Usage of ICS for implementations of simple, light weight integrations between SaaS applications,It resides within the cloud, is built off the Oracle Service Bus, and is available on a monthly subscription basis.
This will provide the option to reuse existing integrations as-is, or build on top of the existing, customizing for your business integration needs, If the pre-built solutions don’t meet your integration needs, the capability to develop your own from scratch is always on option.
ICS is a great option within the SaaS application integration space.
Within ICS, there are 4 aspects: Integrations, Connections, Lookups, and Packages:
Integrations
- Developing integrations between SaaS applications is done in ICS via a web based tool.
- Using drag and drop capabilities, an integration can easily be defined.
- The functions defined within the VETO (validate, enrich, transform, and operation) integration design pattern are available for implementation
- ICS provides the ability to create the maps within the web based designer
- ICS provides the ability to create the maps within the web based designer as shown below
- The dashboard within ICS gives visibility into what is happening within the integrations.
Connections
- A connection is defined for any endpoint (source or target) that is implemented within an integration.
- These connections are based off of defined adapters.
- Adapters allow for easy connectivity to applications, insulating the developer from complexities that can occur when interacting with an application
- Currently, there are a handful of adapters available, with many more planned within the roadmap.
Lookups
- ICS has the same capability, allowing for cross reference lookup of data within mappings
- Lookup tables are reusable across multiple integrations.
- The Lookup maps can be imported and exported to CSV format, again allowing for reuse across cloud to on premise implementations.
Packages
- Packages allow for grouping of integrations, providing the ability to import and export packages between environments.
- The action of exporting a package creates a .jar file, which can then be imported into another environment.
- When a package is imported from a .jar file, all artifacts (integration, connection, lookup, etc.) are created/updated.
- One thing to note about this functionality is the impact on connections.
- When a connection is imported, it is created with an empty configuration the first time, eliminating the need for a config plan.