Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway Overview

Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway Overview

Building on top of Oracle Fusion Middleware and service-oriented architecture (SOA) technology, Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway (ISG) is a complete set of service infrastructure to provide, consume, and administer Oracle E-Business Suite web services.

With service enablement feature, integration interfaces published in the Oracle Integration Repository, an essential component in ISG, can be transformed into SOAP-based and REST-based web services.

• By leveraging Oracle SOA Suite running on Oracle WebLogic Server, ISG can expose various integration interfaces within Oracle E-Business Suite as SOAP-based web services. These SOAP services described in WSDLs are deployed to Oracle SOA Suite for service consumption.

• Without the dependency on Oracle SOA Suite, REST-based services provided through ISG are developed with the infrastructure of Oracle E-Business Suite. REST services described in WADLs are directly deployed to an Oracle E-Business Suite WebLogic environment. They can be used for user-driven applications such as Oracle E-Business Suite mobile applications.

Additionally, Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway provides Service Invocation Framework to invoke and consume web services provided by other applications.

Major Features

Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway can do the following:

• Display all Oracle E-Business Suite integration interface definitions through Oracle Integration Repository

• Support custom integration interfaces from Oracle Integration Repository

• Provide service enablement capability (SOAP and REST services) for seeded and custom integration interfaces within Oracle E-Business Suite

• Use the Integration Repository user interface to perform design-time activities such as generate and deploy Oracle E-Business Suite web services

• Support synchronous and asynchronous (callback without acknowledgement only) interaction patterns for SOAP-based web services

  Note: In this release, only PL/SQL APIs can be enabled with the support for asynchronous service pattern.

• Support synchronous interaction pattern for REST-based web services

  Note: In this release, only PL/SQL APIs, Concurrent Programs, Business Service Objects, Java Bean Services, Application Module Services, Open Interface Tables, and Open Interface Views can be exposed as REST services.

• Support multiple authentication types for inbound service requests in securing web service content

• Enforce function security and role-based access control security to allow only authorized users to process administrative functions

• Provide centralized, user-friendly logging configuration for web services generated through the service provider of Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway

• Audit and monitor Oracle E-Business Suite inbound service operations from Service Monitor

• Audit and monitor outbound service invocations from Oracle E-Business Suite through Service Invocation Monitor

• Leverage Oracle Workflow Business Event System to enable web service invocation from Oracle E-Business Suite

Major Components Features and Definitions

To better understand Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway and its key components, this section describes some key features and the definition of each component.

Enabling Oracle E-Business Suite Web Services

Service enablement is the key feature within Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway. It provides a mechanism that allows native packaged integration interface definitions resided in Oracle Integration Repository to be transformed into web services. SOAP services are deployed from the Integration Repository to Oracle SOA Suite allowing more consumptions over the web. REST services are deployed to Oracle E-Business Suite.

The basic concept of web service components is illustrated in the following diagram:

Web Service Components

• Service Provider is the primary engine underlying the web services. It acts as a bridge between Oracle E-Business Suite and Oracle SOA Suite to facilitate the service enablement for various types of Oracle E-Business Suite interfaces.

  Note: In earlier Oracle E-Business Suite Releases, SOA Provider and Web Service Provider were used in enabling Oracle E-Business Suite web services. In the Release 12.2, Service Provider is the engine for service enablement.

  Service Provider leverages Oracle SOA Suite for provisioning Oracle E-Business Suite SOAP-based services. It is the engine that performs the actual service generation and deployment behind the scene.

• Service Consumer (Web Service Client) is the party that uses or consumes the services provided by the Service Provider.

• Service Broker (Service Registry) describes the service's location and contract to ensure service information is available to potential service consumers.

