6 Oracle Fusion Middleware High Availability and Enterprise Deployment

6.3.1.1 Latest Requirements and Certification Information

Several manuals in the Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g documentation set have information on Oracle Fusion Middleware system requirements, prerequisites, specifications, and certification information.

• The latest information on Oracle Fusion Middleware system requirements, prerequisites, specifications, and certification information can be found in the following documents on Oracle Technology Network:

  http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/ias/files/fusion_certification.html

  This document contains information related to hardware and software requirements, minimum disk space and memory requirements, and required system libraries, packages, or patches.

• Oracle Fusion Middleware Certification information at:

  http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/ias/files/fusion_certification.html

  This document contains information related to supported installation types, platforms, operating systems, databases, JDKs, and third-party products.

6.3.1.2 Synchronizing System Clocks in a Cluster Required

Section 5.11.1.5, "Synchronizing System Clocks," of the Oracle Fusion Middleware High Availability Guide, states that "Oracle recommends synchronizing system clocks on each of the cluster nodes for high availability SOA deployments."

Synchronizing system clocks in a cluster is not a recommendation; it is a mandatory requirement.

6.3.1.3 Incorrect References to NIP and NAP Protocols

Oracle Access Manager components use proprietary protocols called Oracle Access Protocol (OAP) and Oracle Identity Protocol (OIP) to communicate with each other.

Oracle Access Protocol (OAP) enables communication between Access System components (for example, Policy Manager, Access Manager, and WebGate) during user authentication and authorization. This protocol was formerly known as NetPoint Access Protocol (NAP) or COREid Access Protocol.

Oracle Identity Protocol (OIP) governs communications between Identity System components (for example, Identity Server, WebPass) and a Web server. This protocol was formerly known as NetPoint Identity Protocol (NIP) or COREid Identity Protocol.

In the Oracle Fusion Middleware Enterprise Deployment Guide for Oracle Identity Management, Section 1.4.2 "Understanding the Application Tier" includes a reference to the NAP (Network Access Protocol) port, which should be a reference to the Oracle Access Protocol (OAP) port. This section also includes a reference to the NIP (Network Identity Protocol) port, which should be a reference to the Oracle Identity Protocol (OIP) port.

In the Oracle Fusion Middleware Enterprise Deployment Guide for Oracle Identity Management, Section 1.4.3 "Understanding the Web Tier" includes a reference to the Network Access Protocol (NAP), which should be a reference to the Oracle Access Protocol (OAP).

In the Oracle Fusion Middleware Enterprise Deployment Guide for Oracle Identity Management, Table 2-2 "Ports Used in the Oracle Identity Management Enterprise Deployment Topology" includes two references to the NAP protocol, which should be references to the OAP protocol. This table also includes two references to the NIP protocol, which should be references to the OIP protocol.

6.3.1.4 Procedure Missing from High Availability Guide Oracle Reports Configuration Section

In the Oracle Fusion Middleware High Availability Guide, before section "12.6.5.6.4 Restart WLS_REPORTS and WLS_REPORTS1," the following procedure for creating an Oracle Reports server cluster is missing:

By creating a Reports cluster with a database reports queue it is possible to link all of the Reports servers to the same queue. The benefit of this procedure is that when a server has spare capacity, it can take and execute the next report in the queue, thereby distributing the load. It also ensures that if a cluster member becomes unavailable, another Reports server can detect this and run any reports on which the failed server was working.

Create a Reports cluster by adding a cluster entry to the rwservlet.properties file on both APPHOST1 and APPHOST2.

Cluster APPHOST1

Edit the rwservlet.properties file located in the DOMAIN_HOME/user_projects/domains/ReportsDomain/servers/WLS_REPORTS/stage/reports/reports/configuration directory.

Add the following line:

<cluster clustername="cluster_reports" clusternodes="rep_wls_reports1_APPHOST2_reports2"/>

Cluster APPHOST2

Edit the rwservlet.properties file located in the DOMAIN_HOME/user_projects/domains/ReportsDomain/servers/WLS_REPORTS1/stage/reports/reports/configuration directory.

Add the following line:

<cluster clustername="cluster_reports" clusternodes="rep_wls_reports_APPHOST1_reports1"/>

6.3.2.1 Quartz Requires Synchronizing System Clocks in a Cluster

In Chapter 2, "Database and Environment Preconfiguration," of the Oracle Fusion Middleware Enterprise Deployment Guide for Oracle SOA Suite, the following information is missing:

• Quartz

  Oracle SOA Suite uses Quartz to maintain its jobs and schedules in the database. For the Quartz jobs to be run on different Oracle SOA nodes in a cluster, it is required that the system clocks on the cluster nodes be synchronized.

