Technologies, Trends & Thoughts

SOA Manifesto - Released

2009-12-08T10:10:00.009-06:00

Experts met at 2nd Annual SOA symposium and finally worked on SOA manifesto. Various experts have mentioned that after 3 days of discussions and sometime heated discussions they have agreed with the following manifesto

Service orientation is a paradigm that frames what you do. Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a type of architecture that results from applying service orientation. We have been applying service orientation to help organizations consistently deliver sustainable business value, with increased agility and cost effectiveness, in line with changing business needs.

Through our work we have come to prioritize:

Business value over technical strategy
This is most common issue or factor that leads to delays and final product as the focus seem to tending or pulled either way and its balanced well. Technical strategy should help increase the business value not degrade it.

Strategic goals over project-specific benefits
Although strategic goals are always the priority, tactical goals also need to taken in consideration.
As we all know the business is not always on cruise control and shits happen and tactical goals need priority sometimes.

Intrinsic interoperability over custom integration
In many cases , if you try hard you can find a way out of custom integrations.

Shared services over specific-purpose implementations
This has been the trend recently and certainly has greater value at harder times

Flexibility over optimization
umm.. this is a fine line to walk.

Evolutionary refinement over pursuit of initial perfection
Most SOA projects i have seen have fallen into the initial perfection pit hole. Certainly what governance preaches you might lead to this pit fall. This is absolutely a good point and this needs to be on the top

That is, while we value the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.

Guiding Principles... Please check them out at SOA Manifesto Site

Foundation for Innovation

2009-10-10T15:46:00.002-05:00

Foundation for innovation is the tag line for the Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g. Which came long way since the initial version of Oracel FMW.

Key addition to this version is incorporation of some of the key BEA components into FMW. Most prominent addition is certainly WebLogic application server to replace Oracle's own application server. Which certainly is the right move to have stronger product into the mix. Although the product is delayed due to BEA aquisition, its worth the wait for many customers.

Issues with Emails Generated by BPEL Human Task Activity

2009-05-11T22:38:00.002-05:00

Issue in Oracle Fusion Middleware 10.1.3.X and Resolution: If you use email activity in BPEL human task notification, emails generated shows up as attachement in outlook.

Resolution: Apply patches 6262989 and 6062334, available in metalink

Other issues solved with these patches

1. Too many notifications
2. No mime types associated or included in attachments

SOA Gateway for Oracle E-Business Suite

2009-05-05T08:02:00.003-05:00

Finally, Oracle has come up with the solution for Oracle E-Business Suite in line with their product strategy. "Integrated SOA Gateway" is part of Oracle EBS 12.1.1, which enables EBS customers with a robust SOA based Integration infrastructure to consume and deliver services natively

This module comes loaded with functionality that is need for integrations using service oriented architecture. So far, customer had to rely on building custom components and features in Fusion Middleware to integrate or to expose EBS transactions as web services.

Features of SOA Gateway

1. Integration Repository: This has been traditionally a repository of all integration points available in EBS, as an collection of all API's( and Interface tables). Now this module got a face lift or make over, certainly in right direction. Following are the features of integration repository

Service Enablement UI: As the name says, its the front end for generating and deploying web services.
Business Events in repository: This has been good feature that is gaining popularity among developers/designers from past few years. Now, you should be able see all the events from repository.
Composite Services: This feature allows to build composite services utilizing the natively available services in E-Business suite.
Business Service Objects: This provides the methods for accessing and operating on standard business service objects and standard set of guidelines and implementation instructions for developing services.

2. SOA Provider : This consists two components that allow SOA enablement of Oracle E-Business Suite during run time and design time.

Service generator exposes integration interface from integration repository, while service deployer deploys the web service

3. Service Invocation Framework: Oracle E-Business Suite now provides the Service Invocation Framework (SIF). SIF from within Oracle E-Business Suite is enabled though Oracle Workflow Java Business Event System and is based on the Web Services Invocation Framework (WSIF) support from Oracle Application Server.

4. SOA Monitor : Traditionally this is one feature that oracle ignores to provide a tool/feature and customers end up developing a custom solution. This is "FIRST" monitoring solution that is available part of Oracle E-Business suite. Thanks to Oracle for recognizing the need after ...well 2 decades of ebusiness suite in development.

For me this looks like a glorified XML Gateway module with addition to all the above features. Certainly this is the right direction and will analyze the solution in our labs for an in depth evaluation.

Succesful Approach for SOA Implementation

2008-10-07T21:52:00.002-05:00

Free webinar of one of the succesful approaches to implement SOA in your organization.
Please register to the event following the below link

https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/425278813

Largest Prime Number - 13 Million digits long

2008-09-28T12:38:00.005-05:00

I couldn't resist but to post this in my technology blog after reading this article on largest prime number. This story was originally posted by Avik Nandy on the Science News Online on Sept 20th.

The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) a project that used volunteer computers to hunt for primes has discovered this number. As mentioned in this article, Printing out all the 13 million digits in 12-point type would create a number that is 30 miles long !!!!

Oracle Open World - Surprise, Surpise its Hardware

2008-09-26T12:44:00.014-05:00

After two days and two keynote sessions by Charles Phillips and Thomas Kurian nothing major came out other than Oracle Beehive. Going into the third day, i was wondering what Larry will come up with. I was speculating about new acquisitions or Fusion Apps update or How Oracle is doing so great even in this economy. To the contrary its all about Database and Performance.

