Oracle® Communications Order and Service Management

Release Notes

Release 7.3.5

E79211-02

June 2017

This document provides release notes for Oracle Communications Order and Service Management (OSM) release 7.3.5.

New Features

OSM 7.3.5 includes new features, enhancements, and changed functionality including:

Cartridge Memory Management and Usability Improvements

OSM 7.3.5 contains several enhancements for cartridge memory management and usability improvements:

  • We have measured, with the off-the-shelf Order-to-Activate cartridges, a reduction of approximately 50% in the memory footprint of OSM cartridges. Results may vary, depending on the composition of your cartridges, order throughput, and tuning. The reduction in memory use that we measured would enable customers to deploy twice as many cartridges in the same memory, or to increase order throughput. Older cartridges processing orders infrequently should also consume less memory than newer, more active, cartridges. Being able to have more cartridges simultaneously enables you to keep older versions of cartridges for longer, which can enable more long-term or future-dated orders that were submitted using the older cartridge versions to complete naturally, simplifying OSM operations.

  • Once you have rebuilt and redeployed your cartridges for OSM 7.3.5, it will no longer be necessary to rebuild and redeploy your OSM cartridges when you upgrade OSM to later releases in the future. This simplifies and shortens the OSM upgrade process.

  • When you have cartridges that you have undeployed using fast undeploy, you can now purge those cartridges without taking OSM offline.

Installer Enhancements

The OSM 7.3.5 installer includes efficiency and robustness improvements, as well as the following functional enhancements:

  • You can now select whether to start the OSM application when the installation is complete. The default is to start OSM, but in upgrade situations where you want to make configuration changes in Oracle WebLogic Server before OSM starts, you can select not to start OSM after the installation and prevent any orders from processing until you manually start OSM.

  • If the OSM database schema exists prior to the current installation, for example in an upgrade, OSM will detect open connections to the database schema and provide you with the option to stop those connections from inside the installer. It will also enable you to compare the proposed new JDBC connection information with the JDBC connection information already configured in WebLogic Server, and to select which connection information you want to retain.

  • The dbinstall.log file has been enhanced to include version information, date and time stamps, and to log actions skipped by the user.

  • Separate max constraints are created for each WebLogic Server Work Manager by the installer automatically. This reduces post-installation configuration.

Enhanced Message Handling During Fallout

Because OSM messaging is asynchronous, messages from external systems can be returned to a task for which the receiver is temporarily unable to receive a response. This can happen, for example, if an order is being amended or is suspended. In previous versions, the response message would be lost, which could cause the task to become stuck. Now, when this happens, OSM saves the returned message to the database, to wait until the order is ready for the task. This message will be removed from the database when it is resent to the receiver or when it becomes irrelevant (for example, because the order has been purged). This functionality is turned on by default, but you can turn it off, for example if your solution already handles messages of this type in a different way.

Ability to Use XML API for Custom User Interface Development

The XML API deprecation has been altered to allow use of the XML API to create custom task user interfaces when customization using behaviors or OSM Java server pages does not satisfy all of your requirements. You can also use the XML API from within an automation plug-in when necessary because the Web Services API and the OSM automation functionality do not meet your requirements.

Fixes in This Release

Table 1 lists fixed issues and provides a brief description of the resolution.

Table 1 Fixes in Release 7.3.5

SR Number Bug Number Description

3-12421260451

23069050

Entries in the om_automation_correlation table were not being removed properly when a task was transitioned to a failure mode. This caused errors when subsequently trying to retrieve information from the table. This has been fixed.


Fixed Issues from Patch Sets

OSM release 7.3.5 includes fixes and enhancements from the following patch sets:

  • Order and Service Management 6.3.1 patches up to and including 6.3.1.55.3 (patch number 21113874)

  • Order and Service Management 7.0.1 patches up to and including 7.0.1.19.2 (patch number 16922777)

  • Order and Service Management 7.0.2 patches up to and including 7.0.2.20.0 (patch number 16627408)

  • Order and Service Management 7.0.3 patches up to and including 7.0.3.29.5 (patch number 21697182)

  • Order and Service Management 7.2.0 patches up to and including 7.2.0.12.1 (patch number 23719179)

  • Order and Service Management 7.2.2 patches up to and including 7.2.2.7.0 (patch number 24742456)

  • Order and Service Management 7.2.4 patches up to and including 7.2.4.2.10 (patch number 25693098)

  • Order and Service Management 7.3.0 patches up to and including 7.3.0.1.5 (patch number 25608738)

  • Order and Service Management 7.3.1 patches up to and including 7.3.1.0.5 (patch number 25403765)

Known Problems

This section describes known problems in OSM 7.3.5 and any workarounds recommended to avoid the problems or reduce effects:

Cannot Install on AIX Due To Inability to Deploy Into WebLogic Server

(Bug Number 25778539) The OSM installer cannot deploy OSM into WebLogic Server on the IBM AIX operating system due to an issue with an external application.

To work around this issue:

  1. Unpack the oms.ear file. For more information about doing this, see the information about working with the oms.ear file in OSM Developer's Guide.

    One of the files that will be created when you do this is the security.gar file.

