Introducing Oracle Tuxedo

The following sections describe the architecture and major features of the Oracle Tuxedo product:

•	What is Oracle Tuxedo?

•	A Brief History of the Tuxedo System

•	Support for Industry Standards

•	Support for Popular Platforms

•	Support for Multiple Programming Models and Languages

•	Mission-Critical Software

•	Distributed Transaction Management

•	Scalability and Performance

•	High Availability and Fault Management

•

Security

•	Management Tools

•	Client and Server Components

•	Invocation Capabilities

•

Domains

•	Oracle Tuxedo Product Family

What is Oracle Tuxedo?

Oracle Tuxedo provides the framework, or middleware, for building scalable multi-tier client/server applications in heterogeneous (dissimilar), distributed environments that extend from the Web to the Enterprise. Using Oracle Tuxedo, users can develop, manage, and deploy distributed applications independently of the underlying hardware, operating system, network, and database environment.

As indicated in the following figure, middleware consists of software services that exist between a client or server application and the operating system and network services on a system node in the network.

Figure 1‑1 Use of Middleware

Middleware services provide a more functional set of application programming interfaces (API) than the operating system and network services. A main purpose of middleware services is to help solve application connectivity and interoperability problems.

Oracle Tuxedo offers the following middleware services:

•	An ATMI programming interface

ATMI, for Application-to-Transaction Monitor Interface, is the main API for the Tuxedo system. It includes transaction management functions (routines, verbs); request/response, conversational, queuing, and publish-and-subscribe message-handling functions; service interface functions; and buffer management functions for distributed application communication.

•	A CORBA programming interface

CORBA, for Common Object Request Broker Architecture, is a language-independent, distributed-object model specified by the Object Management Group (OMG). The CORBA programming interface consists of C++ and Java ORBs. An ORB, or Object Request Broker, is a library that enables CORBA objects to locate and communicate with one another.

Note:

The Oracle Tuxedo CORBA Java client and Oracle Tuxedo CORBA Java client ORB were deprecated in Tuxedo 8.1 and are no longer supported. All Oracle Tuxedo CORBA Java client and Oracle Tuxedo CORBA Java client ORB text references, associated code samples, should only be used to help implement/run third party Java ORB libraries, and for programmer reference only.

Technical support for third party CORBA Java ORBs should be provided by their respective vendors. Oracle Tuxedo does not provide any technical support or documentation for third party CORBA Java ORBs.

•	A high-performance transaction processing application server

The transaction processing application server oversees all aspects of a distributed ATMI transaction, regardless of the systems or resource managers used. It provides the run-time engines for running ATMI transactions on top of ordinary computer hardware and operating systems.

•	A high-performance object application server

The object application server, based on the CORBA Object Transaction Service (OTS), combines the Tuxedo ATMI transaction processing technology with the Oracle CORBA C++ ORB to provide high performance for distributed-object applications using transactions.

Oracle Tuxedo includes the ATMI services and CORBA C++ objects needed for transaction management, security, message transport, administration and manageability, and XA-compliant database support for two-phase commit processing. It also includes a high-speed, highly reliable server-side message switch especially tuned for handling distributed transactions across many server machines.

A Brief History of the Tuxedo System

Oracle Tuxedo is a proven, mature system spanning over 20 years of continuous development and enhancement:

•	In 1983, the Tuxedo system began as an applied, forward-looking work project within the Bell Laboratories division of AT&T. The target applications for the Tuxedo system were UNIX-based operations support systems within AT&T.

•	In 1989, the Tuxedo system was transferred to the UNIX System Laboratories (USL) division of AT&T, and its client/server framework was offered as a commercial product.

•	In 1993, the Tuxedo system was transferred to Novell, Inc., when Novell acquired USL in 1993.

•	In 1996, BEA Systems, Inc., entered into an exclusive agreement with Novell to distribute and continue development of the Tuxedo system on a variety of computer platforms, including Windows and most UNIX systems.

•	In 2008, Tuxedo became Oracle product along with all other BEA Systems products.

Releases 1.0 Through 7.1

From release 1.0 in 1983 through release 7.1 in 2000, the Tuxedo system was extended and enhanced in a number of significant ways, always with the intent of making communication between client and server processes easier and more flexible. The Tuxedo system evolved into the de facto standard for open (open standard) online transaction processing (OLTP) solutions.

Release 4.0 introduced the ATMI API and transaction processing. Release 5.0 introduced the Domains component, which provided for the federation of Tuxedo applications and inter-application transaction processing. Release 7.1 introduced a security plug-in architecture, which allowed for the installation of third-party security systems.

Release 7.1 also introduced multithreading and multicontexting—ATMI functions that enabled programmers to write multithreaded and/or multicontexted application clients and servers—and XML buffer support—the ability to use extensible markup language (XML) typed buffers to exchange XML data within and between ATMI applications. In release 7.1, the Oracle Jolt product was bundled with Oracle Tuxedo for the first time.