To my surprise and almost all of the audience he has unveiled Oracle's First Hardware product " HP Oracle Database Machine" , Oracle Exadata Storage Server. He has mentioned that it has been in R & D with HP for three years. Quite evident from the presentation that he is going after data warehousing companies Teradata and Netezza. I was wondering what might have been going through the minds of these competitors as soon as announced this product. He did add humour to his announcement by comparing this to 1400 'iPods'. After the Keynote there were some impressive demo sessions conducted demonstrating the capabilities

Run Time Exceptions in BPEL

2008-09-03T13:25:00.011-05:00

BPEL processes need to be designed to handle runtime faults. These can handled using the "faultHandler" construct. Oracle has published very good and detailed technote on fault handling.

Fault handling framework with 10.1.3.3 patch added feature to handle exceptions at invoke activity. These new features are documented in the release notes under "Fault Management Framework"

Default fault policies need to be created under the directory $ORACLE_HOME/domain/config/fault-policies. This default fault policy will catch all the faults and passes them back to the process step that raises it.

Oracle & BEA Middleware "FUSION" Strategy

2008-07-01T20:05:00.015-05:00

I have been eagerly waiting for this events for past couple of weeks. With no doubt the strategy set forth by Oracle is good for both Oracle and BEA customers.

Oracle has categorized the Fusion Middleware into three categories. Strategic, Continue & Converge and Maintanence Products as presented by Mr.Kurian.

Strategic: Some of the BEA products are being adopted immediately with limited re-design into Oracle Fusion Middleware. Few Oracle products converge with BEA products with rapid integration over 12-18 months

Continue & Converge: BEA products will be incrementally redesigned to gradually integrate with fusion middleware technology to broaden the features with automated upgrade.Oracle will invest to continuely develop and maintain these products for atleast 9 more years

Maintanence: BEA products that were EOL'd before acquisition will be maintanined under the same contract for 5 more years

Now coming into the details of the product offerings and strategy as outlined by Thomas Kurian. Product strategy in SOA area is to unify Aqualogic Service Bus and Oracle ESB and in complex event processor Weblogic event server will be merged. BEA WL-Integration will continue to evolve with common services & techonology with BPEL process manager

In the Development tools arena Oracle Eclipse Pack is added into Fussion Middleware pack with no additional licensing costs. The idea is to package BEA Workshop along with Eclipse Pack. Oracle JDeveloper will continue to evolve as Strategic product along with ADF.

Most complex merger of products is in the BPM arena, integrating BEA AL-BPM with Oracle BPEL PM to form Oracle BPM. Both Oracle BPA designer and AL-BPM designer will co-exist as strategic products. As oracle BPA is intended to be used for more structured and rigourous process modelling, where as AL-BPM designer will be used for iterative process modeling

Most significant direction is the BEA Weblogic named as the strategic Application Server going forward.

Does SOA need Paradigm Shift??

2008-06-25T18:52:00.005-05:00

The need for a paradigm shift for embracing SOA within an organization is a lingering question. Certainly, many architects feel the pain of the IT organization when getting them to think on a more service based approach. Some experts feel there is no need for the shift, just a need for adoption of the technology. As many may have experienced, even good technologies can fail when used in the wrong hands.

Although the concept is not new, there certainly needs to be an improvement or shift in thought processes for successful implementations. A good example is building web services (SOA is not just about web services) in a more point to point fashion. Having multiple versions of web services for the same interaction will lead to high TCO and maintenance headache. There is a definite need for governance to maintain the norm in any implementation. Therefore, there needs to be some shift in thought process at different levels of the IT organization.

Oracle eBusiness suite & SOA

2008-06-24T14:14:00.004-05:00

The lingering question for most Oracle ERP clients is how to approach SOA. Should interim activity precede upgrading to 12i or fusion apps? Certainly there is a paradigm shift from traditional oracle technologies and point to point integrations to SOA.

1. Educate: Make sure your IT organization understands the concepts of SOA and what it means to their development cycle. They should also understand tech stack and resource pool before jumping into a solution

2. Road map: Prepare a road map on different stages of implementation required to achieve the end goal. You certainly need to look at the ROI before jumping further

3. Start Small: Take one key business process and highly utilized transaction and build web services and integrations for that process. Monitor and optimize your SDLC processes and architecture based on your findings. Refine your approach to integrations before jumping to next level. Tip: Build internal IT skill sets as you progress through these steps. This also applies to building good support processes

4. Remediation: First of all you need an inventory of all existing applications and integrations. Many companies lack this!!! Analyze the current integrations and remediate low hanging integrations with quick turnaround. Doing this should result in business benefits and justifications for moving away from current technologies (Ex: Support cost, re-usability etc.) Note: Make sure the web services you are building are not designed to meet the current business needs but, rather, build with future anticipation

5. Complex & Critical: Now you are ready to take on the much bigger tasks of tackling the most critical and complex integrations that might need orchestration. By the time you start this stage you should have established development & support processes and a resource pool. I have certainly seen companies struggle by stepping into this stage before the technology has had a chance to mature in the organization