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 7.8

Fuse Online 7.8 provides the following new features:

  • Support for installing in a restricted environment

    You can install Fuse Online in a restricted environment by using the Fuse Online Operator from the OpenShift OperatorHub. You must mirror all of the Fuse Online images to a location available on your private network.

    Before you install Fuse Online, make sure that the todo addon setting in the Fuse Online custom resource is set to false (the default). After installing Fuse Online, you can optionally download the ToDo application from https://github.com/syndesisio/todo-example and follow the steps in the Readme file, changing the repository URL to the location available on your private network.

  • Kafka Message Broker connection configuration options

    When you create a Kafka Message Broker connection, you can now specify key/value pairs that configure Kafka producer and consumer options. For more information see Creating a connection to a Kafka broker in Connecting Fuse Online to Applications and Services.

  • 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 details, see Fuse Online Metering labels in Installing and Operating Fuse Online on OpenShift Container Platform.

  • Support for OData Version 2

    In addition to existing support for Open Data Protocol (OData) Version 4, the Fuse Online OData connector also supports OData Version 2. For OData Version 2 connections only, when you create or update an entity there are three options that you can set (Content Only, Omit ETag, and Omit Json wrapper). These three options specify the way that data is serialized in a request. For details, see Connecting to OData in Connecting Fuse Online to Applications and Services.

  • Support for configuring the following features in the Fuse Online custom resource as described in in the Descriptions of custom resource attributes that configure Fuse Online section of Installing and Operating Fuse Online on OpenShift Container Platform.

    • Memory and CPU limits

      You can now set default values for memory and CPU limits for infrastructure components and integrations in a Fuse Online installation. You can also specify memory and CPU limits for a specific integration that may require custom values. For more information, see Adjusting the memory and CPU configuration attributes for an integration in Integrating Applications with Fuse Online.

    • Node affinity and tolerations

      You can assign Fuse Online pods to a specific OpenShift cluster by defining node affinity and tolerations for Fuse Online infrastructure components and for Fuse Online integrations. For more information, see Configuring Fuse pods in Installing and Operating Fuse Online on OpenShift Container Platform.

    • Additional Maven Arguments

      You can specify additional Maven options to use when building Fuse Online integrations.

    • DB connection pool configuration for syndesis-server

      You can configure these syndesis-server database connection pool properties:

      ConnectionTimeout

      IdleTimeout

      LeakDetectionThreshold

      MaximumPoolSize

      MaxLifetime

      MinimumIdle

    • JAVA_OPTIONS for syndesis-server and meta components

      You can use the JAVA_OPTIONS option to customize the syndesis-server and meta components. For example, you can configure the HTTP proxy for the syndesis-server and meta components. For more information, see Configuring the HTTP proxy in Installing and Operating Fuse Online on OpenShift Container Platform.

2.3. Changes in Fuse Online 7.8

Fuse Online 7.8 changes Fuse Online 7.7 features as follows:

  • Fuse Online installation by using the OperatorHub for OCP 4.6

    Starting with Fuse Online 7.8, how you install Fuse Online depends on your OpenShift version.

    • When you install Fuse Online on OCP 4.6, use the Fuse Online Operator from the OperatorHub. (The Fuse Online installation script and templates are not supported on OCP 4.x.) If you are using OCP 4.5, you must upgrade to OCP 4.6 if you want to install Fuse Online 7.8.
    • When you install Fuse Online on OCP 3.11, use the Fuse Online installation script and templates.

  • Upgrading Fuse Online on OCP 4.6.x

    • On OCP 4.5 (and earlier), the Fuse Online subscription channel is alpha.

      When you install Fuse Online 7.8 on OCP 4.6 (and later), you specify a channel with the fuse-online-v7.n format, where n is the current release number. For example, for Fuse Online 7.8, the channel is fuse-online-v7.8.

    • If you used the install script to install Fuse Online 7.7, you should use the install script to upgrade to Fuse Online 7.8.

  • 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.

  • Kafka Broker connection auto-discovery works by default

    Auto-discovery of Kafka brokers now works by default. You no longer need to enable it.

  • Support for enhanced activity tracking

    Activity tracking, using Jaeger, now works in an OperatorHub-enabled Fuse Online environment. By default, the jaeger addon option is enabled. When you install Fuse Online, either from the OperatorHub or by using the command-line script, the Fuse Online installation detects the existence of the OperatorHub and installs Jaeger by using the OperatorHub’s subscription functionality. For the limited circumstances in which the OperatorHub is not available, Fuse Online uses its own installation functions to install Jaeger.

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 or the install script, and then republish any running integrations as described in Upgrading Fuse Online.

2.5. Important notes for Fuse Online

Important notes for the Fuse 7.8 release of the Fuse Online distribution:

  • Upgrading to the Fuse 7.8 version of the Fuse Online operator is only possible on OCP 4.6. To install the Fuse 7.8 Online Operator, the recommended upgrade path is first to upgrade OpenShift to version OCP 4.6 and then to upgrade the Fuse Online operator to version 7.8. For more details, see ENTESB-15472.
  • 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.
  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.