For an overview of Oracle Tuxedo ATMI, see Chapter 2, Oracle Tuxedo ATMI Core Components

Release 8.0

Release 8.0 introduced the Oracle CORBA API and CORBA Object Transaction Monitor (OTM) capability. The CORBA OTM combined the advantages of a CORBA-compliant programming model with the proven power and reliability of the Oracle Tuxedo core technology infrastructure.

For an overview of Oracle Tuxedo CORBA, see Chapter 3, Oracle Tuxedo CORBA Components

Release 8.1

Release 8.1 introduced the following features and enhancements:

•	Localization enhancements

Enables customers to install and interface with the Tuxedo system in English or Japanese.

•	Multibyte character encoding

Provides a new ATMI application typed buffer to handle multibyte character encoding.

•	XML parser integration

Incorporates the Apache Xerces C++ Version 1.7 parser into Tuxedo for use by customer applications to read and write XML data.

•	Single point security administration

Enables customers to use the Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console to administer security for both Oracle Tuxedo and Oracle WebLogic Server.

•	Domain gateway performance improvement

Improves the performance of the Tuxedo domain gateway process without any changes in the user interface.

•	Remote domain connection policy

Changes the behavior of the ON_STARTUP type connection policy of the Tuxedo domain gateway process to allow customers to selectively establish connections on a per remote domain basis.

•	Domains keepalive

Keeps interdomain connections open through firewalls during extended periods of no application activity and enables the Tuxedo domain gateway process to quickly detect interdomain connection failures.

•	Multithreaded bridge

Allows users to configure the Tuxedo Bridge process for multithreaded execution (as opposed to single-threaded execution) to improve Bridge performance.

•	Parameter length expansion

Increases the maximum allowable length of certain Tuxedo configuration parameters from 64 or 78 characters to 256 characters.

•	Global maximum transaction timeout

Adds a global maximum transaction timeout parameter to cap ATMI transaction timeout values that are excessively long.

•	Enhanced CORBA C++ client ORB

Enables CORBA C++ clients to participate in global transactions with WebLogic Server application servers in the same way that WebLogic Server T3 clients do.

In addition, both the Oracle Jolt product and the Oracle SNMP Agent product are bundled with Oracle Tuxedo 8.1. For details about the new features and enhancements offered by Oracle Tuxedo 8.1, see the Oracle Tuxedo Release Notes.

Release 9.0

Release 9.0 introduced the following features and enhancements:

•	Enhanced Web Services

Provides XML schema and transformation (XML to and from FML) support. Also provides a Tuxedo service metadata repository that provides access to Tuxedo service definitions. It is designed to process interactive queries by developers and administrators during application development or modification, and is not designed for the processing of high volumes of automated queries during the application production phase.

•	Domain Gateway performance improvements

•	Infrastructure improvements in the following areas:

•	Timeout controls

•	Domain connection policies

•	CORBA IIOP client failover.

•

Security

•	Cert-C PKI Plug-in security for data protection and non-repudiation

•	Kerberos authentication support

•	Tuxedo .NET Workstation Client support

The Tuxedo .NET workstation client provides customers with access to the Tuxedo system using the .NET Framework environment. It is implemented as a set of APIs and development utilities for developers.

In addition, both the Oracle Jolt product and the Oracle SNMP Agent product are bundled with Oracle Tuxedo 9.0. For details about the new features and enhancements offered by Oracle Tuxedo 9.0, see the Oracle Tuxedo Release Notes and the What’s New link on the Oracle Tuxedo Documentation page.

Release 9.1

Release 9.1 introduced the following features and enhancements:

•	Oracle RAC Support

Supports clustering of machines that utilize replicated Oracle database services accessing the same Oracle database. For more information, see Using Tuxedo with Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) in Setting Up an Oracle Tuxedo Application.

•	Tuxedo .NET Workstation Client

A facilitating tool that helps to efficiently develop Tuxedo .NET Workstation Client applications leveraging the benefit of Microsoft’s .NET Framework. For more information, see Creating Tuxedo .NET Workstation Client Applications in Using the Tuxedo .NET Workstation Client.

•	Remote Desktop Enhancement

Allows Tuxedo to start up, be accessed and shut down using MS Windows Remote Desktop.

•	Performance Enhancements

•	TDomain transaction performance enhancement

•	Memory usage enhancement

•	CORBA/Java interoperability hardening

•	Customer Enhancements

•	TPESYSTEM enhancement

•	TPEXIT enhancement

•	Increased RDOMS enhancement

Release 10.0

Release 10.0 introduced the following new features and enhancements:

•	Oracle Tuxedo System and Application Monitor (TSAM) Agent

Oracle TSAM provides comprehensive monitoring and reporting for Oracle Tuxedo system and applications. It includes two components: Oracle TSAM Agent and Oracle TSAM Manager.

The Oracle TSAM Agent enables collection of various performance metrics for applications, including XA and non-XA transactions, services, system servers. The Oracle TSAM Agent provides an open plug-in framework which can be used to customize performance metrics collection and send this information to management tools other than the Oracle TSAM Manager.

