Oracle SOA Suite Components 

Service Oriented architecture interview questions

What is the basic life cycle of a SOA composite application?

Use Oracle JDeveloper to design a SOA composite application with various SOA components.

Package the composite application for deployment.

Deploy the SOA composite application to the SOA Infrastructure. The SOA Infrastructure is a Java EE-compliant application running in Oracle WebLogic Server. The application manages composites and their life cycle, service engines, and binding components.

Use Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control to monitor and manage the composite application for a farm's SOA infrastructure.

What is the Service Component Architecture (SCA) used for?

Service Component Architecture (SCA) assembly model abstracts the implementation and allows assembly of components, with little implementation details. SCA enables you to represent business logic as reusable service components that can be easily integrated into any SCA-compliant application. The resulting application is known as a SOA composite application. The specification for the SCA standard is maintained by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS).

What is the purpose of Service Data Objects (SDO)?

Service Data Objects (SDO) provides a data programming architecture. It provides a standardized view on data, and provides efficient transportation, as well as change capture, in form of a change summary. More specifically, it collects a data graph of related business objects, called DataObjects. This graph tracks the schema that describes the DataObjects. Knowledge is not required about how to access a particular back-end data source to use SDO in a SOA composite application. Consequently, you can use static or dynamic programming styles and obtain connected and disconnected access.

What is the purpose of Business Process Execution Language (BPEL)?

BPEL provides enterprises with an industry standard for business process orchestration and execution. Using BPEL, you design a business process that integrates a series of discrete services into an end-to-end process flow. This integration reduces process cost and complexity.

What is the purpose of XSL Transformations?

XSLT processes XML documents and transforms document data from one XML schema to another.

What is the purpose of Java Connector Architecture?

Java Connector Architecture JCA provides a Java technology solution to the problem of connectivity between the many application servers in Enterprise Information Systems (EIS).

What is the purpose of Java Messaging Service?

(JMS) provides a messaging standard that allows application components based on the Java Enterprise Edition (JEE) to access business logic distributed among heterogeneous systems.

What is the purpose of Web Service Description Language?

Web Service Description Language (WSDL) file provides a standardized view on the capabilities of a service. Bindings provide the entry points into the composite at runtime.

What is the purpose of SOAP over HTTP?

SOAP provides the default network protocol for message delivery.

What are the components comprise an Oracle SOA Suite installation?

The following components comprise an Oracle SOA Suite installation:

Service Infrastructure

Oracle Mediator

Oracle Adapters

Business Events and Events Delivery Network

Oracle Metadata Repository

Oracle Business Rules

Oracle WSM Policy Manager

Oracle BPEL Process Manager (Business Process Execution Language)

Human Workflow

Oracle Business Activity Monitoring

Oracle User Messaging Service

Oracle B2B

Oracle JDeveloper

Oracle Enterprise Manager

The following components are included with Oracle SOA Suite, but available as a separate download:

Oracle Service Bus (provides service virtualization and protocol transformations for oracle SOA appl)

Oracle Complex Event Processing

What is the purpose of Oracle Mediator?

Oracle mediator is used for route, validate, filter and transform data from service providers to external partners.

Route: Determines the service component (BPEL process, business rule, human task, and mediator) to which to send the messages.

Validate: Provides support for validating the incoming message payload by using a schematron or an XSD file.

Filter: If specified in the rules, applies a filter expression that specifies the contents (payload) of a message be analyzed before any service is invoked.

Transformation: If specified in the rules, transforms document data from one XML schema to another, thus enabling data interchange among applications using different schemas.

What is the purpose of Oracle Service Bus?

Oracle Service Bus provides standalone service bus capabilities, enabling separation between application developers and target systems or services. Oracle Service Bus receives messages through a transport protocol such as HTTP(S), JMS, File, and

FTP, and sends messages through the same or a different transport protocol. Service response messages follow the inverse path. Oracle Service Bus handles the deployment, management, mediation, messaging, security and governance of implementing SOA to enterprise applications.

What is the purpose of Oracle Adapters?

Oracle Adapters use JCA (Java Connector Architecture) technology to connect external systems to the Oracle SOA Suite. Oracle SOA Suite provides the following technology adapters to integrate with transport protocols, data stores, and messaging middleware:

BAM

FTP

Java Messaging Service (JMS)

Advanced Queuing (AQ)

Files

Message Queuing (MQ) Series

Legacy Adapters

Application Adapters

What is the purpose of Business events?

Business events are messages sent as the result of an occurrence or situation, such as a new order or completion of an order. In Oracle SOA Suite, the mediator service component subscribes or publishes events. When an event is published, other applications can subscribe to it.

What is Oracle Metadata Repository ?

Oracle Metadata Repository MDS stores business events, rulesets for use by Oracle Business Rules, XSLT files for Oracle Service Bus and Oracle Mediator, XSD XML schema files for Oracle BPEL Process Manager, WSDL files, and metadata files for Complex Event Processing.

What is Oracle Business rules used for?

Oracle Business Rules, initiated by a BPEL process service component, enable dynamic decisions at runtime. In addition, the human task and mediator service components can make use of rules for dynamic routing.

What is the purpose of Oracle WSM Policy Manager?

Oracle WSM Policy Manager provides the infrastructure for enforcing global security and auditing policies in the Service Infrastructure.

What is the purpose of Oracle BPEL Process Manager?

