Musings about Oracle SOA Suite 11G

A little over a year ago I undertook a project to migrate a customer of mine from Cape Clear to a new solution. The solution chosen was Oracle Fusion Middleware and more specifically we settled on the Oracle SOA Suite 11G. With no training, great assistance by Oracle Product Management and lot of trial and error we were able to get SCA composites with BPEL components developed within a 1.5-2 month time frame. Like most SOA Platforms, the secret was not so much in the development but more so in the runtime and tuning. Like most BPEL engines, this one was no different in that the Database and its proper configuration required great effort on the part of Oracle support and my clients DBA and WLS experts. The migration took approximately 10 months. So what did I learn?

- Development with Web Service standards is a significant time saver.
- We struggled with where the rubber meets the road.
-- JMS Adapter configuration within the container to integrate to a non-certified JMS Provider.
-- Oracle RAC Tuning and Configuration for SOA Suite specifically
-- WLS Tuning and Configuration for SOA Suite specifically

So in the end migration if planned properly can be done, but always leave extra time for the tuning and performance testing.

Oracle vs. Open Source

With all the clients we work with, HKM has to be flexible to meet their budgetary needs. Some of our clients will have enterprise agreements and others are just starting. To this end, open source is the defacto starting point for many. Over the next several months I will be diving into the Apache solutions to a take another peak at the most recent Apache CXF, Camel and Ode. I am specifically interested in Ode to see how it has progressed from when I tried it 2 years ago and how close these solutions are to Oracle SOA Suite and other traditional vendors.