While preparing for the next session in our internal SOA for Java Professionals training program on BPEL, I revisited the BPEL activity Java Embedding that allows us to enrich a BPEL process with custom, Java based functionality. I tried to determine how best to explain, present and demonstrate this activity to my colleagues. This article is a brief summary of what I will tell them. It may help you to quickly get up to speed with this activity in BPEL using Oracle SOA Suite 11g.

The Java Embedding activity allows us to add activities in a BPEL process in which we can write a Java snippet using standard JDK libraries, the BPEL APIs, custom and 3rd party Java Classes included in JAR files in deployed SCA composites (in SCA-INF/lib directory) and Java Classes and libraries available on the Classpath for the SOA Suite run time (note: through the oracle.soa.ext.jar file in the directory <FMW_HOME>/soa/modules/oracle.soa.ext_11.1.1 we make the resources available at run time; use the ANT script in this directory to add custom classes and JAR-files to the oracle.soa.ext.jar file).

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