6.3.2.2 Changes Required in for Deploying FOD in and EDG SOA Topology

The following information is missing from section 10.2, "Deploying Composites and Artifacts in SOA Enterprise Deployment Topology" of the Oracle Fusion Middleware Enterprise Deployment Guide for Oracle SOA Suite:

When deploying SOA Fusion Order Demo, the following additional steps are required in addition to the deployment steps provided in the FOD's README file).

1. Change the nostage property to false in the build.xml file of the Web applications so that ear files are copied to each node. Edit the CreditCardAuthorization and OrderApprvalHumanTask build.xml files, located at FOD_dir\CreditCardAuthorization\bin and FOD_dir\OrderApprovalHumanTask\bin directories, and change the following field:

   <target name="deploy-application">
        <wldeploy action="deploy" name="${war.name}"
          source="${deploy.ear.source}" library="false"
          nostage="false"
          user="${wls.user}" password="${wls.password}"
          verbose="false" adminurl="${wls.url}"
          remote="true" upload="true"
          targets="${server.targets}" />
      </target>
   

   To:

   <target name="deploy-application">
        <wldeploy action="deploy" name="${war.name}"
          source="${deploy.ear.source}" library="false"
          nostage="true"
          user="${wls.user}" password="${wls.password}"
          verbose="false" adminurl="${wls.url}"
          remote="true" upload="true"
          targets="${server.targets}" />
      </target>
   

2. Change the target for the Web applications so that deployments are targeted to the SOA Cluster and not to an individual server. Edit the build.properties file for FOD, located in the FOD_Dir/bin directory, and change the following field:

   # wls target server (for shiphome set to server_soa, for ADRS use AdminServer) 
   server.targets=SOA_Cluster (the SOA cluster name in your SOA EDG)
   

3. Change the JMS seed templates so that instead of regular Destinations, Uniform Distributed Destinations are used and the JMS artifacts are targeted to the EDG JMS Modules. Edit the createJMSResources.seed file, located in the FOD_DIR\bin\templates directory, and change:

   # lookup the SOAJMSModule - it's a system resource
        jmsSOASystemResource = lookup("SOAJMSModule","JMSSystemResource")
   
        jmsResource = jmsSOASystemResource.getJMSResource()
       
        cfbean = jmsResource.lookupConnectionFactory('DemoSupplierTopicCF')
        if cfbean is None:
            print "Creating DemoSupplierTopicCF connection factory"
            demoConnectionFactory =
    jmsResource.createConnectionFactory('DemoSupplierTopicCF')
            demoConnectionFactory.setJNDIName('jms/DemoSupplierTopicCF')
            demoConnectionFactory.setSubDeploymentName('SOASubDeployment')
    .
        topicbean = jmsResource.lookupTopic('DemoSupplierTopic')
        if topicbean is None:
            print "Creating DemoSupplierTopic jms topic"
            demoJMSTopic = jmsResource.createTopic("DemoSupplierTopic")
            demoJMSTopic.setJNDIName('jms/DemoSupplierTopic')
            demoJMSTopic.setSubDeploymentName('SOASubDeployment')
   

   To:

   # lookup the SOAJMSModule - it's a system resource
        jmsSOASystemResource = lookup("SOAJMSModuleUDDs","JMSSystemResource")
   
        jmsResource = jmsSOASystemResource.getJMSResource()
       
        cfbean = jmsResource.lookupConnectionFactory('DemoSupplierTopicCF')
        if cfbean is None:
            print "Creating DemoSupplierTopicCF connection factory"
            demoConnectionFactory =  
    jmsResource.createConnectionFactory('DemoSupplierTopicCF')
            demoConnectionFactory.setJNDIName('jms/DemoSupplierTopicCF')
            demoConnectionFactory.setSubDeploymentName('SOAJMSSubDM')
    .
        topicbean = jmsResource.lookupTopic('DemoSupplierTopic')
        if topicbean is None:
            print "Creating DemoSupplierTopic jms topic"
            demoJMSTopic =
    jmsResource.createDistributedTopic("DemoSupplierTopic")
            demoJMSTopic.setJNDIName('jms/DemoSupplierTopic')
            demoJMSTopic.setSubDeploymentName('SOAJMSSubDM')
   

6.3.2.3 Configuration Changes Propagation Information Missing from SOA EDG

The following information is missing from Chapter 10, "Managing the Topology" of the Oracle Fusion Middleware Enterprise Deployment Guide for Oracle SOA Suite.

