5 Oracle Beehive Management and Administration Concepts

This module provides an overview of several concepts related to the management and administration of Oracle Beehive, and includes the following topics:

• Key Oracle Beehive System Management and Administration Features

• Tools for Oracle Beehive Administrators

• Management and Administration Domains and Activities in Oracle Beehive

Key Oracle Beehive System Management and Administration Features

Oracle Beehive provides the following key system management and administration features:

• Scriptable command-line administration with support for input file consumption

• Central configuration repository

• Hierarchical process control, configuration, and tuning

• Client provisioning and automatic remote updates

• Support for integration with existing Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) servers, facilitating flexible group and user provisioning and management

• Flexible quota management

• Audit and logging policies

• Log file management including rotation and disposition

• Centralized log repository with the ability to export log records

• Ability to configure trace parameters and trace repository, and export trace results

• Transaction-level error examination and identification, including linking trace errors to log records

Tools for Oracle Beehive Administrators

Oracle Beehive is a powerful and flexible platform that can be completely functional with a single Oracle Database instance. It can also seamlessly interoperate with other key technologies, such as LDAP and e-mail servers, and leverage the specialized capabilities that those solutions provide.

To manage this offering, administrators have several options, from tools that enable them to manage Oracle Beehive specifically, to the tools that are provided with and designed for the other supported components. Management tools for these supported components include Oracle Database Control and Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control, among others.

This section contains details on the tools that administrators can use to manage and monitor Oracle Beehive. For details on the tools that enable administrators to manage and monitor other supported components, please refer to the documentation provided with those components.

Oracle Beehive supports the following tools for administrators:

• The beectl Utility

• Oracle Beekeeper

• Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control

The beectl Utility

Oracle Beehive provides a command-line utility, beectl, for streamlined and automated execution of administrative functions. Administrators execute commands in a supported operating system shell. The utility provides visual enhancement features, such as column text-wrapping, staggering, and display width options as well as functional aids, such as search features for quick retrieval of commands.

The beectl utility provides the following modes of operation:

• Prompt mode: Enables administrators to issue one-time commands. Useful for writing custom scripts where the output from one command might impact later invocations.

• Shell mode: Enables administrators to set common options to avoid repeating them for every command. Provides slightly faster execution than prompt mode since common data structures are initialized once instead of repeatedly.

• File input mode: Enables administrators to specify a file or batch to execute commands. Provides faster execution since common data structures are initialized once. Executions will halt if any command fails although previously executed commands will not roll back unless explicitly requested using the -continue command.

The beectl utility is installed automatically with Oracle Beehive and does not require a separate desktop installation. The utility is located in the $ORACLE_HOME/beehive/bin directory and is accessible by the user account that was used to install Oracle Beehive.

Oracle Beekeeper

The Oracle Beehive administration client, Oracle Beekeeper, is a secure, browser-based client built on Oracle ADF Faces technology. Oracle Beekeeper provides Oracle Beehive administrators centralized and role-based access to system configuration and management, user and group administration, and monitoring functions.

Oracle Beekeeper provides a wide range of functions for managing Oracle Beehive, including those that are related to Oracle Application Server infrastructure components and Oracle Database. However, Oracle Beekeeper only supports elementary administrative functions for these underlying components, such as initial configuration functions. Advanced functions for these underlying components are provided through other tools.

Oracle Beekeeper requires a server-based installation that is separate from the Oracle Beehive installation. Oracle Beekeeper installation program is provided with the Oracle Beehive installation kit. Once installed and configured, administrators simply need to access the configured URL to launch Oracle Beekeeper, log on to the system, and access the administrative features and information that it provides. Oracle Beekeeper supports the Hypertext Transfer Protocol Over Secure Socket Layer (HTTPS) for secure communications.

Note:

For security reasons, Oracle strongly recommends using SSL encryption in your Oracle Beekeeper installation.

Oracle Beekeeper supports the following Web browsers in the Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X operating systems:

• Mozilla Firefox 2.0

• Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0

• Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0

Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control

Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control offers a centralized environment with which organizations can manage their complete Oracle IT infrastructure, including systems running Oracle and non-Oracle technologies. Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control provides a broad set of administration, configuration management, provisioning, end-to-end monitoring, and security capabilities.

With Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control, administrators can monitor Oracle Beehive availability, performance, and usage. Administrators can also define performance metrics and thresholds, and receive alerts when metrics exceed these thresholds.