  2. Extract the osm-coherence-cache-config.xml file from the security.gar file using the following command:

    jar -xvf security.gar META-INF/osm-coherence-cache-config.xml
    
  3. Copy the osm-coherence-cache-config.xml file to some other location on the system, for example /scratch/OSM.

  4. Edit the domain_home/bin/setDomainEnv.sh file and update the following line:

    JAVA_OPTIONS="${JAVA_OPTIONS}"
    

    to read:

    JAVA_OPTIONS="${JAVA_OPTIONS} -Dtangosol.coherence.cacheconfig=new_dir/osm-coherence-cache-config.xml"
    

    where new_dir is the directory to which you copied the osm-coherence-cache-config.xml file.

  5. Log in to the Weblogic Server Administration console and deploy the oms.ear application.

Timeout Errors When Panning in Orchestration Plan Window

(Bug Number 25556869) In the Order Management web client, in the Orchestration Plan tab, you can receive errors if, after clicking Enlarge for either the Dependency Graph or the Decomposition Tree, you click Zoom In and then Pan.

This problem will happen not more than once per login session, so to work around this issue, click OK in the error message windows and close the Dependency Graph or Decomposition Tree window. Click Enlarge again to reopen the window, and you can zoom in and pan without errors.

Context Menu for Order Components Subtab of Order Items Tab Not Working

(Bug Number 25665753) In the Order Management web client, the context menu in the Order Components subtab of the Order Items tab does not work.

To work around this issue, use the Actions menu in the same subtab instead.

Unable to Query on Fulfillment State in Task Web Client

(Bug Number 25594635) If you create a query in the Task web client that contains fulfillment state criteria, you will receive an error stating that the fixed header type is invalid.

There is no workaround for this issue; you must redefine your query so that it does not include fulfillment states.

Deploying oms.ear File Fails During Health Check If Administration Server Is Down

(Bug Number 23017179) In OSM installations that have WebLogic configured in a clustered environment, if you restart a WebLogic managed server while the administration server is down, the OSM health checks that are performed during the startup process fail. This causes the oms.ear file deployment to be in the FAILED state, and OSM is then unusable. The intended behavior for starting WebLogic when the administration server is down is that the WebLogic managed server should start in the Managed Server Independence Mode (MSI), and that OSM should function correctly.

To avoid this issue, ensure that the administration server is up and running when you start the managed servers.

Compliance Report References Links to Incorrect Content

(Bug Number 23067492) The compliance tool report incorrectly references the documentation links of some rules to OSM 7.3.1 or WebLogic Server 12.1.3 documentation.

To work around this issue, refer to the OSM 7.3.5 or WebLogic Server 12.2.1.2 documentation for correct rule reference information.

Timeline History Page Does Not Refresh After Return from Timeline Page

(Bug Number 23010042) When an error occurs in an order that is being managed by OSM, if you are on the Timeline page of the OSM Order Lifecycle Management UI, that error does not show up on the Timeline History page when you navigate back to it.

To work around this issue and show the correct set of errors on the Timeline History page, you must manually refresh the page.

Revision Order Item and Order Completion Dates Are Not Calculated Properly

(Bug Number 16370421) OSM creates a new orchestration plan when receiving a revision order. The revision order executes as a new order so a new order completion date and order item completion dates are calculated based on the new revision order start date.

The revision orchestration plan does not know about the base order orchestration plan until the revision order and order item completion dates are copied over from the revision order to the base order during the compensation process.

These dates are incorrect because they do not take into account the state of the current base order. OSM does not consider the part of the base order that is already executed when recalculating the order item and order completion dates. Revision compensation merges revision order and the base order orchestration plans.

OSM Does Not Support JMS Topics in Clustered Environments

In a clustered environment, OSM does not support JMS topics as a JMS destination for receiving JMS events (such as order-lifecycle-event messages).

To work around this issue, use JMS queues to receive JMS events in an OSM clustered environment.

Order-to-Activate Cartridge Compatibility

To install or upgrade the Order-to-Activate cartridges, you must ensure compatibility between the following:

  • OSM software version and Order-to-Activate cartridge version

  • OSM Order-to-Activate cartridge version and Oracle Application Integration Architecture (Oracle AIA) Order to Cash Integration Pack for OSM version

For Order-to-Activate cartridge compatibility information see Order-to-Activate Cartridge Product Compatibility Matrix (in the OSM Cartridges for Oracle Application Integration Architecture section of the OSM documentation) on the Oracle Help Center website:

http://docs.oracle.com/en/industries/communications/order-service-management/index.html

Deprecated and Removed Features

The following features have been deprecated or removed from the feature set in the OSM 7.3.5 release:

Customer Asset Manager and Account Manager Modules Removed

The Customer Asset Manager and Account Manager modules have been removed. Oracle recommends that you use corresponding functionality in Oracle Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) Cloud for your hybrid cloud solution.

Product Specification (was Product Class) Deprecated

The Product Specification entity (which was renamed from the Product Class entity in OSM 7.2.4), is deprecated. Existing entities are supported for backward compatibility, but new OSM product specifications (product classes) cannot be created.

This functionality is replaced by the Product entity in the conceptual model.

Documentation Accessibility

For information about Oracle's commitment to accessibility, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program website at http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=acc&id=docacc.

Access to Oracle Support

Oracle customers that have purchased support have access to electronic support through My Oracle Support. For information, visit http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=acc&id=info or visit http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=acc&id=trs if you are hearing impaired.


Oracle Communications Order and Service Management Release Notes, Release 7.3.5

E79211-02

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