WS-BPEL 2.0 Beginner's Guide

Install the Java Development Kit (JDK) and set the environment

Install SOA Suite 12c with JDeveloper

Create the default domain

Go to http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html and download and install the latest version of Java SE 7 Java Platform, Standard Edition. Currently, this is Java SE 7u60. You need to download the JDK (and not JRE or Server JRE).

Install the JDK. On Windows, you will need to double-click on the installation file and you will be guided through the install process. On Linux, you will have to execute the install from the command shell, as shown in the following screenshot:

Finally, we need to set the JAVA_HOME and ORACLE_HOME environment variables. On Linux, you need to write the following command:

JAVA_HOME=$HOME/top_level_folder_jdkversion
export JAVA_HOME
ORACLE_HOME=%HOME/Oracle/Middleware/Oracle_Home
export ORACLE_HOME

On Windows, write the following command:

SET JAVA_HOME=%USERPROFILE%\top_level_folder_jdkversion
SET ORACLE_HOME=%USERPROFILE%\Oracle\Middleware\Oracle_Home

Go to http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/soasuite/downloads/index.html and download the free SOA Suite 12c installation. You can choose between a Microsoft Windows 64 bit JVM installation and All Platforms Generic 64 bit JVM installation. Select SOA Suite Quick Start Installer of SOA Suite 12.1.3. You don't need any Additional Components for this book.

Once downloaded, unzip the content into the same directory. Two .jar files will unzip, as shown in the following screenshot:

We need to execute the fmw_12.1.3.0.0_soa_quickstart.jar file, which will launch the installation wizard, as shown in the following screenshot:

The installation wizard will appear, guiding you through several steps. First, we need to specify the Central Inventory installation directory. Specify /home/oracle/oraInventory. We also need to specify Operating System Group. This is the group with write permissions to the inventory directory. Use the oracle group:

Next, the quick-start installer will appear, guiding you through the six steps. The first step is the Welcome screen, where we only need to click on the Next button:

In the next step, we need to specify the location where we would like to install SOA Suite and all the related components. This is called Oracle Home. This directory must be empty, otherwise the wizard will give an error message. Use the default path, /home/oracle/Oracle/Middleware/Oracle_Home:

The prerequisite checks will run. If you have successfully installed the JDK, you will see a screen shown in the following screenshot; click on Next:

The installation procedure will show the installation summary. Check the installation location once again and look at the feature sets to be installed. Click on Install to proceed with the installation:

Monitor the installation progress and click on Next:

Finally, we will see the Installation Complete screen. Please notice that the checkbox for Start JDeveloper should be checked:

Clicking on the Finish button will launch JDeveloper. On the first screen, select the Studio Developer (All Features) role, which we will be using throughout the book:

After this, JDeveloper will launch and we will see the JDeveloper desktop.

In JDeveloper, start the integrated WebLogic Server. Choose the Run menu and select the Start Server Instance option:

A dialog box will open where you need to enter Administrator ID and Password. Use weblogic for Administrator ID and welcome1 for Password:

The creation of the default domain will start. It might take a half hour or more, depending on the performance of your computer, so be patient. Once you see the following messages in the log window, you know that the domain has been created and the server is running: SOA Platform is running and accepting requests and IntegratedWebLogicServer started.

First, create a new application. Select the New Application… option in the Applications window:

Next, select SOA Application:

Name the application Chapter1, as shown in the following screenshot. Use the default directory and click on Next to proceed:

Next, create a project and name it Bookstore. Use the default directory again:

After clicking on Next, we are asked what type of composite template we would like to use. We will start from a Standard Composite template. Select the Composite WithBPEL Process option and click on Finish. Alternatively, we can select Empty Composite and add the BPEL process later.

Clicking on Finish brings us to the Create BPEL Process wizard. Here we have the option to select the BPEL version, name the process, and specify the BPEL XML namespace. Each BPEL process is uniquely identified by QName. Thus, a namespace and a process name are needed. We also need to select the process template and define the service name. We will expose the BPEL process as a SOAP web service, therefore we should leave the Expose as a SOAP service checkbox selected.

