Database releases. How can we make things better?

Releases of Java (technology related) code often are easy. Releases of database code often are not. Why is that? An important difference and cause can be found in that database code tends to be incremental. Being incremental means that a database release is build on top of previous releases. A database release has to be incremental because often a production environment holds data which needs to be preserved. With Java code, the previous releases (EAR, WAR, JAR files and the like) are less important for the present release since usually they are overwritten. Of course Java releases have their own complexities, however often they do not hold data; that is the task of the database. In this blog I will describe some of the common issues and several suggestions to improve (database) releases. Even though I am a developer (with quite some experience in release automation), I tried to also describe the issues system operators are facing and provide suggestions to improve the process.

Oracle SOA Suite 12c: The LDAPAdapter, a quick and easy tutorial

In enterprises, LDAP servers are often used to store user credentials and groups and share them among applications. Oracle SOA Suite 12c introduces a new technology adapter; the LDAPAdapter which allows easy integration with LDAP servers. In this blog post I will provide a quick and easy howto on installation of an LDAP server and browser (ApacheDS and Apache Directory Studio). I will also describe the configuration required to use the LDAPAdapter and provide an example BPEL process which allows creation of new users in the ApacheDS LDAP server by means of webservice calls.

LDAP and Weblogic; Using ApacheDS as authentication provider for Weblogic

A Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) server is often used to centralize management of users/groups/credentials within enterprises. An LDAP server stores user information such as group memberships and often also authorization/authentication data. You can use this information to authenticate on Weblogic Server. In this blog post I will provide a small introduction, some suggestions on how LDAP connections can be debugged and an example how an LDAP server (ApacheDS in this example) can be used as an external authentication provider in Weblogic server.