High Availability File Adapter in OSB

Question

If you use the JCA FileAdapter in OSB, it is necessary to use the eis/HAFileAdapter version, to ensure that only one instance of the adapter picks up a file; you must then configure a coordinator, by setting the
controlDir, inboundDataSource, outboundDataSource, outboundDataSourceLocal, outboundLockTypeForWrite
parameters.
controlDir refers to the filesystem, the others to the DB
This document http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/features/availability/maa-soa-assesment-194432.pdf says
"Database-based mutex and locks are used to coordinate these operations in a File Adapter clustered topology. Other coordinators are available but Oracle recommends using the Oracle Database."
Using a Oracle Database as coordinator means using RAC, otherwise no HA.
I wonder if anybody has been successful setting up HAFileAdapter without using a DB?
If DB is required, I am considering using the good old "native" OSB File Poller, since it doesn't require complicated setup to be run in a cluster... but I don't want to use MFL, I would rather use the XSD-based Native Format. Here comes the second question:
Is it possible to use the nXSD translator using the OSB Native File Poller - instead of the JCA Adapter?
Thank you so much for your help - it will be rewarded with "helpful/answered" points .
pierre

Answer 1

I wonder if anybody has been successful setting up HAFileAdapter without using a DB?
I have not tried it but I think there are several options available invlucing writing your own custom mutex. Please find the details in Oracle File and FTP Adapters High Availability Configuration section on this link
http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E14571_01/core.1111/e10106/ha_soa.htm#sthref434
Is it possible to use the nXSD translator using the OSB Native File Poller - instead of the JCA Adapter?
When you create a JCA Adapter based Proxy Service to read the files, the nXSD translation happens before the proxy service is invoked. JCA Engine first reads the data, translates using nXSD and then invokes the Proxy with the translated content. (You can verify this easily by creating a JCA based file read service and open the test console for it in sbconsole, it will show you XML request instead of native).
So you can not read the text content using File Transport of OSB and then calling nXSD directly or calling an nXSD based Proxy Service.
HOWEVER, you certainly can use file and nXSD in a combination if thats what you want.
1. Create a Synchronous Read File Adapter with an nXSD created for it
2. Create a Business Service for that Synchronous Read JCA in OSB
3. Create a File Transport based service in OSB which will read the content of file and then call the Business Service to again read the content (which will include the translation using nXSD defined in step one to convert the content to XML).
So basically you will need to read the file twice! Once using File Transport Proxy service (which will take care of polling in cluster) and then using Sync Read JCA based business service(which will do nXSD translation). To reduce the impact of reading the file twice you can use trigger files. File Proxy to read trigger file and and invoke JCA business service to read the actual file for that trigger.
Another alternative can be to create a similar class as present here(http://blogs.oracle.com/adapters/entry/command_line_tool_for_testing) but instead of writing a file it will just return the translated content. Call this class with native content from the File Transport proxy using a Java Callout to do the translation.