We will use BPEL 2.0 specification, name the process as BookstoreABPEL, add the namespace http://packtpub.com/Bookstore/BooksotreABPEL, and select the Synchronous BPEL Process template. We leave default values for Transaction, Input, and Output, and click on OK, as shown on the following screenshot:

To rename XSD, right-click on the BookstoreABPEL.xsd file in the project tree, select Refactor, and then Rename:

In the dialog box, enter the new name, BookstoreBPEL.xsd.

Double-click on the BookstoreBPEL.xsd file in the Schemas folder and switch to source view.

We have to define two complex elements. First, edit the existing process element, rename it to the BookData element, and enter the code shown in the following screenshot:

Next, define the content of the processResponse element, which we will rename to BookDataResponse and add the two elements shown in the following screenshot:

Double-click on the BookstoreABPEL.wsdl file in the WSDLs folder and switch to the source view.

In the <portType> section, rename the operation name from process to getBookData:

In the <message> section, change the element names of both messages to BookData and BookDataResponse respectively. This way, we will reference the changes that we made in the XSD:

Finally, change the name of the included schema file from BookstoreABPEL.xsd to BookstoreBPEL.xsd, as shown in the following screenshot:

Open our BookstoreABPEL process by selecting the already opened BookstoreABPEL.bpel tab. Alternatively, you can double-click on the BookstoreABPEL component on the composite design view or double-click on the BookstoreABPEL.bpel file from the project tree on the left-hand side window.

Drag-and-drop the Assign activity from the right-hand component palette to the BPEL process in the middle between the receiveInput and replyOutput activities, as shown in the following screenshot:

Double-click on the Assign activity and set the parameters. Name the activity as DetermineStockQuantity. Copy BookISSN from inputVariable to outputVariable by dragging BookISSN from inputVariable and dropping it on BookISSN in outputVariable, as shown in the following screenshot:

To set the StockQuantity element of the output message, we will need to use an expression. Drag-and-drop Expression from the upper-right corner of the window to the StockQuantity element. Doing this, the Expression Builder window will appear.

Click on the Conversion Functions tab and select the n()number function. Let's assume that we will return stock quantity of 5. This means we need to write number(5):

Clicking on OK twice and saving all we have performed brings us to the following screenshot:

Right-click on the BookstoreA project and click on the Deploy submenu. Select BookstoreA from the option.

Select Deploy to Application Server:

We can specify the deployment configuration. For this time, we will use the default values. Please note that the most important is to specify New Revision ID, which denotes the revision (or version) number of your composite application. Also note Overwrite any existing composites with the same revision ID; this has to be checked if you want to redeploy a composite application with the same revision ID:

Click on the IntegratedWebLogicServer server for the deployment and click on Next:

We will see the status of the SOA server. Click on Next:

Finally, we will see the deployment summary. Click on Finish:

Monitor the deployment log windows at the bottom of the screen and look for the Deployment finished. message. This means that the BPEL process has been successfully deployed:

Switch to the Web browser and navigate to http://localhost:7101/em/.

Log in with the weblogic username and welcome1 password (or a different password, which you have specified by the creation of the domain).

At the bottom of the screen, you will see the Bookstore application. If you cannot see it, use the scroll bar to find it.

After clicking on it, a new screen will be displayed.

To test the BPEL process, click on the Test button.

We will see a quite complex screen. In the lower part of the screen, we will see the payload with the four parameters, which we defined as input parameters for the BPEL process: BookISSN, Title, Edition, and PublishingYear.

Fill the book ISSN, title, edition, and publishing year. Please note that the publishing year is a date type; therefore, it requires 2014-09-01 syntax, as shown in the following screenshot:

Alternatively, we can switch from Tree View to XML View to get a better understanding that we will send the XML that we defined previously in the XML Schema section. The complete SOAP message is shown in the following screenshot:

Click on the Test Web Service button in the upper-right corner of the screen to invoke our BPEL process.

To start, double-click on the Bookstore composite in our existing project tree. This will open the SOA composite view, which shows the main building blocks (service components) of our application. So far, we have a BPEL process named BookstoreABPEL, which is exposed as SOAP web service through a WSDL interface.

