Understanding Oracle's Integration Cloud and how to get the most out of your implementation

Author: Phil Wilkins Page 1 of 8

-- I work for Oracle, all opinions here are my own & do not necessarily reflect the views of Oracle -- Oracle Ace Director Alumni
TOGAF 9 Certified Architect
- https://blog.mp3monster.org

Oracle Named a Leader and Positioned Highest for Ability to Execute in Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Integration Platform as a Service, Worldwide

We are excited and humbled to share that Gartner has named OIC a Leader and Positioned Highest for Ability to Execute in Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for…

Oracle Named a Leader and Positioned Highest for Ability to Execute in Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Integration Platform as a Service, Worldwide

May 22 – New OIC Articles

May means we see another quarterly release with new features as we can see by the types of blog posts collected this month

Article / LinkAuthorSubject MatterConnecting
OIC and OCI Logging ServiceNiall CommiskeyOICOCI Logging
End to End Business Process Automation with OIC Part INiall CommiskeyOIC (Integration & Process)OCI Events, Object Store, Notification Service
May 2022 Oracle Integration UpdateNiall CommiskeyOICVarious
Native Payload Support in Activity Stream with May’22 ReleasePrakash MasandOIC 
OIC May 22 release New Features – QuickBooks AdapterNiall CommiskeyOICQuickbooks
How to Update Java on Oracle Integration Cloud On-premise AgentHritik Tyagi OIC 
Suppliers to Oracle VB synch using Oracle IntegrationAnkur JainOICERP
Convert string date from one format to another in Oracle IntegrationAnkur JainOIC 
Use of Root Certificates in OIC, a Best PracticeMilad ShirazOIC 
Read files from Object Storage in Oracle IntegrationAnkur JainOIC 
Push records in batches to target service in Oracle IntegrationAnkur JainOIC 
May’22 Oracle Integration-Third Party Adapters EnhancementsMadhav PoosarlaOICJIRA, Magento, SAP, Zendesk
Migrate Oracle Integrations with Security artifactsAnkur JainOIC 
How to extract data from Oracle Fusion using REST APIs in OICAnkur JainOICERP
OIC – Export an Integration Using REST API SanddyOIC 
OIC – limitation of using Staging areaSanddyOIC 
https://soalicious.blogspot.com/2022/05/oic-schedule-bi-publisher-report.htmlSanddyOIC 

Sources of knowledge and learning provided by Oracle

The resources provided by Oracle for learning about their technologies are substantial but distributed. This to an extent is another manifestation of Conway’s Law.

I have however tried to compile and describe those resources here. This list does extend beyond OIC but we hope it helps build on top of our monthly summary.

April 22 – New OIC Articles

Article / LinkAuthorSubject MatterConnecting
OIC & OAuth 2.0 (Part 1, Part 2, Part3)Niall CommiskeyOIC 
OIC Responsys AdapterNiall CommiskeyOICResponsys
OIC On OCI Status PageElizabeth EarleOIC 
Create Schedule Service SOAP ConnectionKabir YadavOIC 
Schedule BI Publisher Report through OIC Kabir YadavOICBI Publisher
Subscribe to HCM Updates ( via ATOM Feed ) Kabir YadavOICHCM
Configure Oracle HCM Cloud Adapter ConnectionKabir YadavOICHCM
Subscribing to Business Events in OICYan ScorrerOIC 
Split a CSV file into multiple based on a column in OICAnkur JainOIC 
https://www.techsupper.com/2022/04/how-to-call-oracle-saas-ess-job-using-oracle-integration.htmlAnkur JainOIC 
How to create and test custom ESS job in Oracle SaaSAnkur JainOIC 
Reading the latest file from SFTP in OICAnkur JainOIC 

