All components of fusion middleware in one domain - is this better approach

Question

Pls advise, is this better approach to have all the components of Fusion Middleware (SOA, B2B, BPM, WebCenter, Content server) in one domain itself in cluster environment for production. If not, pls advise the better architecture for production environment..
Regards,
Suneel Jakka

Answer 1

Suneel,
It's a good idea to use split domain approach (multiple domains in one MW Home) for large enterprise deployments as it makes maintenance very easy. Lot of customers have been using this approach and they are quite happy about it. Following benefits you get while using split domain approach -
1. Patching becomes flexible where patching of one component will not affect other
2. System downtime will decrease as because of issue with one component, only one domain will be affected
3. Reduced risk of incompatibility or classpath issues which arise because of different components (jars and third party utilities) being used in each product
4. Modular integration and more layers of security
If you are using all SOA, B2B, BPM, WebCenter, Content server and they have significant load then better have below domains -
1. Dedicated domain for B2B (as it is a gateway product and will be having communication over internet)
2. Shared domain for BPM and SOA (if load is high on both then better have separate domain for each)
3. Shared domain for WebCenter & Content server (if load is high on both then better have separate domain for each)
I also recommend to install Webcenter and SOA products in separate middleware home itself so that you may also upgrade them independently.
Regards,
Anuj