Oracle ESB 10.1.3.4 ConsoleTransactionException

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

"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)

Oracle BPEL/ESB Automated Build using Ant

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

<project name="ESBMetadataMigrationTaskdefs">
<property name="commons.httpclient.home" value="#commons-httpclient jar location"/>
<property name="jaxb.v2.0.2.home" value="#jaxb jar location"/>
<property name="soa.suite.home" value="#Oracle_SOA_Home"/>
<property name="esb.home" value="#ESBMetadataMigration.jar location"/>
<!-- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Custom ant task definitions, to enable import. - This section should be treated as immutable upon installation. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -->
<dirname property="imported.basedir" file="${ant.file.ESBMetadataMigrationTaskdefs}"/>
<taskdef resource="oracle/tip/esb/client/anttasks/antlib.xml">
<classpath>
<pathelement location="${esb.home}/ESBMetadataMigration.jar"/>
<pathelement location="${commons.httpclient.home}/commons-httpclient-3.0.1.jar"/>
<pathelement location="${soa.suite.home}/lib/xmlparserv2.jar"/>
<pathelement location="${soa.suite.home}/integration/esb/lib/commons-logging.jar"/>
<pathelement location="${soa.suite.home}/integration/esb/lib/commons-codec-1.3.jar"/>
<pathelement location="${soa.suite.home}/integration/esb/lib/oraesb.jar"/>
<pathelement location="${jaxb.v2.0.2.home}/lib/activation.jar"/>
<pathelement location="${jaxb.v2.0.2.home}/lib/jaxb-api.jar"/>
<pathelement location="${jaxb.v2.0.2.home}/lib/jsr173_1.0_api.jar"/>
<pathelement location="${jaxb.v2.0.2.home}/lib/jaxb-impl.jar"/>
</classpath>
</taskdef>
</project>
3. Import the following config files in your ant build script
<import file="${bpel.home}/utilities/ant-orabpel.xml"/>
<import file="${ESBMetaDataLoc}/ESBMetadataMigrationTaskdefs.xml"/>
4. Final step to register the ESB projects;
<target name="ESB_1" description="run ESB_1">
<echo>Registering ESB_1...</echo>
<deployESBProjects esbMetadataServerHostname="${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.

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

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