Oracle SOA Suite and Oracle Managed File Transfer 12.2.1.1 High Availability Installation

Have you purchased the best Oracle SOA Suite 12c administration book on the market? If not, then what are you waiting for! (Check it out on Amazon.com.)

Fig. 1: One of the best books ever written

The authors are Ahmed Aboulnaga, Harold Dost, and Arun Pareek.

Chapter 12 is titled Clustering and High Availability. This was based on the Enterprise Deployment Guide (EDG) from Oracle, but much more simplified and straightforward instructions, allowing you to quickly install a two-node cluster without having to read through hundreds and hundreds of pages.

The book was published back in November 2015 when Oracle SOA Suite 12.1.3 had just come out.

We've just finished our new and improved instructions on installing a fully functioning, production quality two-node cluster for the new 12.2.1.1 release... and it includes MFT.

Want a copy of this document?

Fig. 2 The two-node cluster architecture

If you're able to provide proof of purchase, we can share with you these instructions that have been used to install 12.2.1.1 production environments for multiple customers. Don't spend days sifting through the Oracle documentation. Purchase our outstanding book, and get yourself a document that will save you a tremendous amount of effort.

The table of contents is roughly as follows:

We're here to help. :)

Applicable Versions:

• Oracle SOA Suite 12c (12.2.1.1)
• Oracle Service Bus (OSB) 12c (12.2.1.1)
• Oracle Web Services Manager (WSM) 12c (12.2.1.1)
• Oracle Managed File Transfer (MFT) 12c (12.2.1.1)
• Oracle HTTP Server (OHS) 12c (12.2.1.1)

References:

• https://www.amazon.com/Oracle-SOA-Suite-Administrators-Guide/dp/1782170863

Getting "Cannot retrieve repository metadata (repomd.xml) for repository: public_ol6_UEK_latest"

Problem:

If you try to install an Oracle Linux package via yum, you might get the following error:

[root@soa-training ~]# yum install telnet

Loaded plugins: refresh-packagekit, ulninfo

Setting up Install Process

http://public-yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL6/UEK/latest/x86_64/repodata/repomd.xml: [Errno 14] PYCURL ERROR 47 - "Maximum (5) redirects followed"

Trying other mirror.

Error: Cannot retrieve repository metadata (repomd.xml) for repository: public_ol6_UEK_latest. Please verify its path and try again

Solution:

1. Try again tomorrow (seriously!).

Do you need ESS when using core Oracle SOA Suite 12c functions?

Are you new to Oracle Enterprise Scheduler (ESS)? Did you know that ESS is included for free, for no extra charge, with your Oracle SOA Suite 12c license?

ESS is a first-class, no-frills, simple-to-use scheduling service that gets the job done and is a welcome addition to the Oracle SOA Suite 12c platform. It provides the ability to run different job types according to a preconfigured schedule, including Java, PL/SQL, binary scripts, web services, and EJBs distributed across the nodes in an Oracle WebLogic Server cluster.

Now do you know what components within Oracle SOA Suite that takes advantage of ESS? They are:

• Auto Purge
• Error Notification Rules
• Activating and deactivating Inbound Adapter Endpoints
• Bulk Fault Recover or Error Hospital

For more information, check out our excellent book Oracle SOA Suite 12c Administrator's Guide (shameless marketing, I know!). We introduce and explain ESS concepts, terminology, scheduling, compatibility issues, purging, tuning, and so much more.

Enjoy this snippet from Chapter 11!

Applicable Versions:

• Oracle SOA Suite 12c
• Oracle Enterprise Schedule (ESS) 12c

References:

• https://www.amazon.com/Oracle-SOA-Suite-Administrators-Guide/dp/1782170863/

Using DynamicServerList to control routing from Oracle HTTP Server to Oracle WebLogic Server

The point of this blog post is to simply explain that when you configure httpd.conf in Oracle HTTP Server (OHS) or Apache, and even if you explicitly specify a single WebLogic host and port to route to (Scenario #2), OHS will still route to all nodes of your WebLogic cluster.

What you need to use is the DynamicServerList parameter.

Check out the three scenarios below.

Scenario #1: Load balancing between OHS and WebLogic using 'WebLogicCluster'

Your OHS/Apache configuration may look like this:

<Location /myapp>
  SetHandler weblogic-handler
  WebLogicCluster dev1.raastech.com:8011,dev2.raastech.com:8011
  WLProxySSL ON
  WLProxySSLPassThrough ON
</Location>

Thus, requests coming in to OHS will be routed across all nodes of your WebLogic cluster as shown:

Scenario #2: Attempting to single balance OHS and WebLogic using 'WebLogicHost' and 'WebLogicPort'

Your OHS/Apache configuration may look like this:

<Location /myapp>
  SetHandler weblogic-handler
  WebLogicHost dev1.raastech.com:8011
  WebLogicPort 7011
  WLProxySSL ON
  WLProxySSLPassThrough ON
</Location>

Even though the configuration explicitly states routing to a single WebLogicHost and WebLogicPort, requests coming in to OHS will still be routed across all nodes of your WebLogic cluster as shown:

Scenario #: Single balance OHS and WebLogic with 'DynamicServerList'

Your OHS/Apache configuration may look like this:

<Location /myapp>
  SetHandler weblogic-handler
  WebLogicHost dev1.raastech.com:8011
  WebLogicPort 7011
  DynamicServerList OFF
  WLProxySSL ON
  WLProxySSLPassThrough ON
</Location>

Simply adding the DynamicServerList parameter solves the problem in that all requests routed to OHS will now successfully go to a single WebLogic host/port as shown:

Applicable Versions:

• Oracle HTTP Server 11g/12c
• Oracle WebLogic Server 11g/12c

References:

• https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E13222_01/wls/docs81/plugins/plugin_params.html