Administering Oracle Integration Cloud Service

The Oracle Integration Cloud Service provide a rich dashboard with the information and tools to monitor and manage our integration in the runtime environment.

Monitoring Integration

Oracle ICS provide us the broad level  picture of how integrations are working/performing. Dashboard provides various views to check running integrations.

• Viewing Dashboard
• Viewing System Health
• Viewing Design Time Metrics
• Monitoring Integrations
• Monitoring Agents
• Track Instances

Viewing Dashboard: Dashboard provides us the information about how integrations are performing. The main page of the integration shows a snapshot of a state of all running integrations.

• Login into ICS and click Dashboard from home page

• Below screen shows the overall picture of all integrations that are running

1. Success Rate: Shows the success ratio of running integration.
2. Total Message: Shows the total no of messages received of integrations that are activated.
3. Success: Shows the total no of successful messages.
4. Failures: Shows the total no of fail messages.
5. Connections: Shows how many connections are currently in use in the integrations.
6. Integrations: Shows how many integrations are activated out of developed integrations.
7. Scheduled Integrations: Shows how many integrations are scheduled integrations.
8. This section allows us to download the logs.

Viewing System Health: This allows us to view information about the system health of Oracle Integration Cloud Service components. To view System Health click on the drop down from left corner and click on System Health

Viewing Design Time Metrics: This allows us to view the design-time metrics of Oracle Integration Cloud Service, including details about packages, integrations, connections, lookups, and agents.

1. Integrations: This sections shows the total no of Integrations we have so far with some extra information(Draft, Configured, Active, Failed)
2. Connections: This sections shows the total no of Connections we have so far with some extra information(Draft, Configured, In-Use)
3. Lookups: This sections shows the total no of Lookup we have so far with some extra information(In-Use)
4. Packages: This sections shows the total no of Packages we have so far with some extra information(Developed, Prebuilt)
5. Agents: This sections shows the total no of Agents we have configures so far.
6. Adapters: Shows the total no of adapters available out of the box

Monitoring Integrations: On the ICS dashboard, we can see how Integrations are processing messages. For example: How many messages have been received and processed , how many successful and errors have occurred.

Monitoring Agents: Monitor the agent groups and their associated on-premises agents in Oracle Integration Cloud Service.

Track Instances: Oracle ICS allows us to track instances of the integrations. 

Oracle Integration Cloud Service Lookups

ICS  Lookups

We use lookups in the integrations to create reusable tables that map the different terms used to describe the same item across your applications. Lookups are exact same as Data Value Map(DVM) in SOA

A lookup associates values used by one application for a specific item to the values used by other applications for the same item. For example, one application uses a specific set of codes to describe countries, while another application uses a different set of codes to describe the same countries.

Lookups can be used for items such as mapping gender codes, nationality codes, currency codes—any type of information that our applications must share with each other but that they represent differently. We may have several lookups for one integration, depending on the number of fields that require mapping. Lookups are also reusable, and can be used by multiple integrations. Lookups are based on a static definition, meaning we create and populate them during design time, and are not changed by runtime activities. These tables are used for looking up values only.

Lookup Function:

ICS proivdes a lookupValue function that we can use to call in mapper to specify when to reference a lookup table. We use this function to lookup values at run time based on the data coming as part of the response. This way, our integration knows how to map data coming in from one application to data being sent to another application.

In the next blog, you will learn how to use lookups in integration.

User Lookup in Oracle Integration Cloud Service

In my blog, I have explained about lookup in Oracle Integration Cloud Service. This blogs shows how to create and use lookup in any integration.

Follow below steps to create and use lookup in the integration

Create Lookup

• Click on the Lookups tile from ICS home page

• Click Create button from upper corner
• Enter Lookup Name & Description and click Create button

• Edit domain names by clicking on the Domain_name_1 and select Edit Domain Name

• Enter domain name as per choice. Same ways we can edit the name of Domain_name_2
• Enter Values as shown in the below screen shot and click + sign to add more values

• Click Save and Close button

With the above steps we have seen how to create lookup in ICS. Now let's see how to use lookups in integration.

Use Lookups

• Open any existing Integration
• Drag and Drop Assign Activity from Actions on the Integration canvas

• Enter Name and click Create button

• Click + Sign to add variable and enter Name of the variable

• Click on Edit button to open expression builder from the right side below Value column
• Seach Lookup and Drag & Drop lookupValue function on Expression

• Select CountryLookup and click Next button

• Click Select Source Column and select Country Code

• Same ways, click on Select Target Column and select CountryName and click Next button

• Enter any default value. This allows lookupValue function to set default value if none of the CountryCode is found from the lookup. Click Next button and Done

• srcValue value need to replace with any variable or set any hard coded value as of now. This will allow lookup to search entered value in lookup against CountryCode and return corresponding Country Name. If Country Code is not found then it returns default value(in our case default value is Not Found)

That's it !

FTP adapter in Oracle Integration Cloud Service

FTP adapter in Oracle ICS enables the integration of File Transfer Protocol(FTP) and Secure Shell File(SSH) Transfer Protocol. Using FTP adapter available in ICS, we can read and write files from ICS integration on remote FTP server.

Capabilities of FTP adapter

• Read and write files in either binary or ASCII format to any FTP server that is accessible on open internet. FTP adapter is not capable to connect to FTP & sFTP that resides in organization premises.
• Streaming support for transferring large files.
• Adapter allows us to create a schema file format to use for the files to transfer. The schema can be created (sampled) from either a comma-separated value (CSV) file or from an existing schema file. Supported delimiters in the file are single spaces, commas, semicolons, or tabs.
• Enables us to encrypt a file that is being uploaded to remote FTP / sFTP servers using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) cryptography.
• Enables us to decrypt a file that is being read or downloaded from a remote FTP / sFTP server using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) cryptography.

