The Integration blog covers the latest in product updates, best practices, customer stories, and more.
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Integration
January 8, 2021
February 2021 Oracle Integration Update
It is time for the February quarterly update to Oracle Integration. Lilly, the Oracle integration mascot, has lots of exciting new features and improvements to share with you. Note that testing is still underway for these features and, although unlikely, it is possible that some will not meet our quality standard and be deferred to a later release.
Announcements & Update Windows
Currently tenant administrators get notified of OIC Gen 2 updates via notifications in the OCI console. OIC Gen 2 administrators can also see the same upgrade notice in the OIC console, so watch out for the date of your upgrade.
Remember, you can also mark your Gen 2 instance for update in either the first or second upgrade window, as explained in Choose Your Update Window. If you previously tagged your instance, then there is no need to tag it again. If it is not yet tagged for window 1, then the deadline for tagging for February is 14 January. Tags added after this date will take effect for the May release.
API Led Integration
We are making it easier to work with Oracle API products. Previously we supported only Oracle API Platform. We are now building out support for Oracle API Gateway.
- Auto-generation of API gateway deployment from OIC
- You can now create an Oracle OCI API Gateway Deployment from a REST based Integration at the click of a button. The API deployment will be created with routing rules pointing to the activated integration. Integrations with multiple verbs/paths will have a rule created for each verb/path.
Developer Productivity Enhancements
We are making the following improvements for developers:
- Support for attachments in Integration Test UI
- The testing tool built within Oracle Integration now offers the support for attachments. This will help developers test Integrations with attachment support without having to leave Oracle Integration UI.
- Ability to edit XLST code in Oracle Integration Mapper
- Developers can now edit XLST code within the Mapper while building their Integration flows. This will tremendously help them with complex XLST transformations. Avoiding the need to copy the XSLT and then import it back into the mapper.
- Run or schedule integrations on behalf of another user
- Administrators can specify the user context while scheduling an Integration. This will help them schedule Integrations on behalf of another user. This allows integrations to be scheduled using a service account which will not go away when a user leaves the company or is moved to another department.
- Automatic reactivation of Integration after a connection update
- Updating a connection will automatically reactivate the Integrations using the connection. Previously developers had to manually deactivate and activate the Integration after a connection update.
- Ability to switch from Scheduled Orchestration to Non-Scheduled Orchestration Style
- Developers can easily switch their Integrations which are built on Scheduled Orchestration to other Integration styles like the App Driven Orchestration. Previously developers had to rewrite the Integration if they had to change the Integration style from Scheduled Orchestration to non-Scheduled orchestration.
Prebuilt Connectivity Enhancements
We have a lot of enhancements both to existing adapters and new adapters.
- New adapter for Salesforce Commerce Cloud
- Improved flex field support in ERP and HCM
- Support for flex fields (EFF, DFF) in REST APIs
- Simplified mapping for ERP and HCM flex fields
- We added the ability to cherry pick specific flex fields (EFFs, DFFs). Only the selected fields will be processed and shown in the mapper, making it easier to find the fields you are using.
- Enhanced security in adapters
- Enhanced REST adapter security options
- When used as a trigger we added the ability to restrict authorization scheme to OAuth only or Basic auth only.
- New Fusion Apps authentication method
- With HCM, ERP and Engagement Cloud adapters you can connect using OAuth Credentials as an alternative to username/password policy.
- Enhanced REST adapter security options
- Attach and detach support in NetSuite adapter
- We added the ability to Attach and Detach files from NetSuite records.
- Improved OpenAPI support
- Allow consumption and publication of OpenAPI with multipart messages and message headers.
- SOA Adapter header enhancements
- Enable adding standard and/or custom SOAP and HTTP headers to SOA services being invoked through SOA Suite adapter.
B2B & File Server Enhancements
B2B and file server are relatively new capabilities in OIC and continue to receive significant enhancements.
- B2B Tracking for Wire and Business Transactions
- Ability to view actual message payloads to aid in resolving B2B problems.
- B2B Trading Partner Management
- Simplifies setting up your trading partners and connecting them to your backend integrations.
- View all file server files in a folder
- Developers can view the list of files under a folder from the File Server admin console
Integration Insight Enhancements
We are making it easier for you to show your executives what is happening with the business.
- Embedded dashboards and business transactions
- In the November release, we introduced the ability to embed customized views of Integration Insight dashboards and business transaction visualizations in other applications. Now we are providing a URL Builder to easily construct the URL to make the embedding even easier..
- Purge for Integration Insight data
- On the Data Retention page, you can purge analytics data created by Integration Insight by a defined schedule, when database space reaches a warning state, or manually.
- User preferences for Insight
- With new user preference features, you can customize your view in Integration Insight:
- Highlight favorites for models and dashboards.
- Rearrange dashboards on the Console page.
- Filter dashboard data to show activity from only the prior specified number of days, either for one dashboard or all dashboards.
- With new user preference features, you can customize your view in Integration Insight:
Operations, Reliability & Scalability Enhancements
To make OIC run faster, enhance security and support the most demanding environments we have made these improvements.
- Fewer runtime errors due to memory problems.
- Reduced memory usage of integration runtime leading to fewer memory related errors.
- Faster activation of integrations
- We have sped up activation by identifying and removing redundant steps in the activation process.
- Self-service allowlisting
- Self service ability to create your own allowlist rules which may restrict OIC access to specific client IP addresses/subnets and/or OCI VCNs.
- Self-service modification of OIC custom endpoint (vanity URL).
- Self service ability to modify an OIC instance custom endpoint hostname after it has been created.
- Support for OCI Logging Service
- Configure OIC logs to be sent to OCI Logging Service. This removes the need for using the OIC API to retrieve log files, provides longer storage options for activity stream log and makes it easier to connect activity stream to other log analysis tools.
Summary
There are a lot of new features coming in this quarterly release. If you want to flag instances for upgrade in the first wave then you need to do it by January 14. Keep an eye out in the OCI and OIC consoles for the update notice. Enjoy the future!