Introduction to Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway

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 can be transformed into SOAP and REST based web services.

SOAP-based services are described in WSDLs and are deployed to the application server for service consumption. REST services described in WADLs are used for user-driven applications such as Oracle E-Business Suite mobile applications.

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

For more information on implementing and administering Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway and performing end-to-end integration activities, see the Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway Implementation Guide and the Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway Developer's Guide.

Major Features

Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway contains the following features:

• 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 interaction pattern for both SOAP-based and REST-based web services

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

• 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 execute administrative functions

• Provide centralized, user-friendly user interface for logging configuration

• Audit and monitor Oracle E-Business Suite service operations from native SOA Monitor

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

Business Process Scenario

Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway provides a seamless integration between various applications. Take the most common business process such as Order-to-Receipt as an example to further explain how discrete web services can be orchestrated into a standards-based manner and more meaningful end-to-end business flow.

Order-to-Receipt Business Flow Between Applications

The packaged application is used to capture the order. The legacy application is used to fulfill (pick and ship) the order. Oracle E-Business Suite is used to invoice the customer.

• Sales Order Entry: Packaged Application

• Item Availability Check: Legacy Application

• Pick, Pack and Ship : Legacy Application

• Invoicing and A/R: Oracle E-Business Suite

A complete Order-to-Receipt business flow may require to integrate with each of the above applications at different points. With Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway, the public integration interfaces of E-Business Suite can be exposed as standard web services.

Each individual business process mentioned here managed by packaged application, legacy application, and Oracle E-Business Suite can be orchestrated using Oracle BPEL Process Manger (PM) to streamline the Order-to-Receipt business process.

Process Integration Within Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway

Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway Architecture Overview

Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway employs essential key components that enable service integration at design time and runtime, and ease the service management throughout the entire service integration and deployment life cycle.

The seamless integration between each component forms the Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway architecture.

The following diagram illustrates the integration architecture flow between each component:

All the native packaged public integration interfaces are published in the Oracle Integration Repository by default. Integration repository administrators can then transform these native integration interfaces into web services through service generator. Service loader uploads service artifacts to Oracle Integration Repository. Service deployer deploys service artifacts from the Integration Repository to the application server where services can be exposed to customers through service provider.

Service provider identifies and processes inbound SOAP requests from service consumers, reinforces function security and web service security, as well as passes all SOAP request and response messages to SOA Monitor (if the monitoring feature is enabled) for further monitoring SOAP messages to ensure the seamless service invocations throughout the entire service life cycle.

For composite services, system integration developers orchestrate composite services using Oracle JDeveloper. Service loader then uploads these service artifacts to Oracle Integration Repository. Users granted with the Download Composite Service privilege can further download the BPEL files to their local directories. Integration repository developers can open the downloaded BPEL files in Oracle JDeveloper, modify and deploy them if needed. Oracle BPEL Process Manager (BPEL PM) or 3rd party J2EE BPEL PM will then pick up deployed composite services which can be invoked from the Oracle E-Business Suite.

Note: Unlike native services that they are deployed directly from the Oracle Integration Repository user interfaces, composite services are typically not deployed within Oracle E-Business Suite like those of other service enabled interface types. For example, a composite service - BPEL type can be deployed to a BPEL server in Oracle SOA Suite BPEL PM (Process Manager) or a third party BPEL PM in a J2EE environment. This deployed composite service - BPEL project can interact with Oracle E-Business Suite and update the data if necessary.

Oracle E-Business Suite Web Service Development Life Cycle

Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway provides a capability of allowing various users to perform different tasks and to monitor and manage service integration throughout the entire service deployment life cycle.

• At development phase, users who have the System Integration Developer role can create custom interfaces, and annotate custom interface's definitions. Users who have the Integration Repository Administrator role can validate and upload annotated custom interfaces to the Integration Repository where all the registered interfaces, regardless of custom or Oracle packaged ones, can be viewed and accessed by all users.

• At design time, users who have the Integration Repository Administrator role can generate SOAP services, and deploy the generated services by attaching an appropriate security policy. For interfaces can be exposed as REST services, the administrators can deploy and undeploy REST services.

• At runtime, web service clients send request messages to invoke Oracle E-Business Suite services enabled through ISG's SOA Provider. After authenticating and authorizing the users who request the services, services can be invoked.

  Users who have the Integration Repository Administrator role are responsible for monitoring and managing the entire service deployment life cycle.