Switched from Oracle BEA BPM Enterprise Version (on Weblogic) to the Standalone Version for Evaluation Purposes.

Last week was a very short week during which I tried to install an Enterprise BEA BPM on Weblogic. There were a lot of configurations needed for Enterprise WebLogic Edition (Directory Server, Database, Deployment within the WebLogic JVM etc). I have listed the steps below.

It was taking too much time and was not very straightforward. I had to ensure that I have installed and configured the BEA WebLogic application server properly even before I could debug & play with the BPM engine.

At end of last Tuesday I made a call to switch to Enterprise Standalone but the efforts put in were good learning and useful for Standalone Installation as well. So for the purpose of proceeding with evaluation going forward I have shifted to Enterprise Standalone Version as my focus is BPM.

Some learnings or observations .... On the Oracle website they refer to downloading Oracle BPM Enterprise Administration Guide.pdf but in real scenario there was no such file name. I realized that it was same as Oracle BPM Admin Guide.pdf and the same goes for configuration guide as well. So will not get confused in future :)

Ok so with the ultimate aim being to Deploying and Publishing a New BPM Project I had to go through a series of steps. (For standalone I needed a much smaller set but the practice and drill was worthwhile learning in terms of infrastructure and operationalization of product.

The whole list of steps:

1. Creating Directory Service ( need to configure Directory Database Schema)
2. Creating a Process Execution Engine ( need to configure a separate Execution Engine Database Schema)
3. Configuring Weblogic Server
4. Creating Weblogic Server Domain
5. Create Oracle BPM Deploy User
6. Installing Oracle BPM Deployer
7. Creating JDBC Data Sources on BEA Weblogic Server
8. Creating JMS Server, Module & Resources
9. Configuring the Deployer and Deployment Targets
10. Enabling Clustering
11. Building and Deploying Application EAR Files
12. Deploying and Publishing a New BPM Project

As of now I have Standalone Enterprise BEA BPM configured with Directory (Oracle 10g DB). Engine DB configuration has some issues due to privileges. Make sure you have a friendly DBA to help out.

I am trying to come up with a set of use cases to test out different features.

More next week as I try to put together a list of features .. dully prioritized that I will like to test out.

If you have a challenge for me ...Bring it ON :)