Oracle BPEL Process Manager enables you to orchestrate synchronous and asynchronous services into end-to-end BPEL process flows. You also integrate technology adapters and services, such as human tasks, transformations, notifications, and business rules within the process.

Oracle Business Activity Monitoring (Oracle BAM) is a complete solution for building real-time operational dashboards and monitoring and alerting applications over the Web. Oracle SOA Suite makes it easy to expose SOA events, such as BPEL processes, to the BAM engine.

Oracle Complex Event Processing (Oracle CEP), a data management infrastructure that supports the notion of streams of structured data records together with stored relations. Oracle CEP is included with Oracle SOA Suite, but available as a separate download. It is optimized to handle very large volumes of events, such as those found in bank transactions, that cannot be managed by Oracle BAM. In addition, Oracle Complex Event Processing can perform complex correlations and pattern matching.

Oracle B2B is an eCommerce gateway that enables the secure and reliable exchange of messages between an enterprise and its trading partners.

COM application initiates the purchase order.

A mediator service component receives the purchase order. It validates, performs code conversion, transforms the purchase order to a canonical, and routes the document. (Canonical refers to a canonical data model that is used to transition between different document standards.)

A BPEL process service component receives the purchase order, orchestrates any required business process, and can invoke a human task, business rule, and error handling as required.

A mediator service component receives the purchase order, validates, performs code conversion, transforms the canonical to the target purchase order, and routes the document.

B2B receives the purchase order, identifies the partner, identifies the agreement, validates the purchase order, translates the purchase order to EDI, generates the EDI envelope, generates acknowledgments, and manages the secure exchange of the purchase order with the external trading partner.

Oracle JDeveloper is the development component of Oracle SOA Suite. It forms a comprehensive Integrated Service Environment (ISE) for creating and deploying composite applications and managing the composite. Oracle JDeveloper enables developers to model, create, discover, assemble, orchestrate, test, deploy, and maintain composite applications based on services.

The SOA Composite Editor enables you to create, edit, and deploy services, and also to assemble them in a composite application, all from a single location. These components are integrated together into one application and communicate with the outside world through binding components such as Web services and JCA adapters.

The SOA Composite Editor enables you to use either of two approaches for designing SOA composite applications:

The top-down approach of building a composite application puts interfaces first and implementation next. For example, you first add BPEL processes, human tasks, business rules, and Oracle Mediator routing services components to an application, and later define the specific content of these service components.

The bottom-up approach takes existing implementations of service components and wraps them with Web service interfaces for assembly into a composite application. For example, you first create and define the specific content of BPEL processes, human tasks, business rules, and Oracle Mediator routing services components, and later create a SOA composite application to which you add these service components.

Additional editors provided by J editor

Oracle BPEL Designer: You can create a BPEL process service component in the SOA composite application of Oracle JDeveloper and then design it by using the BPEL Designer, which is displayed, when you double-click a BPEL process in the SOA Composite Editor.

Oracle Mediator Editor: You can create a mediator service component in the SOA composite application of Oracle JDeveloper, and then design it by using the Mediator Editor, which is displayed when you double-click a Mediator in SOA Composite Editor.

Human Task Editor: You can create a human task service component in the SOA composite application of Oracle JDeveloper and then design it by using the Human Task Editor, which is displayed when you double-click a human task in the SOA Composite Editor.

Business Rules Designer: You can create a business rules service component in the SOA composite application of Oracle JDeveloper and then design it by using the Business Rules Designer, which is displayed when you double-click a business rule in the SOA Composite Editor.

Oracle Enterprise Manager

You can configure, monitor, and manage your SOA composite application during run time from Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control Console. Fusion Middleware Control is a Web browser-based, graphical user interface that you can use to monitor and administer a farm.

A farm is a collection of components managed by Fusion Middleware Control. It contains Oracle WebLogic Server domains, one Administration Server, one or more Managed Servers, clusters, and the Oracle Fusion Middleware components that are installed, configured, and running in the domain.

You deploy SOA composite applications designed in Oracle JDeveloper to the SOA Infrastructure. The SOA Infrastructure is a Java EE-compliant application running in Oracle WebLogic Server. The application manages composites and their life cycle, service engines, and binding components.

The SOA Infrastructure provides you with access to all deployed SOA composite applications, service engines, service components, business events, and other elements. Fusion Middleware Control organizes a wide variety of performance data and administrative functions into distinct, Web-based home pages for the farm, domain, servers, components, and applications.

Fusion Middleware Control provides a wide variety of administrative and performance data for the SOA components, composite applications, and composite instances within the SOA infrastructure, enabling you to administer and pinpoint issues.

The basic life cycle of a SOA composite application is as follows:

Use Oracle JDeveloper to design a SOA composite application with various SOA components.

Package the composite application for deployment.

Deploy the SOA composite application to the SOA Infrastructure. The SOA Infrastructure is a Java EE-compliant application running in Oracle WebLogic Server. The application manages composites and their life cycle, service engines, and binding components.

Use Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control to monitor and manage the composite application for a farm's SOA infrastructure.

Services provide the outside world with an entry point to the SOA composite application. The WSDL file of the service advertises its capabilities to external applications. These capabilities are used for contacting the SOA composite application components. The binding connectivity of the service describes the protocols that can communicate with the service, for example, SOAP/HTTP or a JCA adapter.