About Integrations Concepts
The following topics describe each of the components required to create an end-to-end integration. Each integration includes connections and mappings. You can also include lookups, which are reusable mappings for the different codes and terms used in your applications to describe the same item. You can also group integrations into packages.
About Connections
Connections define information about the instances of each configuration you are integrating. Oracle Integration includes a set of predefined adapters, which are the types of applications on which you can base your connections, such as Oracle CX Sales and B2B Service Adapter, Oracle Eloqua Cloud Adapter, Oracle Service Cloud (RightNow) Adapter, and others. A connection is based on an adapter. For example, to create a connection to a specific Oracle Service Cloud application instance, you must select the Oracle Service Cloud (RightNow) Adapter and then specify the WSDL URL, security policy, and security credentials to connect to it.
Connection Creation
You can create a connection based on any of the following adapters.
Oracle Integration Messaging
Oracle Integration Messaging enables you to publish messages to and subscribe to messages from Oracle Integration.
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Create an object in one application that causes the object to be created in other applications. For example, create a new account in Oracle CX Sales and B2B Service Adapter, which causes the creation of an Oracle RightNow organization and an Oracle Eloqua account.
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Enable multiple applications to subscribe to Oracle Integration and register for updates.
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Add or remove subscribers without impacting other subscribers or producers.
Oracle Integration Messaging addresses these business requirements through the creation of two types of integrations: one for publishing to Oracle Integration and one for subscribing to Oracle Integration.
- You create an integration that enables you to publish messages to Oracle Integration by selecting the Publish to OIC option in the Select
Integration Style dialog. In this integration:
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Oracle Integration is added as an invoke and is automatically configured.
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You configure a trigger (source) adapter (for example, Oracle RightNow, Oracle CX Sales and B2B Service Adapter, or another).
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The message to pass to Oracle Integration is opaque, so no request mapper support is provided.
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No trigger (source) enrichment mapper support is provided.
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Multiple publishers targeting a single message destination is not supported.
Note:
Modifying the publisher after creating the subscribers can potentially impact the subscribers. For example, if you change the published object, any existing subscriber mappings are impacted.
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- You create an integration that enables you to subscribe to messages from Oracle Integration by selecting the Subscribe to OIC option in the Select
Integration Style dialog. In this integration:
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Oracle Integration is added as a trigger (source).
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You are prompted to select the published integration to which to subscribe.
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You configure an invoke adapter to subscribe to and receive messages from Oracle Integration.
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Response mapper support is provided between the published object and the subscriber’s application object.
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Trigger (source) enrichment mapper support is provided.
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See Create an Integration to Publish Messages to Oracle Integration and Create an Integration to Subscribe to Oracle Integration.
About Integrations in Oracle Integration
Integrations are the main ingredient of Oracle Integration. An integration includes at the least a trigger (source) connection (for requests sent to Oracle Integration) and invoke (target) connection (for requests sent from Oracle Integration to the target) and the field mapping between those two connections.
When you create your integrations, you build on the connections you already created by defining how to process the data for the trigger (source) and invoke (target) connections. This can include defining the type of operations to perform on the data, the business objects and fields against which to perform those operations, required schemas, and so on. To make this easier, the most complex configuration tasks are handled by Oracle Integration. Once your trigger (source) and invoke (target) connections are configured, the mappers between the two are enabled so you can define how the information is transferred between the trigger (source) and invoke (target) data structures for both the request and response messages.
About Mappings
One of the key tasks to any integration is defining how data is transferred, or mapped, between two applications.
In most cases, the messages you want to transfer between the applications in an
integration have different data structures. A visual mapper enables you to map element
nodes between applications by dragging source element nodes onto target element nodes.
When you open the mapper for a request or response message in an integration, the data
structures are automatically populated with the information pulled from the source and
target connections. You can expand and load data structure levels on demand to display
additional levels. There is no limit on the levels of display.
Description of the illustration about_mapping.png
The maps you create are called transformation maps, and use the eXtensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) to describe the data mappings, which let you perform complex data manipulation and transformation. A standard set of XSLT constructs are provided (for example, xsl:if
, xsl:for-each
, and others). A specialized function is also provided for you to reference lookups directly from the mapper.
Note:
The mapper supports XSL version 2.0. Version 1.0 is not supported.The mapper supports both qualified and unqualified schemas (that is, schemas without elementFormDefault=”qualified”
). Elements and attributes with and without namespace prefixes are also supported.
Substitution groups in schemas are supported. You can see all the substitutable elements in a base element in the mapper, and select the one to use.
Extended data types are also supported.