March 22 – New OIC Articles

Article / LinkAuthorSubject MatterConnecting
Get Report Parameters OIC 
How to Process ERP Cloud Business Events in Oracle IntegrationKishore KattaOICOICERP
Using OIC for Data Migration?Yan ScorrerOIC 
Oracle Integration, OCI API Gateway and OCI Logging & AnalyticsCristian SilipigniOIC 
OIC New Features March 2022 – Magento AdapterNiall CommiskeyOICMagento
OCI CIS Landing Zone: Advanced Configuration using Terraform OverridesOlaf HeimburgerOIC 
ERP Integration Callback Implementation in Oracle Integration CloudJack DesaiOICERP
Create IDCS user with OIC creation privilegesGabriele Cannas OICIDCS
Oracle Integration Update Webcast: CX Integration and Extension Best practicesJürgen Kress OICCX
Blending PaaS Data with SaaS Reporting Using OIC to Break Data SilosBhavesh ShahOICDB
Dynamically show changed fields in a Process Web FormArvind VenugopalPCS 
Import Suppliers using FBDI in Oracle IntegrationAnkur JainOICERP
Merging two CSV files into a single file in Oracle IntegrationAnkur JainOIC 
Enable Oracle Integration Activity Stream to OCI Logging serviceAnkur JainOICObservability

February 22 – New OIC Articles

Another month passed already, so here are Feb’s posts.

Article / LinkAuthorSubject MatterConnecting
Automating Accounting Hub Cloud Integration with Oracle IntegrationKishore KattaOICAccounting Hub
OIC – API Gateway – Logging –> the value add of OCINiall CommiskeyOICAPI Gateway, OCI Logging
OIC + OHIP + Simphony (part 1, part 2, part 3)Niall CommiskeyOICOracle Hospitality, Simphony, OHIP
OIC ecosystem – Integration & OCI Services – an OverviewNiall CommiskeyOICOCI
February 2022 Oracle Integration UpdateAntony ReynoldsOICMagento Commerce Cloud, Oracle Unity, Oracle Hospitality
New Third Party Application AdapterMadhav PoosarlaOICMagento Commerce Cloud
Oracle Integration Business Accelerator for Siebel Loyalty and CrowdTwistPrakash Masand & Venkat BhatOICSiebel
How to call the OCI AI Language Service from the Oracle Integration CloudDaniel Martins TeixeiraOICOracle AI Language Service
Oracle Hospitality Integration Platform (OHIP) Developer Portal gets a faceliftAmy Simpson-GrangeOHIP 
Integration to upload file to the UCM Server in HCM CloudKabir YadavOICHCM UCM
Steps to fetch Oracle Cloud SaaS Application CertificatesKabir YadavOIC 
How-to Do Error Handling When Integrating With Fusion ERPJan KettenisOICFusion ERP
Parallel Gateway and Multi-Threading, the Work-AroundJan KettenisOIC 
Token Based Authentication (TBA) Policy configuration for Oracle Integration Cloud NetSuite AdapterManish Kumar GuptaOICNetSuite
Publish messages in Stream using Oracle Integration & Connect Stream using OCI Streaming adapter in Oracle IntegrationAnkur JainOICStreams

January 22 – New OIC Articles

Article / LinkAuthorSubject MatterConnecting
DevOps with FlexDeploy for Oracle Integration LHR customer case study Join the PaaS Partner Community Webcast January 25th 2022 (can still play recording post event)Jurgen KressOIC 
OIC ecosystem – Integration & OCI Services – an OverviewNiall CommiskeyOIC 
OCI Anomaly Detection Service & OIC – Part INiall Commiskey  
OIC invoking OCI Functions (python) Part 1, Part 2 Niall CommiskeyOICFunctions
Oracle Hospitality from Reservation to Check-In Part 1, Part 2Niall CommiskeyOICOracle Hospitality
While Loop in OIC / While ActionKabir YadavOIC 
Top 10 Oracle Integration Cloud (OIC) Interview Questions Mahir UI FayazOIC 
Using Synchronous BIP for Extracting Data? Don’tAngelo SantagataOICBIP

Book Birthday

I had an interesting conversation today, where it was pointed out to me that our book Implementing Oracle Integration Cloud Service, the first ever Oracle PaaS book is five years old today (according to Amazon). This website was also five years old back in August last year.

While some parts of the UI have become more sophisticated than shown in the book, and the choice of adaptors has grown significantly the core fundamentals of the book still hold true.

Of course the book is only as good as the technology, and Oracle Integration continues to fly in the Gartner Magic Quadrant.

So Happy Birthday us, and congratulations Oracle, and thankyou to our readers.