Additionally, Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control can be used to install Oracle Beehive. This option requires the Oracle Beehive Provisioning Application, which is provided with Oracle Beehive. However, Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control is not provided with the Oracle Beehive media package and must be installed separately.

Oracle Beehive supports Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Release 4 Grid Control (10.2.0.4) and later.

Management and Administration Domains and Activities in Oracle Beehive

This section provides details on the following Oracle Beehive domains, components, and activities, of which administrators should be aware to successfully manage the system:

• Access Control

• Auditing

• Client and Device Applications

• Cloning

• Coexistence

• Configuration (General)

• Content

• Devices

• Enterprises and Organizations

• Messaging

• Policies

• Process Control

• Records Management

• Resources

• Search

• Subscriptions and Notifications

• System Information

• Time Management

• Users

• Workflows

• Workspaces

Access Control

Oracle Beehive provides a robust and highly-configurable model for controlling users' access to various system features and content such as files, folders, workspaces, and calendars. The Oracle Beehive model includes access control entries (ACEs), access control lists (ACLs), access control fields, access type names and identifiers, roles, and sensitivities.

Using the beectl command-line utility, administrators can manage these aspects of access control in the following ways:

• Access control fields for entities: List and modify access control fields for entities.

• Access type names and identifiers: List available access type names and identifiers.

• ACEs in local ACLs: Add, modify, list, and delete ACEs, in respect to the local ACLs of entities.

• ACEs in the ACLs of sensitivity entities: Add, modify, list, and delete ACEs, in respect to the ACLs of sensitivity entities.

• Assigned roles: Add, modify, list, and delete assigned roles.

• Delegated roles: Add, modify, list, and delete delegated roles.

• Role definitions: Add, modify, list, and delete role definitions.

• Sensitivities: Add, modify, list, and delete sensitivities.

Auditing

Oracle Beehive provides the Audit Service as part of the Audit Framework, which enables administrators to track system- and user-level activities for the purposes of increased security, compliance, and data integrity. This includes the ability to conduct focused user audits and other reporting options.

Using the beectl command-line utility, administrators can manage auditing in the following ways:

• Audit events: List audited events.

• Audit policies and audit policy templates: Add, modify, list, and delete audit policies and audit policy templates.

• Audit trails: Add, modify, export, list, and delete audit trails.

Client and Device Applications

Oracle Beehive supports a variety of client applications, including Oracle Beehive Integration for Outlook (OBIO), standards-based clients, and auto-attendants for supported phones and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) products.

Through its robust and granular support of client applications, Oracle Beehive simplifies and centralizes for administrators client application management. This includes the ability to manage application versions, patch sets, and the modules that they contain. This also includes the ability to manage client configurations through application configuration files.

Using the beectl command-line utility, administrators can manage client applications in the following ways:

• Auto-attendant prompts: Upload, list, and delete auto-attendant prompts.

• Auto-attendant documents: Print Auto-attendant Markup Language (AAML) documents.

• Auto-attendants: Add, modify, update, rename, list, and delete auto-attendants.

• Client application configurations: Create, download, upload, list, and delete client application configuration files.

• Client application modules: List client application modules.

• Client application patch sets and versions: List and delete client application patch sets and versions.

• Client applications: Provision, list, and delete client applications.

• Seeds for Internet Protocol (IP) phone password generators: Reset the seeds for IP phone password generators.

Cloning

Using the beectl command-line utility, administrators can clone existing Oracle Beehive Application Tier instances and OC4J instances.

Coexistence

Oracle Beehive supports coexistence with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, enabling users of Oracle Beehive and Microsoft Exchange Server to seamlessly collaborate using e-mail, time management features, and workspaces.

The Oracle Beehive coexistence solution leverages the Oracle Collaboration Coexistence Gateway, which provides, among other things, coexistence connectors between Oracle Beehive and Microsoft Exchange Server. Coexistence connectors handle all of the conversions, deliveries, and updates of e-mail, calendar entries, contacts, and user availability (free/busy) information between Oracle Beehive and Microsoft Exchange Server.

To implement the Oracle Beehive coexistence solution, administrators must add and configure coexistence connectors based on the requirements of their deployments. Typically, there is one connector between each Oracle Beehive server and Microsoft Exchange Server routing group.