Elements and attributes for which mapping is required are identified by a blue asterisk (*) to the left of their names. To display only required fields, click the Filter icon in the mapper toolbar, select Required Fields, and click Apply.
You can also right-click elements and attributes and select Node Info to show specific schema details such as the data type, if mapping is required, and so on.
Description of the illustration element_details.png
Additional custom annotations can also be displayed. These annotations are currently only available with the Oracle Sales Cloud Adapter. The Oracle CX Sales and B2B Service Adapter obtains this information from the applications and annotates it in the integration WSDL. This information is then read and made visible as annotations in the mapper (for example, title and description). This information can help you better understand what data is being mapped.
The mapper toolbar provides the following functionality.
Element | Description |
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Click to return to the mapping canvas when you are inside the Code, Test, or Recommend page. |
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You can view the XSLT code being created as you design your mappings. |
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Once you complete designing your mappings, you can test them by entering sample content of the message to process in the mapping tester. |
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If you enable the recommendations engine, you can accept the target element recommendations of the engine when creating mappings. This eliminates the need to analyze and perform each individual source-to-target mapping. |
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Click to disable user-friendly, source and target element names in the mapper. By default, user-friendly element names are shown. | |
Click to show the XSLT functions. |
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You can select the following options:
|
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You can filter the display of element nodes, error messages, and warnings in the source or target data structures. |
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You can select to undo the previous action performed in the mapper. For example, if you perform a mapping, then press this button, the mapping is removed. The link is disabled when all actions have been undone. |
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You can redo the action that was undone. |
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You can maximize the size of the mapper. This is useful when working with large schemas. |
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You can add functions, operators, and XSLT expressions to your mappings. |
About Oracle Integration Enrichments
You may have business use cases in which you need to enhance data by calling another service before sending data to an invoke service or before sending data back to a requestor. To address this business requirement, you can optionally add enrichment data sources to the request part, the response part, or both parts of an integration. Enrichments participate in the overall integration flow and can be used in the request and/or response payloads between the trigger and invoke services. Enrichments subscribe to a synchronous request and response message pattern.
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Add additional information. For example, your business use case may require you to:
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Add a stock price
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Increase on-site quantities of a product
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Estimate local currency
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Convert data, such as mapping data between account numbers. The ability to map data between the request/response payload and the enrichment source application is a key feature of enrichments.
About Oracle Integration Lookups
Use lookups in your integrations to create reusable tables that map the different terms used to describe the same item across your applications.
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 your applications must share with each other but that they represent differently. You 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 you create and populate them during design time, and are not changed by runtime activities. These tables are used for looking up values only.
About Oracle Integration Packages
You can group one or more integrations into a single structure called a package. Packages enable you to easily import and export a group of integrations to and from Oracle Integration. You can import packages from the Oracle Marketplace. These packages consist of a series of prebuilt integrations provided by Oracle. You can also import and export packages that consist of integrations that you or other users created. Packages are optional, meaning that integrations do not need to be part of packages. However, for a package to exist, it must include at least one integration. Packages cannot be locked to exclude other users of your Oracle Integration instance.
Packages are displayed on the Packages page in Oracle Integration. From this page, you can view, delete, import, and export packages. You create
packages when you create an integration in the Create Integration dialog. You can also
update an integration’s package in the Update Integration dialog.
Description of the illustration packages.png
See Manage Packages and Create Integrations.
About Creating Hybrid Integrations Using Oracle Integration
A lot of business use cases require integration between applications hosted on public cloud and resources residing in an on-premises network or private cloud. For example, consider a business case where a quote or sales order configured through an Oracle Configure Price Quote application has to be sent to an Oracle E-Business Suite application, hosted in an on-premise network, for creation and fulfillment of the sales order. To facilitate such hybrid integrations, Oracle Integration provides the necessary infrastructure as well as architecture patterns.
This kind of hybrid integration enables you to have flows hosted on Oracle Integration that:
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Access SOAP/REST endpoints exposed by applications such as Oracle E-Business Suite, Siebel, and JD Edwards and any on-premises home grown SOAP/REST APIs
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Access non-HTTP-based endpoints such as databases, JMS, AQ, local file systems, SAP, and others
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Send requests from a cloud application (for example, send a create service order request from an Oracle Service Cloud application) to an on-premises E-Business Suite application
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Synchronize bulk data extracts of a product from a product data hub in Oracle ERP Cloud with an on-premises Oracle database or an Oracle Database Cloud Service instance using the connectivity agent
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Synchronize customers that are added/updated in an on-premises SAP application with SaaS applications such as Oracle CX Sales and B2B Service Adapter, Oracle CPQ, Oracle Service Cloud, and Salesforce.com
Oracle Integration provides a component called the connectivity agent to facilitate hybrid integrations. See About the Connectivity Agent.