Let's see how to create a FTP connection in Oracle Integration Cloud Service.

• Login into the Oracle ICS
• Select Connection tile from home page and select Create button from upper right side corner
• Search FTP and Select FTP adapter

• Enter below information and click Create button
• Enter Name
• Identifier would be automatically picked up based on name entered however we can edit it.
• Select Role as Trigger and Invoke depending on the requirement.
• Enter Description

• Select Configure Connectivity button and enter below information and click OK button
• Enter FTP Server Host Address
• Enter FTP Server Port
• Select Yes from SFTP Connection drop down

• Select Configure Security button and enter below information and Click OK button
• Select FTP Server Access Policy from Security Policy drop down
• Enter User Name
• Enter Password & Confirm Password

• Select Test button from upper right corner. If all the details are correct then we will see the connection is successful and progress bar will reach to 100%

• Select Save & Close button from upper right corner

We are ready to use FTP adapter in the integration.

For more details about FTP adapter, please see oracle official documentation

Integration to Publish Messages to Oracle Integration Cloud Service

Oracle ICS allows us Out Of The Box messaging Queue which can be use to send messages. This is one of the most useful feature of Oracle ICS.

We can create integrations that enable us to publish message to Oracle Integration Cloud Service. Messaging publishing can be achieved through the use of Oracle Integration Cloud Service Messaging.

Oracle ICS provides Publish To ICS Style/Pattern that allows us to create an integration to send message to ICS inbuilt queue without setup any messaging service.

Let's go step by step on how to create such type of an integration.

• Login into ICS console and Click on Integration tile from the home page
• Click on Create button from upper right corner and select Publish To ICS Style/Pattern

• Enter information on the opened dialog box and click Create button

• In the integration designer, drag an adapter from the Connections panel on the right to the trigger (source) area of the canvas. In this example we are dropping REST connection that we created in out previous blog

• Enter below information and Click Next
• Name of the end point
• Relative URI(must start with /)
• Select HTTP verb
• Select Configure a request payload for this endpoint checkbox- This option allows us to assign payload in the next step

• Select Json Sample Radio button: This option allows us to take input in json format. Select inline link to give sample payload

• Enter sample payload and click OK

{  
   "employeeId":"ABC@123",
   "firstName":"Ankur",
   "lastName":"Jain",
   "Qualification":"MCA",
   "Designation":"Sr. Manager"
}

• Click Next and Done button

• After above steps our integration will look like

• Click on Action button and then Tracking option. This option allows us to track our integration with Business identifier.

• Drag employeeId from left pane and drop on the first row in Tracking Field column. Select Done button

• Select Save and Close button from upper right corner

Now integration is completed and it's time to activate the integration.

• Select on the Activate button from integration screen

• Select Enable Tracking & Include Payload check boxes and click Activate button

If everything goes fine, integration will be activated successfully.

That ways we have developed an integration that will publish a message on ICS queue. Now we can have one or more subscriber that will subscribe the above integration to consume the messages.

Let's see my next blog that will subscribe the above integration and consume the messages.

Integration to Subscribe to Oracle Integration Cloud Service

In my previous blog, we have learned how to create an Integration that publish the message into ICS queue. Now this blog will show you how to subscribe messages in ICS.

We can create an integration that enables us to subscribe to messages from Oracle Integration Cloud Service. Message subscription is achieved through use of Oracle Integration Cloud Service Messaging.

ICS provides Subscribe To ICS Style pattern that allows us to create an integration that subscribe to ICS queue.

In this blog we have learned to how to subscribe to an integration that publish the message and save the same message into Oracle database table.

Let's go step by step on how to create such type of integration.

• Login into ICS console and Click on Integration tile from the home page
• Click on Create button from upper right corner and select  Subscribe To ICS Style/Pattern

• Enter information in the opened dialog box and click Create button

• Select TEST_Publish integration that we have created in my previous blog and select Use button

• Drag & Drop the TEST_DB_Conn that we have created in one of my blog and drop onto the Invoke

• Enter below information and Click Next
• Enter endpoint name in What do you want to call your endpoint
• Select Run a SQL Statement from What operation do you want to perform drop down

• Enter below insert query in SQL query box and Click Validate SQL query to validate the entered query and Click Next button 

INSERT INTO apps.employee_info(employee_id, first_name,last_name,qualificatoin,designation) values(#employee_id,#first_name,#last_name,#qualification,#designation)

• Click Done
• Click on Map to InsertEmployee mapper and click Add button
• Map the source and target field as shown in the below scree shot. Click Validate and Close button

• Select Action icon and click on Tracking. This is mandatory step and can’t activate integration without this step. Basically this allows us to track the Instance with configured parameter. In our case we will select employeeId field. 

• Activate the integration

Now we are ready with Integration. It's time to publish a message and see the Oracle database. Data should be inserted into the table as we will test the Publish integration.

Test the Publish integration

• We will use the POSTMAN tool to test the integration
• Get the end point URLfor the Publish integration. Click on the info icon and click on the Endpoint URL 

• Open POSTMAN and past the URL
• We have to add Basic Auth as ICS service is automatically secured. We need to provide ICS console credentials.

• Enter payload and hit Submit button

• Open database and check record should be inserted into the database

That's complete the Pub and Sub Integration in Oracle ICS.