Oracle Integration Cloud (OIC), part of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), promises to connect everything, solving the application silo problem and bringing together data and workflows from different applications into one.
How does it achieve this?
This blog provides an overview of OIC, looking at some of the key concepts and tools available.
Introduction
In a nutshell, OIC is a comprehensive cloud service that enables you to connect applications and automate business processes.
It’s a fully managed, pre-integrated service on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, a facility for centralising the management of your integrations.
Designed with both developers and business users in mind, by taking a low-code approach, it offers an extensive range of out-of-the-box integrations, prebuilt adapters, and low-code customisations.
The overall aim: to simplify the construction, deployment, and management of your integrations across cloud and on-premises applications.
Key Components of OIC
OIC incorporates a wide range of powerful tools to help integrate data and workflows.
Some of the key services included are:
- Application Integration
- Process Automation
- Visual Builder
- API Lifecycle Management
Application Integration
Integrate any ERP, HCM, or CX application faster using prebuilt integrations (recipes, accelerators, and adapters) for low-code connectivity between SaaS and on-premises apps.
- Adapters: prebuilt connectors that let Oracle Integration talk to specific applications, databases, or protocols without requiring low-level connection code.
- Recipes: prebuilt, sample integration flows that solve a specific, common business scenario - customised before use.
- Accelerators: larger, more complete solution packages for complex, end-to-end business processes, often combining multiple integrations and process automations.
- Custom Assets: create your own adapters, recipes, and accelerators for (re-)use in your integration projects where native versions are not available.
Process Automation
For the design and automation of end-to-end human and system workflows (business processes).
- Visual process automation
- Use a low-code, drag-and-drop process automation designer to build structured and dynamic workflows.
- Configure reusable decision models and business rules, embedded into process automations or exposed as web services to external applications.
- Design and embed forms in process applications.
- Automate manual repetitive tasks with Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
- RPA simulates human interactions with user interfaces (e.g., clicking buttons, filling forms, and copying/pasting data).
- Extends integration to any system, including those without APIs.
- Reduces manual effort and human error.
- Task and approval management
- Coordinate and prioritise tasks.
- Coordinate approval handling, detection, and escalation of exceptions.
Visual Builder
A no-code/low-code development environment component of OIC to create web and mobile apps to interact with integrations.
- Create web and mobile apps to interact with OIC integrations and processes (e.g., dashboards or forms for data entry that feed into an integration flow).
- Use a drag-and-drop UI designer.
- Embed SaaS APIs and integrations into applications.
- Extend applications using JavaScript, CSS, REST, and HTML.
API Lifecycle Management
For the design, deployment, and management of secure APIs.
- Design / Develop / Implement
- Improve efficiency in the design process for APIs.
- Incorporates OpenAPI support.
- Build APIs by linking them to integration flows, applications, or backend services.
- Prototype APIs easily.
- Update API code directly from the OCI console.
- Secure
- Apply authentication, authorisation, and policies to control access (e.g., OAuth2.0, API keys).
- Rate-limiting policies control and throttle traffic to back-end services
- Deploy
- Oracle API Gateway serves as the front end for managing API calls and routing them to back-end services such as load balancers, compute instances, Kubernetes clusters, and serverless functions.
- Deploy APIs within a private network or allow public internet access.
- Using OCI API Gateway and Oracle Functions, serverless APIs can automatically scale resources up or down based on demand, eliminating infrastructure operations.
- Monitor and monetise
- Create usage plans within API Gateway and define access tiers.
- Manage entitlements enabling subscription to APIs.
- Drive value by monitoring traffic and analysing usage patterns, potentially unlocking new revenue streams by monetising APIs.
Partnering with other Oracle Integration Services
OIC is all about connecting applications and automating processes. While not specifically part of OIC, parts of the Oracle Data Integration ecosystem may complement OIC to help meet your integration requirements.
- ODI: for handling ETL/ELT processes: extracting data from sources, transforming it, and loading it into target systems
- GoldenGate: for real-time data replication and change data capture.
Integration Services Licensing and Costs
Because of the multifaceted nature of OIC and Integration Services more widely, the pricing structure can be complex. Broadly, the overall cost of utilising Integration Services depends on four main factors:
- Licence Edition: Standard, Enterprise, or Healthcare
- Licence Type: Licence included or BYOL
- Services deployed: e.g., API management, Application Integration, and any other linked services such as Data Integration or GoldenGate
- Amount consumed (depending on the service): e.g., number of API calls, messages, data processed, workspace usage, OCPU usage
Oracle provides a Cost Estimator to help gauge potential costs depending on these factors.
Summary
Oracle Integration Cloud, part of the Oracle Integration Services portfolio, is designed to handle application integration, process automation, and API management as part of Oracle’s cloud integration solution.
It’s a shame that OIC is not available as part of the Always Free Tier on OCI, although there is a 30-day free trial.
Even without diving into each tool in depth, OIC clearly provides a powerful and comprehensive suite of tools to manage connections and business process workflows across your applications.
However, it’s also clear that if you deploy multiple services, integrating medium or large-scale applications with significant API calls and data integration, the overall cost of Integration Services can quickly add up.
For more information, explore our Oracle Cloud services or contact us today, and one of our experts will be in touch.