The Oracle TSAM Agent can be used in conjunction with the Oracle TSAM Manager. The Oracle TSAM Manager provides a graphical user interface to correlate and aggregate performance metrics collected from one or more Tuxedo domains. It displays the information in real time.

•	SSL Support for ATMI applications

This feature provides support for SSL encryption over all network links in Tuxedo where LLE encryption is available. For more in formation, see Introducing ATMI Security, in “Using Security in ATMI Applications.”

•	MQ Adapter

The MQ Adapter provides bi-directional, transactional connectivity to and from WebSphere MQSeries. For more information, see Running the Tuxedo MQ Adapter.

•	Generic AUTHSVR

Generic AUTHSVR is a new Tuxedo system server (GAUTHSVR) that enables Tuxedo users to be authenticated with LDAP based directory servers without need to write custom code. For more information, see Implementing Single Point Security Administration, in “Using Security in ATMI Applications.”

•

DoS

Provides Tuxedo TDomain domain gateway features used to defend against DoS attacks, and Tuxedo Domain improved password pair configuration flexibility. For more information, see Introducing ATMI Security in “Using Security in ATMI Applications.”

•	Integrating ACUCOBOL in buildclient/buildserver.

In Tuxedo 10.0, buildclient/buildserver can accept COBOL source files and generate C stub code automatically using ACUCOBOL compiler version 6.2.0 or above.

•	OpenLDAP for X.509 Certificate Lookup.

Tuxedo 10.0 PKI plug-in added support for OpenLDAP for X.509 certificate lookup. For more information, see Administering Security,Cert-C PKI Encryption Plug-In Configuration, Configure Certificate Lookup in “Using Security in ATMI Applications.”

Release 10g Release 3 (10.3)

Release 10gR3 introduced the following new features and enhancements:

•	IPv6 Support

IPv6 is the next generation protocol designed by the IETF to replace the current version Internet Protocol, IP Version 4 (IPv4). The most obvious improvement in IPv6 over the IPv4 is that IP addresses are lengthened from 32 bits to 128 bits. It also adds many improvements to IPv4 in areas such as routing and network autoconfiguration.

For more information on using IPv6 with Oracle Tuxedo 10gR3, see Enabling IPv6 in the Oracle Tuxedo Programming Guide.

•	Application-Created Context in ATMI Server

Two new APIs, tpappthrinit(3c) and tpappthrterm(3c) are provided for application-created thread in ATMI server to create and terminate separate Tuxedo context. In context created using tpappthrinit(3c), the application-created server thread can initiate service requests and define transactions.

For more information, see Programming a Multithreaded and Multicontexted ATMI Application in the Oracle Tuxedo Administration Guide.

•	Oracle Tuxedo Access Log

Assists Tuxedo client administrators to monitor application validity at runtime. You can record application high water client count, current client count, and named users.

•	Enhancements

•	CLOPT length

Increased from 256 to 1024.

•	FML field length

Increased from 30 to 254.

•	tlisten password encryption

tlisten.pw file is system-encrypted. To change password, you must use tlistpwd(1).

•	Dynamic DMIB Update

Allows re-configuring the listening address of the remote domain gateway without shutting down the local domain.

•	Domain Gateway Persistent Disconnect

Local domain with a PERSISTENT_DISCONNECT connection policy will neither connect to nor accept connect request from any remote domain.

Release 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.1.0)

Release 11gR1 introduced the following features and enhancements:

•	Client/Server Affinity

The Oracle Tuxedo Client/Server Affinity feature provides the flexibility to set up a simple session-aware application model. It creates a "virtual" request routing scope using the Oracle Tuxedo ATMI RPC infrastructure. When a session is established, all subsequent calls are impacted by the routing scope until the session is terminated (explicitly or implicitly). With Client/Server Affinity, you can retain session context resources inside the client/server affinity scope.

•	Extended ATMI Service Name Length

The maximum Oracle Tuxedo ATMI service name length is increased to 127 characters.

•	Enhancements

•	Domain retries connection establishment after incorrect password failure

When configured, ON_STARTUP domain gateway continuously re-tries to establish connection to remote domain when domain password pair validation fails.

•	Flexibility to run Oracle Tuxedo as user other than administrator on Microsoft Windows

If configured in Microsoft Windows, processes booted in an Oracle Tuxedo domain are owned by the user who executed the tmboot command, instead of the user who starts the TUXIPC system service.

Release 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.2.0)

Release 11gR1 (11.1.1.2.0) introduced the following new features and enhancements:

•	Oracle Tuxedo Group Multiple Resource Managers

Oracle Tuxedo now supports multiple Resource Managers (RMs) in one group, so every group application server has the ability to communicate with multiple RMs in one global transaction. For more information, see the Oracle Tuxedo ATMI COBOL Function Reference, Oracle Tuxedo ATMI C Function Reference, Oracle Tuxedo File Formats, and Data Descriptions, MIBs, and System Processes Reference..

•	Nested Views

Previous Oracle Tuxedo releases have supported views. In Release 11.1.1.2.0 view functionality has been extedned to support nested views. For more information, see Managing Typed Buffers in Programming an Oracle Tuxedo ATMI Application Using C.