Add a second BPEL process named BookstoreBBPEL. To achieve this, drag-and-drop the BPEL Process component from the right-hand side toolbar to the Components space of the SOA composite:

Doing this will add the BPEL process component and immediately open the dialog box, where we need to specify the BPEL process name and other details, such as the BPEL version, XML namespace, select the process template, and define the service name. Again, use the BPEL 2.0 specification, name the process BookstoreBBPEL, select the namespace from the packtpub.com domain, and select the Synchronous BPEL Process template, as shown on the following screenshot:

After clicking on OK, we will see the composite with the added BPEL process. On the left-hand side in the project tree, we can see that several artifacts have been generated, including the WSDL interface and the corresponding XSD (XML Schema).

We are now ready to implement the process. To do so, double-click on the BookstoreBBPEL component represented by the blue rectangle. This will open the BPEL design perspective.

Use the same schemas as in the BookstoreABPEL process. To achieve this, we can edit the WSDL file of the BookstoreBBPEL process named BookstoreB.wsdl. Let's double-click on the file, click on the source tab, and modify the import of the schema. Instead of using the BookstoreBBPEL.xsd file, use the BookstoreBPEL.xsd. We also need to modify the XML namespace under the client namespace alias:

We also need to modify WSDL a little bit. We basically need to do the same changes as we did earlier in this chapter for the BookstoreABPEL process. To summarize, rename the operation name from process to getBookData. Modify both message elements to BookData and BookDataResponse respectively, and modify the schema location to use the BookstoreBPEL.xsd file:

Let's now go back to the BookstoreBBPEL process design window tab. In contrast to the first example, we will hardcode the response for a few predefined book ISSNs for which the BPEL process will return different stock quantities. For the 1111-1111 ISSN, it will return 10 books; for the 2222-2222 ISSN, it will return 20 books; for the 3333-3333 ISSN, it will return 30 books. For all other ISSNs, we will return five books.

First, add the <if> activity to the BPEL process by dragging-and-dropping the If icon from the lower-right side of the toolbar (look under Structured Activities). Drop the <if> activity between the receiveInput and replyOutput activities.

As we have four choices that we need to cover, first add the two Else If branches. Click on the <if> activity so that a big green plus sign will appear. Clicking on it will reveal Else If:

Let's now click on the Else If branch twice. Next, we need to add expressions, which will serve as the conditions for the if and elseif branches. Let's click on the first label. Name it ISSN1.

Next, right-click on the first if and select Edit. We could enter the condition directly, but will use the Expression Builder instead. Let's click on the Fx icon, to start Expression Builder.

In Expression Builder, use the equals operator to compare strings. Compare the ISSN within the inputVariable payload and compare it with the '1111-1111' string:

After clicking on OK, we will see the expression in the initial Edit If dialog box:

Enter other two conditions in the same way, first for the 2222-2222 ISSN, and 3333-3333 ISSN.

For each <if> branch, we now have to add the corresponding <assign> activity, which will set the stock quantity output variable. We already know how to use the <assign> activity, as we have used it in the previous example. However, this time, set the stock quantity within the <if> activity only. Set the other parameter, the BookISSN in the output variable after the <if> activity, as it is the same for all if branches.

First, let's add the <assign> by dragging-and-dropping the activity from the right-hand toolbar. It will appear as Assign1. Let's double-click on the Assign1 activity and create a copy rule, where we will copy the number 10 to the stock quantity:

Let's now rename the Assign1 activity to a more meaningful name. We can do this under the General tab, as shown in the following screenshot:

Add the other three <assign> activities to the BPEL process the same way. The first activity will assign the quantity of 20, the second 30, and the last (under the else branch) the quantity of 5.

Let's now add the final assign that will copy the BookISSN from the input variable to the output variable. Add the assign after the <if> activity and before the replyOutput activity:

The assign will copy BookISSN from inputVariable to BookISSN of outputVariable. Please note that it would be the same if this assign activity would be added after the receive activity and before the if activity, as shown in the following screenshot:

Right-click on the project in the project tree and select the Deploy submenu.

Then, select Deploy to Application Server.

We will use the default deployment configuration, but make sure that we check the Overwrite any existing composites with the same revision ID option.

Choose the IntegratedWebLogicServer server for the deployment and click on Finish.

Test the BookstoreBBPEL process by clicking on it.

Let's do the test for the 1111-1111 ISSN. To perform the test, first select the XML View.

This time we will enter the request message in plain XML. For this, simply enter the required data in the following predefined XML form:

After clicking on the Test Web Service button, we will see the screen with the response of 10: