Oracle Integration Cloud Service Overview

Oracle Integration Cloud Service Overview

Following is a broad overview of my understanding after using Oracle Integration Cloud Service  (ICS).Basically will try giving the overview through a sort of questions and answers so that this will clear out the questions in a way i had prior to using Integration Cloud Service

1. What is Integration Cloud Service and how is it different from SOA/SOA CS?

     ICS is equivalent of Oracle Service Bus on Cloud with few functionalities added whereas  SOA/SOA CS is a full blown functionality of Service orchestration

2.  Can Integration Cloud Service run on premise?

     Yes.  
     Integration Cloud Service has two agents
     (i)   Connectivity agent manages connectivity of on premise applications to ICS on Cloud
     (ii)  Execution Agent which can be downloaded and configured on premise which is an ICS               instance on premise (few adapters are restricted with ICS on premise)

3.   What Integration Patterns are available in ICS? 

     ICS has four integration pattern

      (i)    Map my Data (Point to Point mapping between two service)

      (ii)       Orchestration (Condition based activity orchestrating different systems)

      (iii)     Basic Publish to ICS

      (iv)      Basic Subscribe to ICS

4.  How to use an ICS integration?

   ICS integration is a Web Service which can be called by any application with capability to call    web service (like JCS, Java Application, SOA etc.). ICS Integration can be scheduled to do an    activity at a specific point of time in case of File Transfer integrations.

5.When to go for ICS and when to go for SOA/SOACS ?

   If the existing application foot print is more on Cloud then ICS is best suited for integrations.

    SOA / SOACs is preferred in the following cases

     (i)    In case of pure one premise integration

     (ii)   If the integrations are too complex and would require Human interventions in the form             of approvals etc., event processing, Single Sign on support

     (iii)  If the amount of data transfer involved is large as ICS restriction of messages per                    connection is 100000/day.(Note that ICS connection will not reject a message after                  100000)

6. Security in ICS?

    ICS only point of communication to an on premise application is via a connectivity agent and     oracle messaging cloud service which is bundled in an ICS subscription. Also ICS is not             multitenant and every customers will have their dedicated instance.For Webservice                   Connections created in ICS Username and Password Token policy is currently used.

7. Any restrictions in ICS as such?

   As per the documentation message size should not exceed 512KB but the same has been            enhanced to 5MB. In case of File adapter, there is no such file size restriction unless there is a    transformation involved on the file.

8. Any additional tool support for ICS?

    Additional Support for ICS is available, tools like Jdeveloper12c  can be used to import the         ICS mappings and modify the same in the XSLT Map editors

9. Can Generic Integration and Mappings be provided for customers for reuse?

    Yes.ICS integrations can be done at a broad level with the mappings for two Cloud                   environments and put out on a cloud market place which customer can use for their                 implementations.These Integrations can be imported into an existing customer ICS instance.

    10. Can Multiple Integrations and Mappings be provided for customers for reuse?

         Multiple Integrations can be packaged into a single package and the same can be put up for       customers to use. Packages are packaged as .par file and integrations are packaged as .iar       file.These Integration packages can be imported into an existing customer ICS instance.

    11. How can systems be connected if there are no adapters available?

         Customers/Partners can build their own adapters using the SDK provided and also put it up       for usage in ICS via Cloud Marketplace

     Future enhancements if provided in ICS which could be really useful

      1.    Event Framework in Fusion HCM and ERP SAAS clouds for usage in ICS as available in Sales      Cloud SAAS

      2.    Identity Federation (Single Sign on) support if available then it would really a great addition      to existing username/password token policy for web services

      3.    Additional components/Adapters (for Workday and other systems etc.) could really help in        taking up ICS case further