Oracle Essentials Oracle Database 11g (66 page)

Oracle SOA Suite

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Oracle BPEL Process Manager

BPEL stands for Business Process Engineering Language. As its name implies, BPEL

is a standard language that helps to “orchestrate” or “choreograph” web services to act together. The concept of orchestration is implemented through BPEL as workflows that describe the order and conditions under which different web services interact. Orchestration requires explicit definitions of business processes, since the interaction is controlled by a central process. With choreography, multiple processes act as peers, so less information is required about the different business processes, making this technique more appropriate for use with web services from multiple external sources.

Oracle BPEL Process Manager is a plug-in for either Oracle’s JDeveloper product or the Eclipse framework. The Process Manager gives users a graphical interface to describe process steps and interactions, as well as an engine for executing and monitoring steps in a process.

Business Activity Monitoring

Oracle Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) is used to create dashboards, which give quick graphical indications of progress on key business indicators (KPIs). Oracle says that their BAM implementation links back to the processes that create the information used for the KPIs, which means that a collection of issues that stem from the same process failure will not overwhelm an administrator.

Oracle BAM also has the ability to collect information from a variety of sources in real-time, giving more timely information and providing users with more time to address the issues that have generated the alerts.

Business Rules

Business rules
are implementations of logic separate from, but used by, multiple applications. The use of business rules provides flexible reuse of business logic and, perhaps more importantly, consistent implementation of that logic. This consistency is increasingly important in today’s business climate, where legislation can require that companies prove how they are making business decisions. By delegating specific implementation of business logic to a separate system, you can ensure that all applications that require this logic do so consistently, and you can point to the specifics in the standard implementation to satisfy audit requirements.

The Oracle Business Rules component of Oracle Application Server combines a Rule Authoring tool (which lets users create rules using English-like syntax), a Rules Engine (which executes the called rules), and a Rules SDK (for programmatic access to rules and the rules repository).

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Chapter 15: Beyond the Oracle Database

Enterprise Service Bus

In order for an SOA solution to work, all the services must be able to communicate freely with each other. This simple task is complicated by multiple communications protocols and the need to connect the service descriptions (in Web Services Definition Language, or WSDL) between all the players in the environment.

Oracle’s Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) provides this capability and more. The ESB

also delivers the ability to transform messages and data between consumers using Oracle Adapters (explained below) to connect to hundreds of data sources, model interactions between service providers, and implement efficient message routing and monitoring in the runtime environment.

Web Services Manager

When you start to use web services from an extremely wide range of sources, you are running the risk that your overall operations could be compromised by any of these sources. Oracle Web Services Manager is designed to define security and monitoring on web services, providing the safety required by enterprises and the proof of compliance that audit committees may demand.

Oracle Web Services Manager gives youthe ability to define and manage security policies for web services. Youcan also monitor the use of web services and store the security rules in UDDI-compliant registries for proof of compliance.

Oracle JDeveloper

Oracle JDeveloper is Oracle’s Java development environment. Oracle JDeveloper was introduced by Oracle in 1998 to enable developing of basic Java applications without writing code. JDeveloper is now available for free and can be downloaded from the Oracle Technology Network, as well as being included as part of the Oracle SOA Suite. Oracle Application Server 10
g
Release 3 introduced a new look and feel for JDeveloper.

Oracle JDeveloper includes wizards for generating data forms, JavaBeans, and BeanInfo, and for deploying your Java applications. JDeveloper includes database development features such as various Oracle drivers, a Connection Editor to hide the JDBC API complexity, database components to bind visual controls, and a SQLJ precompiler for embedding SQL in Java code that you can then use with Oracle.

The final JDeveloper application is written in Java code, even though you may have developed large parts of the application using wizards.

Oracle SOA Suite

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Adapters

Oracle Adapters provide a standards-based (Web Services Invocation Framework, or WSIF) interface to established external applications and protocols. There are Oracle Adapters available for more than 300 packaged applications and a variety of protocols, including CICS, Tuxedo, and FTP. You can see any of these targets as data sources with Oracle Adapters.

Oracle Service Registry

Oracle Service Registry is not a part of Oracle SOA Suite, but is a useful component in an SOA solution. The Service Registry is a repository for information about all services, so you can use it both to discover information about external services for your use and to publish information about your own services for others.

Oracle Service Registry is integrated with the components of the SOA Suite to act as the official repository of services for those components. However, Oracle Service Registry has been a component of Oracle Application Server since Oracle Application Server 10
g
.

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Chapter 15: Beyond the Oracle Database

Appendix A

APPENDIX A

What’s New in This Book for Oracle

Database 11g1

When we wrote the first edition of
Oracle Essentials
in 1999, our goal was to offer a new kind of book about Oracle, one that would clearly and concisely cover all of the essential features and concepts of the Oracle database. In order to keep our focus on those essentials, we limited the scope of the book.

For instance, we decided not to cover SQL, or PL/SQL, in depth; these complex topics would have required a level of detail that would have run counter to the purpose of our book, and they are amply described in other books.

The latest release of the Oracle database, Oracle Database 11
g
, contains many new features. Most of these features build on the existing foundation of Oracle database technology.

