1 Technical Architecture
This chapter describes the overall software architecture, offering a high-level discussion of the general structure of the system.
There could be underlying version updates to the technical stack (DB, Web Logic, updated versions of UI libraries, Fusion middle ware libraries and so on.)
Multiple Products
EICS (Enterprise Inventory Cloud Service) and SOCS (Store Operations Cloud Service) are two separately licensed products.
EICS includes:
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EICS Browser Client
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EICS Web Services
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EICS Server Tier
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EICS Database tier with data access code, batches, reports
SOCS includes:
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Oracle MAF Client
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JET Mobile Client
To use SOCS, EICS needs to be deployed.
Cloud Deployment
EICS Client
Oracle JET based browser application that allows the user to perform a wide range of administrative functions.
SOCS Mobile Client
There are two mobile clients available.
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Oracle mobile application (MAF) platform based
The mobile client provides all day-to-day transactional workflows within an Oracle Mobile Application Framework (MAF) platform. MAF is a hybrid-mobile platform that supports both iOS and Android devices. For more details, please see Oracle Retail Store Operations Cloud Service Mobile Guide.
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Oracle Jet mobile based
There is a new Jet Mobile client available for both Android & iOS. The Android version can be downloaded as APK. The iOS version needs to be built from downloaded framework/library. For more details, please see Oracle Retail Store Operations Cloud Service Mobile Guide.
The JET Mobile client can also be run in a Web browser (with scanning constraints).
Implementers are strongly encouraged to adopt the Jet Mobile client (over MAF based mobile UI) since Oracle has decided to sunset the Oracle MAF platform.
For more information, please see SIOCS JET Mobile Adaptation Reference Paper (Doc ID 2614551.1) in the Oracle Retail Store Inventory
Operations Cloud Services Documentation Library.
Web Services
There is no GUI for the web services APIs that are provided by EICS. These APIs allow customers to create or develop applications or add-ons that can replicate some or all the steps of a transaction workflow.
Please note that you would find both older SOAP based & new REST based apis. SOAP apis have been started to get deprecated & will be removed soon.
Implementers are strongly encouraged to move to REST apis. Especially XStore (Point of Sale) integration should only use SIOCS’s REST apis for all integration.
Batch Scheduling
There is an internal batch scheduling user interface. This is on deprecation path.
Support has also been added for the POM (Process Orchestration Management) tool that is used by MFCS as well. All new deployments have this enabled. POM is the go forward technical direction.
WTSS / IDCS or OCI IAM
WTSS: Web Traffic Security Service
Integration Cloud Services uses Oracle Identity Cloud Service (IDCS) as its identity provider (IDP) or Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Identity and Access Management (OCI IAM) as its identify provider (IDP).
EICS Application Server(s)
Server deployed as a J2EE application inside the WebLogic Application Server.
Integration
Oracle Retail Integration Cloud Server (RICS) is used for integration between multiple systems, primarily external systems.
Direct DB Deployment with MFCS (No RIB/RICS)
MFCS and SIOCS now share a pluggable Database (PDB) with different schema. This is the go-forward deployment for integrating MFCS and SIOCS. In this deployment, RICS/RIB is not used. Previous batch integration between MFCS and SIOCS, has also been routed through Direct database integration mechanism.
Please note that this deployment is possible when both MFCS and SIOCS are on NextGen SaaS. Implementers are strongly encouraged to use this integration deployment. We will make this as default deployment for all newly provisioned instances.
If integration is with GBUCS-MFCS or on-prem-RMS then RICS/RIB would be used.
Oracle Retail Integration Cloud Service (RIB/RICS)
The RIB is a near-real time, message based communication queue. Payloads are delivered in an asynchronous fashion between multiple systems on the enterprise in a non-blocking (fire and forget) manner. This broadcast of notifications is subscribed to by each application interested in an event notification.
EICS REST services provide point-to-point integration to external systems. Implementers are strongly encouraged to use this integration method in lieu of RICS where possible.
Deployment
EICS and SOCS have a distributed deployment model with browser and mobile devices running at stores, connecting with server and database hosted at corporate. The central server deployment allows real-time inventory queries for stock-on-hand positions across the enterprise but requires a fairly robust network connection between store and corporate environments.
Deployment - Performance: Bandwidth, Scaling
Bandwidth Requirements for Browser Clients
Installations with less than 128 KB bandwidth available between the device containing the browser or the mobile application and the data center are not recommended or supported. Limiting the client to less than 128 KB total available bandwidth causes unpredictable network utilization spikes, and the performance of the client degrades below requirements established for the product.
Network Latency Constraints
EICS is also sensitive to the network latency between the browser or mobile device and the data center. Oracle Retail does not recommend or support installations with more than 100 ms total round-trip network latency between the client device and the data center. Latency beyond the 100 ms limit causes unpredictable network utilization spikes, and the performance of the client degrades below requirements established for the product. The 100 ms limitation provides reasonable, predictable performance and network utilization for transactions.