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.

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 7.9

Fuse Online 7.9 provides the following new features:

2.3. Changes in Fuse Online 7.9

Fuse Online 7.9 changes Fuse Online 7.8 features as follows:

  • New option for enabling the sample PostgresDB database and connection

    By default, when you deploy Fuse Online, the sample PostgresDB database and connector are disabled (not installed). To enable them, edit the syndesis CR by setting the demoData option to true. For more information, see the Adding sample data to a Fuse environment running on OCP in Installing and Operating Fuse Online on OpenShift Container Platform.

  • Slack connector now uses the Bot User OAuth Access Token

    When you create a Slack connector, you now specify the Bot User OAuth Access Token to authorize access to your Slack app. Slack has deprecated the legacy token authorization.

  • Updates to the Fuse Online custom resource are applied when saved

    When you make changes in the components.server section of the Fuse Online custom resource, Fuse Online applies your updates after you save the custom resource. Starting with Fuse Online 7.9, you no longer need to manually delete the syndesis-server pod for the changes to take effect.

2.4. Upgrading Fuse Online integrations

To upgrade a Fuse Online environment that is running on OCP on-site, you must update Fuse Online by using the operator and then republish any running integrations as described in Upgrading Fuse Online.

Note that you should upgrade from Fuse Online 7.8 to 7.9 by using the OperatorHub, regardless of how you installed Fuse Online 7.8 (by using the install script or the OperatorHub).

2.5. Important notes for Fuse Online

Important notes for the Fuse 7.9 release of the Fuse Online distribution:

  • SOAP API Client connector features

    The SOAP API client connector supports the following features:

    • SOAP 1.1 and 1.2 message formats
    • Both RPC and Document bindings only support Literal encoding.
    • All Workday WSDLs use inline schemas, SOAP document literal binding, and WS Username Token text password authentication.
    • Nested circular reference types.
    • External schemas - Only URL-based WSDLs support external schemas based on the relative URLs from the WSDL’s base path. The WSDL URL must be available to the SOAP connector at runtime for parsing and validation. Therefore, make sure that the WSDL and schemas are hosted at a permanent URL.
    • Multiple schemas - Both inline and external (WSDL URLs) support multiple schemas with unique namespaces.

    • Security-related features:

      • WS_Basic profile and list combinations.
      • For Basic Authentication, HTTPS username/password is supported.
      • For Username Token profiles, both Text and Digest passwords are supported.

    In this release, the SOAP API client connector does not include support for the following features:

    • External schemas - Disk-based external schemas referenced in WSDL files directly imported into the connector (by using the File Upload form) are not supported. Uploaded WSDL files must use inline schemas. However, URL-based WSDLs support external schemas hosted with the WSDLs.
    • SOAP encoding is not supported.
    • For security, SAML is not supported.

  • Kafka broker URIs not auto-discovered for AMQ Streams

    The CRD version for AMQ Streams has increased in Fuse Online to v1beta2 as described in this AMQ release note. If you are using AMQ Streams, when you create a new Kafka Message Broker connection in Fuse Online, the Kafka Broker URI is not auto-discovered and not shown in the Kafka Broker URI drop-down list. Instead, you must type the URI.

  • Fuse Online no longer supports Camel K runtime or the KNative connector.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Since Fuse 7.8, 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 auditing

    Fuse Online supports basic auditing for changes made by any user to the following Fuse Online components:

    • Connections - The Name and any other fields shown on the connector’s Details page in the Fuse Online web console.
    • Connectors - The Name field.
    • Integrations - The Name field.

  • Conditional expressions for mapping data fields

    In the data mapper, you can specify a conditional expression and apply it to a 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.

  • Document scope for user-defined properties in data mapper

    In the data mapper, you can specify a scope for properties that you define for source and target mappings. In the Mapping Details panel, click Add (+) next to Properties. In the Create Property dialog. for the new Scope option, you can select the current message header, a message header from a previous step, or Camel Exchange Property for Camel-specific properties.

  • 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.