Building Blocks and Life cycle operations of an Integration in Oracle Integration Cloud Services

In this article, we will learn about the building blocks required to develop integration and also go through the Life cycle of integration.

First, let's discuss the pre-requisites steps required to build an integration

1. Create Connection 

2. Create Integration 

3. Data Mapping or Transforming between request and response connection

4.  Enable the Tracking for the integration

5. Activate the Integration

6. Run the Integration 

7. Monitoring the Integration

Basic flow of integrations 

Connection: This is the pivotal component in OIC to start any integration, without this component integration cannot be built. Connection Component in OIC allows you to connect various Legacy and Source systems to access and update the data. 

OIC provides predefined adapters like Oracle EBS, Twilio, SAP, Database, FTP, Salesforce, etc.. by selecting appropriate adapters we can create a connection service for it. 

Types of connectors in OIC

1.          Adobe eSign
2.         AQ
3.         Ariba
4.         Concur
5.         DocuSign
6.         Eloqua
7.       Eventbrite
8.         Evernote
9.         Facebook
10.         File
11.         FTP
12.         Google Calendar
13.         Google Mail
14.         Google Task
15.         JD Edwards EnterpriseOne
16.         JMS
17.         LinkedIn
18.         MailChimp
19.         Microsoft Calendar
20.         Microsoft Contact
21.         Microsoft Email
22.         Microsoft SQL Server
23.         MySQL
24.         NetSuite
25.         Oracle Commerce Cloud
26.         Oracle CPQ
27.         Oracle Database
28.         Oracle E-Business Suite
29.         Oracle ERP Cloud
30.         Oracle Field Service Cloud
31.         Oracle HCM Cloud
32.         Oracle Messaging Cloud Service
33.         Oracle RightNow (Service Cloud)
34.         Oracle Sales Cloud
35.         Oracle Siebel
36.         Oracle Utilities
37.         Responsys
38.         REST
39.         Salesforce
40.         SAP
41.         ServiceNow
42.         SOAP
43.         Successfactors
44.         SurveyMonkey

Select the adapter and configure it to register as a connection. 

While registering a connection, it's mandatory to specify connection roles. 

There are 3 connection roles 

1. Trigger

2. Invoke

3. Trigger and Invoke

Trigger Connection (Source Request):  This role will be selected for the connection if the request is submitted to OIC Request. For example, the final REST integration URL will be generated and triggered from the REST connection configured with the role of the trigger. 

Invoke Connection (Target Response): This role will be selected for the connection if we want to third party apps or URLs from OIC, For example, On-Premise DB connection will be configured as invoking a connection to access its database table in OIC  or third party REST  or SOAP URL configured as invoke in connections,  to be called in OIC to expose its data 

Trigger and Invoke Role: A connection can perform both roles of Trigger and Invoke

With the above steps, the connection will be established in OIC, now the next part is to use this connection to receive and expose it in OIC services 

Integrations: This Component is used to achieve a business purpose using the connectors, for example reading the data and writing it to the database or calling an external REST URL and inserting data into an on-prem or cloud database. 

 Data Mapping: This component establishes the relationship between source and target connection. It will allow users to create a mapping between two connectors to expose or consume the data. 

Data Transformation: OIC provides the unique scalable functionality called lookups which enables users to transform the data without changing any code in integration.  Lookups are configurable 

  Map to use data transformation function 

Tracker:  You can track fields in messages on which you have defined business identifiers on the Track Instances page during runtime. These fields are only available for tracking on the Track Instances page if you defined a primary business identifier in the Business Identifiers for Tracking dialog during design time.

Activation: Activating Integration will start the data transactions.

 Run the Integration by clicking the play button

Monitoring: 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.

 

Life Cycle Operation of an Integration in Oracle Integration Cloud services

View:  This will open the integration designer page canvas in view-only mode. 

Edit:  This operation will let you edit the integration, but only if integration is not in editable mode

Clone:  This  operation creates an exact replica of integration with a different name, everything will be cloned including data mapping  and business logic 

Create Version:  This is the same as clone but it will create an exact replica of an existing integration with the same name but the version number will be different. 

Export: Integration can be exported by clicking on the Export button which will download file with an extension of IAR (Integration Archive)

Delete:   This will delete the Integration

Lock: This operation will lock the integration by the developer, no one can edit it until it's unlocked 

Unlock: This operation will unlock  by the integration developer who locked it in the first place