Release 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.3.0)

Release 11gR1 (11.1.1.3.0), the current Oracle Tuxedo product, introduces the following new features and enhancements:

•	Oracle Tuxedo Exalogic Improvements

•	Self-tuning Locking Mechanism

Allows you to dynamically tune SPINCOUNT while taking the runtime environment into consideration, thus improve performance especially when there are heavy load on the system using XA without administrator configure SPINCOUNT with a static value.

For more information, see Oracle Tuxedo/Oracle Exalogic Users Guide and File Formats, Data Descriptions, MIBs, and System Processes Reference in the Oracle Tuxedo Reference Guide.

•	Direct Cross Node Communication Leveraging RDMA

In Oracle Tuxedo applications, processes on separate machines communicate with each other through bridge processes using a socket. The communication between bridges can be considerably slow.

This feature utilizes RMDA through which processes on separate Exalogic machines can communicate with each other directly. If Oracle Tuxedo application processes use RDMA instead of bridge processes overall performance is improved.

For more information, see Oracle Tuxedo/Oracle Exalogic Users Guide

•	SDP Support in Oracle Tuxedo

This feature allows Oracle Tuxedo user to configure which protocol to use, either SDP or normal TCP between Oracle Tuxedo components including Domain gateware, bridge, work station client and WSH, Jolt client and JSH t to leverage the advantages Exalogic provides such as high bandwidth, low latency as well as reduced CPU involvement.

For more information, see File Formats, Data Descriptions, MIBs, and System Processes Reference, Command Reference, and ATMI C Function Reference in the Oracle Tuxedo Reference Guide. Also, Configuring the Oracle Jolt System in Using Oracle Jolt in the Oracle Tuxedo Users Guide.

•	TLOG Information To Oracle Database

Allows you the flexibility of using an Oracle database instead of file system to store the TLOG. You can also leverage various high availability Oracle database features in disaster recovery as needed.

For more information, see About Transactions in Setting Up an Oracle Tuxedo Application in the Oracle Tuxedo Users Guide, File Formats, Data Descriptions, MIBs, and System Processes Reference and Command Reference in the Oracle Tuxedo Reference Guide.

Support for Industry Standards

The Oracle Tuxedo system complies with the Open Group’s X/Open standards, including support of the XA standard for two-phase commit processing, the X/Open ATMI API, and the X/Open Portability Guide (XPG) standards for language internationalization. Oracle Tuxedo also supports the CORBA specification for distributed application development, as well as any relational database management system, object-oriented database management system, file manager, or queue manager.

The Oracle Tuxedo system and ATMI together implement the X/Open distributed transaction processing (DTP) model of online transaction processing (OLTP). The DTP model ensures that work being done throughout a client/server application is atomically completed, meaning that all involved databases are updated properly if the work is successful, or all involved databases are “rolled-back” to their original state if the work fails.

Other standards supported by the Oracle Tuxedo system include:

•

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)—A set of protocols for accessing information directories. These directories can be physically distributed across multiple systems for access by many applications within an enterprise. LDAP is based on the standards contained within the X.500 standard, but is significantly simpler. And unlike X.500, LDAP supports TCP/IP, which is necessary for any type of Internet access. LDAP is an ideal way to publish certificates because it is closely coupled with the X.509 standard for certificates.

•

X.509 Digital Certificates—A digital statement that associates a particular public key with a name or other attributes. The statement is digitally signed by a certificate authority. By trusting that authority to sign only true statements, you can trust that the public key belongs to the person named in the certificate. Oracle Tuxedo public key security recognizes certificates that comply with X.509 version 3.0.

•

Public-Key Cryptography Standard 7 (PKCS-7)—One of a set of Public-Key Cryptography Standards developed by RSA Laboratories in cooperation with an informal consortium, originally including Apple, Microsoft, DEC, Lotus, Sun and MIT. PKCS-7 defines a general syntax for messages that include cryptographic enhancements such as digital signatures and encryption. Oracle Tuxedo public key security complies with the PKCS-7 standard.

•	Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)—The standard protocol for establishing secure communications over the Internet (TCP/IP).

•	Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6)—The next generation protocol designed by the IETF to replace the current version Internet Protocol, IP Version 4 (IPv4)

Support for Popular Platforms

A client/server application separates the calling (client) software and the called (server) software into separate programs. The advantage of a client/server application is that multiple client processes can interface with a single server process, where the processes do not need to run on the same host machine. Thus, clients and servers can run on hardware and software platforms suited to their particular functions. For example, clients can run on inexpensive platforms such as workstations or personal computers, and database management servers can run on platforms specially designed and configured to perform queries.

The Oracle Tuxedo system has been ported to most popular client platforms, including Microsoft Windows Server and XP, and a variety of UNIX workstations. The Oracle Tuxedo system has been ported to most popular server platforms, including Microsoft Windows Server, HP-UX, IBM AIX, and Sun Solaris.