For different connection patterns you can use to create hybrid integrations, see Connection Patterns for Hybrid Integrations.
About the Connectivity Agent
Using the connectivity agent, you can create hybrid integrations and exchange messages between applications in private or on-premises networks and Oracle Integration. Message payloads of up to 10 MB are supported through the use of compression and files or attachments up to 1 GB can be transferred back and forth between Oracle Integration and on-premises sFTP servers. Similarly, attachments up to 1 GB can be sent to on-premises SOAP/ REST endpoints using the SOAP or REST adapter. The connectivity agent also provides multithreading support, which allows for multiple executors to perform downstream message processing.
In addition, the connectivity agent framework enables SaaS applications in the cloud to interact through Oracle Integration with on-premises systems
Connectivity Agent Components
The connectivity agent consists of the following components:
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SaaS agent: This agent is installed and runs in Oracle Integration and supports communication with on-premises applications. There is one SaaS agent per Oracle Integration environment.
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On-premises agent: This agent is installed and runs in an on-premises environment on the same network as internal systems such as Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle Siebel, Oracle Database, and others. You download the on-premises agent installer from the Agents page in Oracle Integration to your on-premises environment for installation. There can be multiple host systems, each running one or more agents, in a cloud/on premises topology. The on-premises agent does not permit any explicit inbound connections. All connections are established from the on-premises environment to Oracle Integration.
Connectivity Agent Functionality
Note:
While multiple connectivity agents can run on a single host, this is not the recommended practice. If you follow this practice, you must ensure that the physical host has enough resources to run multiple connectivity agents.-
No ports are opened on the on-premises system for communication.
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All communication is secured using SSL.
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The on-premises connectivity agent registers with Oracle Integration over SSL using the provided Oracle Integration credentials.
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The on-premises connectivity agent checks for work by making outbound requests through the firewall.
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The on-premises connectivity agent can use a proxy to access the internet (the same proxy as other internal applications and browsers use). Authentication support for outbound proxy access is provided.
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The on-premises connectivity agent connections are configured by the agent retrieving the configuration details from Oracle Integration.
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The on-premises connectivity agent processes requests by pulling messages from Oracle Integration across SSL.
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The on-premises connectivity agent posts responses by pushing messages to Oracle Integration across SSL.
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All communication is initiated by the on-premises connectivity agent.
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No private SOAP-based web services are exposed.
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No existing J2EE container is required to deploy the on-premises connectivity agent.
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No data is persisted in the on-premises agent.
Adapter Connections that Work with the Connectivity Agent
The on-premises agent works with the following adapter connections.
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Outbound (invoke) adapters: The following adapters can be configured as invoke connections in an integration to support communication with endpoint applications:
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Apache Kafka Adapter
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File Adapter
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FTP Adapter
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IBM DB2 Adapter
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IBM MQ Series JMS Adapter
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Microsoft SQL Server Adapter
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MySQL Adapter
- Oracle Advanced Queuing (AQ) Adapter
- Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse Adapter
- Oracle Autonomous Transaction Processing Adapter
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Oracle Database Adapter
- Oracle Database Cloud Service Adapter
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Oracle E-Business Suite Adapter
- Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Adapter
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Oracle Siebel Adapter
- Oracle SOA Suite Adapter
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Oracle WebLogic JMS Adapter
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REST Adapter
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SAP Adapter
- SAP ASE (Sybase) Adapter
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SOAP Adapter
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Inbound (trigger) adapters: The following adapters can be configured as trigger connections in an integration:
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Apache Kafka Adapter
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File Adapter
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IBM DB2 Adapter
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IBM MQ Series JMS Adapter
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Microsoft SQL Server Adapter
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MySQL Adapter
- Oracle Advanced Queuing (AQ) Adapter
- Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse Adapter
- Oracle Autonomous Transaction Processing Adapter
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Oracle Database Adapter
- Oracle Database Cloud Service Adapter
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Oracle E-Business Suite Adapter
- Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Adapter
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Oracle Siebel Adapter
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JMSOracle WebLogic JMS Adapter
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SAP Adapter
- SAP ASE (Sybase) Adapter
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Connection Patterns for Hybrid Integrations
Use the connectivity agent in any of the following patterns to set up a connection between an application on your private (or on-premises) network and Oracle Integration.
