Oracle SOA Suite 11g Troubleshooting Methodology

Oracle SOA Suite 11g Troubleshooting Methodology

December 4th, 2011

16:05-16:50

Paper ID #6590

Harold Dost III Ahmed Aboulnaga Senior Consultant Technical Director

Raastech, Inc. Raastech, Inc.

Slide 2 of 59 © Raastech, Inc. 2011 | All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

2. Oracle Communications

3. Oracle AIA for Communications

4. Benefits of AIA

5. Customer Use Case

6. Summary

Agenda


INTRODUCTION


Ahmed Aboulnaga

15 years of Oracle middleware experience

Focus on Oracle Fusion Middleware, with emphasis on SOA,

portal, and collaboration technologies

Implementations for defense, commercial, federal,

international, and global customers

OCE (SOA Architect) and OCA (Application Server)

Author / Presenter / Blogger

About Me


You have no idea what Oracle Communications is and

want to learn a bit more about it

You have no idea what Oracle AIA for Communications is,

and want to understand a bit more about this Oracle

integration technology

You want information on an actual customer experience with

Oracle AIA for Communications

You like the presenter and think he’s cool

Why are you here?


DO WE REALLY STILL HAVE ISSUES?


Activation Issues

“I have spent most of my day trying to

activate this **** phone!”

“I am having trouble activating my cell

phone for updates… Every time I send the

reply to the text message, it still says my

phone is not activated.”


Billing Issues

“They’re sooooo stupid, they’ll probably

SEND me $1.06!!! HAAAAAAA!!!”

“I have been told that my bill was $60

overcharged and the next day I was told that

that calculation was wrong as well.”


Cancellation Issues

“I wonder when the F-ing morons are

going to figure out that I haven’t been

a customer since last year.”


Numerous systems

− Billing, point-of-sale, activation, order management, inventory

Numerous disparate systems

− Multi-vendor applications due to partnerships, addition of new

features, upgrades, or acquisitions

Integration between these systems

− Always a challenge due to the never ending cycle of promoting new

products and features

When will the problems end?


ORACLE COMMUNICATIONS


Oracle is committed to the communications space

– Despite difficult economic conditions, Oracle continues to invest in and

grow the number Communication Service Provider (CSPs) customers

“Oracle Communications delivers a complete, open, and

integrated platform for the communications industry”

~Facebook

– The Oracle Communications suite of products is designed to address

the numerous needs of the telecommunications industry

Oracle Communications Overview


The Oracle Communications stack has helped

support CSPs deliver new services that include: - Mobile TV

- 3G wireless networks

- Gaming

- Virtual Office

- Video Conferencing

Recent Oracle Communications customers include: - Cox Communications

- KDDI Corp.

- LG Telecom

- Telefónica O2 Czech Republic

- Vodafone Qatar

Oracle Communications Designed for the Communications Industry


Oracle Communications Applications Stack

Oracle SOA Suite

Oracle Application Integration Architecture (AIA) for

Communications

Oracle Siebel Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Oracle Communications Billing & Revenue Management (BRM)

Oracle Supply Chain Management (SCM)

Oracle Point-of-Sale (POS)

Oracle Service Fulfillment (SF)

Oracle Communications Order & Service Management (OSM)

Oracle Communications Unified Inventory Management (UIM)

Oracle Automatic Service Activation Program (ASAP)

Oracle Communications Services Gatekeeper (OCSG)

Oracle E-Business Suite & Financials



Oracle SOA Suite


Communications











Oracle Communications Products

http://www.oracle.com/us/industries/communications/046718.html


Oracle Siebel Customer Relationship Management (CRM) – At the center of the Oracle Communications solution

Oracle Communications Billing & Revenue Management (BRM) – Real-time number portability

– Credit control and notification

– SOX compliance features

– Enhanced account loading and service enablement

Oracle Communications Order & Service Management (OSM) – Performs the end-to-end order life cycle function

– Improves ordering process of complex, multipart customer orders captured by sales channels

– Ensures the successful delivery of orders

– Provides on-demand order status visibility

– Reports the status of sales orders already in process back to CRM and other systems

Oracle Communications Unified Inventory Management (UIM) – Provides traditional core inventory functions

– Supports VoIP

– Works seamlessly with Oracle Automatic Service Activation Program (ASAP)



The world’s top 20 communications

companies all rely on various Oracle, Oracle

Communications, and applications within the

Oracle OSS/BSS stack

http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/customers/customer

search/index.html?xProductServices=13/45/1870

Oracle Communications Customers


In Operations Support Systems (OSS), Gartner rated Oracle

“Very Strong” in Market Understanding, Offering (Product)

Strategy, and Overall Viability.

