1-2 Oracle Fusion Middleware Administrators Guide for Oracle WebCenter
Oracle WebCenter provides an open and extensible solution that allows users to interact directly with services like instant messaging, documents, content
management, discussion forums, wikis, blogs, and tagging directly from within the context of a portal or an application. These tools and services empower end users and
IT to build and deploy next-generation collaborative applications and portals.
This section describes Oracle WebCenter components and architecture in the following sections:
■
Section 1.2, Oracle WebCenter Architecture
■
Section 1.3, Oracle WebCenter Topology
■
Section 1.4, Oracle WebCenter Spaces
■
Section 1.5, WebCenter Portal Applications
1.2 Oracle WebCenter Architecture
Oracle WebCenter comprises the following components shown in Figure 1–1
:
■
WebCenter Portal Framework
■
Oracle Application Development Framework
■
WebCenter Spaces
■
Oracle Composer
■
WebCenter Services
■
WebCenter Discussion Server
■
WebCenter Analytics
■
WebCenter Activity Graph
■
WebCenter Personalization Server
■
Portals
■
Composite Applications
Introduction to Oracle WebCenter Administration 1-3
Figure 1–1 Oracle WebCenter Architecture
1.2.1 WebCenter Portal Framework
Injects portal capabilities into ADF, including:
■
Run-time application customization you can make in-place changes to WebCenter Portal applications using Oracle Composer without re-deploying the application
■
Support for JSR-168 and JSR-286 standards-based WSRP portlets, and PDK-Java portlets
■
Content integration through JCR JSR170, to content repositories such as Oracle Content Server, Oracle Portal, and file systems
■
Oracle JSF Portlet Bridge, which lets you expose JSF pages and Oracle ADF task flows as standards-based portlets
1.2.2 Oracle Application Development Framework
Application Development Framework ADF is a productivity layer that sits on top of JSF and provides:
■
Unified access to back ends such as databases, Web services, XML, CSV, and BPEL
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Data binding JSR 227 connecting the user interface with back-end data controls
■
Over 100 data-aware JSF view components
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Native component model that includes task flows
■
Fine grained JAAS security model
1.2.3 WebCenter Spaces
Built using JSF, Oracle ADF, WebCenter Portal Framework, WebCenter services, and Oracle Composer, WebCenter Spaces provides:
■
A browser-based platform for creating enterprise portals, multiple sites and communities.
1-4 Oracle Fusion Middleware Administrators Guide for Oracle WebCenter
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Spaces, a rich team collaboration platform.
■
A Home Space for each user, providing a private work area for storing personal content, keeping notes, viewing and responding to business process assignments,
emailing, and so on. The focus of a Home Space is personal productivity.
■
Threaded discussions, blogs, wikis, worklists, announcements, RSS, recent activities, search, and more.
1.2.4 Oracle Composer
Oracle Composer provides:
■
Ability to perform run-time application and user customization in-place in your browser
■
A rich, intuitive user experience where you can:
– Browse and add resources, such as task flows and portlets, to pages
– Re-arrange page layout
– Set page and component properties
– Contextually wire components
1.2.5 WebCenter Services
Table 1–1 lists WebCenter services available in WebCenter Spaces and other WebCenter
Portal applications.
WebCenter services provide:
■
Seamless integration with enterprise-level services
■
Thin adapter layer to abstract back-end services. For example:
–
Content adapters: Oracle Content Server, and Oracle Portal.
Table 1–1 WebCenter Services
Services A Through N Services P Through W
Analytics Page
Announcements People Connections
Discussions Personalization
Documents includes Wikis and Blogs Polls
Events
2
RSS
1
1
RSS news feeds are available from WebCenter Spaces only. The RSS Viewer task flow is available in both WebCenter Spaces and WebCenter Portal applications.
Instant Messaging and Presence IMP Recent Activities
Links Activity Graph
Lists
2
Search Mail
Tags Notes
2
2
WebCenter Spaces only.
