This is my last post of the year.
Strangely this was the year with less posts here in Oracle Radio. And not only that, but I started to do it in English.
Since 2007 I’ve been feeding this blog in Spanish, but for some specific posts I just decided to do it in English to get to a greater audience.
So what about to upgrade to Oracle SOA Site 12.2.1? Is the name of this post.
For the last 7 weeks or so I’ve been upgrading, together with one of my colleagues, around 5 domains of SOA Suite 12.1.3 to 12.2.1. It’s been quite an effort, because those very same domains, were upgraded from 11.1.1.7, so there is a lot of history in them.
They’ve been serving a large SOA implementation, a mission critical implementation that is part of the core for this institution. So the challenge was an important one.
To fail and not be able to rollback was not an option, the maintenance window for the production environment was not that large.
But I insist: what about upgrading it? Does it really work? Is it well documented? Why doing so? 
Well, it is definitely documented by Oracle. It really works. That is the reality. Doing this must be something to have in mind for anyone using 12.1.3.x, I really encourage you to do it. Do not hesitate to do it. It will give you much more stability to your SOA platform.
If you are using Oracle BAM 12c, then this is something you need to do, a lot of bugs were solved with this upgrade. Same thing with BPM. The UI has changed for the ADF ALTA version, which is very clean and even elegant, I would say:
If you are already using Oracle Cloud products, this will be very familiar for you. Oracle Enterprise Manger – Fusion Middleware Control has been always an slow UI. Now is not the exception, but seems to be little less slow. But it is definitive much more intuitive and easy to use, take a look at this: Read the complete article here.

SOA & BPM Partner Community

For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center.

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Fall is here and today is the last day of the Oracle OpenWorld 2016. It had been an amazing 5 days for our customers, partners and us. If you missed the keynotes, you can watch them on-demand. There are still two great sessions from Oracle Linux and Virtualization teams:

Hands-on Labs: Systems Management with Spacewalk [HOL6546]

8:00 a.m. | Hotel Nikko - Carmel (3rd Floor)  

Avi Miller, Oracle

Oracle Linux includes support for Spacewalk, an open source system management tool for Linux systems used in commercial solutions such as SUSE Manager and Red Hat Satellite Server. This feature allows organizations to leverage their existing Spacewalk knowledge and workflows with Oracle Linux. In this hands-on lab learn from Oracle experts how to get up and running with Spacewalk and Oracle Linux.

Oracle VM Templates Best Practices for Rapid Oracle Database Deployment [CON7430]

Thursday, Sep 22, 12:00 p.m. | Marriott Marquis - Nob Hill A/B 

John Priest, Director Product Management - Oracle VM, Oracle

Simon Coter, Principal Product Manager Oracle VM & VirtualBox, Oracle

Oracle VM's application-driven architecture is designed to enable rapid application deployment. Using Oracle VM Templates, sophisticated applications such as Oracle Database or Oracle Real Application Clusters can be deployed in minutes—10x faster than with other solutions. With more than 100 preconfigured, pretested templates for Oracle applications, Oracle has done the heavy lifting for you, enabling the virtualization of complex applications with near-zero application knowledge. In this session interact directly with Oracle experts with deep development experience, learn more use cases for Oracle VM Templates, and get in-depth knowledge to easily deploy Oracle Database 12c and Oracle RAC using Oracle VM Templates on the latest Oracle VM releases.

Look forward to seeing you in our Thursday sessions and have a great trip back.

Earn a core OCA credential on your path to Database Administrator or PL/SQL Developer certifications, by passing exam 1Z0-071 Oracle Database SQL.

