9 Configuring BPEL Process Service Components and Engines

This chapter describes how to configure BPEL process service components and service engines.

This chapter includes the following topic:

• Section 9.1, "Configuring BPEL Process Service Engine Properties"

• Section 9.2, "Setting the Audit Level at the BPEL Process Service Component Level"

9.1 Configuring BPEL Process Service Engine Properties

You can configure BPEL process service engine properties. The properties are used by the BPEL process service engine during processing of BPEL service components.

To configure BPEL process service engine properties:

1. Access this page through one of the following options:

   From the SOA Infrastructure Menu...	From the SOA Folder in the Navigator...
   Select SOA Administration > BPEL Properties.	Right-click soa-infra. Select SOA Administration > BPEL Properties.

   
   

   The BPEL Service Engine Properties page displays properties for setting audit trail and large document thresholds, setting dispatcher thread properties, validating payload schema, and setting the audit trail level.

   
   Description of the illustration soaadmin_bpel_props.gif
   
   

2. Make changes to the service engine properties that are appropriate to your environment.

   Property	Description
   Audit Level	Select one of the following options: Off: Composite instance tracking and payload tracking information is not collected. Inherit: Logging equals the SOA Infrastructure audit level. This setting enables the BPEL audit level to automatically change when the global setting is changed. Setting a different audit level tracking in this page overrides the tracking set at the SOA Infrastructure level. Minimal: The BPEL service engine does not capture any audit details. Therefore, they are not available in the flow audit trails. All other events are logged. Production: The BPEL service engine does not capture the payload. The payload details are not available in the flow audit trails. Payload details for other BPEL activities are collected, except for assign activities. This level is optimal for most normal operations and testing. Development: Allows both composite instance tracking and payload tracking. All events are logged. However, it may impact performance. This level is useful mostly for debugging purposes.
   Audit Trail Threshold	Enter the maximum size in bytes of an instance audit trail before it is chunked and saved in a dehydration store table separate from the audit trail. If the threshold is exceeded, the View XML link is shown in the audit trail instead of the payload.
   Large Document Threshold	Enter the maximum size of a generated document within a BPEL process component instance before it is stored in a separate table in the dehydration store.
   Dispatcher System Threads	Specify the total number of threads allocated to process system dispatcher messages. System dispatcher messages are general clean-up tasks that are typically processed quickly by the server (for example, releasing stateful message beans back to the pool). Typically, only a small number of threads are required to handle the number of system dispatch messages generated during run time. The default value is 2 threads. Any value less than 1 thread is changed to the default.
   Dispatcher Invoke Threads	Specify the total number of threads allocated to process invocation dispatcher messages. Invocation dispatcher messages are generated for each payload received and are meant to instantiate a new instance. If the majority of requests processed by the engine are instance invocations (as opposed to instance callbacks), greater performance may be achieved by increasing the number of invocation threads. Higher thread counts may cause greater CPU utilization due to higher context switching costs. The default value is 20 threads. Any value less than 1 thread is changed to the default.
   Dispatcher Engine Threads	Specify the total number of threads allocated to process engine dispatcher messages. Engine dispatcher messages are generated whenever an activity must be processed asynchronously. If the majority of processes deployed are durable with a large number of dehydration points (midprocess receive, onMessage, onAlarm, and wait activities), greater performance may be achieved by increasing the number of engine threads. Note that higher thread counts can cause greater CPU utilization due to higher context switching costs. The default value is 30 threads. Any value less than 1 thread is changed to the default.
   Payload Validation	Select to enable validation of inbound and outbound messages. Nonschema-compliant payload data is intercepted and displayed as a fault. Note: This setting is independent of the SOA composite application and SOA Infrastructure payload validation level settings. If payload validation is enabled at both the service engine and SOA Infrastructure levels, data is checked twice: once when it enters the SOA Infrastructure, and again when it enters the service engine.
   Disable BPEL Monitors and Sensors	Select this check box to disable all BPEL monitors and sensors defined for all BPEL components across all deployed SOA composite applications.

   
   

3. Click Apply.

4. If you want to configure advanced BPEL properties in the System MBean Browser, click More BPEL Configuration Properties. Properties that display include the following. Descriptions are provided for each property.

   • BpelcClasspath — The extra BPEL class path to include when compiling BPEL-generated Java sources.

   • ExpirationMaxRetry — The maximum number of times a failed expiration call (wait/onAlarm) is retried before failing.

   • ExpirationRetryDelay — The delay between expiration retries.

   • InstanceKeyBlockSize — The size of the block of instance IDs to allocate from the dehydration store during each fetch.

   • MaximumNumberOfInvokeMessagesInCache — The number of invoke messages stored in in-memory cache.

   • OneWayDeliveryPolicy — Changes whether one-way invocation messages are delivered.

   • StatsLastN — The size of the most recently processed request list.

   • SyncMaxWaitTime — The maximum time a request and response operation takes before timing out.

5. Make changes appropriate to your environment.

9.2 Setting the Audit Level at the BPEL Process Service Component Level

You can set the audit level for a BPEL process service component. This setting takes precedence over audit level settings at the SOA Infrastructure, service engine, and SOA composite application levels. The service component level setting is only available for BPEL processes and is not supported for the mediator, human workflow, and business rule service components.

There are two ways to set the audit level for BPEL process service components. Supported values are Off, Minimal, Inherit, Development, and Production.

• In the System MBean Browser of Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control Console:

  1. In the navigation tree, expand the SOA folder.

  2. Right-click soa-infra, and select Administration > System MBean Browser.

  3. Select Application Defined MBeans > oracle.soa.config > Server: server_name > SCAComposite > Composite_Name > SCAComposite.SCAComponent > BPEL_Service_Component > Properties.

  4. Click the Add icon.

  5. Expand the Element_number folder.

  6. From the many list, select false.

  7. In the name field, enter bpel.config.auditlevel.

  8. In the value field, enter a value.

  9. Click Apply.

• In Oracle JDeveloper:

  1. Set the bpel.config.auditLevel property to an appropriate value in the composite.xml file of your SOA project.

     <component name="BPELProcess"> 
        <implementation.bpel src="BPELProcess.bpel" /> 
        <property name="bpel.config.auditLevel">Off</property> 
     </component>
     

For more information about audit levels, see Section 1.3.1.1, "Understanding the Order of Precedence for Audit Level Settings."