Worklist
Introduction to Oracle WebCenter Administration 1-5
– Presence adapters: Oracle WebLogic Communication Server OWLCS,
Microsoft Live Communications Server and Microsoft Office Communications Server
■
Back-end systems represented by a unified connection architecture
■
User interface to services presented through rich task flow components
1.2.6 WebCenter Discussion Server
Oracle WebCenter Discussion Server provides the ability to integrate discussion forums and announcements into your applications.
1.2.7 WebCenter Analytics
Oracle WebCenter Analytics enables users to view various user activity reports, for example:
■
Login data
■
Page views
■
Portlet views
■
Document views
■
Search metrics
■
Page response data
■
Space usage
1.2.8 WebCenter Activity Graph
Oracle WebCenter Activity Graph enables users to analyze various statistics collected by WebCenter Analytics. The output of a WebCenter Activity Graph analysis is the
collected similarity scores for objects and users, which are used to give recommendations. The scores are stored in the WebCenter Activity Graph database.
1.2.9 WebCenter Personalization Server
Oracle WebCenter Personalization Server enables you to deliver application content to targeted users based on selected criteria.
1.2.10 Portals
Portals provide a common interface a Web page to a personalized, single point of interaction with Web-based applications and information relevant to individual users
or class of users. For information about creating portals, see Oracle Fusion Middleware Developers Guide for Oracle WebCenter.
1.2.11 Composite Applications
A composite application is an assembly of services, service components, wires, and references designed and deployed as a single application. For more information about
composite applications, see the Oracle Fusion Middleware Administrators Guide for Oracle SOA Suite and Oracle Business Process Management Suite.
1-6 Oracle Fusion Middleware Administrators Guide for Oracle WebCenter
1.3 Oracle WebCenter Topology
This section describes Oracle WebCenter topology and configuration in the following sections:
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Section 1.3.1, WebCenter Topology Out-of-the-Box
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Section 1.3.2, WebCenter Managed Servers
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Section 1.3.3, WebCenter Startup Order
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Section 1.3.4, WebCenter Dependencies
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Section 1.3.5, WebCenter Configuration Considerations
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Section 1.3.6, WebCenter State and Configuration Persistence
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Section 1.3.7, WebCenter Log File Locations
1.3.1 WebCenter Topology Out-of-the-Box
Oracle WebCenter installation creates a WebCenter Oracle Home under the Oracle Middleware Home directory and an Oracle Common Home directory, which contains
WebCenter binaries and supporting files Figure 1–2
.
Figure 1–2 Directory Structure of an Oracle WebCenter Installation
The installation also creates a WebCenter domain base_domain, containing the administration server and several managed servers to host various WebCenter
components. In Figure 1–3
, applications are shown in yellow, while the managed servers they run on are shown in brown.
Introduction to Oracle WebCenter Administration 1-7
Figure 1–3 Oracle WebCenter Topology Out-of-the-Box
Out-of-the-box managed servers host the following components:
■
WC_Spaces - Hosts WebCenter Spaces
■
WC_Portlet - Hosts WebCenter Portlets and WebCenter Pagelet Provider
■
WC_Collaboration - Hosts WebCenter Discussions and any additional WebCenter services that you choose to integrate
■
WC_Utilities - Hosts Activity Graph, Analytics, and Personalizations An optional fifth managed server an applications server can be used to run
WebCenter Portal applications. When you create additional managed servers, they are provisioned with the appropriate libraries to enable them to draw upon the same
external resources as WebCenter Spaces. For more information about managed servers, see Understanding Oracle Fusion Middleware Concepts in the Oracle Fusion
Middleware Administrators Guide.
1.3.2 WebCenter Managed Servers
During Oracle WebCenter installation, the managed servers are provisioned with system libraries and Oracle ADF libraries.
Table 1–2 lists the managed servers and the
applications that run on them.
1-8 Oracle Fusion Middleware Administrators Guide for Oracle WebCenter
1.3.3 WebCenter Startup Order
When a managed server starts up, applications and libraries are started in the following order:
1.
Oracle system libraries, known as the JRF libraries.
2.
Oracle ADF libraries.
3.
Instrumentation applications, such as Oracle DMS, and the Oracle Web Services Manager wsm-pm application.