For a complete list of supported platforms for Oracle Tuxedo 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.3.0), see Oracle Tuxedo 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.3.0) Platform Data Sheets on page A-1 in Installing the Oracle Tuxedo System.

Support for Multiple Programming Models and Languages

Oracle Tuxedo supports two programming models and five languages. The supported programming models are ATMI and CORBA. The supported programming languages are:

•	C and COBOL—supported for ATMI application clients and servers

•	C++—supported for ATMI application clients and CORBA C++ application clients and servers

•	Java—supported for CORBA Java application clients and Jolt application clients

Note:

The Oracle Tuxedo CORBA Java client and Oracle Tuxedo CORBA Java client ORB were deprecated in Tuxedo 8.1 and are no longer supported. All Oracle Tuxedo CORBA Java client and Oracle Tuxedo CORBA Java client ORB text references, associated code samples, should only be used to help implement/run third party Java ORB libraries, and for programmer reference only.

Technical support for third party CORBA Java ORBs should be provided by their respective vendors. Oracle Tuxedo does not provide any technical support or documentation for third party CORBA Java ORBs.

Mission-Critical Software

ATMI and CORBA applications developed with Oracle Tuxedo are mission-critical, meaning that they are reliable, scalable, secure, and manageable. Applications can grow as the company grows, and they continue running when various parts of the network fail. Applications can expand and contract as the demand requires.

Distributed Transaction Management

Oracle Tuxedo specializes in managing transactions, on behalf of ATMI and CORBA applications, from their point of origin—typically on the client—across one or more server machines, and then back to the originating client. When a transaction ends, Tuxedo ensures that all the systems involved in the transaction are left in a consistent state. Tuxedo knows how to run transactions, route them across systems, load-balance their execution, and restart them after failures.

Oracle Tuxedo ensures the integrity of data accessed across several sites or managed by different database products. It tracks transaction participants and supervises a two-phase commit protocol, ensuring that transaction commit and rollback are properly handled at each site.

X/Open XA and TX Compliance

The Oracle Tuxedo system also coordinates the recovery of transactions in the event of site failure, network failure, or global resource deadlocks. The Oracle Tuxedo system uses the X/Open XA interface for communicating with the various resource managers. This interface, proposed by Tuxedo developers and accepted by X/Open, is the standard interface for distributed transaction control between the transaction manager and resource managers.

The Oracle Tuxedo system incorporates the X/Open TX interface for transaction demarcation, in addition to its own ATMI transaction management functions (routines, verbs). This interface allows an application writer to bracket a group of operations—define transaction boundaries—within an application such that all the operations will be done or none of them get done. That is, the transaction is either committed or rolled back as a single atomic unit of work, which keeps all involved databases synchronized, even if machine failures occur.

Transactions Documentation

For more information about transactions, see Introducing Oracle Tuxedo ATMI and Using CORBA Transactions.

Scalability and Performance

In an enterprise environment, applications may need to support hundreds of execution contexts (where the context can be a thread or a process), tens of thousands of client applications, and millions of objects at satisfactory performance levels. Subjecting an application to exponentially increasing demands quickly reveals any resource shortcomings and performance bottlenecks in the application. Scalability is therefore an essential characteristic of Oracle Tuxedo applications.

Oracle Tuxedo enables distributed applications to scale is response to changing transaction loads by dynamically spawning and terminating servers (ATMI) or by dynamically activating and deactivating objects (CORBA) to meet the workload demands. Oracle Tuxedo balances the workload among all the available services or objects to ensure that they are all evenly used.

Applications built on Oracle Tuxedo can support a single client on a single server, or they can support tens of thousands of clients and thousands of servers without changing application code. As an application scales, the Oracle Tuxedo system continues to provide end users with consistently high performance and good responsiveness.

For more information about scaling, see “Tuning an Oracle Tuxedo ATMI Application” in Administering an Oracle Tuxedo Application at Run Time and Scaling, Distributing, and Tuning CORBA Applications.

High Availability and Fault Management

In a distributed client/server environment, thousands of independent processors and processes must cooperate to run the application. Many malfunctions can happen. In spite of failures, Oracle Tuxedo keeps the application running in the following ways:

•	Ensures no single point of failure by providing replicated server groups that can continue when something breaks.

•	Restores the running application to good condition after failures occur.

Ensuring constant access to e-business applications is a key feature of Oracle Tuxedo. System components are constantly monitored for application, transaction, network, and hardware failures. When a failure occurs, Oracle Tuxedo logically removes that component from the system, manages any necessary recovery procedures, and re-routes messages and transactions to surviving systems—all transparently to the end user and without disruption in service.

Security

Oracle Tuxedo security includes authentication, authorization, and encryption to ensure data privacy when deploying Oracle Tuxedo applications across networks. Two levels of encryption are supported: (1) network-level encryption using Oracle Tuxedo’s proprietary Link-Level Encryption (LLE) or Secure Sockets Layer (SSL); and (2) application-level encryption using the SSL protocol and public key encryption.

