New Features in Oracle SOA Suite 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.6.0)

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Introduction Oracle SOA Suite 11gR1 (11.1.1.6.0) includes both bug fixes as well as new features listed below - click on the title of each feature for more details. Downloads, documentation links and more information on the Oracle SOA Suite available on theSOA Suite OTN page and as always, we welcome your feedback on the SOA OTN forum. New in Oracle SOA Suite in this release   Certifications For a complete list of platforms supported as of this release please check the list of supported browsers, operating systems and databases. BPEL Component New delivery and transaction properties when creating a BPEL process These configuration properties have a significant impact on the behavior of a BPEL process. You can now set these properties as part of the BPEL component creation process within JDeveloper. The wizard presents these properties and sets the default values based on the context. For example, the oneWayDeliveryPolicy property only shows up for one way processes and the transaction property only shows up for synchronous processes.  Delivery: The possible values are: async.persist: Messages into the system are saved in the delivery store before being picked up by the service engine. async.cache: Messages into the system are saved in memory before being picked up by the service engine. sync: The instance-initiating message is not temporarily saved in the delivery layer. The service engine uses the same thread to initiate the message. Transaction: The possible values are: requiresNew: A new transaction is created for the execution, and the existing transaction (if there is one) is suspended. This behavior is true for both request/response (initiating) environments and one-way, initiating environments in which the Delivery list value (oneWayDeliveryPolicy property) is set to sync required: In request/response (initiating) environments, this setting joins a caller's transaction (if there is one) or creates a new transaction (if there is no transaction). In one-way, initiating environments in which the Delivery list value (oneWayDeliveryPolicy property) is set to sync, the invoke message is processed using the same thread in the same transaction. Dynamic partner links in BPEL 1.1. and 2.0 (new) processes The dynamic partner link feature enables you to dynamically assign an endpoint reference to a partner link for use at runtime and is now also available in BPEl 2.0 processes. New aggregation feature: Routing Messages to the same Instance When multiple messages are routed to the same process/partner link/operation name, the first message is routed to create a new instance and subsequent messages can be routed to continue the created instance using a midprocess receive activity. Message aggregation enables you to use the same operation (or event name) in an entry receive activity and a midprocess receive activity. Specifying XPath Expressions to Bypass Activity Execution in BPEL 1.1. and 2.0 (new) This extension enables the specification of an XPath expression in an activity in BPEL versions 1.1 and 2.0 that, when evaluated to true, causes that activity to be skipped. This functionality provides an alternative to using a switch activity for conditionally executing activities. Throwing faults with assertion conditions in BPEL 1.1. and 2.0 (new) You can specify an assertion condition in BPEL versions 1.1 and 2.0 that is executed upon receipt of a callback message in request-response invoke activities, receive activities, reply activities, and onMessage branches of pick and scope activities. The assertion specifies an XPath expression that, when evaluated to false, causes a BPEL fault to be thrown from the activity. This condition provides an alternative to creating a potentially large number of switch, assign, and throw activities after a partner callback. You can select when to execute a condition: Preassert: This condition is executed before the invoke or reply activity send out the outbound message. Postassert: This condition is executed after an invoke activity, receive activity, or onMessage branch receives the inbound message. Setting Timeouts for Request-Reply and In-Only Operations in Receive Activities in BPEL 1.1. and 2.0 (new) You can provide a timeout setting for the following types of operations in BPEL versions 1.1 and 2.0: Request-reply (synchronous) operations. In-only receive (asynchronous) operations. In this scenario, the receive activity must be a midprocess activity and not be the activity that creates a new instance (that is, the Create Instance checkbox in the Receive dialog is selected). Testing BPEL Process Service Components You can automate the testing of an individual BPEL process service component included in a new or existing SOA composite application test suite. These test cases enable you to simulate the interaction between a BPEL process and its web service partners before deployment in a production environment. This helps to ensure that a BPEL process interacts with web service partners as expected by the time it is ready for deployment to a production environment. You can create variable and fault assertions on BPEL process activities A fast forward action enables you to specify the amount of time for which to bypass a wait activity and move forward in the test scenario. Copying and Pasting Activities in BPEL Projects  You can copy and paste activities in the same BPEL project or between BPEL projects. This prevents you from having to create similar activities from start to finish multiple times. You can design an activity once and use it in multiple places, editing it as necessary.. Human Workflow Expose assignment service functionality in task assignment dialog in the UI This feature exposes the dynamic assignment support (round-robin, least-busy, and most-productive) more clearly in the design-time UI, making it easier for the designer to utilize this feature.: Dynamic Assignment and Task Escalation Patterns Static, Dynamic, and Rule-Based Task Assignment Creating a Single Task Participant List Add logger in worklist and workspace  This feature provides an extensive logging mechanism in Worklist and Workspace managed beans.  