4.
WebCenter applications, shown in Table 1–2
. The startup order is also the order of dependency. If a dependent component does not
deploy successfully, a later component may not function correctly. WebCenter application startup is not dependent on the availability of external services
such as the discussions server, or other back-end servers. For details, see Section 1.3.4,
WebCenter Dependencies.
1.3.4 WebCenter Dependencies
WebCenter applications use several external servers and services Table 1–3
. The Configuration column lists the type of information provided to Oracle WebCenter to
configure or initialize the connection. The Access column lists the protocol used in run-time access of the service.
Table 1–2 Oracle WebCenter Managed Servers and Applications
Managed Server Applications
Application Name
WC_Spaces WebCenter Spaces
WebCenter Spaces Online Help webcenter
webcenter-help WC_Portlet
OmniPortlet and Web Clipping WSRP Tools
Pagelet Producer portalTools
wsrp-tools pagelet-producer
WC_Collaboration WebCenter Discussions Server
owc_discussions WC_Utilities
WebCenter Analytics WebCenter Activity Graph
WebCenter Personalization Services analytics-collector
activitygraph-engines wcps-services
Table 1–3 Dependent Resources - Access Types
External Server Service
Configuration Access
Analytics UDP access to the Analytics Collector
UDP Activity Graph
HTTP access to activity graph administration
HTTP Discussions server
HTTP access to discussions server administration
SOAPHTTP
Introduction to Oracle WebCenter Administration 1-9
Serverservice unavailability does not prevent WebCenter applications from starting up, although errors may display while the application is running. The only exception
is the Oracle Metadata Repository MDS, as WebCenter applications do not work without it.
WebCenter Spaces partially works without the WebCenter repository but only if it is a different physical database from the MDS repository. The WebCenter repository stores
information for several services, including Events, Links, Lists, People Connections, Polls, and Tags, and these services do not work if the WebCenter repository is not
available.
1.3.5 WebCenter Configuration Considerations
The main configuration files for WebCenter applications are listed and described in Table 1–4
. Both these files are supplied within the WebCenter application deployment .EAR file.
WebCenter applications and portlet producers both use the Oracle Metadata Services MDS repository to store their configuration data; both access the MDS repository as a
JDBC data source within the Oracle WebLogic framework.
The MDS repository stores post deployment configuration changes for WebCenter applications and portlet producers as application customizations. MDS uses the
original deployed versions of adf-config.xml and connections.xml as base Oracle Content Server
Documents Socket connection to the Administration
Server. HTTP access is required only if the Oracle Content Server must be accessed
outside WebCenter. JCR 1.0 over socket
or HTTP
Instant Messaging and Presence server
HTTP access to instant messaging and presence server administration
SOAPHTTP Mail server
IMAPSMTP server IMAPSMTP
Personal Events server HTTP access to calendar services SOAPHTTP
Personalization server JBDC access to the personalization server JDBC REST
Portlets HTTP location of provider WSDLs
SOAPHTTP Search server
HTTP access to search server HTTP
Worklist HTTP access to BPEL server
SOAPHTTP MDS and Schemas
JDBC JDBC
Table 1–4 Oracle WebCenter Configuration Files
Artifact Purpose
adf-config.xml Stores basic configuration for Application
Development Framework ADF and WebCenter application settings, such as which discussions
server or mail server the WebCenter application is currently using.
connections.xml Stores basic configuration for connections to
external services.
Table 1–3 Cont. Dependent Resources - Access Types
External Server Service
Configuration Access
1-10 Oracle Fusion Middleware Administrators Guide for Oracle WebCenter
documents and stores all subsequent application customizations separately into MDS using a single customization layer.
When a WebCenter application starts up, application customizations stored in MDS are applied to the appropriate base documents and the WebCenter application uses
the merged documents base documents with customizations as the final set of configuration properties.
For WebCenter applications that are deployed to a server cluster, all members of a cluster read from the same location in the MDS repository.