In order to integrate Oracle Tuxedo security with other security systems, Oracle Tuxedo provides the following security plug-in interface. The plug-in interface allows Tuxedo customers to independently define and dynamically add their own security plug-ins.

Figure 1‑2 Oracle Tuxedo Plug-in Security Architecture

For more information on security in ATMI and CORBA applications, see Using Security in ATMI Applications and Using Security in CORBA Applications.

For information about security when interoperating with earlier releases of Oracle Tuxedo software or Oracle WebLogic Enterprise, or when interoperating with Oracle WebLogic Server, see Oracle Tuxedo Interoperability.

Management Tools

The Oracle Tuxedo system gives administrators a choice of several methods for performing the same set of administrative tasks for either Oracle Tuxedo ATMI or CORBA environments. The following figure illustrates the Oracle Tuxedo tools available to write an application’s configuration file and dynamically administer an Oracle Tuxedo application during run time.

Figure 1‑3 Simplified View of Administration Tools

In addition to using these tools to administrator Oracle Tuxedo applications, administrators use these tools to perform fault-isolation and recovery tasks when application failures occur. Oracle Tuxedo automatically recovers from many types of failures. However, some failures—often the most serious ones—require operator intervention to determine what has actually failed.

Oracle Tuxedo Administration Console

The Oracle Tuxedo Administration Console is a graphical user interface that enables administrators to perform most administration and configuration tasks for Oracle Tuxedo applications. An administrator can display and change configuration information, determine the state of each component in the system, and obtain statistical information about items such as executed requests and queued requests.

The Oracle Tuxedo Administration Console is implemented as a set of Java applets, which can run on most platforms that support a Java-capable Web browser. The server-side components of the Oracle Tuxedo Administration Console reside on one of the server machines in an Oracle Tuxedo application. To use the Console, an administrator must enter the URL of the server and download the Java applets.

For the Oracle Tuxedo Administration Console startup procedure, see “Starting the Oracle Tuxedo Administration Console” in Installing the Oracle Tuxedo System. For information about how to use the Oracle Tuxedo Administration Console, either access Help directly from the console or see Oracle Tuxedo Administration Console Online Help . Also see “Oracle Tuxedo Management Tools” in Introducing Oracle Tuxedo ATMI.

Note:

Limitation: The Oracle Tuxedo Administration Console has not been updated to support any new features introduced after Oracle Tuxedo release 7.1.

Command-Line Interface

Most of the functionality needed for dynamic modification of an Oracle Tuxedo application is provided by the tmadmin and tmconfig commands. Most of the functionality needed for dynamic modification of an Oracle Tuxedo Domains configuration is provided by the dmadmin command. Each of these commands is an interactive meta-command having many subcommands for performing various administrative tasks, including the modification of configuration entries while the system is running.

For details about these commands, see reference pages tmadmin(1), tmconfig, wtmconfig(1), and dmadmin(1)in Oracle Tuxedo Command Reference. Also, see “Oracle Tuxedo Management Tools” in Introducing Oracle Tuxedo ATMI.

MIB Interface

The MIB interface is an application programming interface for directly accessing and manipulating system settings in the Oracle Tuxedo management information bases. The interface allows administrators to have total control over Tuxedo applications. The MIB interface is powerful because it is implemented with the same APIs that Tuxedo developers use to write business-critical client/server applications.

There are MIB interfaces to administer the access control list, disk-based queues, Domains, events, core Tuxedo, and the workstation extension. The following are the corresponding MIB component names: ACL_MIB, APPQ_MIB, DM_MIB, EVENT_MIB, TM_MIB, and WS_MIB. Through the MIB interface, administrators control the application by programmatically querying the Tuxedo bulletin board for the current state of MIB objects, and then effecting administrative changes by either setting and resetting specific MIB values or creating new MIB objects.

The level of control available through the MIB interface really comes in handy in failover and fallback situations. The MIB programming interface is the only way to handle all the possible complications that can occur in a failover situation. During a failover, scripts can be used to execute client MIB programs that perform specifics task such as shutting down and migrating server groups, and verifying the state of the application.

For details about the Oracle Tuxedo MIBs, see reference pages ACL_MIB(5), APPQ_MIB(5), DM_MIB(5), EVENT_MIB(5), MIB(5), TM_MIB(5), and WS_MIB(5) in Oracle Tuxedo File Formats, Data Descriptions, MIBs, and System Processes Reference; start with the MIB(5) reference page. Also, see “Oracle Tuxedo Management Tools” in Introducing Oracle Tuxedo ATMI.

Client and Server Components

The following figure identifies the Oracle Tuxedo client and server components and shows the connectivity between the clients and servers. Only remote Tuxedo clients are shown in the figure.

Figure 1‑4 Oracle Tuxedo Client and Server Components

A remote Tuxedo client—ATMI (/WS), Jolt, or CORBA C++—interfaces with a Tuxedo server via a network connection and a pair of Tuxedo gateway processes: Workstation Listener/Handler (WSL/WSH), Jolt Server Listener/Handler (JSL/JSH), or IIOP Listener/Handler (ISL/ISH). A remote Tuxedo client may run on a machine that is not part of the Tuxedo server application (typically a workstation or personal computer), or the remote client may run on a machine that is part of the Tuxedo server application. For the latter case, the local operating system intercepts the messages destined for the network and redirects them to the destination process—the Tuxedo remote client or handler process—running locally.

