Perform the below steps for managing the deployed soa services using JDeveloper

Select Windows -> Application Servers -> <CustomApplication ServerName>
Click SOA Folder
Expand the SOA partition in which the SOA Composite is deployed
Right-Click the deployed SOA Composite to perform the below given operations
• Stop – Shutdown the running SOA Composite application
• Start – Restart the stopped running SOA Composite application
• Retire – Retire the SOA Composite application. It cannot create new instances.
• Activate – Activates the SOA Composite application
• Undeploy – Undeploy the SOA Composite application from the SOA Server. The SOA composite cannot be configured , cannot create instances and cannot view the previously processed instacnes.
• Set Default Revision – Revision for the SOA Composite application
If the SOA Composite application is to be deployed , then below steps to be performed
– Right click on SOA Folder, select Deploy SOA Archive

– Select the configure SOA Server
– Select the SOA archive that need to be deployed
– Select the Configuration Plan if created
– Select Default Revision or overwrite for the deployment revision number

SOA Composite is an collection of services, components and references which are created , managed and deployed as single application integrating the business processes. Components are divided as Service Components and Binding Components.

Service components: Service components acts as the building blocks for developing SOA Composite application.
• BPEL Process
• Business Rule
• Human Task
• Oracle Mediator
• Spring
• SubProcess

Binding components : Binding components are used for establishing the connection between a SOA Composite and external services like external web services , JMS Queues , Database Adapters.

Services : Services provides an entry point to connect the SOA Composite with the external services. The protocols ( SOAP /HTTP/REST) used in external services acts as the Binding connectivity within the SOA composite application
References – are used to send messages from SOA Composite to the external services/ applications.

Below given are the provided binding components for the external services.

External Services	Binding Component
Web Services ( SOAP Over HTTP)	SOAP enables services over HTTP Protocol
JCA Adapters	helps in integrating services with different technologies with the usage of provided adapters
FTP Servers	FTP Adapter
JMS Messaging	JMS Adapter
Database Server	DB Adapter
Oracle User Messaging Service	Oracle User Messaging Service Adapter
File server	File Adapter
IBM Websphere MQ	MQ Adapter
LDAP Server	LDAP Adapter
Oracle Coherence Cache	Oracle Coherence Adapter
PeopleSoft	PeopleSoft Adapter
Oracle Sales Cloud	Oracle Sales Cloud Adapter
Oracle B2B	helps in browsing B2B Metadata Services Repository (MDS)
Oracle ADF	BC Service – integrates the Oracle Application Development Framework using Service Data Objects (SDO) with the SOA Application
Oracle E-Business Suite	integrates the oracle applications with the use of Oracle E-Business Suite Adapter
BAM 11g Adapter	integrates the Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) for the exchange of data
EJB Service	integrates the Service Data Objects (SDO) parameters or Java Interfaces with the Enterprise Java Beans (EJB)
HTTP Binding	integrates SOA Application with HTTP
REST Service	integration of REST enabled services with SOA Application.
Oracle Managed File Transfer ( MFT)	integrates the transfer files process to and from endpoint types like FTP / SFTP servers, SOA Web Services , Oracle Service Bus , etc.
Cloud Adapters	integration of Cloud application with SOA Application

The blog discuss on the handling of SOA Composite run time fault error and fault recovery mechanism provided by the Oracle SOA Server. Oracle SOA provides the automated SOA Fault recovery with the usage of Fault Policy Wizard. 

We will discuss the BPEL Standard faults, classification of BPEL Faults  (Business Fault and Run-time Faults) with the help of SOA Composite example using Fault Policy Wizard. 

Error handling in Oracle SOA Composite is one of the common pain area. SOA provides the Fault Handling mechanism to capture error message / run time exceptions returned by the invoked web services in BPEL Process Service components. The BPEL provides the below given standard faults

• bindingFault
• conflictingReceive
• conflictingRequest
• correlationViolation
• forcedTermination
• invalidReply
• joinFailure
• mismatchedAssignmentFailure
• remoteFault
• repeatedCompensation
• selectionFailure
• uninitializedVariable

The BPEL fault has a fault name called a Qname (name qualified with a namespace) and a possible messageType. There are two categories of BPEL faults:

• Business faults
• Runtime faults

Business Faults are the error when the application executes a throw activity or when an invoke activity returns Fault as a response. The invoked service returns error when the required information is not received Example – The Purchase Order Number is not available.
A business fault can be caught with a faultHandler using the faultName and a faultVariable.

