Oracle Database Management Strategic Directions

1. Best Practices for managing Oracle database servers.
2. Oracle Fusion Middleware products like J2EE, ADF, XML, BPEL, SOA, Web Services, Discoverer...).
3. Oracle Application Servers and Apache.

Oracle Fusion blog topics include:

• Oracle Fusion: Service Oriented Architecture
  
• Oracle Fusion: Java
  
• Oracle Fusion: Internet Development Tools
  
• Oracle Fusion: JDeveloper 10gR3
  
• Oracle Fusion: Trubix Training Roadmap
  
• Oracle Fusion: Key Components
  
• Oracle Fusion: The Oracle Fusion Technical Platform

Kids in kindergarten and first grade understand all the key components of the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). They then enter second grade and lose all their expertise. Then twenty, thirty and forty years later as adults they take a number of classes to learn everything they need to know about SOA that they forgot in second grade.

If you truly want to understand SOA watch a bunch of young kids play with legos. Legos by themselves are a number of simple building blocks. The true power of legos is that they have connectors that allow simple individual legos to connect to other legos. If a kid knows that one set of legos can connect to another set of legos, they realize they can build complex toys with these fundamental building blocks.

• A service is like an individual lego block. A service is a well-defined, self contained software component that is not dependent on any other objects to perform its task.
• A software service can interact with other software services to build complex applications.
  
• Sets of connected legos can be connected to other connected legos to build more complex structures. Web services are used to connect software services to each other.
  
• Web Services Description Language (WSDL) is used to help web services interact with each other. A service (provider) describes its service to a directory for example an Universal Description Discovery and Integration (UDDI) so other software services (consumers) can be aware of the service and can get information to understand how to use the service.
• A service consumer can send a query request to a directory to get information on finding a service and to get information on how to use the service. The directory returns a WSDL that gives a software service (consumer) the WSDL that can be used to request the service to the service provider. The service provider then sends the response using WSDL. WSDL can be thought of as the connectors that let the services interact with each other. WSDL uses XML to communicate data structure information back and forth between the service provider and the service consumer.
  

Software services are independent software components that provide some type of well-defined function. Web services use WSDL, directories and XML are used to help services communicate with each other. Since software services communicate using WSDL and XML it allows COBOL, C, PL/SQL, .NET, Java and other services of different types communicate with each other.

Most of these technologies are based on open standards and are independent of any vendor. An important point is if you need one you are likely to need a lot of the others.

The ability to quickly build composite Internet applications is very important to a lot of organizations. This can significantly reduce costs and time to market. The ability to have a high degree of reuse is also an important key for this. The tools we’ve listed have become a popular way to achieve these results.

SOA is the glue (framework) that makes it all come together. SOA allows independent software components (services) that are loosely coupled to be brought together to form complex composite systems. SOA allows self-describing, platform independent software components to be combined with new and legacy systems.

• A software service is the encapsulation of some operation, function or task encapsulated into an entity that can be accessed. A service is software that generates some type of result when executed.
• A Web service is a Web-based application (software service) that uses open standards based on XML to transport protocols to exchange data with calling applications. An application can call a Web service to perform a task or business operation. Web services can be combined to form complex (composite) applications similar to how simple lego blocks can be combined to build complex lego systems.
• Messages are how services communicate data with each other.
• The eXtensible Markup Language (XML) combines meta data with data to build messages that support complex data processing and transformations. Data transformations often play a key role in SOA environments.
  
• Web Services Description Language (WSDL) is a standard used to create XML documents that define a Web service and how to access it.
  
• An Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) is used to communicate messages between software services.
• An SOA Registry is a web catalog containing information about what each web service does.

The Oracle SOA Suite is used for designing and deploying service oriented architectures.
Runs on any open standard J2EE 1.4 platform. The SOA suite uses:

• Web Services Manager.
• Enterprise Service Bus.
• Web Services Manager (governance).
  
• BPEL Process Manager (formalize rules).
• Business Activity Monitor.

The Return On Investment (ROI) of using SOA includes:

• Improves ability to roll out new and enhanced business processes.
• Reuse of business processes.
• Technology driven ROI to reduce operational costs and leveraging IT assets.
• Increased flexibility in delivering services.
• Transforming business processes by reducing cycle times and improving product delivery.

Moving to SOA:

• Is not just about learning the new technologies. Understanding how to integrate business processes and IT is as important as the deployment and management of Web services.
• The SOA roadmap needs to be owned by the business side versus the IT side.
• Service life cycle management is important.
• Identity management plays an important role in SOA.
• Security policies can be applied to Web services.
• Understanding the full capabilities of the application server and portal technology are important.
• Conformance to open standards and hot pluggable capability is important.

Key factors for success when implementing SOA include:

• Put a strong focus on the business value not the technology.
• Starting on small projects and learning successful practices before trying to implement SOA on a larger scale.
  
• Quality of design and web services.
• A solid understanding of XML.