December 21 – New OIC Articles

December is always a quiet month having had updates in November, but this month has been particularly so. One bit of good news, the handy resource links have been updated with a lot more additional resources – see right of the page.

Article / LinkAuthorSubject MatterConnecting
CI/CD working with EiPaaS Oracle Integration (OIC)Cristian SilipigniOICCI/CD
Speed up your Accounting Closing Cycle with automated loading of Payable Invoices into Oracle ERP Cloud, using Oracle Integration CloudJuan CarlosOICCX/ ERP/ ServiceCloud
Quarterly UpdatesPhil WilkinsOIC 
Using the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Streaming Service Adapter with Oracle IntegrationOICStreams
Build retry logic in Oracle IntegrationAnkur JainOIC 
Call VB Business Objects from Oracle IntegrationAnkur JainOIC 

Quarterly Updates

The update regime for Integration Cloud is well established in its quarterly pattern, but within that pattern are two update cycles, separated by two weeks. It is possible to choose which cycle your OIC instance update will be executed in. If you don’t specify which cycle then by default you will be put into the second cycle.

For production deployments of OIC that makes a lot of sense. But we would recommend that your non-production instance be part of the 1st update cycle. This allows you two weeks to validate and fix any issues in the event that the upgrade breaks any of your integrations. While that shouldn’t happen if you are exploiting an undocumented behaviour or something reported as a bug there is always a risk.

So the obvious question is how to define which update cycle should be used. For OCI Gen 2 (the majority of users should have migrated to now), the control is achieved by setting a freeform tag on the OIC instance. The tag needs to be called OIC_UPDATE_WINDOW1 (note – if you don’t read the Oracle documentation carefully you could end up omitting the numeral) and the value can be left blank. The tags are set on the OCI view for your OIC instance, which has a tabbed view as you can see below. Once the value is set then the OCI view will show an Updating status – this is not to be confused with the OIC instance being updated with the latest quarterly changes.

All of this shows up in blog (here and script fragment here) and a documentation (here). What is less apparent is the lead time needed for the tag to be in place. This is in the order of 7 or more weeks. This means you need to have your OIC dev instance in place almost a full quarter before the opportunity is available, and spinning up a new OIC instance and expecting it to immediately adopt the latest version during the maintenance window isn’t going to solve any problems.

How to confirm the instance version

The related question is where to look for the version of OIC is running. The information is only provided in the instance console rather then the OCI View of OIC. The version information is available as part of the drop down visible on the question mark icon at the top right of the UI, as the following screenshots show:

We do hope that Oracle will shorten this in the months to come.

Terraforming …

If you’re building your OIC deployment(s) using Terraform, then you could pass a variable into your Terraform module (hence the reference to var. or read from a configuration file in which case you will want a data block and the value becomes data.)

locals {
 updateWindow = (var.use_window1) ? "OIC_UPDATE_WINDOW1" : "--NOT-WINDOW1--"
}

resource "oci_integration_integration_instance" "test_integration_instance" {
    #Required
    compartment_id = var.compartment_id
    display_name = "ExampleOIC"
    integration_instance_type = var.integration_instance_integration_instance_type
    is_byol = false
    message_packs = 1

    consumption_model = var.integration_instance_consumption_model
    custom_endpoint {
        #Required
        hostname = var.integration_instance_custom_endpoint_hostname

        #Optional
        certificate_secret_id = oci_vault_secret.test_secret.id
    }

    freeform_tags = {"${local.updateWindow}"= ""}
    idcs_at = var.integration_instance_idcs_at
    is_file_server_enabled = var.integration_instance_is_file_server_enabled
    is_visual_builder_enabled = var.integration_instance_is_visual_builder_enabled
    network_endpoint_details {
        #Required
        network_endpoint_type = var.integration_instance_network_endpoint_details_network_endpoint_type


        }
        is_integration_vcn_allowlisted = var.integration_instance_network_endpoint_details_is_integration_vcn_allowlisted
    }
    state = var.integration_instance_target_state
}

As you can see in my example I have hardwired more values than the example provided by the Oracle Terraform documentation (here) as it helps show the legal values. Here to keep the declarations simple – I have set a freeform tag regardless, but changed in the local variable value to be used by the freeform tag depending on if a variable ( use_window1) is set.

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