Oracle ICS - An introduction

Introduction

In this post I would like to talk about ICS. ICS stands for Integration Cloud Service. ICS is a Cloud platform for integration Cloud-Based applications. You can create a Cloud to Cloud integration, as well as On Premise to Cloud, or vice versa. The platform was initially launched in 2015 where it would suit the “citizen developer” for integrating cloud based applications in a fast and easy way.

When working with ICS you notice that Oracle tried to make integration an easy thing. One of the main highlights of ICS are the adapters, and this is where ICS shines. Integrating all the Oracle SaaS products, together with third party applications as well as several Social Media adapters as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin, is done very easily with ICS. Of course you have the possibility to use any SOAP or REST interface you like.

Integrating

As a developer you don’t need to write a single line of code for you to use these applications in your integration, this is all done by Oracle. You just select the adapter(s) you want to integrate and you’re set to create an integration.

In the image above you see an example of a (real time) integration between Sales Cloud & Service Cloud. Sales Cloud is configured to, when modifying a business object in the application, trigger a call to ICS sending the information concerning this particular business object. In ICS you map the data using several Xpath expressions from one data schema to another, and sent it to the receiving application, in this case Service Cloud. Your accounts are now synced real-time between the two applications. ICS also lets you do a call-back, sending whatever data back to the sending application, or any other application you configured. This of course opens up an endless amount of possibilities where you can share or synchronize your data with other applications.

Orchestration

Besides integration ICS also gives you the opportunity to do a little orchestration. I.e. while creating a contact, you first want to check if the contact doesn’t already exists in the target application. Creating an orchestration is as easy as the integration is. You drag an application to the Start node of the pallet, walk through the wizard which lets you select the business object you want to use, and you can create the orchestration you would like. Currently the functionality is limited to actions like Assigning, Mapping, Return and Switch and of course calling other applications via adapters. There is not scoping or error handling there, but Oracle promised they would add this soon.

Conclusion

At the moment Integration Cloud Service is the most promising cloud integration platform for basic integrating multiple SaaS application. The functionality for orchestrating your integrations is there, but currently this still lacks some form of maturity for it to be worthwhile switching from the obvious options as SOA Suite or Oracle Service Bus. If you just need to integrate two or more cloud applications ICS is the way to go.

We’ll be soon discussing an integration from an on premise to a cloud integration. Stay tuned.

This article is written by:

Tomas Brouwers is an IT consultant specialized in integegration with a main focus on Service Oriented Architectures, Enterprise Service Busses, Security and Cloud Based integrations. As an IT enthusiast he loves trying out new software, as I am now working on newer technology as Integration Cloud Service (ICS) and Process Cloud Service (PCS).