SOA Infrastructure Partitions

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 all SOA composite applications within a specific partition. Partitions are similar to the domain feature that was part of 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. You can manage partitioning from either of two pages:

• From the Manage Partitions page of the SOA Infrastructure, which lets you create partitions, delete partitions, and perform bulk lifecycle management tasks on all SOA composite applications in a specific partition
• From the partition home page, which also enables you to perform bulk lifecycle management tasks on all SOA composite applications in a specific partition

Note: If SOA composite applications using the same inbound resource are deployed to different partitions, it cannot be guaranteed which partition picks up the message for processing.

For example, assume you are using the file adapter and /home/Directory1 is the inbound directory for the composite SOAComposite1. If this composite is deployed to both Partition1 and Partition2, when a file is placed in /home/Directory1, either the composite in Partition1 or Partition2 may pick up the file. With the socket adapter, however, there is a limitation that does not permit you to deploy any composite that uses the same inbound port. In that case, an exception is thrown indicating that the inbound port is in use. Table 8-2 provides more specific details on the tasks you can perform from both pages.

Table 8-2 Partition Management Actions

Action	Perform on the Manage Partitions Page?	Perform on the Partition Home Page?
Create a partition	Yes	No
Delete a partition	Yes	Yes. Select the SOA Partition menu, and then select Delete This Partition.Note: You can also delete a partition by right-clicking it in the navigator and selecting Delete This Partition.
Perform bulk lifecycle management tasks on all composites deployed to a specific partition: Start all Shut down all Retire all Activate all Undeploy all	Yes	Yes

  Notes:

• Partitions are not associated with a particular state such as started, stopped, activated, or retired. Only the composites within the partition are associated with a particular state. Therefore, you cannot start, stop, activate, or retire a partition.
• After the SOA Infrastructure is started, it may not be completely initialized to administer incoming requests until all deployed composites are loaded. During SOA Infrastructure initialization, a warning message is displayed at the top of the Manage Partitions and Partitions home pages. Do not perform operations such as composite deployment, composite Undeployment, and others while this message is displayed.

a). Creating and Deleting Partitions: You can create and delete partitions on the Manage Partitions page. A default partition named default is automatically included with Oracle SOA Suite. You can delete the default partition. Note that you cannot rename existing partitions; only creation and deletion of partitions is supported.

1. Access this page through one of the following options:

From the SOA Infrastructure Menu...	From the Home Page of a Specific Partition...
Select Manage Partitions.	From the Related Links list of a specific partition, select Manage Partitions.

The Manage Partitions page displays the following details:

• The name of each partition, the number of active and retired SOA composite application revisions in each partition, the name of the composites contained in each partition (under the View link), and the total number of running and faulted instances in each partition.
• A utility for searching for a specific partition. Enter a full or partial partition name and click the Search icon or press the Return The search is not case-sensitive.

Description of the illustration soaadmin_partition4.gif:

• To add a partition, click Create.

The Create New SOA Partition dialog is displayed.

Description of the illustration soaadmin_createpartition.gif

• In the Name field, enter a partition name, and click Create.

Note: The name must conform to the following conventions:

• ASCII letters and numbers are permitted.
• Underscores (_) are permitted.
• Hyphens (-) are permitted (except as the first character)
• Non-ASCII letters are permitted.
• Spaces are not permitted.

Examples of valid names are mypartition, partition2, dept-a, customer_services, and 22. Examples of invalid names are -part2, /partition, and null or empty names. You cannot rename an existing partition or later transfer the composite applications you deployed to it to a different partition. The new partition is displayed in both the navigator under soa-infra and the SOA Partition column of the Manage Partitions page. You can now deploy composites to this partition by selecting Deploy to This Partition from the Deployment dropdown list or right-clicking a specific partition in the navigator and clicking Deploy to This Partition. When a composite is deployed to a partition, it is displayed beneath the partition in the navigator. Once deployed, a composite cannot be transferred to a different partition.

Description of the illustration soaadmin_createpartition2.gif To delete a partition, select a specific partition and click Delete. Note that you can also right-click a specific partition in the navigator and click Delete This Partition. The Delete SOA Partition dialog is displayed. Note the following:

• If you want to re-create some of your composite deployments in another partition, you can export those composites to a JAR file before you delete this partition.
• Before deleting the selected partition, all SOA composite application revisions in the partition are undeployed. The states of all undeployed instances of these revisions become stale.

Note: You must have at least one partition. If you delete all partitions, you cannot deploy a SOA composite application.

Description of the illustration soaadmin_deletepartition.gif

b). Click Delete (Undeploy All Composites). All composites that were deployed in the partition are undeployed and no longer appear in the navigator. The partition is then deleted from both the navigator under soa-infra and the SOA Partition column of the Manage Partitions page.        

b).   Performing Bulk Lifecycle Management Tasks on Composites in Partitions You can perform bulk lifecycle management tasks on all SOA composite applications in a specific partition on the Manage Partitions page, on the home page of a specific partition, and from the menu that is displayed when you right-click a partition in the navigator. Bulk lifecycle management tasks impact not one, but many, composites at once. If a composite has running instances and a lifecycle changing operation is performed on the composite, the instances may not complete. To perform bulk lifecycle management tasks on all SOA composite applications in a specific partition:

1.  Access either page through one of the following options:

From the SOA Infrastructure Menu...	From the SOA Folder in the Navigator...
Select Manage Partitions.	Under soa-infra, select a specific        partition.

  Note: As a shortcut, you can also right-click a specific partition in the navigator to display a menu for selecting the bulk lifecycle management actions described in this section. Two dropdown lists that are displayed on either page enable you to perform bulk lifecycle management actions:

• Composites Control list
• Deployment list

On the home page of a specific partition, these lists are displayed at the top of the page.

Description of the illustration soaadmin_partition3.gif On the Manage Partitions page, these lists are displayed above the SOA Partition table:

Description of the illustration soaadmin_partition4.gif

Note: You can also select to deploy composites to a partition and perform bulk lifecycle management tasks by selecting the SOA Partition menu at the top of the partition home page. To perform one of the following bulk lifecycle management tasks for all SOA composite applications contained in the selected partition, select the Composites Control list:

• Start all composites
• Shut down all composites.
• Activate all composites.
• Retire all composites.

Description of the illustration soaadmin_comp_control.gif d. Select an operation to perform. A dialog is displayed that prompts you to confirm your selection. When the operation completes, a confirmation message is displayed at the top of the page. To perform one of the following management tasks, select the Deployment list:

• Specify a composite to deploy to this partition. This selection invokes the Deploy SOA Composite wizard where you specify a composite revision to deploy.
• Undeploy all composites in this partition.

A dialog is displayed that prompts you to confirm your selection. When the operation completes, a confirmation message is displayed at the top of the page.

Description of the illustration soaadmin_deployment.gif