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Oracle® Fusion Middleware Concepts Guide for Oracle Enterprise Repository
11g Release 1 (11.1.1.6.3)

Part Number E16581-09
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3 Visibility

This chapter describes concepts of managed asset visibility, using Oracle Enterprise Repository Solution Packs, such as the Harvester Solution Pack (includes Adapter Solution Pack), AIA Solution Pack, and the Base Data Pack. Oracle Service Registry provides visibility to assets when synchronized to the repository using Oracle Registry Repository Exchange Utility.

This chapter contains the following sections:

3.1 Overview

An organization cannot govern what it cannot see. Therefore, the first step of any governance initiative is to get visibility into the assets that you want to manage.

Oracle Enterprise Repository Solution Packs include:

Existing assets can be harvested into the enterprise repository. The process through which organizations initially gather assets into the Enterprise Repository is called bootstrapping. Bootstrapping uses a programmatic approach to loading assets and asset metadata into the Enterprise repository. The Enterprise Repository can be bootstrapped from a number of sources:

Organizations might also choose to use a manual approach for entering the assets in the portfolio. In addition, manual validation after harvesting ensures that the imported assets were harvested properly, and additional, business-focused metadata can be added.

3.2 Oracle Enterprise Repository Solution Packs

This section describes the various Oracle Enterprise Repository solution packs available:

Base Data Pack

The asset types delivered as part of Base Data Pack are templates. They include the business-focused asset metadata that organizations track. The metadata fields in these asset types have been collected from the best practices of organizations worldwide. The Base Data Pack is automatically installed with a new installation of Oracle Enterprise Repository. Base Data types can be copied and customized to suit specific organizational assets.

Harvester Solution Pack (Includes Adapter Solution Pack)

The asset types delivered as part of the Harvester Solution Pack are required by the Harvester tool. The Harvester and Harvester Solution Pack provide metadata about the implementation of an asset and the assets's relationships. Oracle Enterprise Repository harvests artifacts into a pre-specified format defined by the Harvester Solution Pack.

The Oracle Enterprise Repository Harvester Solution Pack includes asset types for Oracle's Application Adapters and Applications. These asset types allow an organization to harvest application integrations into Oracle Enterprise Repository and have end-to-end visibility into the integrations between two or more applications.

The Oracle Enterprise Repository Harvester tool provides visibility into the assets generated by many of Oracle's products, including Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle Service Bus, Oracle Enterprise Manager, Oracle BPEL PM, UDDI Registries, and others. The Oracle Enterprise Repository Harvester tool also allows organizations to harvest any standards-based WSDL, BPEL, XSD, and XSLT artifacts generated by third-party tooling. The harvesting process requires the Harvester Solution Pack.

The Harvester is available in 11.1.1.x.x-OER-Harvester-Solution-Pack.zip, which is bundled with the Oracle Enterprise Repository installation in the following .zip file:

<ORACLE_HOME>/repository111/core/tools/solutions/11.1.x.x.0-OER-Harvester-Solution-Pack.zip

For more information, see Oracle Fusion Middleware Configuration Guide for Oracle Enterprise Repository.

AIA Solution Pack

For more information about the AIA Solution Pack, see the "Configuring and Using Oracle Enterprise Repository as the Oracle AIA SOA Repository" section in Oracle Fusion Middleware Developer's Guide for Oracle Application Integration Architecture Foundation Pack.

3.3 Bootstrapping the Enterprise Repository

This section describes the bootstrapping of Oracle Enterprise Repository. It contains the following topics:

3.3.1 Service Registry

Since effective SOA Governance requires an Enterprise Repository working in combination with a Service Registry, it is necessary to synchronize the two tools.

The Oracle Registry Repository Exchange Utility synchronizes Oracle Enterprise Repository and Oracle Service Registry bi-directionally so that the metadata from each of these products can flow in either direction through the utility.

To bootstrap the Oracle Enterprise Repository from a Service Registry, follow these steps:

  • Configure the Oracle Registry Repository Exchange Utility

  • Understand how Metadata is Synchronized between Oracle Service Registry and Oracle Enterprise Repository

  • Review Known Issues

For more information about Oracle Registry Repository Exchange Utility, see http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E14571_01/doc.1111/e16580/oereu.htm#CACEFFIH.

3.3.2 Runtime Environment

The Enterprise Repository can be bootstrapped from assets that reside in the organization's runtime containers. Oracle Enterprise Repository uses the Harvester tool to access deployed artifacts. The Harvester reads standards-based files including BPEL, WSDL, XSD and XSLT files, as assets generated by Oracle SOA Suite and Oracle Service Bus. The Harvester automatically creates assets, populates asset metadata, and generates relationship links based on the information in the artifact files. Note that the Harvester is not restricted to Oracle products - it can be used to harvest standards-based artifacts generated from any tooling. In the runtime environment, the Harvester can be used from the command line or it can be invoked using an Ant task.

For more information about harvesting from runtime containers, see "Runtime Harvesting Details" in Oracle Fusion Middleware Configuration Guide for Oracle Enterprise Repository.

3.3.3 Artifacts and Artifact Stores

The Enterprise Repository can be bootstrapped from production-grade assets that reside in the organization's version control systems or file systems. Oracle Enterprise Repository uses the Harvester to access the artifacts in various artifact stores. The Harvester can be invoked from the command line to harvest from artifact stores.

Note:

There are limitations on publishing services to OSR when the WSDL is hosted anywhere but on a running endpoint, HTTP, HTTP/S or FTP. Services with artifacts hosted in other types of artifact stores will not publish to OSR/UDDI.

For more information about harvesting production-grade artifacts from artifact stores, see "Configuring the Harvester for the Command Line" in Oracle Fusion Middleware Configuration Guide for Oracle Enterprise Repository.

3.3.4 Spreadsheets and Other Metadata Stores

Organizations just beginning to explore Governance practices might track asset metadata and dependencies in a spreadsheet, on a wiki, or through some other type of tool. At a certain point, however, this becomes unmanageable and it then makes sense to move the information to an Enterprise Repository.

The Oracle Enterprise Repository includes a Web Services based API called the Repository Extensibility (REX) Framework that can be used to bootstrap Oracle Enterprise Repository from spreadsheets and other metadata stores. This requires customization and coding, and is covered as an advanced topic.

If you are interested in finding out more about the Enterprise Repository's API, see "Developing Custom Integrations" in Oracle Fusion Middleware Integration Guide for Oracle Enterprise Repository.