11 Discovering and Monitoring the SOA Suite

New Features in This Release

The new features that have been introduced in the 12c version of the SOA Suite are:

• Dehydration Store: You can view the performance of the database relevant to the SOA engine. You can review the general health of the database engine and identify problems that are causing a performance bottleneck.

• Service Topology: You can see a graphical end to end view of the composite applications. It depicts the various application components and their interactions happening at runtime.

• SOA Partition: You can deploy SOA composite applications into separate sections of the SOA Infrastructure known as partitions.

• Instance Tracing Enhancements: Instance tracing can now be performed at the component level and you can view the audit trail for individual component instances.

• UDDI Publishing: Publishing a service to UDDI is now supported.

Supported Versions

The following are the versions of the SOA Suite 11g that are supported in Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c:

• 11.1.1.2.0 (PS1)

• 11.1.1.3.0 (PS2)

• 11.1.1.4.0 (PS3)

• 11.1.1.5.0 (PS4)

• 11.1.1.6.0 (PS5)

Understanding the Discovery Process

The following describes the overall process involved in discovering and monitoring SOA Suite 11g in Enterprise Manager Cloud Control. Follow the instructions outlined against each step in this process to successfully discover and monitor the SOA Suite.

Discovering the SOA Suite

This section describes the procedure for discovering the SOA Suite 11g. You can use a local or a remote Management Agent to perform the discovery process. In the case of discovery using a local agent, you need to use a Management Agent that is running on the same host as the Administration Server.

1. From the Targets menu, select Middleware.

   Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control displays the Middleware page that lists all the middleware targets being monitored.

2. In the Middleware page, from the Add list, select Oracle Fusion Middleware / WebLogic Domain and click Go. Specify the Administration Server Host, Port, User Name, Password, Agent (local or remote) and the JMX Protocol and click Continue.

3. You will return to the Middleware page. You will see the SOA instances under the WebLogic Domain.

   Note:

   SOA Composites that are created after the discovery of SOA Suite Domain are not displayed automatically. To view all the SOA Composites, navigate to the Home page of the WebLogic Server target and select the Refresh Domain option from the menu.

Post Discovery Steps

After discovering the SOA Suite 11g, you must perform the following additional configuration steps:

1. Set the instance state in the Common Properties page:

   1. Click Fusion Middleware Control on the SOA Infrastructure Home Page.

   2. Navigate to the Home page of the SOA Infrastructure target.

   3. Select Common Properties from the SOA-Infra drop-down menu.

   4. On the Common Properties page, select the Capture Composite Instance State check box.

2. Set the SOA database details like the host name, port, and credentials.

   1. Navigate to the Middleware page in Enterprise Manager Cloud Control.

   2. Select a SOA Infrastructure home from the list and click Configure.

   3. The SOA Infrastructure Home page is displayed. Click Monitoring Configuration from the SOA-Infra drop-down menu.

   4. Set the SOA database details in the Monitoring Configuration page.

3. Set preferred credentials for the WebLogic Domain.

   1. From the Setup menu, select Security, then select Preferred Credentials.

   2. Select the Oracle WebLogic Domain target and click Managed Preferred Credentials.

   3. Select WebLogic Administrator Credentials in the Target Preferred Credentials and click Set.

   4. Enter the user name and password in the Select Named Credentials window and click Save.

Setting Up and Using SOA Instance Tracing

To configure and trace a SOA Composite instance, follow these steps:

1. Login to Enterprise Manager and navigate to the SOA Composite Home page of the instance to be traced.

2. From the SOA Composite menu, select Trace Instance.

3. Find the instance you want to trace by specifying search criteria such as Instance ID, Instance Creation Time Window, Instance Count, Sensor Values and so on. Click Search.

   Note:

   You must set the Preferred Credentials must be set for the WebLogic Domain and the Monitoring Agent Host to retrieve search data.

   • WebLogic Domain: To set the Administrator Credentials for the WebLogic Domain (SOA Domain Target), select Security, then select Preferred Credentials from the Setup menu. Select Oracle WebLogic Domain as the Target Type and click Manage Preferred Credentials. Specify the WebLogic Administrator credentials and click OK.