Released earlier this year, this certification fills a gap in the offerings that fulfill the SQL prerequisite in core Database Administrator and PL/SQL Developer paths. Until now, these offerings included two non-proctored SQL fundamentals exams (1Z0-051 and 1Z0-061) that do not result in certification by themselves and a more in depth SQL Expert exam (1Z0-047) that covers topic areas that may not show up very often in the day to day activities of a SQL Developer. SQL knowledge is essential to the Database Administrator role as well as that of the PL/SQL Developer. The new Oracle Database SQL Certified Associate credential gives a broader, more comprehensive view of SQL without dipping into more difficult, seldom-used features.

Passing this exam is a win/win if you are pursuing a path that includes a SQL requirement. You earn two valuable certifications.

Even if your plans don't currently include an additional layer of certification, this credential proves fluency in and a solid understanding of SQL language, data modeling and using SQL to create and manipulate tables in an Oracle Database.

QUICK LINKS

• Exam Details: 1Z0-071 | Oracle Database SQL
• Certification: Oracle Database SQL Certified Associate
• Practice Test: 1Z0-071 Practice Test
• Other Related Certifications:
• Oracle Database 12c Administrator Certified Associate
• Oracle Database 11g Administrator Certified Associate
• Oracle PL/SQL Developer Certified Associate

“Oracle Engineered Systems Program for ISVs - Get Certified, Get Customers” PowerPoint deck of the session presented by Milan Thanawala at OOW this week. Read more

If you have been looking to start or expand your technical knowledge and expertise on Oracle Cloud Services, network with your peers and develop relationships with key Product Management staff, attend the North America Cloud Partner Technical Forum – East. During this event, you will hear from our Product Management leaders the latest updates of Oracle Cloud Services and then our Oracle Development experts will host a series of Cloud Implementation hands on workshops of Oracle PaaS and IaaS solutions.

Register now to the North America Partner Technical Forum which will take place in Reston on November 1st - 4th 2016!

Oracle SOA Suite 12c is new version of SOA Suite tool from Oracle. Oracle has introduced lot of new features in this new version. This new version is based upon 4 themes as show below. First two themes (Developer productivity and Industrial SOA) comes as outcome of user/developers feedback and other two themes (Mobile and Cloud) introduced as per industry trend.

SOA 12c Themes

Developer Productivity

This theme is outcome of the community that currently using SOA Suite 11g. Oracle has introduced couple of improvements in this version based upon the feedback from that community. As the name suggest, this theme helps developer to improve their productivity and that comes from the new features introduced.

Industrial SOA

This theme is also a outcome of the community that currently using SOA Suite 11g. Oracle has introduced couple of improvements in this version based upon the feedback from that community.

Mobile & Cloud

These themes has been introduced by seeing current industry trend. Currently everyone talking about mobile & cloud enablement that comes under these themes.

Major Enhancements in SOA 12c

Below are the major enhancements done in this new version (SOA 12c).

• Earlier Service Bus is separate tool from SOA Suite tool and we use to have Eclipse as IDE for service bus development. In this 12c version, Service Bus become part of SOA 12c only i.e. we can do Service Bus development using JDeveloper only, there is no need to use Eclipse anymore.
• As Service Bus become part of SOA 12c so all the adapters becomes accessible to Service Bus also.
• ESS (Enterprise Service Scheduler) is new component introduced in this version that provide scheduling capabilities.
• 1 Single Installer has been introduced that can used to install all the components like Database, Weblogic, SOA Suite, Service Bus etc.
• MFT (Managed File Transfer) has been introduced that does not come by default with SOA 12c but this can be downloaded as separate package that helps to do file transfer.
• Free License for developer on single machine. Read the complete article here.

SOA & BPM Partner Community

For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center.

