Problems and resolutions to installing and running Oracle SOA Suite

I had a number of problems when trying to install the software. The first was trying to find a compatible database. I had Oracle 10.2.0.1.0 instance running on Centos 5 available but when using the Repository Creation Utility (RCU) you'll get an error message saying that the version must be 10.2.4. or higher.

Trying Oracle XE on a Windows 2008 server which was a domain controller also ran into difficulties in even getting the DB installed. A look on an Oracle forum indicated it might be that I was using a domain admin account rather than a local admin user. I eventually used Oracle XE on Windows 7 and all was well.

The second issue was creating the domain using the SOA Suite config.cmd in \Oracle\Middleware\home_11gR1\Oracle_SOA1\common\bin. I started by using the 11.1.1.2.0 version but this was incompatible with the data version used by RCU so had to use the 11.1.1.3.0 update to resovle this. I used an Oracle blog to help me realize that executing

SELECT version, status FROM schema_version_registry where owner = 'DEV_SOAINFRA'

gave me the wrong version.

Lastly when running the domains remember to use an administrator account to start the command shell. If you dont you'll get something similar to:

java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: oracle.jrf.wls.JRFStartup

Pete Raymond