A native Tuxedo client—a native ATMI client or a native CORBA C++ client—is co-located on a machine that is part of the Tuxedo server application and interfaces with a Tuxedo server via the Tuxedo infrastructure using interprocess communication. Native Jolt clients are not supported. These clients can only access a Tuxedo server via a pair of JSL/JSH gateway processes.

The following brief descriptions of other terms shown in the previous figure should prove helpful in understanding the connectivity between Oracle Tuxedo clients and servers:

IIOP

Internet Inter-ORB Protocol. A protocol used for communication between CORBA ORBs over the Internet (TCP/IP).

IIOPS

IIOP layered over the SSL protocol.

LLE

Link-Level Encryption. An Oracle Tuxedo protocol for establishing data privacy over network links between Oracle Tuxedo server machines.

SSL

Secure Sockets Layer. The standard protocol for establishing secure communications over the Internet (TCP/IP).

Oracle Tuxedo Client Components

The following client component software is included in the Oracle Tuxedo 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.3.0) distribution:

•	Oracle ATMI Workstation (/WS) client software

•	Oracle Jolt client software

•	Oracle C++ client ORB including environmental objects

Oracle Tuxedo Server Components

The following server component software is included in the Oracle Tuxedo 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.3.0) distribution:

•	Oracle ATMI server software (includes native ATMI client software)

•	Oracle CORBA C++ server software (includes native CORBA C++ client software)

•	Oracle Jolt server software

•	Oracle SNMP Agent software

•	Oracle Tuxedo Administration Console software

Invocation Capabilities

The following table lists the invocation capabilities for an application built on the Oracle system. An Oracle Tuxedo application may span multiple Oracle Tuxedo server machines and may provide ATMI services, CORBA objects, or both.

 

This component . . .	Can call a . . .	Through . . .
ATMI client *	ATMI service	WSL/WSH
Jolt client	ATMI service	JSL/JSH
CORBA C++ client *	CORBA C++ object	ISL/ISH
ATMI server	ATMI service	Tuxedo infrastructure
CORBA C++ object	CORBA C++ object	Tuxedo infrastructure
CORBA C++ object	ATMI service	Tuxedo infrastructure
* A native Tuxedo ATMI or CORBA C++ client does not use listener or handler gateway processes.

For information on how Oracle Tuxedo 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.3.0) interoperates with older releases of Oracle Tuxedo software, Oracle WebLogic Enterprise, and third-party products, or how Oracle Tuxedo 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.3.0) interoperates with Oracle WebLogic Server, see Oracle Tuxedo Interoperability.

Note:

An Oracle Tuxedo client cannot invoke another Oracle Tuxedo client.

Client-to-Server Invocation Capabilities

The following client-to-server invocations are supported by an Oracle Tuxedo application:

•	An Oracle ATMI client invoking an Oracle Tuxedo service

For more information about remote ATMI clients, see Using the Oracle Tuxedo ATMI Workstation Component.

•	An Oracle Jolt client invoking an Oracle Tuxedo service

For more information about Jolt, see Using Oracle Jolt and the Oracle Jolt API Javadoc reference information.

•	An Oracle CORBA C++ client invoking an Oracle Tuxedo CORBA C++ object

For details, see Creating CORBA Client Applications.

Server-to-Server Invocation Capabilities

The following figure shows the invocation capabilities between Oracle Tuxedo ATMI and CORBA C++ application servers.

Figure 1‑5 Oracle Tuxedo ATMI and CORBA C++ Server Invocations

As shown in the figure, a CORBA C++ object can include ATMI calls to Oracle Tuxedo services. For an example, see the Wrapper University sample application, available in the Guide to the CORBA University Sample Applications.

Domains

An Oracle Tuxedo domain, or application, is defined and controlled by a single configuration file. A Tuxedo domain consists of many Tuxedo system processes, one or more application client processes, one or more application server processes, and one or more computer machines connected over a network. It is administered as a single unit.

An Oracle Tuxedo domain may provide ATMI services, CORBA objects, or both. The Tuxedo domain in the following example contains a mixture of ATMI services and CORBA objects.

Figure 1‑6 Simplified View of an Oracle Tuxedo Domain

In Oracle Tuxedo terminology, a domain is the same as an application—a business application; both terms are used as synonyms throughout the Oracle Tuxedo user documentation. Examples of business applications currently running on Tuxedo are airline and hotel reservation systems, credit authorization systems, stock-brokerage systems, banking systems, and automatic teller machines.

For more information about Tuxedo domains, see Important Oracle Tuxedo Terms and Concepts on page 2‑1. For information about interconnecting Tuxedo domains, see Oracle Tuxedo Domains on page 2‑14.