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Let's say you have a suite of Cloud applications and you want them to display customers in a standardized way:

If that's your business scenario, then Oracle JET composite components are a perfect fit. Here's what an absolutely minimal Oracle JET composite component looks like: 

The above is really trivial. Here's the content of "customer.html":

<h2 data-bind="text: $props.name"></h2>
<h4 data-bind="text: $props.city"></<h4
<hr>

Here's "customer.json":

{
  "properties": {
    "name": {
      "description": "Customer name.",
      "type": "string"
    },
    "city": {
      "description": "Customer location.",
      "type": "string"
    }
  }
}

About the properties above, see the below:

http://www.oracle.com/webfolder/technetwork/jet/jsdocs/oj.Composite.html#metadata

And here's "loader.js", which connects the above two together and provides "customer" as a new HTML element:

define(['ojs/ojcore', 
    'text!./customer.html', 
    'text!./customer.json', 
    'ojs/ojcomposite'],
  function(oj, view, metadata) {
    oj.Composite.register('customer', {
      view: {inline: view}, 
      metadata: {inline: JSON.parse(metadata)}
    });
  }
);

In a more complex scenario, you're also able to include CSS stylesheets and business logic defined in JavaScript, as outlined in an earlier blog entry on this topic. 

OK, now ZIP up that folder, send it to whoever is working on other Cloud applications that need to make use of the "customer" element, which they can use as follows (in e.g., "library.js") after unzipping that ZIP into the relevant folder in their application:

define(['ojs/ojcore', 'knockout', 'ojs/ojcomposite',
'jet-composites/customer/loader'],
   function (oj, ko) {
      function libraryContentViewModel() {
          var self = this;
          self.customers = [
              {name: 'Billy Bob Thornton', city: 'New York'},
              {name: 'Brad Pitt', city: 'Hollywood'},
              {name: 'Val Kilmer', city: 'Seattle'}
          ];
      }
      return new libraryContentViewModel();
   });

All that the above does is load the "loader.js", include "ojs/ojcomposite" so that Oracle JET composite components are supported, and define a "customer" array.

Here's the view (e.g., "library.html") of the above viewModel, using the "customer" HTML element provided by the composite component:

<!-- ko foreach: customers -->
<customer name="{{name}}" city="{{city}}"></customer>
<!-- /ko -->

That's pretty neat and, guess what, Oracle JET components conform to the Web Components specification, except for the Shadow DOM, which is not supported.

Circuit Breaker is a new resiliency feature in 12.2.1 that helps to simplify operations and ensure system stability when downstream endpoints become unavailable.

This post is meant to be a quick introduction to this new feature so you can start testing it out.

Circuit Breaker overview

Circuit Breaker enables you to configure the system to automatically suspend upstream endpoints when a downstream system is down or unreachable from a SOA composite. This prevents faults from building up in the server and relieves you from having to bulk-recover faulted instances. The upstream endpoints are automatically resumed after the downstream endpoint comes back up.

The circuit breaker feature works by monitoring downstream system failures and after x number of failures over y minutes (where x and y are configurable) any upstream web service, subscriber, or adapter where the failed messages originated from will be suspended.  For adapters and subscribers the messages will not be lost but will not be processed until the downstream system comes back up. Web Service requests will be rejected and it is up to the client program to handle these failures.

Suspended services will show up in the EM dashboard (below),  by clicking on the "Suspended since ..." link another dialog will pop up that will allow you to jump to the error in the Error Hospital and/or re-enable the service. 

Once a service is suspended messages are allowed to "trickle" through periodically in order to test the downstream system.  If the downstream invocation succeeds then the upstream service is resumed.

Configuration

Circuit Breaker can be configured globally and overridden at the downstream endpoint. There may be situations where you don't want downstream failures to cause services to be suspended, in this case you would disable the circuit breaker at the endpoint level, it is also possible to override the number of failures and failure window at the endpoint level. Conversely you can disable globally and enable at the endpoint level.  It is also possible to set the circuit breaker properties on an endpoint when designing the composite in JDev.

Global configuration

To display the configuration dialog go to SOA Infrastructure -> SOA Administration -> Resiliency Configuration. Read the complete article here.

SOA & BPM Partner Community

For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center.

