then 32766 characters

After googling around for solutions, finally found the following solution (couldn't recall the thankful resource) which needs to be configured in the Oracle SOA suite for the CLOB data insertion.

With Oracle SOA Suite 10.1.3.3 advanced installation, I tried the following settings which resolved the issue;
Step 1:
Add/Append the following properties under the following file: $Oracle_Home\j2ee\oc4j_soa\connectors\DbAdapter\META-INF\ra.xml

<config-property>
<config-property-name>usesStreamsForBinding</config-property-name>
<config-property-type>java.lang.Boolean</config-property-type>
<config-property-value>true</config-property-value>
</config-property>
<config-property>
<config-property-name>usesStringBinding</config-property-name>
<config-property-type>java.lang.Boolean</config-property-type>
<config-property-value>true</config-property-value>
</config-property>

Step 2:
Configure the above properties in the connector-factory of the DB Adapter and ensure that "usesStreamsForBinding" and "usesStringBinding" are set to true;
$Oracle_Home\j2ee\oc4j_soa\application-deployments\default\DbAdapter\oc4j-ra.xml

<connector-factory location="eis/DB/DBConnection" name="Database Adapter">
<config-property value="jdbc/DBConnection" name="xADataSourceName">
<config-property value="" name="dataSourceName">
<config-property value="oracle.toplink.platform.database.Oracle9Platform" name="platformClassName">
<config-property value="true" name="usesNativeSequencing">
<config-property value="50" name="sequencePreallocationSize">
<config-property value="false" name="defaultNChar">
<config-property value="true" name="usesBatchWriting">
<config-property value="true" name="usesStreamsForBinding">
<config-property value="true" name="usesStringBinding">
<connection-pooling use="none"></connection-pooling>
<security-config use="none"></security-config>
</connector-factory>

Step 3:
Restart Oracle SOA Suite for all configurations to take effect and the BPEL process should work fine even with very large payloads.

Meet you in my next post with a possible solution for a new SOA challenge.....