<catch faultName="ns1:BusFaultName" faultVariable="varBusinessFault">

Run Time Faults are the error received by the BPEL Process Service Component or Web Service at the run time returned by the system, not user-defined. The invoked service is not available, the transformation error occurs at run time, etc.
Run Time Faults are provided in the http://schemas.oracle.com/bpel/extension namespace and are associated with the messageType RuntimeFaultMessage

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<definitions name="RuntimeFault"
targetNamespace="http://schemas.oracle.com/bpel/extension"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
xmlns="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/">

<message name="RuntimeFaultMessage">
<part name="code" type="xsd:string" />
<part name="detail" type="xsd:string" />
</message>
</definitions>

To handle the above mentioned Business Faults and Run Time Faults, we were required to create Fault Policy and Fault binding files manually in SOA 11g. But now with SOA 12c, the Fault Policy Wizard has been provided to create the Fault Policy with ease for the composites.
Let’s create a sample application which invokes the Remote Service. The Service will handle the RemoteFault using the SOA 12c Fault Policy Wizard and link it to the Fault Binding File

• Create the SOA Application and Project – FaultPolicyRemoteInvocPrj
• Select the options with No Composite
• Create the synchronous BPEL Process – RemoteFaultPolicyBPELProcess

Create the Partner Link with the enabled WSDL. Create the Invoke Activity and provide the details for the created partner link.
Create the Invoke Input Variable – InvokeCustomSupplierSrvc_updateSupplier_InputVariable
Now, let’s utilize the Fault Policy Wizard. Right click on the SOA project and click on New ->From Gallery. Choose SOA Tier -> Faults -> Fault Policy Document to create new fault policy file.
Below given are the actions which can be used for the custom fault policy. Multiple Fault Policies can be created.

The Alerts can be created with any of the 3 given types (JMS, Log and email). Let’s use JMS Alert to see the required details to be entered.
Provide the Alert Id and then click on ‘Create Required Properties’. Enter the Property Name and then select the Web Logic Server and the JMS Queue and JMS Connection factory created in the Web Logic JMS Module.

Click OK and these details will be shown in the Alert Window. Now link the created JMS Alert to the Fault which need to be captured.
Enter the Fault Name: bpelx: remoteFault
Enter the description:
Enter the Default Action: [abort] default-termination
Below given are the available action to be selected.

The below screenshot provides the complete details entered for handling the Remote Fault.

Similarly, you can select the Alert for Email and Log also.

You can map the Created Remote Fault accordingly with any of the created Alert. You can select 1 Alert for the 1 Fault Policy. Set the Alert Property Set similar to JMS Property Set.

Now, we need to create the fault binding file and link the created RemoteFaultPolicy to the available composite, components, services and references.
Now click on the highlighted icon to Edit the Fault Policies and map the value of RemoteFaultPolicy to composite, components, services and references

As the scenario is shown for the RemoteFault, the remote service which will be invoked thorough this application should be down to get the fault policy invoked.

Deploy the application and test the SOA Composite application

Oracle SOA 12c provides new feature “Translate Activity” which can be used to convert any native format file like CSV to XML and vice versa. The blog provides the steps to translate the Native Format File to XML File.

Translate Native Format File to XML File

Consider a common scenario where XML message can contain delimited / fixed length string and to overcome such issues SOA 11g provided the File / FTP Adapter as the mechanism but there was no specific activity available to confirm the XML messages to Native Format or from Native Format to XML message from the received input.

SOA 12 c provides Translate Activity as the solution for such transactional data. Steps are similar to what we use in the File /FTP Adapter
Let’s go through the sample given below to see how to convert XML messages to Native Format or from Native Format to XML message using the Translate Activity

• Create the SOA Application for the Translate Activity

• Drag the Translate Activity from Oracle Extensions to the BPEL Process
• Double Click the Translate Activity to get the translation tab. Translate Activity provides below options ( Native to XML and XML to Native)

• Select the option as Native to XML and click on the Search Icon corresponding to the Input parameter. The below given is the Input Variable Payload Input String

• Convert the Schema to Native (delimited string) to XML format. We can use either of the given below options
• Option 1 – Provide the available schema OR
• Option 2- Generate the schema using the Native format builder wizard
• Click Option 2 for the NXSD schema to generate the Native schema

• Select the option as Delimited. Specify the file with the Native format which includes delimited records. I have selected EMP.txt file with sample employee records delimited with commas

• The next steps identifies the number of records present in the file ( whether there is single record or it could be multiple record file), whether it contains single type data or different type data.

