Major Memory en CPU improvement on OFM

The last few weeks we had some strange behaviour on our Oracle Fusion Middleware stack. This was first related to two different SOA 11g production clusters. One 2-node cluster and one 4-node cluster. Both environments run into a Java out-of-memory.

While he have running this production environments for a long time, we thought we have tuned this very well; on database as on application server. As I spoke earlier on Java Garbage collection on http://orasoa.blogspot.com/2011/09/soa-11g-improved-memory-and-garbage.html, and on tuning the SOA Suite 11g; http://orasoa.blogspot.com/2011/08/tuning-soa-11g-in-nutshell.html.

We first thought, it had to do the the applications we made; Composites, Custom Java Classes, Services. Is something changed in the meantime? We also thought it had to do with the amount of data we are processing, is there more data processed than normal? Something changed in the database? The network? The physical storage? All of them were not changed, looking in the program code; we did not find anything special.

We tried to analyse the a heap dump, digged into log files, Oracle Support Bug Database and many-many-other-things. I stared a long time to this

#
# A fatal error has been detected by the Java Runtime Environment:
#
# java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: requested 32756 bytes for ChunkPool::allocate. Out of swap space?
#

The I was triggered by a bug in the Oracle/Sun Java; http://bugs.sun.com/view_bug.do?bug_id=6973402 . For some reason I downloaded the latest Java 1.6 SDK and applied this on one managed server on one the SOA 11g Suite.

The result was amazing!

• Less CPU
• Less Heap usage
• Normal garbage collections

We applied this on our SOA 11g Suite clusters and had no issues.

We see this difference also on de Oracle Service Bus (!).  My advise, roll out Java 1.6.0 build 30 (or later) on your existing production environments, SOA Suite, WebCenter, ServiceBus, etc!


Here are the results of our instance running without Java 1.6.0_b30 and at the bottom with Java 1.6.0_b30. And see the incredible difference. I did not show the CPU graphs with the garbage collections, but those are also different.

Java Heap Before applying Java 1.6.0 Build 30

Java Heap After applying Java 1.6.0 Build 30

Oracle Fusion Middleware PS5 is out

A short article, but Oracle Fusion Middleware patchset #5 is out! Now downloadble via:

Oracle Fusion Middleware PS5 is out! https://edelivery.oracle.com or via OTN  http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/fusion-middleware/overview/index.html

Here is the link with the new features http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/soasuite/documentation/default-1532821.html

Oracle Partner Event: Málaga 2012 Edition

In the first half of February 2012, I joined the Oracle Partner Event in Málaga, Spain. This event is organized by Oracle for all partners and special guests. The goal of this event is to learn from each other, between the participators as well with Oracle. We also get the latests information on the Oracle product strategy. The event is split into workshops and presentation sessions. The first two days is all about Oracle strategy, product updates and customers cases. While the last two days the workshops are being executed on SOA Suite, WebCenter and Weblogic.

My goal was to see and talk to my (ex)Oracle colleagues, Development and to get the latest info of the SOA Suite product stack and Weblogic Server. Apart from this networking is key during all these sessions, so I did a lot of chat with the participators to share experience, issues and any other business that comes along.

My focus is off-course Oracle Fusion Middleware and everything that is related to SOA/BPM. Here are some teasers.

Weblogic 12c
Weblogic 12c was announced at Oracle Open World in 2011, and can already be downloaded already. In this session we got in-depth information on all the new features that is currently available and what will come in the next releases.

• Java EE 6
• Simplified Deployment
• Integrated Traffic Management (Exalogic)
• Enhanced HA and Disaster Recovery
• Higher Performance (that is default with new releases ;-) )
• Transactions can also be stored in database
• Seamless Upgrade (!)
• Support for Exalogic
• Support for Oracle Public Cloud

SOA Suite Strategy
Everybody in the SOA community was excited on the SOA and BPM sessions, new features of the upcoming releases where presented. We had sessions on the new PS5 patch set and what will come in the 12c edition, both for SOA and BPM.

• Enterprise Manager is improved fault analysis
• Testing BPEL processes from JDeveloper
• Copy/Paste in JDeveloper of BPEL activities
• Improved purging (see also purging document with PS5 enhancements)
• DBAdapter supports coherence
• Debugging of BPEL processes
• Templating
• All consoles integrated in EM (SOA / BPM / OSB)
• Single IDE for all SOA products
• ...many many more...

Overall
I am not able to give any details on which functionality comes in which release or even when Oracle will release it. That was the only disappointment of this event, they will not give any dates. I think this will not change in a next event ;-)

Oracle Social Network
This presentation and demo, is off course running in the Cloud, but in this 'product' Oracle integrates a messaging system, with artifacts. In this case Siebel CRM was integrated with Oracle Social Network in such way that everybody can join the conversation; documents can be added, shared, annotations can be made and approvals are send back to Siebel CRM. Everything via social media on any device. This demo shows that business can me made via social media. Except this social media is not run publicly to everybody but in your own organization.

Apart of all the workshops, the global and parallel sessions, there was also time to relax. Oracle organized a dinner with live Andalusian music. We went to a traditional Spanish bodega were we had tapas and drinks. Here is a video to taste the atmosphere.

Here are also some pictures that I have made during this event, this gives you a small impression.

 The Weblogic 12c session from Maciej Gruszka from Oracle Product Development.

 Simone Geib from SOA Product Development during her session on PS5 and 12c.

 Join the social networks of SOA Suite from Oracle Development.

 The old castle of Malaga.

At the central square in Malage, with colorful houses.