Administrators must also provision user accounts to individual coexistence connectors. Each user account may only be provisioned to one connector. This requirement applies to all user accounts that want to leverage the coexistence solution, regardless of whether they are mastered in Oracle Beehive or Microsoft Exchange Server.

Using the beectl command-line utility, administrators can manage the following aspects of coexistence:

• Coexistence connectors: Add, modify, list, and delete coexistence connectors.

• Coexistence user accounts: Modify (provision and deprovision) and list coexistence user accounts.

Configuration (General)

Using the beectl command-line utility and the common framework for all services, administrators can configure the following aspects of the system:

• Components: List components.

• Component configuration: Activate, clear, list versions of, modify, and validate configurations for various components.

• Configuration repository: Modify and list the configurations of Oracle Beehive central configuration repositories.

• Connection pools: Modify and list connection pools.

• Database views and parameters: Modify Oracle Beehive-based views of databases and related parameters.

• DMZ configuration: Add Oracle Beehive DMZ instances.

• Port numbers: List and modify available port numbers.

• Properties: Modify, list, and delete properties.

• Property metadata: List metadata for properties.

• Search: Modify search configurations.

• Secure properties: Modify secure properties.

• Virus scan engine configuration: Add, delete, modify policies for, and test connectivity with virus scan engines.

Content

Oracle Beehive provides the Content Management Services, which support all aspects of file and document life cycle management, especially for unstructured content. Using the beectl command-line utility, administrators can manage content in the following ways:

• Documents: Import documents.

• File system directories: Add, list, and delete file system directories and other locations where BFILEs can be stored and accessed.

• File system directory references: Add, list, and delete references to file system directories and other locations where BFILEs can be stored and accessed.

Devices

Oracle Beehive supports a variety of mobile devices, and enables administrators to manage those devices centrally. Using the beectl command-line utility, administrators can manage user devices and related aspects in the following ways:

• Device commands: Add and list device commands.

• Device profiles: Upload, list, and delete device profiles.

• Device types: List and delete device types.

• Devices: List and block devices.

• Log files: Upload device log files.

• SyncML messages: Download SyncML messages from end-user sessions (for troubleshooting purposes).

Enterprises and Organizations

An enterprise is the container for all of the users, groups, and resources that are a part of a single Oracle Beehive instance. An enterprise is also the container for organizations, which are groups that are typically defined by a department, line of business, project, or other criteria.

Using the beectl command-line utility, administrators can manage enterprises and organizations in the following ways:

• Enterprises: List and modify an enterprise.

• Organizations: Add, modify, list, and delete organizations.

Messaging

Oracle Beehive provides a robust messaging framework that supports all messaging needs through a variety of channels including e-mail, faxes, instant messages, voicemail, and newsgroup discussions. Using the beectl command-line utility, administrators can manage the following aspects of messaging for the system:

• E-mail Service port numbers: Specify port numbers for the E-mail Service.

• E-mail Service queue: Enable or disable asynchronous queue processing for the E-mail Service.

For more information about managing these settings, see "Managing the E-mail Service" in the Oracle Beehive Administrator's Guide.

Policies

Oracle Beehive provides and supports templates that leverage XML-based schemas to define policies and apply them to business events. Using the beectl command-line utility, administrators can manage policies and their related aspects in the following ways:

• Policies (general): Add, download, modify, list, export, and delete policies.

• Policy actions: Add, list, and delete actions for policies.

• Policy schemas: Add, modify, list, and delete schemas for policies.

• Policy templates: Add, modify, list, and delete templates for policies.

• Events: List business events and event details, such as payload and current subscriptions.

Process Control

Oracle Beehive allows administrators to control system processes and related components such as service instances, OC4J instances, Oracle Beehive Infrastructure Monitors, and Oracle Beehive HTTP server components. Using the beectl command-line utility, administrators can start, restart, stop, shut down, and get the statuses of these and other processes and components.

Records Management

Oracle Beehive provides records management capabilities for documents and e-mail through the Records Management Service and integration with Oracle Universal Records Management (URM). Using the beectl command-line utility, administrators can manage the following aspects of records management:

• Configuration: Configure records management settings for documents and e-mail.

• Connections: Create and edit connections to URM instances.

• File plans: Retrieve and display file plans from URM instances.

• Policies: Create and edit records management policies.

Resources

Oracle Beehive supports resources, which typically include reservable, non-human entities such as meeting rooms, computers, projectors, and so forth. Using the beectl command-line utility, administrators can manage resources in the following ways:

• Resource root classifications: Modify resource root classifications.

