1 Introduction to Oracle WebCenter Administration

1.2.1 Oracle WebCenter Framework

Injects portal capabilities into ADF, including:

• Run-time customization (you can make in-place changes to the application without re-deploying it)

• Support for JSR-168 standards-based WSRP portlets, and PDK-Java portlets

• Content integration through JCR (JSR170), including Oracle Content Server (OCS), file system, and Oracle Portal

• Oracle JSF Portlet Bridge, which lets you expose JSF pages and ADF task flows as standards-based portlets

1.2.2 Oracle Application Development Framework

Application Development Framework (ADF) is a productivity layer that sits on top of JSF and provides:

• Unified access to back ends such as databases, Web services, XML, CSV, and BPELData binding (JSR 227) connecting the user interface with back-end data controls

• Over 100 data-aware JSF view components

• Native component model that includes task flows

• Fine grained JAAS security model

1.2.3 Oracle Composer

Oracle Composer provides:

• Ability to perform run-time customization in-place in your browser

• A rich, intuitive user experience where you can:

  • Browse and add resources to pages

  • Re-arrange page layout

  • Set page and component properties

  • Contextually wire components

1.2.4 WebCenter Services

Table 1-1 lists the services available to WebCenter application—both WebCenter Spaces and custom WebCenter applications.

^Footnote 1 WebCenter Spaces only.

^Footnote 2 RSS news feeds are available from WebCenter Spaces only. The RSS Viewer task flow is available in both WebCenter Spaces and custom WebCenter applications.

WebCenter services include provides:

• Seamless integration with enterprise-level services

• Thin adapter layer to abstract back-end services. For example:

  • Content adapter: Oracle Content Server and Oracle Portal

  • Presence adapter: Oracle WebLogic Communication Server (OWLCS), Microsoft Live Communication Server

• Back-end systems represented by a unified connection architecture

• User interface to services presented through rich task flow components

1.2.5 WebCenter Spaces

Built using JSF, ADF, Oracle WebCenter Framework, WebCenter services, and Oracle Composer, WebCenter Spaces provides:

• A browser-based, community-focused portal framework targeting the business user.

• A personal space for each user, providing a private work area for storing personal content, keeping notes, viewing and responding to business process assignments, maintaining a list of online buddies, emailing, and so on. The focus of a personal space is personal productivity.

• Group spaces, a rich team collaboration platform.

• Threaded discussions, blogs, wikis, worklists, announcements, RSS, recent activities, search, and more.

1.2.6 Portals

Portals provide a common interface (a Web page) to a personalized, single point of interaction with Web-based applications and information relevant to individual users or class of users. For information about creating portals, see Oracle Fusion Middleware Developer's Guide for Oracle WebCenter.

1.2.7 Composite Applications

A composite application is an assembly of services, service components, wires, and references designed and deployed as a single application. For more information about composite applications, see the Oracle Fusion Middleware Administrator's Guide for Oracle SOA Suite.

1.3.1 Oracle WebCenter Topology Out-of-the-Box

Oracle WebCenter installation creates a WebCenter Oracle home under the Oracle Middleware home directory and the oracle_common home directory, which contains WebCenter binaries and supporting files (Figure 1-2).

Figure 1-2 Directory Structure of an Oracle WebCenter Installation

The installation also creates a WebCenter domain (wc_domain), containing the administration server and several managed servers to host various WebCenter components. In Figure 1-3, applications are shown in yellow, while the managed servers they run on are shown in brown.

Figure 1-3 Oracle WebCenter Topology Out-of-the-Box

Out-of-the-box managed servers host the following components:

• WLS_Spaces - Hosts Oracle WebCenter Spaces

• WLS_Portlet - Hosts Oracle WebCenter Portlets

• WLS_Services - Hosts Oracle WebCenter Discussions and Oracle WebCenter Wiki and Blog Server, and any additional WebCenter services that you choose to integrate

An optional fourth managed server (an applications server) can be used to run custom WebCenter applications. When you create additional managed servers, they are provisioned with the appropriate libraries to enable them to draw upon the same external resources as Oracle WebCenter Spaces. For more information about managed servers, see "Understanding Oracle Fusion Middleware Concepts" in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Administrator's Guide.

1.3.2 Oracle WebCenter Managed Servers

During Oracle WebCenter installation, the managed servers are provisioned with system libraries and ADF libraries. Table 1-2 lists the managed servers and the applications that run on them.

1.3.3 Oracle WebCenter Startup Order

When a managed server starts up, applications and libraries are started in the following order:

1. Oracle system libraries, known as the JRF libraries.

2. ADF libraries.

3. Instrumentation applications, such as Oracle DMS.

4. Oracle Web Services Manager (wsm-pm) application.

5. WebCenter applications, shown in Table 1-2.

The startup order is also the order of dependency. If a dependent component does not deploy successfully, a later component may not function correctly.

