An Introduction to Oracle Integration Cloud Service

Oracle Integration Cloud Service (ICS) is a cloud-based integration application designed to perform integrations between cloud-based applications – but also has capabilities that extend beyond that, to performing integrations with your on premises applications.

Based on the great Oracle Service Bus application, ICS is designed to be more non-developer friendly and takes a different approach to creating integrations. All configuration is browser based and XSL is used for data mapping/transformation.

ICS ships with a long list of application adapters that continually grows. Many adapters are for connecting to other cloud-based applications, but standard adapters for database, file and ftp are supported as well. Here is the current list of adapters:

• Adobe eSign
• AQ
• Ariba
• Concur
• DocuSign
• Eloqua
• Eventbrite
• Evernote
• Facebook
• File
• FTP
• Google Calendar
• Google Mail
• Google Task
• JD Edwards EnterpriseOne
• JMS
• LinkedIn
• MailChimp
• Microsoft Calendar
• Microsoft Contact
• Microsoft Email
• Microsoft SQL Server
• MySQL
• NetSuite
• Oracle Commerce Cloud
• Oracle CPQ
• Oracle Database
• Oracle E-Business Suite
• Oracle ERP Cloud
• Oracle Field Service Cloud
• Oracle HCM Cloud
• Oracle Messaging Cloud Service
• Oracle RightNow (Service Cloud)
• Oracle Sales Cloud
• Oracle Siebel
• Oracle Utilities
• Responsys
• REST
• Salesforce
• SAP
• ServiceNow
• SOAP
• Successfactors
• SurveyMonkey

The main ICS components are Connections and Integrations.

A connection is an instance of an adapter, configured to use a particular endpoint and credentials. So, if you have a need to talk to two different systems using the same SOAP adapter, it counts as two connections. Because ICS is licensed by connection, it is an affordable integration solution for those companies that don’t need the full Oracle SOA Suite stack. Let’s look a bit at ICS’s capabilities.

Here is a list of the different types of supported integrations:

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The Basic Map Data Style/Pattern allows for data movement between two systems, with the ability to add one additional enrichment call during the request and the response. The use-case for this pattern is geared towards getting data from system “A” to system “B” where the transformations are fairly straightforward and there may be a minimal need to collect additional information.

The Orchestration Style/Pattern is one I like very much, offering the following activities:

• Assign
• Map
• Stop
• Switch

Combining these provide you with capabilities to create more complicated flows, i.e. invoking calls to downstream systems, aggregating data and making if/then execution flow decisions based on the data you receive. Like Oracle Service Bus, these integrations are stateless. A later blog post will cover the Orchestration Style/Pattern more in-depth.

The last two Style/Patterns are for Publish/Subscribe to ICS messaging. Think of this as using JMS to write and read messages to be leveraged across multiple integrations.

For communication with your on premises systems, you can install either or both the Connection and Execution Agents. The Connection Agent allows your ICS instance to communicate directly without having to punch a hole in your firewall while the Execution Agent gives you an instance of ICS that runs integrations locally. This is ideal for communication between on premises systems, avoiding the latency of involving the ICS instance in the cloud.

ICS offers a monitoring console to track messages and errors:

You can monitor by integration and connection. Diagnostic and Activity logs can be downloaded as needed. These provide the same type of WebLogic Server logs you would normally see from your application server. These logs can be helpful for debugging and troubleshooting purposes.

If you are interested in learning more about how Oracle Integration Cloud Service may help your organization, please contact us.