Sun Identity Manager and Oracle Identity Manager

As all of us know, Oracle bought Sun and the deal has been closed completely. I am currently working with Oracle Identity Management (as well as Oracle UCM) and I am interested to know Oracle's plan for IDM after merging. I found a blog post that talks in brief about that I recommend you to read it, click here.

The conclusion Oracle will keep its IDM solutions as a strategic solutions and it will re-brand Sun IDM solutions.

Java Decompiling

When I face frustrating bugs that comes because of the misleading exceptions, I go to the magic method which is decompiling the class that cause the error, and take a quick look there. But note I don't prefer going deeper to understand the class and the library I am decompiling.

I am using JD-GUI and I'd like to thank the people who created it and made it available for free.

Rebranding OIM Administration Console [JBoss]

The following brief steps explain rebranding of Oracle Identity Manager on JBoss application server:

- Get copy from XellerateFull.ear from [jboss_install_dir]/server/default/deploy

- Extract the file normally like a zip file (change extension from .ear to .zip)

- Inside the extracted directory, you will find a war file called xlWebApp.war

- Extract that file like a zip file (change extension from .war to .zip)

-  If you want to change the application colors and styles, go to XellerateFull/xlWebApp/css/Xellerate.css

- If you want to change labels and messages, go to XellerateFull/xlWebApp/WEB-INF/classes/xlWebAdmin.properties (change the other localized files that you are using)

- If you want to change logo and application images, go to XellerateFull/xlWebApp/WEB-INF/classes/xlDefaultAdmin.properties

- After finishing recompress everything (compress it a .zip then change the extension), but after finishing open the archive you made and see if the structure of the archives (XellerateFull.ear and xlWebApp.war) is correct like the old one

- At last replace XellerateFull.ear under JBoss with the new one you made.

Anyway, this application is built using Struts, and it can be customized as you want, nut I don't recommend that from a previous experience with other applications.

Note in documentation there is another for doing that, but it didn't work with me.

Oracle Identity Manager installation tips

I will not be able to post right now the complete installation steps for Oracle Identity Manager with JBoss as the application server, because it will take a lot of time, but I will add some tips here to be be taken in consideration during OIM installation.

- If you are using Sun JVM and JBoss, you need to make one more modification in run.bat (JBoss starting Batch) ro JAVA_OPTS parameter which is -XX:MaxPermSize=256m

set JAVA_OPTS=%JAVA_OPTS% -Xms256m -Xmx1024m -XX:MaxPermSize=256m

- When you start JBoss and you want it to listen (or bind) to any available IP, run JBoss starting batch like this

run.bat -b 0.0.0.0

- After installing OIM Design Console, take copy from log4j.jar from inside JBoss and rename it to log4j-1.2.8.jar then replace log4j-1.2.8.jar from inside OIM Design Console installation directory.

- Take care when installing JBoss in your development or testing machine, some applications my be using JBoss ports like MS Exchange uses 1099 and 1098, Oracle UCM uses 4444 and 4445, and of course Apache Tomcat. So you need to change JBoss ports, to do that take a look at the following page which explains to you which files you will change

http://www.thedance.net/~roth/TECHBLOG/jbossports.html

If you want to know which applications is using your machine's ports, download ActivePorts program from the following link

http://download.cnet.com/Active-Ports/3000-2651_4-29653.html?tag=mncol

If you changed 1099 port after you have installed OIM, you should change it too in xlconfig.xml for OIM Server and OIM Design Console. Also If you changed 8080 port after you have installed OIM, you should change it too in xlconfig.xml for Design Console.

- To deploy SMPL WebService, take a look at the following link

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E14899_01/doc.9102/e14763/spml.htm#BEIDGDGE

Also note you need in this case to download apache commons-discovery library and add it to [jboss_install_dir]/server/default/lib

I am W A V I N G

I have been invited to google wave from days thanks to Amr Gawish, I didn't do a lot of things in it yet, but I liked it. I like the way of collaboration using google wave. Currently I have 7 invitations if you need one just send to me.

I hope in the future no one is chatting, all of us gonna be waving :)

Expanding my blog topics

I am currently moving to a new company with new position, where I will be Senior Oracle Middleware Consultant. So that I will more topics in my blog, I will not only concentrate with ECM. I am intending to talk about Identity Management, SOA, and others.

Soon I will try to post things about integration between UCM and Oracle IDM solutions. Also integration between IDM and E-Business Suite, and UCM and E-Business Suite. But give me an excuse If I was late because I am currently in the process of handing-over my tasks with my old employer Egabi Solutions.

Lastly I want to mention that my new employer is Catalyst Solutions, it's an American Indian company and it's working mainly with oracle solutions, they have 6 branches in Africa, and we will be concentrating on African market. I wish I will be helpful for them in the area of MiddleWare solutions.

No Posting from days ...

I didn't post anything from days, because I am currently engaged in J2EE application for Vodafone Egypt with my current employer (Egabi Solutions) where we have lack of J2EE resources, and hopefully I will finish my tasks by the end of this month. For the first time I am coding using Hibernate and Struts, I was confused about them at the beginning but now I know how to work with them, and I like them especially hibernate.