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 Dedicated

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 7.7

Fuse Online 7.7 provides the following new features:

  • New ignoreTimestamp option for exporting integrations (Fuse Online on OCP)

    When running Fuse Online on OCP, a new export endpoint option, ignoreTimestamp, exports all integrations that are tagged for a particular environment regardless of when an integration was last marked for the specified environment. This makes it easy to duplicate all integrations that have a particular environment tag in another Fuse Online environment.

  • Support for associating imported library extensions with an integration

    After you import a library .jar file as an extension into Fuse Online, you can select to associate the library extension with an integration when you save the integration.

  • Kafka Broker connection supports TLS

    When you create a connection to a Kafka Broker, you have the option to use Transport Layer Security (TLS) to encrypt your data.

2.3. Changes in Fuse Online 7.7

Fuse Online 7.7 changes Fuse Online 7.6 features as follows:

  • The user interface of the data mapper has been updated. For example, there are new icons for collections and for previewing mappings.
  • When you create a condition for a mapping, the transformation options for Source and Target fields in the Mapping Details panel are disabled. If you want to add a transformation to the mapping, you must include it in the conditional expression.

2.4. Upgrading Fuse Online integrations

To upgrade a Fuse Online environment that is running on OCP on-site, you must download the latest Fuse Online release, run the update script, and then republish any running integrations as described in Upgrading Fuse Online on OCP.

2.5. Important notes for Fuse Online

Important notes for the Fuse 7.7 release of the Fuse Online distribution:

  • Camel K runtime is deprecated in Fuse Online and may be removed in a future release.

  • The following limitations apply when the Camel K runtime is installed with Fuse Online:

    • Fuse Online extensions are not supported by the Camel K runtime.
    • Extensions are not displayed in the Fuse Online user interface under Customizations.
  • Enhanced activity tracking is not properly enabled, if you install Fuse Online from OperatorHub (see the Fuse Online section of Known Issues). To take advantage of enhanced activity tracking in this release, we recommend that you install Fuse Online using the command-line script instead. See Installing Fuse Online on OCP for details.
  • When Fuse Online is installed and provisioned on Red Hat infrastructure, the 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 API Designer, which is an API editing 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.

2.6. Obtaining technical support for Fuse Online

To obtain technical support, in the Fuse Online console, 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 in Fuse Online

This release includes the Technology Preview features that are listed below.

Important

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.

  • Fuse Online Metering labels

    You can use the OpenShift Metering operator to analyze your installed Fuse Online operator and components to determine whether you are in compliance with your Red Hat subscription. For more information on Metering, see the OpenShift documentation.

    The Fuse Online operator and components now include the following metering labels:

    • Component name:

      com.redhat.component-name: syndesis-component

      where syndesis-component can be one of the following:

      • syndesis-db
      • syndesis-server
      • syndesis-meta
      • syndesis-ui
      • jaeger-operator
      • syndesis-prometheus
      • syndesis-operator
      • application

    • Component type:

      com.redhat.component-type: infrastructure (for all syndesis components except application) or application (for the application component)

    • Component version:

      com.redhat.component-version: 1.7

    • Product name:

      com.redhat.product-name: "Red_Hat_Integration"

    • Product version:

      com.redhat.product-version: 7.7

  • SOAP API client connector

    You can add a custom SOAP API client connector and then add a connection for a SOAP API client to Fuse Online integrations. For more information, see Creating SOAP API client connectors.

    This Technology Preview release of the SOAP API client connector has some limitations as described in the Fuse Online section of Known Issues.

  • Data virtualization

    For Fuse Online 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.

  • The Knative connector lets you connect to a Knative channel to obtain or send messages, expose the integration as a Knative service, or call a Knative service.

  • 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.

    To enable Camel K, see Installing Fuse Online on OCP.

    Note

    Camel K runtime is deprecated in Fuse Online and may be removed in a future release.

  • 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.