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Matt Brasier, C2B2 Head of Consulting and the co-author of the Oracle SOA Suite 11g Performance Tuning Cookbook (Packt Publishing) discusses Oracle SOA Suite monitoring in this 2 Minute Oracle Technology Network Tech Tip recorded at the UKOUG Tech15 Conference. Watch the video here.

SOA & BPM Partner Community

For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center.

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When you are working with Oracle Stream Explorer and you need analytical data about the events, the easiest way is using Oracle BAM. The connection between the Oracle Stream Explorer and Oracle BAM is simple to create. In this post we will learn how to do this connection using JMS.

This is the structure of my CSV file.

In the Oracle Stream Explorer, go to the Exploration that you want to use.
Click Configure a Target.

Complete the form with information about your BAM server and click Finish.

This is the necessary setting in Oracle Stream Explorer.
Now, go to Oracle WebLogic Server and navigate to JMS Modules.

Click BAMJMSSystemResource, and then click New.
Create a new Queue with the same information you entered in Oracle Stream Explorer and click Next. Read the complete article here.

SOA & BPM Partner Community

For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center.

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Oracle Corporation takes computer security seriously.

As a large internet-facing organization, Oracle experiences many of the challenges every other organization does.  As a member of many standards communities, as well as a vendor involved in product certification, Oracle is also heavily involved in many of the security, audit, and compliance standards.

Oracle Database, both On Premise and in the Cloud, has a large number of features related to data security.

These features are flexible enough to work within the requirements of virtually any organization.

Oracle University designed and offers Oracle Database Security courses to familiarize organizations with the capabilities and details of the security related features.

Introduction to Oracle Database Security

This Introduction to Oracle Database Security training teaches you how to use Oracle Database features to help meet the security, privacy and compliance requirements of your organization. Develop a deep understanding of the security risks and Oracle solutions provided to help address those risks.

Oracle Database Security: Preventive Controls for Developers

This Oracle Database Security: Preventive Controls for Developers training teaches you how to use Oracle Database application features to meet the security, privacy and compliance requirements of your organization, as the current regulatory environment requires better application security at the database level.

You'll learn how to secure access to your database applications, while using database features that enhance data access and confidentiality.

New Oracle Cloud Training offerings are also available!

Explore classroom and online training to meet your needs, as well as certifications which can help advance your career.

With the Oracle Cloud PaaS training, you will learn how to use it to successfully administer and manage Oracle Cloud PaaS. The following services are included: Database, Java, Business Intelligence, Process, Mobile, SOA, Integration, Documents, Messaging, Internet of Things, Developer, Database Backup, Application Builder, Big Data Preparation, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

Learn more about Oracle Platform as a Service (PaaS) Training Solutions

Choose from a number of flexible options to suit your needs and learning style: instructor-led training in either a classroom or virtually or self-study, digital training.

Remember: Your Oracle PartnerNetwork discount is applied to the standard prices shown on our web pages.

For more information and assistance, please contact your local Oracle University Service Desk.

Every year at OpenWorld, Oracle announces the winners to its most prestigious awards, the Oracle Excellence Awards.This year, as we have in previous years, we celebrated in style!In an Oscars-like ceremony on Tuesday, September 20^th, customers were highlighted for their innovative solutions.Congratulations to all winners!

Let me introduce this year’s 2016 Data Integration & Governance category winners:

Cummins, Inc., a global power leader, is a corporation of complementary business units that design, manufacture, distribute and service diesel and natural gas engines and related technologies, including fuel systems, controls, air handling, filtration, emission solutions and electrical power generation systems.

Cummins, Inc. had the goal to implement a global, sustainable solution to manage and govern their data.This directly supported Cummins’ business objective of adopting common, global processes to achieve operating as one company.Historically the various business units operated in a silo and prior to this effort, data was managed for a business unit or manufacturing site’s specific needs. In leveraging Oracle Data Integration Solutions – they:

•Implemented a global, sustainable solution to manage & govern all data leveraging Enterprise Data Quality, with 7,500+ applications

•Optimized inventory, effectively manage supplier & customer risk gaining efficiencies

•Provide superior service to customers & achieve supply chain excellence

•Dissolved& removed IT & business stakeholder tensions by having a clear framework & tool for decision making

•Saved $1.5M in annual run costs

•Improved employee productivity by > 10 %

Helsana Gruppe is Switzerland's leading health insurance company with over 1.9 million policyholders.

