a) Earlier I was really shy in investing in my learning, I finally enrol for a course that was really expensive but if I look back now, it was totally worth.
b) There was not lot of information available earlier on Oracle Fusion Middleware and it was quite confusing in those early days.
c) And most importantly, there was no one to guide or Mentor me that Fusion Middleware is really important at that time.
I learnt Oracle Fusion Middleware in hard way but you don’t have to. In this and next few posts, I am going to share what you need to learn in Oracle Fusion Middleware and in subsequent posts I’ll show how and from where you can learn …
I am running FREE Webinar covering Architecture, Request flow in FMW Enterprise Architecture & SSL So register for my Webinar FREE here
Why should you learn Oracle Fusion Middleware?
I always start with Why? So, first question that should always come to your mind is that Why should you learn Oracle Fusion Middleware?
Well! for number of reasons (post comment and share me what’s your reason for learning Fusion Middleware)
1. With adoption of Business Processes & SOA as main stream and to integrate systems (In-House and with Cloud/SaaS) more and more companies are implementing Oracle Fusion Middleware.
This means there are lot more Fusion Middleware Jobs available and if you are like me with knowledge on Oracle Apps DBA (R12 or 11i) and with little bit of Identity Management, you can really demand lot of money and respect in the Job. I now charge almost 3 times in contracting rate (lot of times higher than consultants from top 5 MNCs) than I used to charge few years ago.
2. Oracle Fusion Middleware is now everywhere , If you look at Oracle E-Business Suite R12.2 , Underlying Technology Stack contains two of the most important FMW components (WebLogic & OHS)
3. Oracle Fusion Applications (convergence of E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, JD Edward, Siebel etc) is built on top of Oracle Fusion Middleware so now imagine all these customers moving to Oracle Fusion Applications, who all they’ll need to manage Fusion Middleware & Fusion Applications.
I can give you many more reasons but I am conscious of your time, and looking at above you might have understood that if you really want to grow, you really need to expand your knowledge in Oracle Fusion Middleware (SOA, WebLogic, OBIEE, WebCenter, etc …)
What you should learn in Oracle Fusion Middleware
Now you understand why you should learn Oracle Fusion Middleware, next task is what you need to learn in Oracle FMW. This is where I think I really have upper hand than any one else including O…University because,
- There is so much to learn but what sets me apart is that I am more focused on things that customer’s implement commonly.
- This is where is my 10+ years of experience in Fusion Middleware comes into play ..
If you look at Oracle documents, there are more than 100+ guides (combined Fusion Middleware) and each guide with approx. 300 pages to read, that’s 30,000 pages 🙁 (well too much). It is almost impossible to read all these in next 1-2 months (earlier I used to read each and every guide line by line but not any more)
I now always focus on what I need to learn to help customer and everything must start with Concepts & Architecture .
I. Concepts in Oracle Fusion Middleware
Oracle Fusion Middleware is umbrella of Suit of products from Oracle like OracleSOA Suite, Oracle Business Suite Suite (OBIEE), Oracle WebCenter, Oracle HTTP Server (OHS), Oracle WebLogic Server (WLS), Oracle Business Process Management (BPMS) etc…
It is important to understand that Fusion Middleware is divided into two type of Components viz Java Component (application deployed on WebLogic like SOA, OBIEE etc) VS System Component (old OPMN managed application like OHS & OID).
Apart from System & Java Components, you need to look at WebLogic Domain (for Java Components), Oracle Instance (for System Components) and then various Homes in Fusion Middleware like
- Java Home JAVA_HOME
- Middleware Home MW_HOME
- WebLogic Home WL_HOME
- Oracle Home ORACLE_HOME
- Oracle Common Home ORACLE_COMMON_HOME
- Domain Home DOMAIN_HOME
- Oracle Instance Home ORACLE_INSTANCE
- Coherence Home COHERENCE_HOME
II Architecture of Oracle Fusion Middleware
Each product in Oracle Fusion Middleware (like SOA, OBIEE, Webcenter etc) has its own Architecture but I always start with high level and when companies deploy Oracle Fusion Middleware, they deploy this in Oracle’s Enterprise Reference Architecture .
Look at Oracle’s 3 Tier Architecture for deploying Oracle Fusion Middleware components
- Web Tier (DMZ)
- Application Tier
- Data Tier
