Entity variables

Support for entity variables is an Oracle extension that has been introduced in Oracle SOA Suite 11g. Entity variables are not like regular DOM variables which are disconnected message payload. In fact, entity variables use SDO-based in-memory data structure and are able to detect changes to underlying data in the data source. When using entity variables, only a reference (key) to the data is stored to the BPEL dehydration store (as part of process instance state) when the instance is dehydrated, while the actual data is stored in a remote data source (database table). During every instance rehydration, the infrastructure automatically loads fresh data, as other applications may change the data while the process instance is dehydrated. Therefore, we do not have to be concerned about refreshing our local copy of data. Entity variables can be especially useful in long-running BPEL processes, when we want to avoid using stale data.

In order to use entity variables, we first...