WebCenter application startup is not dependent on the availability of external services such as the Discussions server, or other back-end servers. For details, see Section 1.3.4, "Oracle WebCenter External Dependencies".

1.3.4 Oracle WebCenter External Dependencies

WebCenter applications have several external dependencies, as listed in Table 1-3. The Configuration column lists the type of information provided to Oracle WebCenter to configure or initialize the connection. The Access column lists the protocol used in run-time access of the service.

Server/service unavailability does not prevent WebCenter applications from starting up, although errors may display while the application is running. The only exception is the Oracle Metadata Repository (MDS), as WebCenter applications do not work without it. WebCenter Spaces partially works without the WebCenter repository, but only if it is a different physical database from the MDS repository.

Configure each of the external services independently for high availability. Oracle WebCenter provides a single point of access for external services.

• For HTTP services, direct the access URL to a load balancer, which provides access to multiple service providers on the back-end.

• For the MDS and schemas, Oracle recommends an Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) database as the back-end database.

1.3.5 Oracle WebCenter Configuration Considerations

The main configuration files for WebCenter applications are listed and described in Table 1-4. Both these files are supplied within the WebCenter application deployment .EAR file.

WebCenter applications and portlet producers both use the Oracle Metadata Services (MDS) repository to store their configuration data; both access the MDS repository as a JDBC data source within the Oracle WebLogic framework.

The MDS repository stores post deployment configuration changes for WebCenter applications and portlet producers as customizations. MDS uses the original deployed versions of adfconfig.xml and connection.xml as base documents and stores all subsequent customizations separately into MDS using a single customization layer.

When a WebCenter application starts up, customizations stored in MDS are applied to the appropriate base documents and the WebCenter application uses the merged documents (base documents with customizations) as the final set of configuration properties.

For WebCenter applications that are deployed to a server cluster, all members of a cluster read from the same location in the MDS repository.

Typically, there is no need for administrators to examine or manually change the content of base documents (or MDS customization data) for files such as adfconfig.xml and connection.xml, as Oracle provides several administration tools for post deployment configuration. If you must locate the base documents or review the information in MDS, read Appendix A, "WebCenter Configuration".

To find out more about WebCenter application configuration tools available, see Section 1.12, "Oracle WebCenter Administration Tools".

While WebCenter applications store post-deployment configuration information in MDS, configuration information for portlet producers, Oracle WebCenter Discussions Server and Oracle WebCenter Wiki and Blog Server is stored in the file system or the database (see Table 1-5).

The Oracle WebCenter Discussions Server stores configuration information in its database. Additionally, it stores startup configuration information in $DOMAIN_HOME/config/fmwconfig/servers/SERVER_NAME/owc_discussions_11.1.1.2.0. This directory contains the jive_startup.xml file, jive.license files, and a \logs directory containing log files for the discussions server instance.

The Oracle WebCenter Wiki and Blog Server stores configuration information in the server's deployment directory. For example, $DOMAIN_HOME/servers/SERVER_NAME. Its configuration file, application_config.script, is located in $APPLICATIONS_DIRECTORY/owc_wiki/WEB-INF/classes. For example, DOMAIN_HOME/servers/WLS_Services/stage/owc_wiki/11.1.1.1.0/owc_wiki/WEB-INF/classes.

1.3.6 Oracle WebCenter State and Configuration Persistence

WebCenter applications run as J2EE applications with application state and configuration persisted to the MDS repository. User session information within the application is held locally in memory. In a cluster environment, this state is replicated to other members of the cluster.

Customizations within a portlet or service environment are persisted by that service. Out-of-the-box, Oracle portlets, any custom portlets you build, Oracle WebCenter Discussions Server, and Oracle WebCenter Wiki and Blog Server all have their own database persistence mechanisms.

1.3.7 Oracle WebCenter Log File Locations

Operations performed by WebCenter applications, portlet producers, discussion servers, wiki and blog servers, and so on, are logged directly to the WebLogic managed server where the application is running:

wls_domain_directory/servers/WLS_ServerName/logs/WLS_ServerName.log

You can view the log files for each WebLogic managed server from the Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console. To view the logs, access the Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console http://<admin_server_host>:<port>/console, and click Diagnostics-Log Files.

You can also view and configure diagnostic logs through Fusion Middleware Control, see Section 24.3, "Viewing and Configuring Log Information".

1.12.1 Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control Console

Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control Console is a browser-based management application that is deployed when you install Oracle WebCenter. From Fusion Middleware Control Console, you can monitor and administer a farm (such as one containing Oracle WebCenter and WebCenter applications).