   • Monitoring Agent Host: To set the Preferred Credentials for the host on which the Management Agent has been installed, select Security, then select Preferred Credentials from the Setup menu. Select Host as the Target Type and click Manage Preferred Credentials. Specify the Normal Host Credentials for the host and click OK.

4. The list of instances that match the search criteria is displayed. Select the instance you want to trace and click Trace.

5. In the Select SOA Infrastructure window, select one or more SOA Infrastructure targets for which the trace information is to be gathered. Specify the WebLogic Administration and Host Credentials for these targets and click OK.

6. A trace job is submitted to collect the instance trace data from the selected targets and the flow trace for the instance is generated.

7. When the job has been completed, click Job Status to view the flow trace data. Click the Log Viewer link to access the log messages related to the instance.

8. Click the Component Instance to drill down to the component instance audit trail which shows the activity level execution details.

Generating SOA Reports Using Information Publisher

This section describes the procedure to create SOA Reports.

1. From the Targets menu, select Middleware, and click on a SOA Infrastructure target. The SOA Infrastructure Home page appears.

2. From the SOA Infrastructure menu, select the Information Publisher Reports.

   The out-of-box SOA reports are displayed under the SOA Performance Reports section.

3. Select a report from the section (for example, you can select Pending Instance Statistics) and click Create Like. The Create Report Definition page is displayed.

4. In the General page, enter the following details:

   1. Enter the BPEL Process Name as the title.

   2. Click the Set Time Period to set the time interval for the report.

   3. Click the Run report using target privileges of the Report Owner (SYSMAN) check box in the Privileges section.

5. Click the Elements tab and click the Set Parameters icon for the Pending Instance Statistics Element in the table.

6. In the Set Parameters page, click the torch icon to select a Composite Name. The Result Set Size with default values for the Pending Instance Statistics report is displayed.

7. Select a Component Name from the list, enter the Result Set Size and click Continue to return to the Elements page.

8. The selected target name is displayed in the Elements table.

9. To schedule periodic report generation, click the Schedule tab.

10. Specify the schedule type and other details and click OK.

11. You will return to the Report Home page where the newly scheduled report is displayed in the table. Click the report name to view the details.

Dehydration Store Monitoring

The Dehydration Store Diagnostics feature provides a dedicated view that allows you to analyze the behavior of the SOA Dehydration database. You can monitor SQL performance metrics and table growth specifically in the context of the SOA Suite's use of the database. The view displays both throughput and wait bottleneck data which allows you to monitor the general health of the target database instance. Using Active Session History, you can track usage data and display it as a table space chart, a growth rate chart, or an execution chart.

Service Topology

The Service Topology provides a graphical end to end view of the composite applications. It depicts the various application components and their interactions happening at runtime. It allows you to view the service level dependencies among the components and provides key performance statistics and incidents information for them. Composite applications are distributed in nature and this view helps you quickly visualize the structure, status, availability, dependencies, configuration changes, and performance of business-critical distributed applications from one place and easily identify any availability or performance issues.

The Service Topology Viewer shows the following:

• Service to Service Calls: It allows you to view the Service to Service calls between any two SOA entities (Composites/J2EE Applications/OSB/BPEL 10g instances) by clicking the link between the entities.

• Dependency Highlighting: It allows you to view the dependencies for any service. If you click on a service, all the services that it is dependent on and vice versa are highlighted.

• Database Associations: Shows all the databases used by the SOA Composites, BPEL 10g instance and J2EE applications.

• External Services: Shows the services that are used by a SOA Composite application but are external to it or not managed by Enterprise Manager Cloud Control.

For more details, refer to the Enterprise Manager Online Help.

UDDI Publishing

To publish a service to UDDI, navigate to the Services and References Home page, select a service from the table and click Publish to UDDI from the menu. The Publish Service to UDDI window is displayed with the following fields:

• Service Name: The name of Web Service to be published to the UDDI Registry. This is a Read Only field.

• Service Description: The description of the selected Web Service.

