My random thoughts series continues in the new year as well, good time to look at Middleware Tech in general and SOA11g in particular. One specific step in this regard was my SOA Certification 1Z0-451, I took this in a hurry to avoid the pain of reading endless pdfs. Luckily I passed the test with an average score of 73%. The test did throw many new things about SOA11g which I discovered after reviewing the questions in the test. Few of them are below, otherwise the test is a 'developer-certification' and very broadly spread across all the products (BPEL, Mediator, HWF, Rules, OWSM etc)
new features
1. Mediator now supports a new validation called schematron validation
2. Rules have the new feature of decision tables (bucketset is a new term)
3. Rules have lot of new features functions, links etc.
4. Fault-management framework has new features (at-least location of the files)
5. OWSM is complete new territory
6. SDO / Entity variable - brand new features
7. Mediator externalizing routing rules to Business rules
8. SpringContext integration support
9. Lot of new features in Mediator
10. EDN as configurable publish-subscribe infrastructure
My next focus area is to deep-dive SOA11g and find best-practices/integration patterns. Stay tuned.