Introduction to How Policies are Executed Policies are executed before a message

1-20 Oracle Fusion Middleware Administrators Guide for Oracle SOA Suite and Oracle BPM Suite ■ A policy attached to a human task service component is executed inside the BPMN process in the human steps associated with the human service component before the message is passed to the human task service component. This causes the fault to be displayed in the BPMN process service component instead of the human task service component. To see the exact location of the policy error, view the audit trail.

1.4.3.3 Introduction to the Lifecycle State of SOA Composite Applications

You can administer the lifecycle state of deployed SOA composite applications from Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control. An application is automatically activated when you deploy it to the SOA Infrastructure. During deployment, you can specify a specific revision number for the application. A revision is a specific deployed version of the application. You can deploy multiple revisions of an application, enabling all to run at the same time. This is a key benefit of revisions. For example, you may have an older revision of an application running with one customer that is still valid. You then begin a partnership with a different customer that requires a slight modification to the design of the application. At some point, you plan to migrate the old customer to the newer revision of the application, but for now that is not necessary. Revisions enable you to run both applications. The revision value is added to the application name in Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control. For example, in Figure 1–1 , revision 1.0 is the version for many deployed SOA composite applications. If a new request comes in for a specific composite application revision, that composite application revision is invoked. If a new request comes in without specifying a revision, the default revision is invoked. A small green dot distinguishes the default revision from other revisions. You can perform the following lifecycle administration tasks on a SOA composite application from Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control: ■ Create an instance. ■ Stop and restart application revisions. An application revision is typically started instantly after deployment. ■ Retire and activate application revisions. Application revisions are instantly activated upon deployment. ■ Set an application as the default version. ■ Deploy, undeploy, and redeploy application revisions. ■ Delete specific instances of an application revision. With the addition of Oracle SOA Governance tools for lifecycle management, you can perform additional lifecycle management tasks on a SOA composite application, or any component or service within the composite: ■ Collect important information on each component in an Oracle Enterprise Repository to help producers, providers, consumers, or other participants in the lifecycle for better understanding. For example, you can show the relationships between previous and next versions. ■ Associate a lifecycle stage categorization to components or service endpoints for example, build, test, stage, or production. ■ Automatically advance and track components and service endpoints through various lifecycle stages, automatically publishing them to an appropriate UDDI service registry for their lifecycle stage. Introduction and Concepts 1-21 ■ Manage their lifecycle and associated approvals using repeatable processes. ■ Manage their performance in production, and inform prospective consumers of services for better design-time decisions. SOA Governance Suite provides Oracle SOA Suite and Oracle BPM Suite users with options to specify and automate a complete lifecycle for applications and their components for example, planning, design, implementation, testing, staging, production, changes, and retirement. For more information about administering the lifecycle states of a SOA composite application and SOA governance, see the following sections: ■ Section 8.1, Initiating a SOA Composite Application Test Instance ■ Section 8.2, Managing the State of Deployed SOA Composite Applications ■ Section 8.3, Monitoring and Deleting SOA Composite Application Instances from the Application Home Page ■ Section 8.4, Monitoring and Deleting SOA Composite Application Instances at the SOA Infrastructure Level ■ Oracle Fusion Middleware User Guide for Oracle Enterprise Repository ■ Oracle Fusion Middleware Integration Guide for Oracle Enterprise Repository ■ Oracle Fusion Middleware Configuration Guide for Oracle Enterprise Repository

1.4.3.4 Introduction to SOA Composite Application Automated Testing

You can create, deploy, and run test cases that automate the testing of SOA composite applications. Test cases enable you to simulate the interaction between a SOA composite application and its references before deployment in a production environment. Test suites consist of a logical collection of one or more test cases. Each test case contains a set of commands to perform as the test instance is executed. The execution of a test suite is known as a test run. Each test corresponds to a single SOA composite application instance. Instances generated by the execution of these tests are distinguished as test instances by a little yellow box next to their instance ID, as shown in Figure 1–6 . The test suite framework provides the following features: ■ Uses emulations to simulate the behavior of components with which your SOA composite application interacts during execution. Instead of invoking a specific component, you can specify a response from the component. ■ Uses assertions to validate data during process execution. For information about designing test cases for SOA composite applications, see Oracle Fusion Middleware Developers Guide for Oracle SOA Suite.

1.4.3.5 Introduction to Partitioning of the SOA Infrastructure

You can deploy SOA composite applications into separate sections of the SOA Infrastructure known as partitions. Deploying to partitions enables you to logically group SOA composites and perform bulk lifecycle management tasks on large numbers of composites. Partitioning is similar to the concept of domains in the 10.1.x releases of Oracle BPEL Process Manager. However, note that you cannot perform specific configuration tasks on partitions, such as restricting login access to a specific partition or configuring partitions such as configuring threading. At least one partition is required for deploying SOA composite applications. A default partition named default is automatically included with Oracle SOA Suite.