Tag: Integration Page 5 of 6
This month’s new articles about Oracle Integration Cloud …
Traditionally integrating with systems that don’t offer APIs or a shared storage mechanism (such as open tables) has been something of a headache often resulting in the ‘last mile’ of the integration process being manual. The manual steps often come because the cost of building and maintaining the means to integrate has not been cost effective or even an option (vendor has end of lifted a product, and not willing to add an integration mechanism).
The idea of ‘screen scraping’ isn’t new, but the cost of implementing such mechanisms has dropped and the new generation of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) tools such those provided by UiPath have made it significantly easier to integrate and automate UI driven processes. Whilst UI based integration isn’t recommended as a first option for integration, it shouldn’t be ruled out particularly as it gets easier and easier to generate and maintain the UI automation. There are several factors that need to be considered as to whether such an approach is appropriate, for example:
- the ability to run a robot to execute the UI interaction,
- the volume of data needing to be moved through the UI – you wont escape the latency issues that may exist with UI steps,
- is the UI being automated changing rapidly (is there enough cost benefit for automating)
Oracle have been working in partnership with one of the leading RPA product vendors – UiPath, which has resulted in an adaptor for Oracle Integration Cloud. The adaptor allows you to pass data to the UiPath Orchestrator component which will run the processes in an unattended mode. In the adaptor configuration you provide information about how many resources you want the Orchestrator to apply to the task, the queuing of the job and so on.
for more information on RPA and the adaptor the following links maybe of help:
- http://amysimpsongrange.com/tag/rpa/ – an introduction to RPA
- https://docs.oracle.com/en/cloud/paas/integration-cloud/uipath-rpa-adapter/using-uipath-robotic-process-automation-adapter-oracle-integration.pdf – documentation on the RPA adaptor
- http://niallcblogs.blogspot.com/2018/12/671-oic-1845-new-features-ui-path-rpa.html – Oracle PM introduction
Whilst Oracle’s roadmap in the RPA space is not entirely clear we have heard indications that Oracle are limiting themselves to just UiPath (this is what UiPath say about the partnership).
Regardless of the approach you’ll see that the adoption of RPA is important in Oracle’s vision, with their Agile Finance making a clear indication of its view (see the paper here).
Oracle Open World 2018 is upon us, and here are some suggested sessions:
- Antipatterns for Integration: Common Pitfalls [PRO6175]
- Deep Dive: Application Integration on Oracle Cloud [TRN6458]
- Enhance your CX Applications with Oracle Integration Cloud [HOL6299]
- Oracle SOA Suite Hybrid Options with Oracle Integration Cloud [TIP4530]
- Accelerate DigitalOps with Oracle Integration Cloud and UiPath RPA [THT6590]
- The Future of Integration with Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence [TIP1372]
- Extending and Connecting Applications with Oracle Integration Cloud [HOL6298]
- FedEx Hybrid Cloud Integration Strategy [CAS3614]
- Integrating Your ERP and HCM with Oracle Integration Cloud [HOL6314]
- Simplify and Accelerate Digital Transformation with Oracle Integration Cloud [PRO4539]
- The Path to a Digital Workforce with Oracle Integration Cloud [PRO4515]
- American Red Cross Modernizes Disaster Relief with Oracle Integration Cloud [CAS4877]
- Unleash Your Business Processes Your Way with Oracle Integration Cloud [PRO4536]
- Quick Wins Your Business Will Love Using Oracle Integration Cloud [THT6824]
- Simplify and Accelerate Digital Transformation with Oracle Integration Cloud [PRO4518]
- Application Integration on Oracle Cloud [TRN6352]
- DevOps: Oracle SOA, Oracle WebLogic, Oracle Integration Cloud, Oracle Java Cloud Service [CAS3896]
- Get Insight into Oracle Integration Cloud/Oracle Java Cloud Service Performance [PRO4478]
- AI-Powered Oracle Integration Cloud and Oracle API Platform Cloud Service [PRO6176]
- Connect with Oracle ERP Cloud or Oracle HCM Cloud with Oracle Integration Cloud [PRO4538]
- Oracle Integration Cloud Customer Panel: Real-World Digital Transformation Uses Cases [CAS5691]
- Simplifying Oracle HCM Cloud Integrations [PRM3890]
- Integrating with Oracle ERP Cloud Using Oracle Integration Cloud Service [THT6831]
- Oracle Integration Cloud Best Practices Panel: Transforming to Hybrid Cloud [CAS5215]
- Oracle Integration Cloud Customer Panel: Integrating SaaS into Your Application Network [CAS4491]
- Broader, Better, Faster: Capgemini’s Blueprint for Oracle Cloud in UK Police [CAS3273]
We have had a number of interesting conversations of late about the transition from ICS to OIC and to spice the discussion whether it should be OIC or Autonomous OIC. The reality of the situation is that the transition between ICS and OIC is a relatively straight forward one using the export and import tooling.