Typically, there is no need for administrators to examine or manually change the content of base documents or MDS customization data for files such as
adf-config.xml and connections.xml, as Oracle provides several administration tools for post deployment configuration. If you must locate the base
documents or review the information in MDS, read
Appendix A, WebCenter Configuration
. To find out more about WebCenter application configuration tools available, see
Section 1.13, Oracle WebCenter Administration Tools.
While WebCenter applications store post deployment configuration information in MDS, configuration information for portlet producers and Oracle WebCenter
Discussions Server is stored in the file system or the database see Table 1–5
.
Oracle WebCenter Discussions Server The Oracle WebCenter Discussions Server stores configuration information in its
database. Additionally, it stores startup configuration information in DOMAIN_HOMEconfigfmwconfigserversWC_COLLABORATIONowc_discu
ssions. This directory contains jive_startup.xml, jive.license files, and a logs directory containing log files for the discussions server instance.
1.3.6 WebCenter State and Configuration Persistence
WebCenter applications run as J2EE applications with application state and configuration persisted to the MDS repository. User session information within the
application is held locally in memory. In a cluster environment, this state is replicated to other members of the cluster.
Application customizations within a portlet or service environment are persisted by that service. Out-of-the-box, Oracle portlets, any custom portlets you build, and Oracle
WebCenter Discussions Server, all have their own database persistence mechanisms.
Note: Oracle does not recommend that you edit adf-config.xml
or connections.xml by hand as this can lead to misconfiguration.
Table 1–5 Oracle WebCenter Configuration Location
Application Configuration Stored in
MDS Configuration Stored in
File System Configuration Stored in
Database WebCenter Spaces
Yes No
No WebCenter Portal
applications Yes
No No
Portlet producers No
Yes No
Discussions server No
Yes Yes
Introduction to Oracle WebCenter Administration 1-11
WebCenter Analytics WebCenter Analytics is stateless. Requests received by Analytics Collectors are
executed immediately. Any in-transit state, such as a request initiated by a WebCenter application or a request processed by the Analytics Collector, is not guaranteed.
WebCenter Activity Graph WebCenter Activity Graph consists of two components:
■
Activity Graph service - does not maintain any in-memory state. The Activity
Grpah task flows query the Activity Graph database and display results as a list of recommendations. State is updated by the following:
■
Task flow configuration parameters
■
Personalization settings
■
Not-interested feature The first two are built on the standard Oracle ComposerOracle ADFMDS
framework, which manages the state. The last is a feature where the user can indicate that they are not interested in a particular recommendation. This input is
persisted synchronously in the database.
■
Activity Graph Engine - runs a batch data analysis process that updates tables in
the database transactionally. Although the engine does not support clustering or failover, it can recover from failure.
Administrators use the Activity Graph Scheduler to set up and monitor the nightly schedule. The results of the analysis the recommendations are presented through the
Activity Graph task flows.
The Activity Graph Engine is a singleton application that has a background thread that wakes up periodically to check if it is time to run the nightly job, which can last several
hours. The schedule is persisted in the database. If the managed server fails, the job continues when the managed server next starts up.
WebCenter Personalization Server WebCenter Personalization Server is a stateless RESTful application. All state is
managed in the client requests.
1.3.7 WebCenter Log File Locations
Operations performed by WebCenter applications, portlet producers, discussion servers, and so on, are logged directly to the WebLogic managed server where the
application is running:
base_domainserversWC_ServerlogsWC_Server.log For example, WebCenter Spaces diagnostics are logged to:
base_domainserversWC_SpaceslogsWC_Spaces-diagnostic.log You can view the log files for each WebLogic managed server from the Oracle
WebLogic Server Administration Console. To view the logs, access the Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console
http:admin_server_host:portconsole, and click Diagnostics-Log Files
. You can also view and configure diagnostic logs through Fusion Middleware Control,
see Section 36.3, Viewing and Configuring Log Information.
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1.4 Oracle WebCenter Spaces
Oracle WebCenter Spaces is a Web-based application, built using the Oracle WebCenter Framework, that offers the very latest technology for social networking,
communication, collaboration, and personal productivity. Through a robust set of services and applications, WebCenter Spaces brings together everything you need to
exchange ideas with others, keep track of your personal and work-related tasks, interact with your critical applications, and zero in on your own projects and
interests—all within a single, integrated environment.