Helsana made a strategic decision to leverage Oracle Data Integrator and Oracle GoldenGate for their Data Integration Platform as well as for their datawarehouse. They had been looking to integrate different systems within their IT infrastructure and find a central standardized platform for data integration needs that encourages good application governance and reuse of integration paths handling high volume with low latency.

With the help of their partner IPT, they built and achieved:

•Strategic central & standard data platform executing on Oracle Data Integrator & Oracle GoldenGate

•35+ applications, 200+ integration routes, Millions of records, on-prem & in the cloud

•Data delivery between major customer facing applications is now 300X faster

•Customer information fully synchronized in realtime: streamlining processes, mitigating risk & improving customer satisfaction

•30% savings development & maintenance efforts & costs

Talas represents:Idealists. Dreamers. Geeks. All on a mission to change how business is done – with a big ambition to transform the Philippines through technology.

Talas empowers its Customers with Big Data services including realtime analytics and insights by helping to assimilate ticketing data, call data, and financial data.By leveraging Oracle Data Integration Solutions and partner Solvento, they show:

•Reduced time in transforming, cleansing, enriching & preparing data with Oracle Data Integrator for Big Data& Big Data Preparation natively within Hadoop

•21 days development time reduced to 3.5 days

•Reduced man hours in test/production by 50% due to increased manageability

•300% improvement in employee productivity

The success has provided these organizations to set a shift in paradigm and forward movement for their businesses – and for more proactive, strategic and operational excellence – all in an effort to better serve their customers.  Check out the press release that went out last week on the program.

CONGRATULATIONS to our Data Integration & Governance category winners!

In the real world, you’ll create your Oracle BAM projects in a development environment, and when all is well, you will export it to a test or production environment. Export and import actions are easy to perform using BAMCommand command-line utility.

In this post, we will learn how to export Oracle BAM projects from a source environment and then import it to a target environment.
Download the sample application: BlogProject.zip.

I created an Oracle BAM project called Blog that has Data Object, Business Query, Business Views and Dashboard.

First of all, edit the BAMCommand configuration file, defining the information about the source environment.
It is located at <FMW_HOME>/soa/bam/bin/BAMCommandConfig.xml.

Now you can execute the BAMCommand command-line utility to export your BAM project artifacts.
I could export all Oracle BAM objects in the system, but I have other projects and I just want to export the project called Blog. Read the complete article here.

SOA & BPM Partner Community

For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center.

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Attend our September edition of the SOA & BPM Partner Community Webcast live on September 27^th 2016 at 16:00 CET.

Get the latest news from Oracle Open World 2016. A detailed update on new features of Oracle Platform as a Service and how to position them at your customers. As part of the Webcast we will introduce the Oracle Open World kit, an opportunity to you to run a mini conference for your customers!

Ed Zou

Vice President Product Management, Oracle Cooperation

Visit the registration page here.

Call ID: 5566478 Call Passcode: 333111

Austria: +43 (0) 192 865 12
Belgium: +32 (0) 240 105 28
Denmark: +45 327 292 22
Finland: +358 (0) 923 193 923
France: +33 (0) 15760 2222
Germany: +49 (0) 692 222 161 06
Ireland: +353 (0) 124 756 50
Italy: +39 (0) 236 008 198

Netherlands: +31 (0) 207 143 543
Spain: +34 914 143 755
Sweden: +46 (0) 856 619 465
Switzerland: +41 (0) 445 804 003
UK: +44 (0) 208 118 1001
United States: 140 877 440 73
More Local Numbers

Schedule:

August 30^th 2016 at 16:00-17:00 CET

Visit the registration page here.

