Chapter 2. Introduction
2.1. Intended Audience
This book has been written for developers wanting to work with the JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform's BPEL Engine.
2.2. Aim of This Book
Read this book in order to learn how to work with the JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform's Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) Engine. It is assumed that your system had already been installed and configured correctly as per the instructions in the Installation and Configuration Guide.
2.3. Back Up Your Data
Warning
Red Hat recommends that you back up your system settings and data before undertaking any of the configuration tasks mentioned in this book.
2.4. Variable Name: SOA_ROOT Directory
SOA Root (often written as SOA_ROOT) is the term given to the directory that contains the application server files. In the standard version of the JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform package, SOA root is the
jboss-soa-p-5 directory. In the Standalone edition, though, it is the jboss-soa-p-standalone-5 directory.
Throughout the documentation, this directory is frequently referred to as
SOA_ROOT. Substitute either jboss-soa-p-5 or jboss-soa-p-standalone-5 as appropriate whenever you see this name.
2.5. Variable Name: PROFILE
PROFILE can be any one of the server profiles that come with the JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform product: default, production, all, minimal, standard or web. Substitute one of these that you are using whenever you see "PROFILE" in a file path in this documentation.
2.6. Server Profiles
| Profile | Description |
|---|---|
| default | Use this profile for development and testing. This profile uses less memory than the production profile but clustering is not enabled in this mode. In addition, this profile provides more verbose logging than the "all" and "production" profiles. This verbose logging provides you with additional information, but adversely affects server performance. Unless you explicitly specify a different profile, this profile is used when the server is started. |
| production | Use this profile on production servers. This profile provides clustering and maximizes performance by using more memory and providing less verbose logging and screen console output than the "all" or "default" profiles. Note that output (such as the message from the "Hello World" quick start) does not appear on the console screen in this mode. It is written to the log only. |
| minimal | Enables the minimum features needed for a functioning system. No archives are deployed. No ESB or SOA features are enabled. The BPEL Engine is not available. |
| standard | This provides standard functionality for testing. No web, ESB, or SOA features are enabled. The BPEL Engine is not available. |
| web | The jbossweb.sar archives are deployed when this profile is run. No ESB, or SOA features are enabled. The BPEL Engine is not available. |
| all | All of the pre-packaged ESB archives are deployed when this profile is run. This profile offers less performance and scalability than the "production" profile, but requires less memory to run. |
2.7. Java Virtual Machine
A Java Virtual Machine (JVM) is a piece of software that is capable of running Java bytecode. The JVM creates a standard environment in which the intermediate bytecode is run. By creating the standard environment irrespective of the underlying hardware and operating system combination, it allows programmers to write their Java code once and have confidence that it can be run on any system. Red Hat recommends customers use OpenJDK as it is an open source, supported Java Virtual Machine that runs well on Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems. Windows users should install Oracle JDK 1.6.