Oracle Integration Repository and Service Enablement

Oracle Integration Repository, an integral part of Oracle E-Business Suite, is the centralized repository that contains numerous interface endpoints exposed by applications within the Oracle E-Business Suite. It supports the following interface types:

• PL/SQL

• XML Gateway

• Concurrent Programs

• Business Events

• Interface Tables/Views

• EDI

• Business Service Object (Service Beans)

• Java

  Apart from normal Java APIs, Java interface includes the following subcategories:

  • Application Module Services

    Note: Application Module Implementation class is a Java class that provides access to business logic governing the OA Framework based components and pages. Such Java classes are called Application Module Services and are categorized as a subtype of Java interface.

  • Java Bean Services

    Note: Java APIs whose methods use parameters of either simple data types or serializable Java Beans are categorized as Java Bean Services. Such Java APIs can be exposed as REST-based web services.

  • Security Services

    Note: Security Services are a set of predefined and pre-deployed REST services from Oracle Application Object Library. These services include Authentication and Authorization services for mobile applications. These services are built on Java; therefore, they are categorized as a subtype of Java interface.

  Note that Java APIs for Forms are not serviceable interfaces and cannot be exposed as SOAP services. Refer to My Oracle Support Knowledge Document 966982.1 for the suggested alternatives to the existing Java APIs for Forms interfaces.

• Composite Interfaces

Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway leverages Oracle Integration Repository to provide the capabilities of web service generation and deployment, as well as managing the service development life cycle.

Note: Not all the interface types resided in the Integration Repository can be service enabled. The supported interface types for service enablement are XML Gateway, PL/SQL, Concurrent Program, Business Service Object, Java Bean Services, Open Interface Tables, and Open Interface Views.

As mentioned earlier, security services are predeployed REST services from Oracle Application Object Library. There is no need to enable the security services from Integration Repository as required by other supported interface types.

Service Invocation Framework

Service Invocation Framework (SIF) leverages Oracle Workflow Java Business Event System (JBES) and a seeded Java rule function to invoke SOAP and REST services from Oracle E-Business Suite.

It provides an infrastructure allowing developers to interact with SOAP and REST services through service endpoint descriptions.

For more information about how to invoke services using the Service Invocation Framework, see:

• Using Service Invocation Framework to Invoke SOAP Services

• Using Service Invocation Framework to Invoke REST Services

Service Monitor

Service Monitor known as SOA Monitor is a light-weight service monitoring and management tool.

Service Monitor fetches data and statistics for each instance of a service request and response and lets administrators monitor all inbound Oracle E-Business Suite service invocations provided through Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway. Use Service Monitor to view the runtime request and response data received and sent directly to Oracle E-Business Suite for REST services and the runtime messages passed through Oracle SOA Suite for SOAP services.

For more information about Service Monitor, see Monitoring and Managing Inbound Service Invocation Messages Using Service Monitor, Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway Implementation Guide.

Service Invocation Monitor

Service Invocation Monitor is also a service monitoring and management tool. It tracks all outbound service invocations from Oracle E-Business Suite through Service Invocation Framework.

For more information about Service Invocation Monitor, see Monitoring and Managing Outbound Service Invocation Messages Using Service Invocation Monitor, Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway Implementation Guide.

Web Service Security

Oracle E-Business Suite integrated SOA Gateway enforces the security rules through subject authentication and authorization:

• To authenticate users who request Oracle E-Business Suite web services, the request messages must be checked based on the selected authentication type:

  • The SOAP messages must be authenticated using UsernameToken or SAML Token security. The identified authentication information is embedded in the wsse:security Web Security headers.

  • The REST messages are authenticated using HTTP Basic Authentication or Token Based Authentication at HTTP or HTTPS transport level.

• To authorize users on specific services or operations, the access permissions must be explicitly given to the users through security grants. Multiple organization access control (MOAC) security rule is also implemented for authorizing interface access related to multiple organizations.

Additionally, input message header (such as SOAHeader for SOAP services or RESTHeader for REST services) is used to pass application contexts needed in invoking Oracle E-Business Suite services as part of the subject authorization.