We have tried to add details about these features in the chapters in which their discussion seemed most appropriate, but there are of course some enhancements in the new release that are outside the scope of this book.

The following sections summarize the new features of Oracle Database 11
g
that are covered in this new edition, chapter by chapter. Although many of these features are mentioned in multiple chapters, they are listed here according to where the most relevant discussion occurs.

Chapter 1: Intr
oducing Oracle
This introductory chapter was extensively updated to reflect the packaging changes in Oracle Database 11
g
. It also briefly mentions features described in more detail in other chapters.

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Chapter 2: Oracle Ar
chitecture
This chapter describes the initialization parameters that must be specified in Oracle Database 11
g
, database and instance characteristics, and background processes. New features include:

Automatic memory management

Provides automatic distribution of memory among SGA and PGA instance components.

PL/SQL Function Result Cache in shared pool area

Improves performance in cases where PL/SQL functions use the same parameters.

Chapter 3: Installing and Running Oracle

Although the standard installation and runtime operations of the Oracle database remain essentially the same, a few Oracle Database 11
g
enhancements are covered in this chapter:

Oracle Internet Directory

This product is now part of the Fusion Middleware product stack.

Automated memory management of SGA and PGA size

Enabled by default when you set the MEMORY_MANAGEMENT parameter.

Flashback transaction

Continues to expand the flashback capabilities of the Oracle database by giving you the ability to reverse the effects of individual transactions.

Chapter 4: Da
ta Structures
This chapter covers the basic data structures and optimization technology in the Oracle database. New features include:

Virtual columns

These columns, defined as the results of an expression, are not stored in the database, but are accessible to users with appropriate security clearance at runtime.

Invisible indexes

Youcan remove an index from consideration by the optimizer by making it invisible—you know, like a ghost.

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Appendix A: What’s New in This Book for Oracle Database 11g
Interval partitioning

Gives Oracle Database 11
g
the ability to create a new partition with a fixed interval when data to be inserted does not fit in any existing partitions.

Composite partitioning (additional types)

New composite partitioning types include list-range, list-hash, and list-list. Parti-tioining can also be based on functions or virtual columns.

Partition pruning

Gives applications the ability to control partition pruning.

Partition Advisor

Gives users an analysis of when partitions could improve performance.

Sequences in PL/SQL

Allows the use of sequences in PL/SQL expressions.

Compound triggers

Youcan now combine triggers with different timing options into a single compound trigger, which can help improve performance.

Database replay

Captures workloads on production systems and allows you to replay them on other systems, such as test environments.

SQL Advisor

Combines SQL Tuning Advisor, SQL Access Advisor, and Partition Advisor

(mentioned above). Covered in more detail in Chapter 7.

Chapter 5: Managing Oracle

This chapter covers Oracle Enterprise Manager improvements and manageability offered in Oracle Database 11
g
. New features include:
SQL Performance Impact Advisor

Forecasts how system changes will impact SQL performance.

Undo Advisor

Enables automatic undo management.

Health Monitor infrastructure

Components enable a Support Workbench and include the SQL Test Case Builder, SQL Repair Advisor, and Data Recovery Advisor.

Real Applications Testing Option

Enables capture of a production workload for replay in a test database environment.

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Chapter 6: Oracle S
ecurity, Auditing, and Compliance
This chapter is new in this edition, although some of the material was covered in

Chapter 5
in previous versions of the book. The chapter also covers some significant new features available with Oracle Database 11
g
:

Prompting for default security settings

To improve security “out of the box,” Oracle Database 11
g
installation procedures prompt you to determine whether you want to keep the default security settings.

Tablespace encryption

You can use Transparent Data Encryption to encrypt entire tablespaces.

Auditing on by default

The default setting for database auditing is ON.

Flashback Data Archive

Gives youa way to see all the changes that have happened to a record over the course of its lifetime, which is very useful for compliance.

Chapter 7: Oracle P
erformance
This chapter covers enhancements that provide better performance and performance analysis in the latest release:

Automatic Database Diagnostic Monitor for clusters

ADDM can now be used with clusters.

SQL Advisor

Combines the SQL Tuning Advisor, SQL Access Advisor, and Partition Advisor

(previously described). Also mentioned in Chapter 4.

Automatic Workload Repository baselines

Can create baselines for AWR to cover specific time periods.

Very large file backups

Backups can now include very large files.

Query results caching

Oracle Database 11
g
can cache entire result sets, which can improve the performance of repeated queries.

Automatic profiling

The Oracle database can automatically spot and profile queries that require lots of resources, and this can improve their performance. This feature can also produce advice on new indexes to help enhance performance on queries using these indexes.

Default Database Resource Manager (DRM) plan

The default plan is designed to limit the resources used by automated maintenance tasks, such as gathering statistics.

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Appendix A: What’s New in This Book for Oracle Database 11g

Chapter 8: Oracle Multiuser C
oncurrency
The ability to handle very large groups of users without excessive contention, while protecting data integrity, has long been one of the best features of the Oracle database. This capability has been a core part of the Oracle database for 20 years, but this chapter also covers workspaces, which have changed a bit in the latest release:
Workspace enhancements