Automatic Configuration for WebCenter Spaces Services Some services are automatically configured for WebCenter Spaces during the
installation process. For details, see Oracle Fusion Middleware Installation Guide for Oracle WebCenter.
Default connection names are listed in Table 1–6
.
Configuring WebCenter Spaces PostInstallation To help you get started, see:
■
Chapter 2, Getting WebCenter Spaces Up and Running For information about administering WebCenter Spaces, see Accessing WebCenter
Spaces Administration Pages in Oracle Fusion Middleware Users Guide for Oracle WebCenter.
1.5 WebCenter Portal Applications
You can develop WebCenter Portal applications using JDeveloper and deploy them to a custom WebLogic Managed Server. For information about developing WebCenter
Portal applications, see the Oracle Fusion Middleware Developers Guide for Oracle WebCenter.
To help you get started, see:
■
Chapter 4, Getting WebCenter Portal Applications Up and Running
■
Chapter 5, Maintaining WebCenter Portal Applications
■
Chapter 7, Deploying WebCenter Applications
Table 1–6 Connections Automatically Configured for WebCenter Spaces
WebCenter Service Component
Default Connection Name
Discussions and Announcements services
WebCenterSpaces-Discussions Documents service
WebCenterSpaces-ucm Pagelet producer
WebCenterSpaces-PageletProducer Personalization service
Conductor-WCPSSpaces and Properties-WCPSSpaces Preconfigured portlet
producers wc-OmniPortlet
wc-WebClipping wc-WSRPTools
Worklist service WebCenter Spaces workflows
WebCenterSpaces-Worklist
Introduction to Oracle WebCenter Administration 1-13
1.6 Planning WebCenter Installations
Installing your WebCenter application requires a little bit of planning. Some of the questions to consider are:
■
What WebCenter components will be used?
■
How many users will access this deployment?
■
How can I provide high availability for my WebCenter enterprise deployment?
■
How can I secure WebCenter? For more information about planning a WebCenter installation, see the Oracle Fusion
Middleware Installation Guide for Oracle WebCenter, the Oracle Fusion Middleware Enterprise Deployment Guide for Oracle WebCenter, and the Oracle Fusion Middleware High
Availability Guide.
1.7 Understanding the WebCenter 11g Installation
The out-of-the-box WebCenter topology is briefly described in Section 1.3, Oracle
WebCenter Topology . Specific areas of the WebCenter topology are described in the
corresponding chapters, for example, security-related aspects of the WebCenter topology are described in
Chapter 27, Managing WebCenter Portal Application Security.
For more information about Oracle WebCenter installation and postinstallation administration tasks, see Oracle Fusion Middleware Installation Guide for Oracle
WebCenter.
For postinstallation enterprise configuration, see the Oracle Fusion Middleware Enterprise Deployment Guide for Oracle WebCenter.
For postinstallation high availability configuration, see the Oracle Fusion Middleware High Availability Guide.
For postinstallation security configuration, see Chapter 27.2.5, Post-deployment
Security Configuration Tasks.
1.8 Understanding Administrative Operations, Roles, and Tools
Oracle WebCenter provides several different tools with which to deploy, configure, start and stop, and maintain Oracle WebCenter applications. All these tools are
described in Section 1.13, Oracle WebCenter Administration Tools.
Your ability to perform WebCenter administration tasks depends on which Oracle WebLogic Server role you are assigned—Admin, Operator, or Monitor.
Table 1–7 lists the Oracle WebLogic Server roles needed for common operations. These roles
apply whether the operations are performed through Fusion Middleware Control, WLST commands, or the WebLogic Server Administration Console.
Table 1–7 WebCenter Operations and Oracle WebLogic Server Roles
Operation Admin
Role Operator
Role Monitor
Role
All WebCenter applications
Start and stop Yes
Yes No
View performance metrics Yes
Yes Yes
View log information Yes
Yes Yes