Missed our SOA & BPM Partner Community Webcast? – watch the on-demand versions:

·BPM Suite & PCS Update July 26th 2016

·Integration Cloud Service June 28th 2016

·Sales Plays Webcast June 9th 2016

·Real-Time Integration Business Insight May 31st 2016

·Integration Strategy sales and marketing campaign update

·Microservices

·Stream Explorer

·Process Cloud Service V2

·SOA Suite 12.2.1

·Oracle OpenWorld 2015 update

·SOA & API Cloud Service

·Solutions Catalog & Cloud Marketplace

·GSE demo systems

·Hybrid sales plays

For the latest information please visit Community Updates Wiki page (SOA Community membership required).

SOA & BPM Partner Community

For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center.

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Technorati Tags: Ed Zou,OOW 2016,Oracle OpenWorld,Community webcast,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,OPN,Jürgen Kress

One of the most requested features in the compliance management area has been a compliance standard for Oracle Database 12c. We can now announce the availability of not one but TWO Oracle Database 12c STIG compliance standards as sample code – one is for standard architecture and the other is for multitenant architecture.  

Sample code, of course, does come with some provisos. As listed on the OTN sample code page, it is provided for educational purposes or to assist your development or administration efforts. Your use rights and restrictions for each sample code item are described in the applicable license agreement. Except as may be expressly stated in the applicable license agreement or product documentation, sample code is provided “as is” and is not supported by Oracle.  

For all the details of the sample code, see the full announcement here.

I am very pleased to announce that Microsoft Edge is certified as a new browser for Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1 and 12.2.  Edge can be used to access EBS Self-Service Web Applications (SSWA) -- i.e. the web-based HTML products in Oracle E-Business Suite that use OA Framework (OAF).

EBS Prerequisites for Edge

No Windows or desktop patches are needed for enabling Edge compatibility with E-Business Suite 12.1 or 12.2.

A small number of E-Business Suite server-side patches are required.  See:

• Recommended Browsers for Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 (Note 389422.1)
  

Can EBS Forms run in Edge?

No. Microsoft Edge does not support plug-ins.  For details, see:

• Microsoft Edge FAQ (Microsoft.com)

The Java JRE is a mandatory prerequisite for Forms-based products in E-Business Suite. Since Edge does not support plug-ins, the Java JRE plug-in does not work with this browser. 

E-Business Suite products that use Oracle Forms can run on Internet Explorer 11 and Firefox ESR on Windows desktops, and Safari on Mac desktop clients.

What about Java Web Start?

We are testing prototypes with EBS Forms-based products using Java Web Start.  Once this work is completed, it is likely that it will be possible to run Forms-based products even when using browsers such as Edge.  See:

• Do E-Business Suite Users Need to Worry About Java 9?
  

This work is going well, and we are currently working on security and polishing user interface issues. I'll post updates on this blog as soon as they're available.

Does Edge work with EBS 11i or 12.0?

No. You can download existing patches for EBS 11i and 12.0, but these EBS releases are now in Sustaining Support. We do not produce new certifications for products in Sustaining Support. 

Your end-users should continue to use IE 11, Firefox ESR, or Safari if you are running EBS 11i or 12.0.

Related Articles

• Do E-Business Suite Users Need to Worry About Java 9?
• Windows 10 Certified with Oracle E-Business Suite
• Can You Use IE 11 Enterprise Mode or Compatibility View With EBS?
• Internet Explorer 11 Certified with E-Business Suite 12.2 and 12.0
  
• Internet Explorer 11 Certified with E-Business Suite 12.1
  
• Internet Explorer 11 Certified with E-Business Suite 11.5.10.2

The preceding is intended to outline our general product direction.  It is intended for information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract.   It is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decision.  The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described for Oracle’s products remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.