Introduction to Oracle Service Bus

Oracle Service Bus is part of the Oracle family of service-oriented architecture (SOA) products. Oracle Service Bus manages the routing and transformation of messages in an enterprise system. Combining these functions with its monitoring and administration capability, Oracle Service Bus provides a unified software product for implementing and deploying your Service-Oriented Architecture.

Oracle Service Bus is a configuration-based, policy-driven enterprise service bus (ESB). From the Oracle Service Bus Console, you can monitor your services, servers, and operational tasks. Using the Web-based Oracle Service Bus Console in the run-time environment or the Eclipse-based Oracle Service Bus Plug-ins for Workshop for WebLogic in the development environment, you configure proxy and business services, set up security, manage resources, and capture data for tracking or regulatory auditing. Oracle Service Bus enables you to respond rapidly and effectively to changes in your service-oriented environment.

Oracle Service Bus relies on WebLogic Server run-time facilities. It leverages WebLogic Server capabilities to deliver functionality that is highly available, scalable, and reliable.

The following sections describe the contents, audience for, and organization of this document—Oracle Service Bus User Guide.

Document Scope and Audience

This guide provides information on using and configuring Oracle Service Bus. It is intended for those responsible for messaging and SOA, specifically enterprise architects, application architects and developers.

While sometimes providing procedural information, this guide does not provide detailed information on how to configure resources using the Web-based Oracle Service Bus Console or the Eclipse-based Oracle Service Bus Plug-ins for Workshop for WebLogic. For information on using the Oracle Service Bus Console, see Using the Oracle Service Bus Console. For information on using the Oracle Service Bus Plug-ins for Workshop for WebLogic, see Using the Oracle Service Bus Plug-ins for Workshop for WebLogic.

Document Organization

Configuring Proxy Services and Business Services: Information about creating and managing Oracle Service Bus proxy services and business services.
Modeling Message Flow in Oracle Service Bus: Guidelines for modeling message flows in Oracle Service Bus. A message flow defines the implementation of a proxy service. In Oracle Service Bus, service clients exchange messages with an intermediary proxy service rather than directly with a business service.
Message Context: Describes the Oracle Service Bus message context model and the predefined context variables that are used in message flows.
Using the Test Console: Describes using the test console (available in the Oracle Service Bus Console only) to test proxy services, business services, and some of the resources created and used in Oracle Service Bus.
UDDI: Describes using Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) registries with Oracle Service Bus. The UDDI protocol is one of the major building blocks required for successful Web services. UDDI provides a standard interoperable platform that enables enterprises and applications to find and use Web services over the Internet.
Extensibility Using Java Callouts and POJOs: Provides guidelines for using the Java callout action with Plain Old Java Objects (POJOs).
XQuery Implementation: This section describes valid extensions of the Oracle Data Service Integrator for Oracle Service Bus and Oracle Service Bus-specific XQuery functions.
XQuery-SQL Mapping Reference: Provides information about the native RDBMS Data Type support and XQuery mappings that the Oracle XQuery engine generates or supports.
Debugging Oracle Service Bus: Describes enabling debugging in Oracle Service Bus modules.
Oracle Service Bus APIs: Describes available APIs for customizing resources and for external access to monitoring data and deployment.