• Resources: Add, modify, list, and delete resources.

Search

Oracle Beehive provides powerful search capabilities that enable users to search for content across artifacts, such as e-mail, calendar entries, and documents. Using the beectl command-line utility, administrators can start and stop search crawl processes for specific artifact types.

Subscriptions and Notifications

Oracle Beehive provides the Subscription and Notification Services, which support user- and administrator-defined subscriptions to business events and the resulting notifications through one or more channels. To help support and manage this wide-ranging and potentially complex offering, Oracle Beehive provides subscription and notification templates out of the box, which explicitly define the rules associated with each for defined events. Administrators can also upload new and updated templates, as needed. The system also provides commands for copying and cloning individual subscriptions.

Using the beectl command-line utility, administrators can manage the following aspects of subscriptions and notifications for the system:

• Notification templates: Upload user notification templates.

• Subscription templates: Upload user subscription templates.

• Subscriptions: Add, copy, clone, and modify user subscriptions.

System Information

Using the beectl command-line utility, administrators can perform the following system information-related tasks:

• Commands: List commands and the metadata for commands.

• Entity types: List supported entity types.

• Error codes: Export error codes and list error code catalogs.

• Logs: Export logs.

• Statistics: List statistics.

• Version: List Oracle Beehive version information.

Time Management

Oracle Beehive provides the Time Management Services, which support all aspects of calendar-based time and task management for the system. These services enable user and resource scheduling that is synchronized across global time zones. Using the beectl command-line utility, administrators can manage the following aspects of the time management features that the system provides:

• Calendars: List calendars.

• iCalendar files: Import and export iCalendar files.

• Task lists: List task lists.

• Time zones: Import, modify, and list time zones.

Users

Oracle Beehive enables administrators to easily and centrally manage users and their user accounts in many ways. This includes the ability to create user preference profiles and apply them to user accounts. User preference profiles consist of sets of predefined preferences or settings such as the maximum number of addresses allowed in a user's personal address book.

Using the beectl command-line utility, administrators can manage users in the following ways:

• Address counts: List and modify (set) maximum address counts.

• Coexistence users: Modify and list coexistence users.

• Custom attributes: Add, list, and delete custom user attributes.

• Directory profiles: Add, list, and delete directory profiles.

• External user data: Download user data from external directories.

• Groups: Add, modify, list, purge, and delete groups.

• Preference profiles: Add and list preference profiles.

• Preference properties: Add, list, and delete preference properties.

• Preference sets: Add, modify, list, and delete preference sets.

• Public user attributes: Add, list, and delete public user attributes.

• Users: Add, list, modify, purge, and delete users.

Workflows

Oracle Beehive supports workflows and other related aspects of integrations with Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) components. Oracle Beehive comes pre-bundled with one Oracle BPEL Process Manager instance that is configured with a few default workflows through the Workflow Service. Organizations also have the option to integrate Oracle Beehive with existing Oracle Beehive BPEL Process Manager instances. Organizations can also integrate their custom workflows with Oracle Beehive tasks.

Using the beectl command-line utility, administrators can manage the following aspects of workflows:

• Workflows: List, modify, and deploy BPEL workflows.

• Workflow schemas: Add, list, and delete workflow schemas.

• Workflow templates: Add, download, list, export, and delete workflow templates.

Workspaces

A workspace is a virtual location where Oracle Beehive users collaborate and create, view, manage, and search for the content related to their collaborative efforts. Each workspace is created for a particular purpose or objective such as for a project, a team, or a reoccurring activity.

Oracle Beehive provides workspace templates that leverage XML-based schemas to define the specific features, processes, and designs for workspaces. Workspace templates and their associated schemas provide convenient ways to apply properties that are specific to a company, group, project, or function.

Oracle Beehive workspaces support tags, which are predefined labels that administrators and users can apply to artifacts.

Using the beectl command-line utility, administrators can manage the following aspects of workspaces:

• Tags: Add, apply, delete, remove, and list tags in workspaces.

• Organizations: Add organizations to workspaces.

• Personal workspaces: Modify personal workspaces.

• Team workspaces: Add, delete, and modify team workspaces.

• Workspaces (general): List workspaces.

• Workspace templates: Add, delete, list, and modify workspace templates.

• Workspace template schemas: Download workspace template schemas.