Finest logging from EM The finest logging can be enabled from EM console for oracle.soa.services.workflow(Trace 32). Performance Logging - in workflow Performance logging will take care of noting how much time is used for a method execution. It will log the method start and end time. Business Rules New Rules structures This feature adds Rules programming structures: if-then-else, and -elseif, and also while and do-while Add support for action table in decision function With the action table in the Decision Function dialog, the designer can set execution parameters needed before the execution of any rulesets. Rules Usability Enhancements in Composer The Decision Table in composer has been changed for performance improvements and usability improvements when scrolling large tables. Adapters & Bindings Optimizations for DB and File/FTP Adapters Coherence Integration with DB Adapter Improved Read/Write Performance via an intermediary Coherence Cache. Useful while writing large batches of records into the database. Improved performance for Queries by Primary key. Certifications Socket Adapter certified with Service Bus JMS Adapter Certified with Sun MQ/STJMS Support for Custom Adapters in Service Bus Enterprise Manager (FMW Control) Alerts for stuck BPEL messages An alert is displayed when there are stuck messages for asynchronous BPEL processes. A configurable global time threshold is used identify stuck messages. Alerts are displayed at multiple levels - soa-infra, Composite Flow Trace (available since PS4). The alerts provide additional details about the stuck messages and a link to the BPEL recovery console. BPEL message recovery alerts can be enabled / disabled BPEL through a system-wide MBean property. Fault analysis and recovery usability improvements Composite instance state is represented along 3 dimensions for greater clarity. The 3 dimensions are: Execution state, Fault status, Recovery required status Enhanced search criteria for Composite instances. A combination of filters based on Execution and Fault states can be applied to a search. Search can be filtered to instances with stuck BPEL messages Service Infrastructure Memory footprint reduction Memory footprint reductions for BPEL in-memory models and WSDL / schema cache. Reduction would vary based on actual composite. Purge enhancements Added Hybrid approach to Partition based purge. One can partition only a subset of high volume tables. Improvement to Partition based purge. Added support for row movement of active instances of long running processes to enable dropping a partition. Performance optimizations to purge scripts. Optimizations include avoiding redundant pruning of data and creation of additional indexes. Support composite name (DN) as filter criteria to purge scripts Enhanced diagnostics capability through WLDF and DFW integration The objective of this feature is to simplify and expedite collecting system information for intermittent problems. The feature provides the ability to associate pre-defined DFW diagnostic dumps for WDLF watches. Scenarios include memory issues, deployment hang, data source issues, server overload, stuck threads, service engine stability and abnormal transactions. Oracle Service Bus Packaging & Installer Upgrade to Eclipse 3.7 and Oracle Enterprise Plug-in for Eclipse (OEPE) 1.8.0 Support for multiple development domains using Derby – a unique Derby DB name is created for each domain JCA Adapters Custom JCA adapters Socket Adapter certification - New XSLT property on JCA Binding resources to support socket adapters Security & Policy Added support for Oracle Web Service Manager (OWSM) Transport Policies Allow OWSM policies on Local Proxies (proxy-to-proxy invocations) REST support Improved HTTP Response status code handling Allow HTTP non-WSDL based services to be synchronized between Oracle Enterprise Repository Performance Import Improvements for Large Deployments Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) BAM WebSphere Support BAM 11g will be supported on WebSphere. For specific versions and any exceptions, please refer to the Release Notes and Certification matrix. EMS Error Handling certification Error Handling in BAM EMS has been improved by allowing user to write the rejected messages to a log, JMS topic or another Data Object. This feature was in preview mode in 11.1.1.4.0. Timer based refresh for BAM Views/Reports based on External Data Objects On popular demand, a key feature enhancement for Dashboards and Views based on External Data Objects has been added to allow automatic refresh based on a pre-configured timer . Although, the user will not be able to get push based updated in real time on the External Data Object based Views/Dashboards, this enhancement eliminates the need to re-prompt the whole report to refresh the external View. These external data object based views are recommended for slow changing data. Dashboard Level View Level Support for Date Subtraction When you add a calculated field involving a date subtraction, the result is an integer displayed in seconds (for example, 82,944,000). To format the result in Days, H:mm:ss (for example, 40 Days, 7:40:33), change the number value format property of the calculated field. Preview - ODI 11g Integration ODI 11g is previewed feature only. For instructions on install and configuration changes related to BAM integration with ODI 11g, please look for a Technote on BAM OTN soon. ECID support for Monitor Express Standard Monitor Express Data Objects will support ECID. To upgrade older versions of Monitor Express Data Objects for BPM use cases , please refer to the Oracle Business Process Management Suite Release Notes. Complex Event Processing (CEP) ExaLogic Certification Formal certification on ExaLogic has been completed which encompassed the successful execution of all general product system, quality assurance functional and performance compliance tests. To accompany this certification, a new whitepaper is available, highlighting a financial services use case where the product exceeded expectations, processing over 1 million events per second with an average latency of 31 microseconds, an instantaneous perceived response time, on a single node. More details can be found in the Oracle Complex Event Processing Exalogic Performance Study White Paper . Parallelism Continuing to “push the envelope” in terms of performance optimizations, this major enhancement to the CEP (EPN) Processor implementation, provides new multi-threaded support in the CQL engine service, enabled through ordering hints to the engine compiler such as “Unordered”, “Ordered”, “Partition Ordered”, this ensures much higher CPU utilization and performance on multi-core machines (esp. ExaLogic). CQL Java Bean Support This full, bi-directional normalization of CQL syntax with the Java language significantly enhances the analysis capabilities of the CQL engine service, enabling query constructs such as SELECT customer.address.street FROM ... SELECT ... FROM Integer(1) = 1 Eclipse tooling support Eclipse version Helios (3.6.2) is now supported in the provided media kit. Use the standard eclipse installation procedure for this new plug-in, which provides a comparable feature set to that provided in the previous release.