SOA 12c - Accessing soainfra database

SOA12c has been bundled into a single installation package to provide a quick start for everyone to use it easily without the hassles like running rcu.. but it does mean that as a developer you are not directly exposed to the soa-infra schema, if you want to play with the underlying tables and how the data is being created behind the scenes.

When you set up the integration domain for SOA12c, internally a JavaDB(Apache Derby DB) database 'soainfra' gets created. To give a bit of background on what a JavaDB is - It is a RDBMS primarily aimed for embedded java applications where in the client-server model & clustering is not the main priority.

The JavaDB is included as part of the JDK installation and can be accessed via either EmbeddedDriver(org.apache.derby.jdbc.EmbeddedDriver) for the embedding application (or) via the Derby Network Server drivers(org.apache.derby.jdbc.ClientDriver, org.apache.derby.jdbc.ClientXADriver) for other clients.

Lets see how we can setup the clients to access the soainfra db for SOA 12c.

JavaDB has a built-in interactive SQL client - 'ij' which can be used to query the schemas/tables in the database. Below image shows how to use the tool -

The other easy option is to use the JDeveloper to setup an IDEConnection to the soa-infra database as shown below:

Enter the soainfra db details for building the custom jdbc url.

Click on the Library search icon to verify the right version of the library for the driver.

Test the connection

Now we can query the soainfra schema :)

Unfortunately, I think currently the SQL Developer doesn't have the support for JavaDB and hence cannot use it.