• Define the target namespace for the schema

The Native Format builder wizard shows the Type for each column identified with the delimiter ( Commas )

• Below given is the screenshot for the Native Schema File generated

The Translate activity includes Input and Output Variable. The Input variable was intialized, now  the schema has been generated. Create the Output Variable by clicking the GREEN + icon

Deploy the application

Oracle SOA provides the File Adapter for processing the file based SOA Composite applications by supporting the file adapter polling configuration. When File adapter polling configuration is enabled, the SOA composite application starts polling the file immediately once it is deployed and keep polling the file directory as per the given polling frequency.

The SOA File adapter provides the option as “Trigger File” checkbox, which enables the file polling when the trigger file is placed in the trigger directory. This provides the restriction on how to poll the files based on trigger.

Oracle SOA File Polling Options with File Adapter

Oracle SOA Provides the below given File Polling options

1. Polling Frequency : This option defines after how much time the file polling is to be done.
2. Minimum File Age:  This option is useful when we have large files for processing and we know that it will take time for file to be processed and thus next available new file should be read after that. So increasing the value here ensures that no file is missed from getting processed.
3. Check box for Trigger File :  This option when checked then the above 2 Options Polling Frequency and Minimum File Age will not be used as file will not be Polled automatically, they requires a trigger or in simple words it need to be invoked

Oracle SOA File Polling using Triger File option

• Select the File Adapter to the SOA Composite Application
• Enter the Service Name for the File Adapter
• Select the Adapter Interface as ” Define from operation and Schema”
• Select the operation as “Read File”

• Enter the File Polling Frequency value
• Enter the Minimum File age value
• Select the checkbox” Use Trigger File” as an option

We need to provide the file location from where the file will be processed .

We need to provide the Trigger File Name for which file adapter should check having extension as .trg. If this file is available , then file adapter will poll the students.txt file and get it processed.

Such file trigger mechanism is useful when data is critical for processing and needs confirmation before it is processed . With the file data , we need to place the trigger file which , when read by the file adapter gives the confirmation / triggering to proceed with the file processing.

The below given are the steps for configuring File Adapter in  SOA BPEL Project. The File Adapter provides the  below given operation to read and write files on the application server.

• READ :  The READ Operation of File Adapter picks and read the file data from the given server location
• WRITE : The READ Operation of File Adapter  allows to write files to a specific server location
• SYNCHRONUS READ : The SYNCHRONUS READ Operation of File Adapter  allows to to read a file in middle of the process
• LIST FILE : The LIST FILE Operation of File Adapter  allows to list all the files in a given directory
• CHUNKED READ : The CHUNKED READ operation is used for processing large file data . The chunk Size provides the option of reading data content in sizes to minimize the performance impact on the server and other running services on the application server.

Please find below the steps to create the File Adapter in SOA Project

1. Create a new SOA Project and provide the Project Name
2. Select the “Empty Composite” template and click on Finish
3. Drag and drop the File Adapter from the Palette ,  Components -> Technology

4. The File Adapter Configuration Wizard will open. Provide the File Adapter Service Name and click Next

5.  As we will be reading the data content from the file and does not require any transformations, the default option

will be selected for the File Adapter Interface.  Click Next.

6.  Provide the File Server JNDI Name

7.  Select the File Adapter Read File Operation for reading the file data content.

Provide the Operation Name and Click Next

8. Provide the File Adapter Directory Path from where the file is to be picked and read

Select the option to process the files recursively

Select the option to archive the file once they are read for reference.  Provide the Directory path where file to be placed once processed.

Select the option  to Delete the file once they are successfully processed.

Click Next

9. Provide the extension which are allowed for reading the files .

students *.txt allows to read the text file

students *.* will allow to read all file starting with name students

Click Next

10.  Define the Polling frequency for the file adapter to check and read file from a particular server location.

Polling Frequency : This option defines after how much time the file polling is to be done.