• Service Definition Location: The URL location of the Service Definition. This is a Read Only field.

• UDDI Source: A logical name for an external UDDI registry source. Select the UDDI Source from the drop-down list.

• Business Name: The name of the data structure in the UDDI registry. Select a Business Name that has been registered with the UDDI from the list.

Click OK to start the process that publishes the web service to UDDI or click Cancel to cancel publishing the service.

Generating SOA Reports Using BI Publisher

You can use Enterprise Manager to print SOA reports using BI Publisher Enterprise Reports. Oracle Business Intelligence (BI) Publisher is an enterprise reporting solution for authoring, managing, and delivering highly formatted documents. Oracle BI Publisher also allows you to build custom reporting applications that leverage existing infrastructure. Reports can be designed using familiar desktop products and viewed online or scheduled for delivery to a wide range of destinations.

The following table describes the SOA reports that can be generated using BI Publisher:

To print SOA reports using BI Publisher, follow these steps:

1. From the Enterprise menu, select Reports, then select BI Publisher Enterprise Reports.

   Enterprise Manager Cloud Control displays the login page for BI Publisher Enterprise Reports.

2. Enter your credentials to log into BI Publisher.

3. The BI Publisher Enterprise page displays, showing you Recent reports, Others, and Favorites. You can use this page to create a new report, submit a report job, and perform other tasks.

4. Click the Report you want to view.

5. You can select different filters such as SOA Composite Name, Partition Name, Date Range, and so on to view the report. You can also select a Sort By option to sort the report on Composite Name, Sorted Instances, and so on.

6. You can refresh the report anytime by clicking the Refresh icon on the upper right side of the SOA Report tab. You can hide or display the search parameters by clicking the Parameters icon. You can choose to view the report in various formats such as HTML, PDF, RTF, Excel, and PowerPoint by clicking the View Report icon. Likewise you can display more available actions by clicking the Actions icon. For more help about using BI Publisher, click the help icon.

Provisioning SOA Artifacts and Composites

The SOA Artifacts Deployment Procedure allows you to:

• Provision SOA Artifacts from a reference installation or from a gold image

• Create a gold image of the SOA Artifacts

• Provision SOA Composites either from the Software Library or from another accessible location.

For more details on the SOA Artifacts Deployment Procedure, see the Enterprise Manager Administrator's Guide for Software and Server Provisioning and Patching.

Support Workbench

The Support Workbench page provides access to diagnostic data for problems and incidents. To view this page, navigate to the SOA Infrastructure Home page, and from the SOA Infrastructure menu, select Diagnostics, then select Support Workbench.

Enter the credentials for the host on which the WebLogic server is running and the WebLogic credentials for the WebLogic server. Click Continue to log into the Support Workbench page. On this page, you can do the following:

• View problem or incident details.

• View, create, or modify incident packages.

• View health checker findings

• Close resolved problems.

For more details on using this feature, see the Enterprise Manager Online Help.

Troubleshooting

This section describes the errors you might encounter while discovering the SOA Suite 11g and the workaround steps you can follow to resolve each of them.

This section covers the following:

• Discovery

• Monitoring

• Instance Tracing

• Faults

• Application Dependency and Performance Integration

• Information Publisher Reports

• BI Publisher Reports

• Systems and Services

• BPEL Recovery

• SOA License Issue

• Dehydration Store Issue

New SOA Composite deployed on the SOA 
Server from JDeveloper are not 
displayed automatically in Enterprise 
Manager Cloud Control.

All metrics are not displayed.

Instance Tracing Job Fails

All instances with faults are not
populated in Enterprise Manager Cloud
Control. 

Missing ADP Data - Add the metrics - 
and add one for blank page.

Report generation fails due to invalid
database details.

No targets found message for Oracle
SOA Composite Reports.

Exception Encountered For One of SOA BIP Report If SOA Dehydration Is Not Configured

Create Service option does not work.

Refresh Service option does not work.

Invalid Host and WebLogic Domain Credentials

The page requested is part of the SOA Management Pack EE.

Data is not displayed in the Dehydration Store page.