Configuration Changes being applied to the SOA and BAM components in an EDG Topology:

If you are using Oracle SOA Suite in a clustered environment, any configuration property changes you make in Oracle Enterprise Manager on one node must be made on all nodes. Configuration properties are set in Oracle Enterprise Manager through the following options of the SOA Infrastructure men:

Administration > System MBean Browser SOA Administration > any property selections Services and References > Properties tab.

In addition, consider the following when making configuration changes to BAM Server in a BAM EDG Topology:

Since server migration is used, the BAM Server is moved to a different node's domain directory. It is necessary to pre-create the BAM Server configuration in the failover node. The BAM Server configuration files are located in the following directory:

ORACLE_BASE/admin/<domain_name>/mserver/<domain_name>/servers/<servername>/tmp/_WL_user/oracle-bam_11.1.1 /*/APP-INF/classes/config/

Where '*' represents a directory name randomly generated by Oracle WebLogic Server during deployment, for example, 3682yq.

In order to create the files in preparation for possible failovers, you can force a server migration and copy the files from the source node. For example, for BAM:

1. Configure the driver for WLS_BAM1 in BAMHOST1.

2. Force a failover of WLS_BAM1 to BAMHOST2. Verify the directory structure for the BAM Server in the failover node:

   cd ORACLE_BASE/admin/<domain_name>/mserver/
   <domain_name>/servers/<servername>/tmp/_WL_user/oracle-bam_11.1.1
   /*/APP-INF/classes/config/
   

   Where '*' represents a directory name randomly generated by Oracle WebLogic Server during deployment, for example, 3682yq.

3. Do a remote copy of the BAM Server configuration file from BAMHOST1 to BAMHOST2:

   BAMHOST1> scp  
    ORACLE_BASE/admin/<domain_name>/mserver/<domain_name>
   /servers/<servername>/tmp
   /_WL_user/oracle-bam_11.1.1/*/APP-INF/classes/config/*  oracle@BAMHOST2:
    ORACLE_BASE/admin/<domain_name>/mserver/<domain_name>/servers/<servername>/tmp
   /_WL_user/oracle-bam_11.1.1/*/APP-INF/classes/config/
   

6.3.2.4 Converting Discussions Forum from Multicast to Unicast

The procedure for converting Discussions Forum from multicast to unicast is missing from Chapter 6, Configuring High Availability for Oracle ADF and WebCenter Applications, in the the Oracle Fusion Middleware High Availability Guide.

To convert Discussions Forum from multicast to unicast:

Step 1: Enable system properties in the Oracle Coherence configuration files

To override the default Oracle Coherence settings, set the relevant system properties in the coherence .xml files. For Discussions Forum, edit the tangosol-coherence-override.xml file. This file is part of the coherence.jar deployed with Discussions Forum. Make the following changes to this file:

1. Extract the tangosol-coherence-override.xml file from coherence.jar in the WLS_Services deployment directory (jar xvf coherence.jar).

2. Add the following lines to the file within the cluster-config element:

   <unicast-listener>
       <well-known-addresses>
         <socket-address id="1">
           <address system-property="tangosol.coherence.wka1"></address>
           <port system-property="tangosol.coherence.wka1.port">8088</port>
         </socket-address>
         <socket-address id="2">
           <address system-property="tangosol.coherence.wka2"></address>
           <port system-property="tangosol.coherence.wka2.port">8088</port>
         </socket-address>
         ....etc....
         <socket-address id="9">
           <address system-property="tangosol.coherence.wka9"></address>
           <port system-property="tangosol.coherence.wka9.port">8088</port>
         </socket-address>
       </well-known-addresses>
     </unicast-listener> 
   

3. Jar up the file and restart the server (jar cvf coherence.jar *).

Step 2: Add the startup parameters

To add the relevant startup parameters:

1. In the Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console, select Servers, WLS_Services1, Configuration, and then Server Start.

2. In the Arguments box, add the following:

   -Dtangosol.coherence.wka1=Host1  -Dtangosol.coherence.wka2=Host2
   -Dtangosol.coherence.localhost=Host1 -Dtangosol.coherence.wka1.port=8088
   -Dtangosol.coherence.wka2.port=8088 
   

   Where Host1 is where WLS_Services1 is running.

3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 for WLS_Services2, swapping Host1 for Host2 and Host2 for Host1.

4. Restart the WLS_Services servers.

Step 3: Validate the changes

To validate the changes:

1. Log on to the Discussions Forum Administration panel.

2. Select Cache Settings in the left pane.

3. At the bottom of the screen, ensure that Clustering is set to enabled.

4. Repeat steps 1 through 3 for all members of the cluster.

   As servers join the cluster they appear at the top of the screen.