Fusion Middleware Control organizes a wide variety of performance data and administrative functions into distinct, web-based home pages. These home pages make it easy to locate the most important monitoring data and the most commonly used administrative functions for any WebCenter component—all from your web browser. For general information about the Fusion Middleware Control Console, see "Getting Started Using Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control" in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Administrator's Guide.

Fusion Middleware Control is the primary management tool for Oracle WebCenter and can be used to:

• Deploy, undeploy, and re-deploy WebCenter applications

• Configure back-end services

• Configure security management

• Control process lifecycle

• Access log files and manage log configuration

• Manage data migration

• Monitor performance

• Diagnose run-time problems

• Manage related components, such as the parent Managed Server, MDS, portlet producers, and so on

1.12.2 Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console

The Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console is a browser-based, graphical user interface that you use to manage a WebLogic Server domain.

The Administration Server hosts the Administration Console, which is a Web application accessible from any supported Web browser with network access to the Administration Server Managed Servers host applications.

Use the Administration Console to:

• Configure, start, and stop WebLogic Server instances

• Configure WebLogic Server clusters

• Configure WebLogic Server services, such as database connectivity (JDBC) and messaging (JMS)

• Configure security parameters, including creating and managing users, groups, and roles

• Configure and deploy your applications

• Monitor server and application performance

• View server and domain log files

• View application deployment descriptors

• Edit selected run-time application deployment descriptor elements

For more information about the Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console, see "Displaying the Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console" in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Administrator's Guide.

Locking Domain Configuration

In a production environment, you must lock configuration settings for a domain before making any configuration changes. Navigate to the Administration Console's Change Center (Figure 1-4), and click Lock & Edit.

Once configuration updates are complete, release the changes by clicking Release Configuration.

Figure 1-4 Change Center in Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console

1.12.3 Oracle WebLogic Scripting Tool (WLST)

Oracle provides the WebLogic Scripting Tool (WLST) to manage Oracle Fusion Middleware components, such as Oracle WebCenter, from the command line.

WLST is a complete, command-line scripting environment for managing Oracle WebLogic Server domains, based on the Java scripting interpreter, Jython. In addition to supporting standard Jython features such as local variables, conditional variables, and flow control statements, WLST provides a set of scripting functions (commands) that are specific to Oracle WebLogic Server. You can extend the WebLogic scripting language to suit your needs by following the Jython language syntax.

Oracle WebCenter offers WLST commands for managing WebCenter application connections (to content repositories, portlet producers, external applications, and other back-end services), and also for exporting and importing the WebCenter Spaces application. All Oracle WebCenter WLST commands are described in "Oracle WebCenter Custom WLST Commands" in the Oracle Fusion Middleware WebLogic Scripting Tool Command Reference.

1.12.4 System MBean Browser

Fusion Middleware Control provides a set of MBean browsers that allow to you browse the MBeans for an Oracle WebLogic Server or for a selected application.

To access application MBeans for WebCenter applications:

1. Log in to Fusion Middleware Control and navigate to the home page for WebCenter Spaces or the custom WebCenter application. For more information, see:

   • Section 6.2, "Navigating to the Home Page for WebCenter Spaces"

   • Section 6.3, "Navigating to the Home Page for Custom WebCenter Applications"

2. Do one of the following:

   • For WebCenter Spaces - From the WebCenter menu, choose System MBean Browser.

   • For WebCenter applications - From the Application Deployment menu, choose System MBean Browser.

3. Expand Application Defined MBeans, then oracle.adf.share.config, then Server: name, then Application: name, then ADFConfig, then ADFConfig, and ADFConfig.

4. To view an MBean's attributes, select the Attributes tab. Some attributes allow you to change their values. To do so, enter the value in the Value column.

5. Click Apply to update attribute values.

6. Navigate to the parent MBean (ADFConfig), select the Operations tab, and click save to save the changes.

7. Restart the managed server on which the WebCenter application is deployed. For more information, see Section 8.2, "Starting and Stopping Managed Servers for WebCenter Application Deployments."

1.12.5 WebCenter Spaces Administration Pages

WebCenter Spaces provides several administration pages of its own. WebCenter Spaces Administration appears only to users who have logged in to the application using an administrator user name and password. See also, Section 26.1, "Logging into WebCenter Spaces as an Administrator".

WebCenter Spaces administration pages allow you to:

• Customize WebCenter Spaces

• Manage users and roles

• Manage services settings for WebCenter Spaces

• Manage group spaces and group space templates

• Create and manage business role pages

• Manage personal pages

• Export and import group spaces

For more details, see Section 26, "Accessing WebCenter Spaces Administration Pages".