Setting up an Oracle Cloud Service (Trial Version)

Oracle is currently offering a 30 day free trial on their SOA Cloud service, which is a very good way of introducing yourself to the joys of PaaS. I would suggest giving it a whirl, if only to understand just how Oracle is positioning its cloud based offerings. This blog describes the required steps to provision a trial version of the Oracle SOA Cloud service, which whilst relatively easy to do, does have some gotcha’s that you should be aware of!

Oracle SOA cloud provides access to 12.1.3 of SOA Suite in a fully managed environment. By subscribing to a managed cloud environment, developers get rapid access to SOA Suite without the need to wait for lengthy environment provisioning by the I.T department, as was traditionally the case. This means of course, that you can start developing innovative applications far more quickly, without worrying about all the nuances associated with a complete produce install! Please note however, that Oracle currently does not have a fully ported version of SOA on the cloud: B2B, Managed File Transfer, Enterprise Scheduling, Event Processing, and BAM are not currently available.

Oracle offers two models of subscription for its SOA Cloud Service: A non-metered version (there are several pricing and service levels to suit the needs and budget of your organization) or a metered version. The latter can be ordered via a purchase order or by pre-paid subscription or pay as you go.

It is worth mentioning that before you can create a SOA Cloud instance, you need to subscribe to Oracle Database Cloud Service (the full one and not Database Schema!) and also to Oracle Storage Cloud - the latter is used for database backups.

So how to start…..

First off subscribe to the Oracle Public Cloud Service:

As part of the subscribing process, you will need to request a verification code (see the  "Request Code" button in the above screen shot). This is sent as a SMS message to your mobile. You need to enter the code sent prior to selecting the “sign up” button.

Once your subscription has been accepted, Oracle will send you an email detailing how you can access the various consoles required to complete the installation.

Setting up access to Cloud Storage....

Firstly, you must subscribe to the Cloud Storage. This is not quite as easy as it might seem as you need to access this service via a REST API (you can also access through an official java library). Oracle recommend that you use a tool called Curl to do this. Installing Curl is straight forward enough. Details of how to do this can be found at the following URL: http://www.oracle.com/webfolder/technetwork/tutorials/obe/cloud/objectstorage/creating_containers_REST_API/files/installing_curl_command_line_tool_on_windows.html

Oracle Storage Cloud Service requires authentication for any operation against the service instance. Authentication is performed by using an authentication token, which expires every 30 minutes. You must include your current authentication token with every request to Oracle Storage Cloud Service. To request an authentication token, run the following command (substituting your details for the tokens below):

curl -k -v -s -X GET -H "X-Storage-User: Storage-<<your domain>>>:<<your email>>>" -H "X-Storage-Pass: <<your password>>" https://<<your domain>>.storage.oraclecloud.com/auth/v1.0

NOTE: You must first have logged onto the MyServices console to set a replication policy for the Cloud Storage instance – do this by logging on and selecting “Set Replication Policy”. Otherwise, you cannot access the Cloud Storage instance (so beware!).

Executing this command will give you an authentication code that you can use to create a container. The container is created using the following command:

curl -k -v -s -X PUT -H "X-Auth-Token: AUTH_tkb7364f9f8b937c96c8e2a8e716 914092" https://storage.us2.oraclecloud.com/v1/Storage-<<your domain>> /myFirstContainer

NOTE: Clearly, you will use the security token generated using the above step. I have included a token as an example only here.

To verify that this is set up correctly, issue the following command:

curl -k -v -s -X GET -H "X-Auth-Token: AUTH_tkb7364f9f8b937c96c8e2a8e716914092" https://storage.us2.oraclecloud.com/v1/Storage-<<your domain>>/myFirstContainer

You will use the above storage container when defining your DBaaS instance (see below).

Generating a SSH Key Pair…..

When you define your Oracle DBaaS database instance (see below), you will need to provide a secure shell (SSH) public key to establish secure connections.  I used the PUTTY Key Generator on windows to do this. This is fairly straight forward and there are plenty of details on the web, so I will not go into details here.

Creating a Database Instance…..

Oracle SOA Cloud Service employs the Oracle Database Cloud Service to host the Oracle Fusion Middleware component schemas that are required by the Oracle Java Required Files (JRF).

So before we can get access to SOA Cloud we must create a database service instance. You will do this from the My Services console. From the console, select the Oracle Database Cloud Service and go to the Dashboard view. Then select the “Create Instance” button (see below):

This will invoke the Create Database Cloud wizard. Here you will select your subscription type (I chose Oracle Database Cloud Service) and your desired billing frequency. Also, the database version and edition.

Next you will be asked to configure the database instance. Here, you will need to specify your cloud storage container and upload the public key that was generated in the above step:

Once you have entered your details, hit “Next” and you will be presented with a summary for your requested Database Cloud instance. You can create the instance and await email confirmation. This takes about an hour! Amazing really! Remember the joys of having to commission a new server to hold your database, get "operations" to install the database and patch it and then agree a back up schedule!!! No more need for all this time consuming bureaucracy!!

Finally, you need to create your SOA Cloud instance once the database is created.

Creating a SOA Cloud Service

To create the SOA Cloud instance, go to the dash board and select the SOA Cloud icon. This will take you to the SOA Cloud Service Console (see below). From here you will select the “Create Instance” button and this will invoke the SOA instance creation wizard.

From here, click ‘Create Instance’. Next, you will select the type of weblogic domain that you want to be configured and the billing frequency. I choose a SOA and OSB cluster:

Next, you are presented with a summary of the software selected. Just hit “Next” to continue once you are happy. This will take you to the main configuration page for your weblogic domain. Here, you need to specify the instance name, provide details of your cloud storage and database instance and create a weblogic administrator user and password as shown below:

NOTE: The public key is the same used for the DbaaS creation above. Also, the database admin user should be set to sys and the schema password entered as per the Database cloud service creation.

Finally, you will be presented with a summary of the SOA Cloud instance that will be created:

And, that’s it. Now just click Create and someone will do all the heavy lifting for you! Amazing!

Validating the New SOA Cloud Instance…..

Once the instance is created (after approx. 1 hour) you will have access to the service instance from the SOA Cloud Service Console as shown below:

And there you go! As simple as that! The only thing that remains to do is to open up the weblogic console and validate access.

Enjoy!!!