Strategic Scorecard for Operations Support Systems, 2009

http://www.gartner.com/technology/media-products/reprints/oracle/article118/article118.html

Gartner Rating


ORACLE APPLICATION INTEGRATION ARCHITECTURE FOR

COMMUNICATIONS


Oracle SOA Suite


Communications













Oracle SOA Suite


Communications













BENEFITS OF AIA


SOA relies on the concept that services are loosely

coupled, reusable, and standardized

As the number of systems and applications increase,

organizations face challenges ranging from integration,

maintaining legacy systems, and upgrades

SOA can help transform and organize your IT infrastructure

Benefits of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)


Point-to-Point Integration Architecture

CRM

ASAP

OCSG

OSM

OSM

BRM

UIM

POS

Using web services alone is not

enough when integrating Oracle

Communications applications

Integrating these applications can

be very difficult and time

consuming

Upgrading any application will

require code modification to the

integrations

Points of connections grow

exponentially

Limited reusability


AIA Integration Architecture

CRM

ASAP

OCSG

OSM

OSM

BRM

UIM

POS

AIA EBO/EBS

By leveraging Oracle AIA for

Communications, we allow for

loose coupling of the Oracle

Communications applications

A change to any one

application has a minimal

impact on the integrations

Single connection for each

operation

One-time integration

development for multiple

providers


Built on Oracle Fusion Middleware*

Foundation pack and best practice processes

Pre-packaged Enterprise Business Objects (EBO)

Enterprise Business Services (EBS)

Process Integration Packs (PIP)

Oracle AIA Foundation Pack Overview


traditional SOA

SOA and AIA


traditional SOA

Oracle AIA

SOA and AIA

Star Trek Enterprise



Oracle AIA Foundation Pack

Oracle SOA Suite

leverages tools within…

installed on…

Oracle SOA Technologies SOA Suite, AIA Foundation Pack, and AIA for Communications


Oracle AIA for Communications 2.5

Oracle BI

Analytics

Siebel Customer Relationship Management

Oracle SDP

Service Execution

Data Management

Product

Customer

En

terp

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ss

In

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tion

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nt

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erv

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ERP

Fins Assets

Procurement

Reporting

Oracle Content

Management

Oracle Service Fulfillment

Activation Network Inventory

Provisioning

Oracle Billing and Revenue Management

Billing Balance Tracking

Rating

Oracle Order and Service Management

Order Fallout Order Lifecycle

Management Ord

er

Ma

na

ge

me

nt

Oracle BI

Publisher

Invoicing

Sales Marketing/

Loyalty Partner

Order Capture

Self Service

Service

SCM

Planning Logistics Execution

Parts Inventory

Order Decomposition

and Orchestration


Introduced in October 2007

Designed for the communications industry

Based on Oracle Fusion Middleware

Includes a complete suite of pre-built, end-to-end,

integrated, productized business processes

Integrations are done via Process Integration Packs

(PIPs), foundation packs, and direct integrations between

products

Out-of-the-box, standards based, open architecture,

extensible, reusable



PIP = Process Integration Pack

End-to-end business process integrations across Oracle

Applications

Based on the AIA framework

Easily extends your business services

Supports industry specific canonicals

Oracle AIA for Communications Delivering Pre-Built Integrations


Error Handling

Oracle AIA for Communications Overview of PIPs


AIA Error Handling

AIA PIP

(Process Integration Pack)



Oracle AIA for Communications provides six PIPs:

– Customer Master Data Management

– Product Master Data Management

– Agent-assisted Billing Care

– Revenue Accounting

– Order to Bill

– Order to Activate



Order to Bill PIP:

– Sales order submission

– Asset creation

Oracle AIA for Communications Overview of Order to Bill PIP


Oracle AIA for Communications Overview of Order to Bill PIP


PIPs are extensible

Fully supported by Oracle (i.e., bug fixes, upgrades,

enhancements, etc.)

Additional integrations to support other customer

requirements are often built on top of the AIA Foundation

Pack



No need to spend months

defining/agreeing on

corporate data standard to

represent key business

objects

Simplified integration

between Oracle (CRM,

BRM, UIM, SCM, etc.) and

non-Oracle applications

Reduced development

time

REDUCED COST

Built on Oracle Fusion Middleware

High-performance, scalable, open

technologies

BUILT ON ENTERPRISE INFRASTRUCTURE

Ensures customizations are future-proof

Improves productivity, reduces errors, and

ensures data consistency

PAINLESS UPGRADES, BETTER DATA

Oracle AIA for Communications Benefits of AIA and PIPs


CUSTOMER USE CASE


Large, privately owned, telecom company

Offers high-speed Internet, telephony, and cable services

Serving 6+ million subscribers in 18 states in the US

$9.1 billion in revenue in 2010

Wireless service launched in March 2010

Goal was to create a service that offers quadruple play:

– Internet

– Telephony

– Cable

– Wireless service

Customer Profile


To support the infrastructure, the following is required:

– Business Support Systems (BSS) (i.e., billing)

– Operational Support Systems (OSS)

– Provisioning platforms

– Point Of Sale systems (POS)

Large number of enterprise applications: – 6 Oracle applications

– 6 non-Oracle applications

– 3 external applications

Middleware infrastructure needed for integration:

– Leveraged Oracle AIA for Communications 2.x

Required Applications and Systems


Oracle SOA Suite 10g MLR18 (10.1.3.3.x) 64-bit

Oracle AIA for Communications 2.x

Red Hat Linux ES 5 x86_64

Integration Layer


Numerous in & out invocations

Multiple source & target

applications

Synchronous & asynchronous

calls

Internal & external systems

OWSM optionally used for

security

Communication via:

