Managing composite lifecycles

Every composite has a state, mode, and associated metadata. The state can be up (started) or down (shut down). The mode can either be active or retired. Metadata is stored in the Metadata Store (MDS), which is a database-based repository used by Oracle SOA Suite 11g, and consists of information that includes default revision number, last modification date, deployment and redeployment times, and instance statistics. Before walking through how to manage the state and mode of composites, we will begin by describing composite revisions.

Understanding revisions

When a HelloWorld composite is deployed to the server, a revision is required during the deployment. Thus, the service's Web Services Description Language (WSDL) can be accessed via a URL similar to the following, clearly indicating a revision of "1.0" after the composite name:

http://soahost1:8001/soa-infra/services/default/HelloWorld!1.0/HelloWorld.wsdl

However, there may be a case where a new version...