Configuring Oracle Real Application Cluster (RAC) for use with IBM Business Process Manager

Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) is an option of an Oracle database that brings together two or more computers to form a clustered database that behaves as a single system. In a RAC database, Oracle processes that run in separate nodes access the same data from a shared disk storage.

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For information about the advanced database support available in IBM® Business Process Manager see DB2 and Oracle advanced database support in IBM BPM and IBM Business Monitor on distributed platforms.

There are two scenarios to consider:

If you use Oracle 11g R2 with the Oracle Single Client Access Name (SCAN) feature, no additional manual configuration is required.
If you do not use the SCAN feature or use an earlier version of Oracle that does not support the SCAN feature, then you must specify the bpm.de.db.#.url property described in the topic "Configuration properties for the BPMConfig command." For more information, see Mapping IBM Business Process Manager configuration parameters to Oracle setup parameters.

IBM Business Process Manager creates the JDBC URL in the following default format:

jdbc:oracle:thin:@//LISTENER_HOST:LISTENER_PORT/SERVICE_NAME

If you do not use the SCAN feature, specify a URL in a format similar to the following example (but in a single input line) using the bpm.de.db.#.url property:

jdbc:oracle:thin:@(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS_LIST= 
                  (ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=rac-node1)(port=1521))
                  (ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=rac-node2)(port=1521)))
                  (FAILOVER=on)(LOAD_BALANCE=on)
                  (CONNECT_DATA=(SERVER=DEDICATED)
                  (SERVICE_NAME=<service_name>)))

If a Oracle RAC node failover occurs, IBM Business Process Manager stops processing and you might need to restart all of the IBM Business Process Manager nodes. If you experience process-recovery issues, refer to Process recovery issues in certain situations in IBM Business Process Manager.

Mapping IBM Business Process Manager configuration parameters to Oracle setup parameters

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To understand how to specify the correct information during the Oracle RAC database configuration, review the following parameter mapping information to ensure that the JDBC URL is created correctly.

IBM Business Process Manager creates the JDBC URL in the following default format:

jdbc:oracle:thin:@//LISTENER_HOST:LISTENER_PORT/SERVICE_NAME

where

LISTENER_HOST represents the RAC SCAN name that is defined during the Oracle RAC setup. If you are using the SCAN feature, it is specified with the IBM BPM configuration property bpm.de.db.#.hostname. If you are not using the SCAN feature, you specify it as part of the bpm.de.db.#.url property.
LISTENER_PORT represents the RAC SCAN listener port that is defined during the Oracle RAC setup. If you are using the SCAN feature, it is specified with the IBM BPM profile configuration property bpm.de.db.#.portNumber. If you are not using the SCAN feature, you specify it as part of the bpm.de.db.#.url property.
SERVICE_NAME represents the RAC service that is configured during the Oracle RAC setup. It is always specified with the IBM BPM profile configuration property bpm.de.db.#.databaseName, for example, SID. If you are not using the SCAN feature, you must also specify it as part of the bpm.de.db.#.url property.

For example, an Oracle RAC setup with a RAC SCAN name of rac1.mycompany.com, a SCAN port of 1521, and a cluster-managed database service of MYSERVICE is specified with the following JDBC URL: jdbc:oracle:thin:@//rac1.mycompany.com:1521/MYSERVICE