BPEL 10.1.3.3 Optimizes Assigns

One thing that "noobs" to 10.1.3.3 (including me) is surprised by is that 10.1.3.3 optimizes assigns and transforms. Ie assigns that are in the same scope and directly after each other is coalesced to one since assign.

For instance the following BPEL scope in Jdeveloper:

Is suddenly a single assign in the BPEL console:

It looks to me that the assign activity is named by the first assign in the series, so you should give a good name to that first assign, and remember assign - transform - assign will show up as just a single assign.

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JDeveloper BPEL Assigns messes with your head ?

Have you ever wondered why the BPEL Assigns are "inline" by default? :

Is it because you should not be able to see the contents of the assign without going to the source code?

As we all know the default can be changed to regular dialogs by changing the "Use inline editors" in the "Diagram Properties" dialog:

Still however the dialog does not remember how you resized it the last time so it always pops up in its default size:When I really wanted:

This is really annoying and time consuming, even one of my first hacks saved the state of the window when the application was closed down.

ZMover to the rescue

Since I think this behaviour is really annoying I use ZMover (thanks to Michael M @ Kentor for the tip) to rearange any "Edit Assign" that pops up. So I suggest that you try it out too if you are frustrated with the "Edit Assigns". Sadly it cannot rearrange the spacing of the columns, so that is left as homework (each time you open a large assign).

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Using Oracle Clusterware for Non-RAC Purposes

Kevin Closson blogs avout Using Oracle Clusterware for Non-RAC Purposes, it seemes that we need to run our protected FTP servers on our Oracle RAC nodes

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SOA Suite 10.1.3.3 - Remote fault policies

Prior to SOA Suite 10.1.3.3 one could specify the partnerlink properties retryMaxCount and retryInterval for retrying remote partner link faults within the bpel.xml file:

<partnerLinkBinding name="mypartnerlink">
<property name="wsdlLocation">theWSDL.wsdl</property>
<property name="retryMaxCount">4</property>
<property name="retryInterval">60</property>
</partnerLinkBinding>

In 10.1.3.3 Oracle decided to add a "aspect oriented" fault managment policy framework to ease fault management and to keep it in a central location.

In 10.1.3.3, the the partnerlink properties retryMaxCount and retryInterval are thenfore ignored and the new fault management policies needs to be used instead of the old setup.

The fault managment setup consists of the following files:

• %ORACLE_HOME%\bpel\domains\\config\fault-bindings.xml
• %ORACLE_HOME%\bpel\domains\\config\fault-policies\*.xml

Note: If you create a new domain you will need to create the files manually since they are not created by default.

Here "fault-bindings" refers to policies defined in the "fault-polices" folder. That is the fault-bindings file defines which policies that are to be appliced to which processes/partnerlinks.

The XML Schema definitions for the fault policy settings are avaliable in the XMLLIB location:

• %ORACLE_HOME%\bpel\system\xmllib\fault-policy-binding.xsd and
• %ORACLE_HOME%\bpel\system\xmllib\fault-policy.xsd
  

Fault bindings
The fault bindings file defines that fault policy for a specific file so it basically just sets a default policy or specifies fault policies for a specific process:

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The example fault bindings file has the following contents:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<faultPolicyBindings version="2.0.1" xmlns="http://schemas.oracle.com/bpel/faultpolicy" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">

<!-- Enabling this will cause all processes in this domain to use this
fault policy -->

<process faultPolicy="DefaultPolicy"/>

<!-- DefaultPolicy is defined in ./fault-policies/DefaultPolicy.xml -->
<partnerLink faultPolicy="DefaultPolicy">

<!-- Enabling this will cause all invoke faults at partner link
name of "creditRatingService" to use fault policy with
id id = DefaultPolicy -->

<name>creditRatingService</name>

<!-- all invoke faults at partner link below port type use fault policy
with id = DefaultPolicy

The following entry covers the samples/tutorials/122.DBAdapter/InsertWithCatch sample. -->

<portType xmlns:db="http://xmlns.oracle.com/pcbpel/adapter/db/insert/">db:insert_plt</portType>
</partnerLink>
</faultPolicyBindings>

Fault policies

The fault polices file defines the action that will occur when a fault binding triggers. An action is defined as:

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The actions provided are:

1. retry - retry the operation "retryCount" times pausing "retryInterval" seconds between each iteration. If exponentialBackoff is set the "retryInterval" will be increased exponantially. "retryFailureAction" specifies what will happen if the retry operation fails and "retrySuccessAction" specifies an action to take if the retry operation is successful.
   
   
2. rethrowFault - bubble up the fault to the closest "catch" handler
   


3. humanIntervention - mark the work item to be "pending recovery from the BPEL console
   


4. abort - terminate the instance
   


5. replayScope - replay scope fault
   
   
6. javaAction - execute a custom java function

A condition is used to "select" the appropriate action to be taken.

The example and default "DefaultPolicy.xml" file has the following contents:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<faultPolicy version="2.0.1" id="DefaultPolicy" xmlns:env="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns="http://schemas.oracle.com/bpel/faultpolicy" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">


<!-- This section describes fault conditions. Build more conditions with faultName, test and action -->


<Conditions>
<!-- Fault if wsdlRuntimeLocation is not reachable -->
<faultName xmlns:bpelx="http://schemas.oracle.com/bpel/extension" name="bpelx:remoteFault">
<condition>


<action ref="ora-retry"/>
</condition>
</faultName>
<!-- Fault if location port is not reachable-->
<faultName xmlns:bpelx="http://schemas.oracle.com/bpel/extension" name="bpelx:bindingFault">
<condition>


<action ref="ora-rethrow-fault"/>
</condition>
</faultName>
</Conditions>
<Actions>


<!-- This action will attempt 8 retries at increasing intervals of 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, and 256 seconds. -->

<Action id="ora-retry">
<retry>
<retryCount>8</retryCount>
<retryInterval>2</retryInterval>
<exponentialBackoff/>
</retry>
</Action>

<!-- This is an action will cause a replay scope fault-->
<Action id="ora-replay-scope">
<replayScope/>
</Action>

<!-- This is an action will bubble up the fault-->
<Action id="ora-rethrow-fault"> <rethrowFault/>
</Action>

<!-- This is an action will mark the work item to be "pending recovery from console"-->
<Action id="ora-human-intervention">
<humanIntervention/>
</Action>

<!-- This action will cause the instance to terminate-->
<Action id="ora-terminate">
<abort/>
</Action>
</Actions>
</faultPolicy>

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Oracle names 11g Database price

The Register has a post that Oracle has revieled the 11g Server pricing schema. Here is the Oracle pressrelease.

Oracle options for 11g are: Oracle Real Application Testing, Advanced Compression, Total Recall and Active Data Guard.

Pricing for Oracle Database 11g editions and existing options remains unchanged. The following new Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition options are priced as follows:

• Oracle Real Application Testing -- $10,000 per processor or $200 per named user
• Oracle Advanced Compression -- $10,000 per processor or $200 per named user
• Oracle Total Recall -- $5,000 per processor or $100 per named user
• Oracle Active Data Guard -- $5,000 per processor or $100 per named user.

Oracle's complete technology price list is available at: http://www.oracle.com/corporate/pricing/pricelists.html .

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Patch 10.1.3.3 for SOA Suite status

We have now run the Patch 10.1.3.3 for SOA Suite for two weeks and all tests show that’s better for us. Logging seems much better especially for the BAM sensors and error messages for JDeveloper.

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