Oracle Tuxedo Product Family

The Oracle Tuxedo Family is comprised of the following: Oracle Tuxedo, Oracle ART, Oracle JCA, Oracle Jolt, Oracle SALT, Oracle SNMP Agent, and Oracle TSAM.

Excluding Oracle Tuxedo, this section provides a general introduction to the other Oracle Tuxedo family products.

•	About Oracle ART

•	About Oracle JCA

•	About Oracle Jolt

•	About Oracle SALT

•	About Oracle SNMP Agent

•	About Oracle TSAM

About Oracle ART

Oracle Art Runtime

In a z/OS environment, CICS is used to establish transactional communications between end-users and compiled programs via screens.

CICS is middleware that implements the control and integrity of shared resources, providing developers with APIs (EXEC CICS … END-EXEC statements) to dialog with CICS inside programs mainly developed on z/OS in COBOL, PL1 and Assembler languages.

Once all the components of z/OS CICS applications (COBOL programs and data) are migrated to a UNIX/linux platform using Oracle Tuxedo Application Runtime Workbench, CICS Runtime enables them to be run unchanged using an API emulation on top of the native Oracle Tuxedo features.

Oracle ART Workbench

Oracle Tuxedo Application Rehosting Workbench is part of a packaged and comprehensive solution that enables its users:

To perform a replatforming project with minimum risk and cost;

To run the replatformed applications in a standardized UNIX/Linux, Tuxedo, Oracle environment.

Oracle ART Documentation

For more Oracle runtime and Workbench information, see the following documentation:

http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/index.html.

About Oracle JCA

The Oracle Tuxedo JCA Adapter is a JCA-based resource adapter that provides bi-directional service invocation between a JCA 1.5 compliant application servers and the Oracle Tuxedo system. Oracle Tuxedo JCA Adapter supports global and local transactions conforming to JCA transaction standards. It supports connection management, transaction infestation, identity propagation, and link-level security. Link-level security uses industry standard SSL/TLS or a proprietary high performance algorithm.

Oracle JCA Documentation

For more Oracle JCA information, see the following documentation:

http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/index.html.

About Oracle Jolt

Oracle Jolt is a Java class library and API that enables remote Java clients to access existing Oracle Tuxedo ATMI services. It enables users to build client applets and applications that can remotely invoke Tuxedo ATMI services—such as application messaging, component management, and distributed transaction processing—using an ordinary Web browser.

Oracle Jolt extends the functionality of existing Tuxedo ATMI applications to include intranet- and Internet-wide availability. Oracle Jolt also enables Oracle WebLogic Server to invoke Tuxedo ATMI services. For clarification, see Making Tuxedo Services Web Accessible Through Oracle Jolt on page 5‑7.

Oracle Jolt Documentation

For more information about Oracle Jolt, see the following documentation:

•	Using Oracle Jolt

•	Using Oracle Jolt with Oracle WebLogic Server

About Oracle SALT

Oracle Service Architecture Leveraging Tuxedo (SALT) is an add-on product option for Tuxedo, enabling Tuxedo applications to participate in SOA environments. Oracle SALT has two major components: native Web services stack and SCA container.

Oracle SALT allows external Web services applications to invoke Tuxedo services as Web services, and Tuxedo applications to invoke external Web services. Oracle SALT does not require any coding to achieve this. In addition, Oracle SALT includes SCA container, which allows you to develop new SOA applications focusing on business logic, while still taking advantage of Tuxedo infrastructure. SCA container also helps with effective reuse of existing application assets.

Oracle SALT Documentation

For more Oracle SALT information, see the following documentation:

http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/index.html.

About Oracle SNMP Agent

Oracle SNMP Agent for Oracle Tuxedo enables SNMP-compliant network management frameworks to manage Oracle Tuxedo systems and Oracle Tuxedo applications. Oracle SNMP Agent complies with the Simple Network Management Protocol version 1 (SNMPv1) specification.

Oracle SNMP Agent provides the SNMP links from Tuxedo applications to SNMP-based system-management consoles. It also allows multiple SNMP agents and subagents—from any vendor—to operate on the same machine.

Oracle SNMP Agent Documentation

For more information about Oracle SNMP Agent, see the following documentation:

•	Oracle Tuxedo SNMP Agent Administration Guide

•	Oracle Tuxedo SNMP Agent MIB Reference

About Oracle TSAM

Oracle Tuxedo System and Application Monitor (TSAM) provides comprehensive monitoring and reporting for Oracle Tuxedo system and applications. It includes two components: Oracle TSAM Agent and Oracle TSAM Manager. The Oracle TSAM Agent enables collection of various performance metrics for applications, including XA and non-XA transactions, services, system servers.

Oracle TSAM Manager provides graphical user interface to correlate and aggregate performance metrics collected from one or more Tuxedo domains and display it in real time.

The major features included in Oracle TSAM are:

•	Call path monitoring and analysis

•	Service monitoring and statistics

•	System server monitoring and statistics

•	Transaction monitoring

•	SLA Events

Oracle TSAM Documentation

For more Oracle TSAM information, see the following documentation: http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/index.html.