This post we are talking about ICS and Its sibling Oracle SOA suite.
There are quite a buzz around oracle ICS(integration cloud services). Its been considered as next version of oracle SOA suite, and there are various trends and Oracle road map says its the only solution going to exits after sometime. Based on my experience I have compared both and tried to provide my point of view on both the solutions methodologies , I am saying solution methodologies, because ICS is not a functionality rich framework like oracle soa Suite. Lets see both for various point.
2. Development environment - SOA suite need a comprehensive ide (jdev) and development environment with weblogic installed along with minimal one managed server, this is very made workable using integrated weblogic support. Still every development machine require a minimal machine require a jdev. While ICS primarily does not need anything like this but to create wsdl and other artifacts can use eclipse or jdev.
3. Tooling capabilities - ICS looks limited if we see tool available right now, ICS is a service not a development framework and hence there are limitations, till now there is no MDS support in ICS, WSDL is supported only if inline. scheduling is additional aspect of ICS but advance feature like sub processes template, are missing. ICS provide minimal ways to provide integration between cloud applications. But moving towards maturity.
4. Reference Data - Oracle SOA suite has multiple ways to save reference data, like DVM, xref and preference variables. While in ICS reference data can be save in lookups.
5. Mapping Resources- SOA has a wide variety of mapping technology. ICS mapping can be done using mapper and xlst but to create mapper we need an external editor.
6. Pattern to Trigger - There coluld be different ways to trigger a composite like invocation of service, polling, message, schedule invocation of service, JMS adaptor, while in the ICS possible ways of trigger are almost same but use a different terminologies.
7. Common components. SOA suite has a robust mechanism to handle common artifacts like WSDL, Schema, reference data while ICS is not mature enough for all of this, still to handle common artifacts.
8. Manageability :- Oracle SOA suite has a lot parameter to manage, it require minimum an apps DBA having experience over the weblogic and database to manage infrastructure while a developer to manage an Oracle ICS you need just an ICS developer.
For new projects, there are quite a few things you need to consider, before moving to cloud
A. Is it a fresh development or upgrade.
The project for which you are considering ICS, if its an upgrade project then better to discuss with Oracle first. To me project has to go through the normal upgrade to 12c first and then to ICS. There should not be any confusion ICS is strictly a fresh development. Hence effort will be drastically increased for an upgrade project.
B. Does project already have an Infrastructure and the integration you are creating is a addition to already existing integrations.
This is again where it should be developed with SOA Suite, ICS is a costly affair to develop a new integrations, while you already have infrastrure and already have existing running integration system.
C. A new implementation of ERP Cloud .
This is a prefect case to use ICS, here you have already subscribe to one of the ERP cloud where infrastructure is with service provide and for just integrations you may not want to stand up a team for support. With ICS adaptors half of the work may already been solved and it will just be few easy mapping need to be drawn. Hence should propose ICS.
D. Cloud to On premise ERP integrations
This can be a case with a hybrid architecture where your client might be using a on premise ERP but other systems in cloud and want an integration between them, ICS can be a prefect case for this.
E. On Premise to On Premise
This is a case where you should choose SOA suite over ICS. There is no point having integration layer in cloud when having both the end system in the client intranet.
There are quite a buzz around oracle ICS(integration cloud services). Its been considered as next version of oracle SOA suite, and there are various trends and Oracle road map says its the only solution going to exits after sometime. Based on my experience I have compared both and tried to provide my point of view on both the solutions methodologies , I am saying solution methodologies, because ICS is not a functionality rich framework like oracle soa Suite. Lets see both for various point.
- Architecture - Oracle SOA Suite follow the SCA service component architecture while ICS is also follow same architecture but that is behind the walls of Cloud, hence its not fairly visible as its in SOA Suite.
3. Tooling capabilities - ICS looks limited if we see tool available right now, ICS is a service not a development framework and hence there are limitations, till now there is no MDS support in ICS, WSDL is supported only if inline. scheduling is additional aspect of ICS but advance feature like sub processes template, are missing. ICS provide minimal ways to provide integration between cloud applications. But moving towards maturity.
4. Reference Data - Oracle SOA suite has multiple ways to save reference data, like DVM, xref and preference variables. While in ICS reference data can be save in lookups.
5. Mapping Resources- SOA has a wide variety of mapping technology. ICS mapping can be done using mapper and xlst but to create mapper we need an external editor.
| SOA Suite | ICS |
| XSLT | XSLT - No editor support |
| JQUERY |
6. Pattern to Trigger - There coluld be different ways to trigger a composite like invocation of service, polling, message, schedule invocation of service, JMS adaptor, while in the ICS possible ways of trigger are almost same but use a different terminologies.
7. Common components. SOA suite has a robust mechanism to handle common artifacts like WSDL, Schema, reference data while ICS is not mature enough for all of this, still to handle common artifacts.
8. Manageability :- Oracle SOA suite has a lot parameter to manage, it require minimum an apps DBA having experience over the weblogic and database to manage infrastructure while a developer to manage an Oracle ICS you need just an ICS developer.
For new projects, there are quite a few things you need to consider, before moving to cloud
A. Is it a fresh development or upgrade.
The project for which you are considering ICS, if its an upgrade project then better to discuss with Oracle first. To me project has to go through the normal upgrade to 12c first and then to ICS. There should not be any confusion ICS is strictly a fresh development. Hence effort will be drastically increased for an upgrade project.
B. Does project already have an Infrastructure and the integration you are creating is a addition to already existing integrations.
This is again where it should be developed with SOA Suite, ICS is a costly affair to develop a new integrations, while you already have infrastrure and already have existing running integration system.
C. A new implementation of ERP Cloud .
This is a prefect case to use ICS, here you have already subscribe to one of the ERP cloud where infrastructure is with service provide and for just integrations you may not want to stand up a team for support. With ICS adaptors half of the work may already been solved and it will just be few easy mapping need to be drawn. Hence should propose ICS.
D. Cloud to On premise ERP integrations
This can be a case with a hybrid architecture where your client might be using a on premise ERP but other systems in cloud and want an integration between them, ICS can be a prefect case for this.
E. On Premise to On Premise
This is a case where you should choose SOA suite over ICS. There is no point having integration layer in cloud when having both the end system in the client intranet.
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