How Does SAI for Oracle Fusion Middleware Work?

SAI a.k.a Siebel Application Integration for Oracle Fusion Middleware provides a mechanism for making Siebel Web services available through Oracle WebLogic Server. It contains the components shown in Figure below.

 

SAI for Oracle Fusion Middleware Functional Components and Workflow

The functional components involved in processing an inbound Web service called
using SAI for Oracle Fusion Middleware are as follows

1. A client application (5) sends a request that is processed by the Web service (4) deployed on Oracle WebLogic Server (2).
2. This Web service deployment communicates through the Resource Adapter (3) to the Siebel Server (1) where the message is passed to the EAI Object Manager.
3. Within the EAI Object Manager, the inbound message is examined and any XML Schema Definition (XSD) referenced in the message is presented to the XSD to the integration object transformation section (6).
4. Next, a cache is consulted to see if an existing integration object is available, and if not, then a dynamic integration object (7) is created and loaded into the cache.
5. This dynamic integration object is then used to pass the data through the target business service oand workflow process (8) and interacts with the Siebel business object layer (9).

SAI for Oracle Fusion Middleware Workflow

1. The Siebel Server executes one or more instances of the Siebel EAI Object Manager.
2. Oracle WebLogic Server executes one or more instances of the Resource Adapter and instances of the deployed Web services and other client applications.
3. The Resource Adapter provides the communications channel between the Siebel Server and Oracle WebLogic Server.
4. Siebel integration services are implemented as deployments within Oracle WebLogic Server architecture; these deployments include both specific SOAP-based services or generic Siebel RESTful Services.
5. Client applications can be either internal or external to Oracle WebLogic Server instance.
6. At runtime, the XSD referenced in any inbound message is examined, checked against a cache,and if required, converted to a dynamic IO.
7. At this stage, the underlying cache for dynamic integration objects is queried and, depending on the result, a new cache entry is created. The new cache is based on the message format.
8. Business services and workflow processes are the functional service components that provide access to Siebel CRM data through the Siebel Object Model.
9. Business object and business components are representative of the Siebel Object Model through which Siebel data is transferred to and from Oracle WebLogic Server.

Siebel RESTful Services

Siebel RESTful Services are a set of Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) services that make available a Siebel Repository instance or a Siebel enterprise instance to a connected application or system. It provides a Web service architecture that defines how you use Web standards, such as HTTP and URIs (Uniform Resource Identifier).

Siebel RESTful Services provide an alternative to SOAP where custom development and the user experience requires maximum scalability and stateless operation. While SOAP Web services provide a substantial set of architectural and application server demands, Siebel RESTful Services require no more complexity than what is required to deliver Web pages over HTTP.

REST (Representational State Transfer) is not a standard. It is a collection of resources that includes the following components:

• The URI for a Web service, for example: http://example.com/resources/freemoviestreet
• 
  The Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) type of the data that a Web service supports.Although this type is typically JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), eXtensible Markup Language(XML), or Yet Another Multicolumn Layout (YAML), it can be any valid MIME type.
• 
  The set of operations that a Web service that uses HTTP methods supports, such as GET, PUT,POST, AND DELETE.

You can use Siebel RESTful Services to do the following:

• Access Siebel Repository metadata even if you are not familiar with other Siebel development environments, such as Siebel Tools or Siebel administrative interfaces.
• Generate applications that interact with Siebel CRM user data.

Benefits of Using Siebel RESTful Services

One of the benefits of using RESTful services is that a session is not necessary so the overhead is lower and the performance may be better. When an application does not need to maintain a state between steps such as a shopping cart application would, and the interaction is supposed to be a small and quick one such as updating, creating or deleting a single record, RESTful services make sense. For more complicated interactions with the Siebel application web services are the preferred method.