Minimum File Age:  This option is useful when we have large files for processing and we know that it will take time for file to be processed and thus next available new file should be read after that. So increasing the value here ensures that no file is missed from getting processed.

Click Next

11.  Select the default option for the Opaque Schema as file is read and processed as it and not required any transformation.

Click Next

12.  Click Finish to complete the File Adapter Configuration Wizard.

My previous post ( DB Adapter configuration in SOA 12c) had shown the steps to configure the DB Adapter but it is observed that the DB Adapter Polling does not work correctly when records are retrieved in a clustered environment.

Example :

The Customer Order details to be picked from the Oracle Database , transformation of the data as per business scenario and then send the updated data to the target server for further processing. In a clustered environment, the DB Adapter polling will be done simultaneously by all the configured managed server at the same whereas single instance should be initiated  to retrieve the order details.

Solution:

1.  NON XA Datasource : Do not use the XA datasource when using distributed transactions as it can cause problems with autonomous transactions such as java.sql.SQLException
2. Distributed Polling :  While configuring the DB Adapter , select the option for the Distributed Polling
3. DB Adpater Plan.xml : Ensure that once the configuration of DB Adapter in the Weblogic Server is being done,  update the Plan.xml file (deployment plan for the DbAdapter) to the other managed server
4.  Singleton Property in Composite: To enable for high availability environment for a inbound database adapter , add the singleton JCA service binding property in the composite.xml with value as ‘true’

    <binding.jca config="readDataFromDB.jca">
        <property name="singleton">true</property>
    </binding.jca>

What is a Web Service ?

Web Service is an standard way of integrating the web based applications using XML, SOAP, WSDL , UDDI standard to interact among different applications running on different technologies due to its interoperability feature supported being XML based ,  for the exchange of data.

There are mainly two types of web services.

1. SOAP web services
2. Restful web services

What is a WSDL ?

WSDL stands for Web Services Description Language , is an XML-based language used to describe the Web Services ( location of the service, and the methods of the service). It uses the below given elements

<types>  –        provides the (XML Schema) data types used by the web service

<message> –   provides  the data elements for each operation

<portType> –   provides the operations that can be performed and the messages involved.

<binding> –      provides the protocol and data format for each port type

What is SOAP ?

SOAP stands for Simple Object Access Protocol , is an XML based protocol for accessing Web Service.

What is a XML Schema ?

XML Schema defines the structure of an XML document also known as XML Schema Definition (XSD). It provides the list of elements and attributes with the data types to be used ( integer , string , etc).

What is Oracle Fusion Middleware ?

Oracle Fusion Middleware is the collection of different software products provided together for building  UI based applications with middleware integrations and usage of different technologies combined together to achieve complex business solution with ease.  Oracle Fusion Middleware offers complete support for development, deployment, and management.  Oracle Fusion Middleware includes the below products

• Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)
• Oracle Service Bus ( OSB)
• Application Development Framework (ADF)
• Application Architecture Integration (AIA)
• Business Intelligence
• Oracle Identity Management
• Oracle Data Integration
• Oracle WebLogic Server for deployment and management of applications, adapter, web services , authentication

What is SOA ?

SOA stands for  Service Oriented Architecture .  Oracle SOA  is one of the software products (Oracle SOA Suite) of  the Oracle Fusion Middleware developed by Oracle  which acts as a middleware layer for the integration between different applications. It provides a complete set of service infrastructure components for designing, deploying, and managing composite applications. It enables services to be created, managed, and orchestrated into composite applications and business processes.

It includes the following components:

• BPEL Process Manager  (bpel, Mediator, Rules, B2B, and Human Workflow)
• Oracle Business Activity Monitoring (BAM)
• Oracle Business Process Management (BPM) Suite

Advantages of using Oracle SOA

• Loose coupling
• Reusability
• Interoperability
• Flexible

What are the components provided by the  Oracle SOA Suite ?

• BPEL Process Manager
• Mediator
• Human Workflow
• Business Rules
• Adapters – ( File Adapter , JMS (Queue and Topic) Adapters, , AQ Adapters,  DB Adapter, Coherence Adapter)
• BAM – Business Activity Monitoring
• Oracle B2B
• OWSM
• Business Events
• Complex Event Processing