You can set up a connection over the public internet or choose to configure an exclusive connection using FastConnect, which provides a faster, more reliable networking experience compared to the internet. You'll use the connectivity agent to communicate with Oracle Integration irrespective of the connection pattern you choose; employing FastConnect only ensures that the traffic between your private (on-premises) network and Oracle Integration doesn't go over the public internet and remains private.
The patterns you can use are listed here:
Public Internet Pattern
Install the connectivity agent on your private (on-premises) network. The inbound and outbound traffic to Oracle Integration goes over the public internet. For the outbound traffic from Oracle Integration, the connectivity agent initiates a secure connection to Oracle Integration, retrieves the request, and then invokes the required API in the on-premises application.
When you employ the connectivity agent, you don't have to open firewalls to access applications on your private network. In addition, all messages between the private network and Oracle Integration are encrypted.
To install and configure the connectivity agent, see Manage the Agent Group and the On-Premises Connectivity Agent.
Description of the illustration connectivity_agent_internet.png
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Only - Virtual Cloud Network Pattern
Install the connectivity agent in your Virtual Cloud Network (VCN) within Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and configure a service gateway to route the traffic from the VCN to Oracle Integration. Use this pattern if you have applications, such as Oracle E-Business Suite, running in a private subnet within Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. In this case, all traffic is routed locally and the public internet is not involved.
While not strictly required, it is highly recommended that all access from the VCN go through the service gateway. Service gateways primarily ensure that access to Oracle-hosted services is routed over the internal network. Users are not charged for service gateways. Service gateways only work within a region, and not across regions. For access across regions, traffic is still routed through a NAT gateway.
A service gateway is a common configuration for users that have implemented FastConnect or VPN/IPsec private peering to route traffic to Oracle Integration (ingress), including the connectivity agent in a private subnet.
For details on configuring a service gateway, see FastConnect and VPN with Oracle Integration Cloud (OIC).
FastConnect Public Peering Pattern
Install the connectivity agent on your private (on-premises) network, and set up an exclusive connection between your network and Oracle Integration using a FastConnect public peering link. The inbound and outbound traffic to Oracle Integration goes through the FastConnect link. This connection pattern provides a faster and more reliable networking experience compared to the public internet pattern.
- Subscribe to FastConnect with the public peering option.
Currently, Oracle Integration directly supports only public peering with FastConnect. If you want to
use the private peering option, you'll need to additionally use a VCN and a
service gateway. See the FastConnect Private Peering Pattern.
For detailed information on requirements and best practices for setting up an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure FastConnect, see FastConnect.
- Configure your private (on-premises) network to route traffic
through FastConnect.
The FastConnect link contains the public IP addresses of Oracle Integration.
- Finally, configure the connectivity agent to handle the
outbound traffic from Oracle Integration to the on-premises application.
The connectivity agent also acts as a client to FastConnect and uses public peering.
Note:
With FastConnect public peering, you must deploy the connectivity agent on your private or on-premises data center.
Description of the illustration fastconnect_public_peering.png
FastConnect Private Peering Patterns
Note:
The private peering patterns also apply to Virtual Private Networks (VPN) and are identical except that the FastConnect private peering link is replaced with a VPN.The connection patterns are as follows:
Connectivity Agent Deployed in Private or On-Premises Network
Install the connectivity agent on your private (on-premises) network, and set up a private connection between your network and VCN using FastConnect private peering or VPN. In addition, configure a service gateway to route the traffic from the VCN to Oracle Integration. To use FastConnect, you should first subscribe to FastConnect with the private peering option. See FastConnect. The FastConnect link contains the private IP addresses of the VCN.
If you want use VPN, see VPN Connect.
To configure a service gateway, see FastConnect and VPN with Oracle Integration Cloud (OIC).
Description of the illustration fastconnect_private.png
Connectivity Agent Deployed in VCN
Install the connectivity agent in your VCN within Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and set up a private connection between your network and the connectivity agent using FastConnect private peering or VPN. In addition, configure a service gateway to route the traffic from the VCN to Oracle Integration. You can use this pattern if you have limited capacity or resource constraints on your data center.
For details on configuring a service gateway, see FastConnect and VPN with Oracle Integration Cloud (OIC).
Note:
The connectivity agent deployed in VCN can also be used to access resources deployed in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure VCN.Workflow for Using the Connectivity Agent
Follow this workflow to use the connectivity on-premises agent.
Task | Documentation |
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Create a connectivity agent group. | Create an Agent Group |
Download and run the on-premises connectivity agent installer on your host. During installation setup, you associate the on-premises connectivity agent with the agent group. | |
Create an adapter connection in Oracle Integration and associate the connection with the connectivity agent group. | |
Design an integration that uses this connection. | |
Activate the integration. | Activate an Integration |