Chapter 2. Fuse Online
Fuse Online provides a web browser interface that lets a business expert integrate two or more different applications or services without writing code. It also provides features that allow the addition of code if it is needed for complex use cases.
Fuse Online runs an integration on OpenShift as a Spring Boot application that uses Apache Camel. As a Technology Preview feature, Camel-K is available as an additional runtime.
2.1. About Fuse Online distributions
Fuse Online is Red Hat’s web-based integration platform. Syndesis is the open source project for Fuse Online. Fuse Online runs in these OpenShift environments:
| Host Environment | Installation |
|
OpenShift Online | Red Hat installs and provisions Fuse Online on Red Hat infrastructure. |
| OpenShift Container Platform | Customer installs and manages. |
2.2. New features in Fuse Online 7.4
Fuse Online 7.4 provides the following new features:
New connectors in this release:
- Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) — sends messages to SNS topics.
- Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) — retrieves messages from and sends messages to SNS queues.
The following connectors, which were Technology Preview features in the previous release, are now supported:
When you are running Fuse Online on OpenShift Container Platform (OCP) on premise, the following new features are available:
- A new public endpoint creates a new environment label without applying it to an integration.
- The endpoint that returns a list of defined environment labels now optionally returns the number of integrations that are tagged with that environment label.
2.3. Changes in Fuse Online 7.4
Fuse Online 7.4 changes Fuse Online 7.3 features as follows:
Google Sheets connector enhancements:
- You can now obtain spreadsheet values in a Google Sheets connection that is in the middle of a flow.
- When obtaining spreadsheet values in a start connection, you can now specify a heading row number, which enables the connection to obtain column names from the spreadsheet you are obtaining data from. In the new Column names field, you can accept or edit the column names. If you configure the connection to return row objects, then the data mapper can display meaningful column names rather than the letter labels (A, B, C, and so on) that it displayed in the previous release.
When obtaining spreadsheet values in a start connection, the new default value for the Max results field is 0. Accept the default if you do not want to restrict how many rows or columns polling can return. The setting of Max results applies to the setting of the major dimension in the result matrix. To limit the data that the connection returns for the major dimension, specify an integer.
For example, suppose that the major dimension is rows and that Max results is set to 25. The poll returns no more than 25 rows of values.
New Twitter connection actions:
- Retrieve obtains direct messages (private messages) that were sent to the user account that the Twitter connection has access to. This action can be performed by a Twitter start connection in a simple integration.
- Send dispatches a message to the Twitter username that you specify. You can map the message content from a previous integration step or specify the message when you configure the action. The Send action can be performed by a Twitter connection that is in the middle of a flow or that is the finish connection in a simple integration.
Custom REST API client connector security enhancement
A custom REST API client connector can now provide security by means of API keys. When you create the API client connector, Fuse Online prompts for some API key details if your OpenAPI document specifies API key security. When you create a connection from the custom connector, Fuse Online prompts for the API key value.
Database connection enhancement
Input to a connection that updates a database can now be a collection of parameter values. A new parameter, Batch update, determines how the connection updates the database:
- No, the default, accepts only one set of parameter values and executes the SQL statement exactly once.
- Yes executes the SQL statement once and uses a batch update operation to update the database for all collection members.
For more information, see:
2.4. Upgrading existing integrations that are running on OpenShift Online
When Fuse 7.4 is released, the Fuse Online infrastructure on OpenShift Online is automatically upgraded. During the infrastructure upgrade, any existing integrations that are running on OpenShift Online continue to run both during and after the upgrade. However, the existing integrations continue to run with the older versions of Fuse libraries and dependencies.
After you receive an email message that lets you know that the Fuse Online infrastructure has been upgraded to the new release, upgrade your existing integrations by republishing them (not just restarting them). Do this as soon as you can.
To republish your integrations, in your Fuse Online environment, in the left navigation panel, click Integrations. Then do the following for each integration:
-
To the right of the integration entry, click
and select Edit.
- When Fuse Online displays the integration for editing, in the upper right, click Publish.
Publishing forces a rebuild that uses the latest Fuse Online dependencies.
The Fuse Online user interface shows a warning if any element of an integration has a newer dependency that needs to be updated.
2.5. Important notes
Important notes for the Fuse 7.4 release of the Fuse Online distribution:
- In this release, connections to Kafka do not support SSL. It is expected that this will change in a future release.
- A Fuse Online account is limited to a specific number of integrations that can be running at one time. For details, see the pricing plan. If you are using a Fuse Online evaluation account, then only one integration at a time can be running.
- An OpenAPI schema that you upload to Fuse Online might not define input/output types. When Fuse Online creates a custom API client from an OpenAPI schema that does not specify input/output types then it is not possible to create an integration that maps integration data to fields that the API client can process or from fields that the API client processed. If an integration requires data mapping to or from a custom API, then when you upload the OpenAPI schema, click Review/Edit to open Apicurito, which is an API design tool, and add input/output type specifications.
- An OpenAPI document that you use for a custom API client connector or for an API provider integration cannot have cyclic schema references. For example, a JSON schema that specifies a request or response body cannot reference itself as a whole nor reference any part of itself through any number of intermediate schemas.
- In the previous release, in a Google Sheets connection that obtained spreadsheet values, the setting for Max results was observed only when Split results was set to Yes. This dependency no longer exists.
2.6. Obtaining technical support
To obtain technical support, in Fuse Online, in the left navigation panel, click Support. Use the Support page to download diagnostic information for all integrations or for one or more integrations that you choose. The page also provides a link for opening a support ticket and providing the diagnostic information that you downloaded.
2.7. Technology Preview features
This release includes the Technology Preview features that are listed below.
Technology Preview features are not supported with Red Hat production service level agreements (SLAs), might not be functionally complete, and Red Hat does not recommend using them in production. These features provide early access to upcoming product features, enabling customers to test functionality and provide feedback during the development process. For more information, see Red Hat Technology Preview features support scope.
Data virtualization
For Fuse Online development environments that run on OpenShift Container Platform on-site, data virtualization is a container-native service. It integrates data from multiple heterogeneous sources, including relational databases, files, web services, and SaaS repositories. In Fuse Online, developers can create a virtual database image that defines a custom, logical view of their source data. They can then deploy that image on OpenShift. Applications connect to the virtual database over a standard OData, REST, or JDBC interface, and can run SQL queries across all of the data sources, even those that do not support SQL.
To enable data virtualization, see Installing Fuse Online on OCP.
Connectors for:
- Box
- IMAP or POP3 email
- Jira
- SMTP email
You can now add a Conditional Flows step to a simple integration’s flow or to an API provider integration operation flow. When you add a Conditional Flows step, you specify one or more conditions for the integration to evaluate against the integration data at run time. You then create a flow for the integration to execute when that condition evaluates to true. During execution, when an evaluation result is true, the integration executes the flow that you have specified for that condition. A conditional flow can have the same connections and steps that you can add to a simple integration flow or an API provider operation flow.
Conditional expressions for mapping data fields
In the data mapper, you can specify a conditional expression and apply it to one data mapping. For example, a conditional expression can specify evaluation of a source field and how to populate the target field if the source field is empty. The limited set of expressions that you can specify are similar to Microsoft Excel expressions.
- Camel-K is available as an additional runtime.
For a REST API client that uses OAuth, when you create an API client connector, you can change the default OAuth2 behavior of connections that you create from that connector. Fuse Online vendor extensions to the OpenAPI specification support the following:
- Providing client credentials as parameters.
- Obtaining a new access token based on HTTP response status codes.