– Web service calls

– Queues

– Adapters

Leveraging Oracle AIA for Communications


2 PIPs were used

Huge time & cost savings for initial development effort

Reducing Cost with PIPs


Not a very common problem

Encountered one instance of PIPs dependency issues * Versions shown below are for example purposes and are not correct

Must ensure certification compatibility between source

applications, PIPs, and target applications

The Challenge of PIPs

Requestor ABCS

AIA EBO CRM BRM

Provider ABCS

Siebel CRM 8.1.1.1 PIP 2.0.0 BRM 7.3.1

PIP 2.0.1 BRM 7.4.0 When to upgrade?


CAVS not used

– Would not have impacted testing approach

– All code must pass functional testing anyway

Error Handling Framework not used

– Errors were being reported by other means

IAIADiagnostics interface was proposed, not used

– Could have implemented a simpler custom non-AIA solution

Lack of experience, comfort, and familiarity with AIA

causes teams to not use these features

AIA Tools Not Leveraged


Benefits & Risks

Benefits Risks

PIPs reduced development time

during initial phases of the project

Lack of developer understanding of

AIA framework

Dependent on Oracle for bug fixes to

PIPs

Unable to upgrade to SOA Suite 11g

(for now)


SUMMARY


17 of the world’s top 20 telecom companies run Oracle

BSS/OSS applications

Productized integrations (which can be altered or

extended) enable end-to-end business flows in support of

lower integration costs

Advanced data models and flexible architecture

Ability to integrate Oracle and non-Oracle applications

Advantages of Oracle AIA for Communications


The “Truth Meter” contains a list of claims extracted from

Oracle AIA marketing material, press releases, and release

notes

12 Oracle AIA Solution Architects were interviewed to

provide, on a scale of 1 to 10, the truthfulness of each

statement

Background of the Oracle AIA Solution Architects:

– 10+ years of IT experience

– At least 1 long term AIA engagement (6-18 months)

– Includes customer architects, systems integration architects

(i.e., consultants), and architects currently employed at Oracle

Truth Meter Description


Truth Meter

Oracle Claim Truth Meter

Reduce complexity, accelerating delivery 58%

Promotes reuse 78%

Leverages industry best practices 76%

Speed up design with pre-built, extensible product data model 73%

Allocate less work on maintenance 63%

Lower integration costs (using PIPs) 62%

Lower integration costs (Foundation Pack only) 61%

Reduces integration risks (using PIPs) 63%

Reduces integration risks (Foundation Pack only) 60%


Truth Meter

Oracle Claim Truth Meter Total Customer SI Oracle

Reduce complexity, accelerating delivery 58% 47% 65% 70%

Promotes reuse 78% 77% 73% 87%

Leverages industry best practices 76% 80% 80% 67%

Speed up design with pre-built, extensible data model 73% 53% 82% 70%

Allocate less work on maintenance 63% 17% 55% 63%

Lower integration costs (using PIPs) 62% 50% 78% 67%

Lower integration costs (Foundation Pack only) 61% 50% 80% 57%

Reduces integration risks (using PIPs) 63% 50% 72% 53%

Reduces integration risks (Foundation Pack only) 60% 60% 63% 53%


Oracle Communications

– A suite of applications designed to support CSPs

Oracle SOA Suite

– Used to build integrations

Oracle AIA Foundation Pack

– Installed on top of Oracle SOA Suite

– Provides toolsets, components, and more to speed up and

standardize development


– Pre-built integrations leveraging the AIA Foundation Pack

– Delivers pre-built integrations between the various applications in

the Oracle Communications stack

Recap


Is AIA worth it?

– For application integration of the Oracle Communications stack…

absolutely!

Is AIA here to stay?

– Definitely*

From a long term strategic standpoint you cannot go wrong by

standardizing on AIA, particularly if you have a growing number of

Oracle applications.

Final Thoughts


Can you develop these integrations from scratch instead

of purchasing AIA for Communications?

– Absolutely.

Technically all you need is Oracle SOA Suite. But you have to

weigh cost-vs-risk-vs-flexibility.

Is it as easy as it sounds?

– Not really.

There are definite challenges. PIPs don’t satisfy all requirements

and finding qualified developers and architects continues to be a

major challenge.

Final Thoughts


AIA for Communications is the primary solution to

integrating Oracle Communications applications

For larger implementations, expect to initially see cost

reduction, high cost and high risk during the middle,

but long term ROI afterwards

PIPs help reduce risk

PIPs are not available for all types of integrations;

custom development and/or customization is almost

always required

Not enough qualified expertise in the marketplace

Competent AIA Solution Architects are very hard to

come back

Summary

AIA

Sum

mary

PIP

s

Skillsets


Contact Information

Harold Dost III

Senior Consultant

[email protected]

Ahmed Aboulnaga

Technical Director

[email protected]

Oracle SOA Suite 11g Troubleshooting Methodology

Technology