The real challenge is the impact to organisations appears to be the change in licensing models as OIC works with the newer Universal Credit Model (UCM) where as ICS is in the older arrangement of traditional accounts where you buy the use of specific services, in some ways not too different from traditional Oracle traditional product licensing. For organisations that operate with corporate level buying teams this is organisationally more challenging. As just buying credits can feel like your giving the IT children pocket money and you don’t trust them to ensure the money is spent wisely and they don’t come running back a day later when they say spent all the money can we have some more.
IOC or Autonomous OIC
For the smaller customers where they’re generating less than 5000 Messages per hour (think Integration triggers where each message is <50k – which is fairly big for most needs. Although be aware but moving large files is going to eat through your messages as the transfer cost is file size / 50k = no. messages used (consumed or sent), of effectively 250MB per hour. The autonomous option is a no brainer for smaller use cases in terms of cost as it means on current pricing you have your integrations operating for a lot less than £500 per month (£0.5867 x 24 x 30 – using standard with the flex scheme – https://cloud.oracle.com/en_US/OIC/pricing). With that the SaaS adaptors are also included – that means you could operate say Workday to Oracle Financials for an SME without much problem.
Note: Presently June 2018 Edition of Oracle PaaS and IaaS Universal Credits Service Descriptions - does not clearly define KB and mixes KB and Kb. Having raised this with product management it has been confirmed to mean KiloBytes and NOT Kilobits
As the volumes increase, the differences are going to change, whilst we haven’t done the maths, we’d expect the increasing volumes to eventually favour traditional OIC.
The rules do go beyond simple messages when the Visual Builder (VBCS) and Process (PCS) elements gets involved. The formulas do boil down to users and message counts so the maths are relatively managable. Note the explination for concurrent users is a little more complex than may first appear, and worthy of a blog explination in its own right.
There are other considerations as well for Autonomous OIC vs standard OIC, such as whether you want to have more or less control on the processes such as absorbing updates, handling backups, whether you need to isolate the data from everyone else – and this is a question that is likely to be driven by compliance over anything else for most. Whilst we’ve just highlighted the list prices, when doing the calculations of the cost benefit, you need to factor in the skill sets involved in the different options and the ability to respond to dynamic demand.
Just to link it back to the book, whether its OIC or Autonomous OIC the integration engeine is essentially still the same as ICS. So reading about ICS is still going to help, of course there will be some cosmetic differences, but the fundamentals remain the same.
As previously mentioned, ICS is going to be incorporated into Oracle Integration Cloud. Since we have had the announcement we have had some more information about OIC released.
The keypoints here are:
OIC Standard Edition |
OIC Enterprise Edition |
What we used to know as Integration Cloud Service, which includes …
Visual Cloud Builder – ability to build simple UIs |
Standard Edition plus ..
Process Cloud capabilities Analytics features – Streams and Insight product Enterprise Solutions Adaptors – e.g. Seibel, EBS etc |
Requires a DB | Requires a DB
To support Integration and Stream Analytics …
|
This and related information can be found in a new presentation that can be seen at:
We have released a 2 minute tech tip through the Oracle Technology Network (OTN) which talks through the creation of a simple end to end integration using Oracle’s Integration Cloud Service (ICS).
In the last few years Oracle’s iPaaS offerings have progressed significantly from one or two solutions such as Mobile Cloud Service to in excess of 35 offerings. This makes it challenging to decide which product(s) to use. The means for selection depends upon a range of factors including:
- Most suitable licensing model (ICS provides a lower cost of entry than SOA CS as you’re paying by message volumes)
- Development skills and desire to resilience or invest in people (SOA on-premises to SOA CS is easier than a technology change such as ICS)
- The amount of control you have in an environment – JCS offers more control than ACCS for example
Last updated: December 28, 2021 at 1:20 am
We have consolidated all the 3rd Party references we know of regarding ICS into this single page.
As we encounter new information we will update the details, and if you encounter useful information missing from this list, please let us know (tweet @ImplementingICS with #ICS)
(Oct 18) Big batch of additional resources added to the table
3rd Party References & Resources
ICS Useful 3rd Party Resources
Oracle Document Reference Links…
Resource | Description - Link |
---|---|
Adapter Certification | Oracle Adapter Certification Matrix |
ICS Cloud Documentation Home | ICS Cloud Latest Edition Documentation |
Oracle Online Learning | OLL - YouTube ICS Training Playlist |
Eloqua ICS Connectivity (Eloqua Help Center) | Eloqua Cloud Herlp Centre |
All A-Team ICS Posts | http://www.ateam-oracle.com/category/cloud/paas/paas-ics/ |
Oracle Integration Blog | Blog covering all Oracle's Integration offerings |
OIC Analyst Report | OIC analyst Report |
Tools That May Help …
Tool | Link |
---|---|
Online WSDL pretty print/viewer | https://www.wsdl-analyzer.com/online-wsdl-viewer |
Web Services Directory | http://www.webservicex.net/New/ |
Apiary (Swagger / Open API & API Blueprint designer) | https://apiary.io/ |
Mockable - Endpoint Mocking | https://www.mockable.io/ |