Why does TCP tunneling remove http 503 response from async WS call?

Question

Hi all,
I am facing a bit of a weird problem.
I have developed and tested an asynchronous BPEL process which among other things invokes a 3rd party web service.
It works fine in development environment.
When I migrate to the customers test environment I get a http 503 error back to the BPEL process (only difference in the BPEL code is the endpoint to the WS).
Trying to figure out what went wrong I used a TCP monitor to tunnel through. This solved the problem!
So why does going through a TCP monitor running on the BPEL server help?
Continuing with the TCP monitor in production is obviously not an option, so not only do I need to figure out why using a TCP mon helps, but also figure out how to fix the underlying issue.
I should mention that I am using BPEL version 10.1.3.3, and that I have testet the connection between the BPEL server and the 3rd party web service and found no problem.
Any help is much appreciated.
Regards,
Aagaard
Edited by: Aagaard on Mar 23, 2009 9:48 AM
In Metalink in "TCP Tunneling the Oracle BPEL Process Manager" (document id 283484.1) it is suggested to change the "opt-soap-shortcut" property in the "Manage BPEL domian" from false to true if you want to use TCP tunneling.
I don't see this property in the BPEL console or in the domain.xml file found at $ORACLE_HOME/bpel/domains/<domain used>/config.
Could this be part of the problem?
The BPEL server in the customers test environment is a clone of the BPEL server in our development environment, so I don't see how this could be the problem.

Answer 1

Hi,
Status update: Accessing the remote web service from the BPEL server works fine if not done through BPEL.
My current thinking is that the problem may be linked to port numbers and firewalls. Obviously, there is an opening in the firewall from my BPEL servers (installed on port 8888) and to the remote web service running on port 19313.
However, sniffing at the connection between BPEL and the TCPMon it can be seen that BPEL is trying to make a connection in a range of ports in the 1400s (so far I have seen between 1454 and 1481).
In the Oracle documentation at [http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B31017_01/core.1013/b28940/portnums.htm] there is a list of default ports.
The 1400 range does not appear anywhere.
So my thinking is that maybe the TCPMon goes through a static port, which is opened in the firewall, and BPEL is trying to go through a dynamic range which can get to the TCPMon but not to the remote service.
Any comments, ideas or suggestions is most welcome.
Regards,
Aagaard
PS: James - Thank you for the assistance. As always it was very helpful.
Edited by: Aagaard on Mar 26, 2009 8:45 AM
The 1400 range may have to do with wireshark sniffer tool ...
So that might explain it.