Dealing with the large file sizes has occasionally been a challenge, though we have found workarounds. But dealing with large file sizes could be easy in integrations.

I have also come across schema files where headers, footers, and bodies are there, but it's not a valid schema. None of the MSCAs are defined properly. In such cases, we have to think of multiple workarounds, such as splitting or merging. But this is a standard requirement for organizations, so custom solutions should be provided. There are cases when the systems don't expect additional MSCAs, or they expect headers, footers, or tags with different values. But this is not a proper XML. So if we are dealing with XML conversions, mapping, and integrations, we have to do some custom work. These are solutions that Oracle can provide.

In terms of improvement, debugging and error handling, Oracle can be much more user-friendly on this, because clients must provide a much more error handling framework, which is a monitoring framework, that is much better. 

The current one has some level of monitoring, but then there are retrying mechanisms, automatically retrying mechanisms and error recovery mechanisms. Those things need to be greatly improved; they have something, but it is very basic.

The error retrying mechanism could be improved. If an error occurs, it can be retried automatically, it would be helpful.

Resilience can be enhanced.

The migration flow has to improve.

They have some kind of agent connecting with the on-premise systems. We need to simplify the process of connecting with non-cloud applications.

If you have to connect to some servers from this cloud to non-cloud, that is a bit of a hassle.

They now have something called an agent for those, but they can simplify it, and the error frameworks can be implemented much more effectively.

This is entirely web-based development. We lack an IDE for developing integrations. Back in the days of OSB and BEPL, we had to go into the code and not just drag and drop. We used to go into XML and modify it. We could, for example, edit some XSLT or XQuery documentation, but this is mostly a drag-and-drop. A person cannot directly enter the code or examine and modify so many variables. As a result, one had to rely solely on the drag and drop feature.

Oracle has implemented a few modifications. For example, you can now manually edit the XSLT by going into the code, but there are many things you cannot change. You cannot move from one location to another. UI-based controls still have room to improve, but migration can be made simple. If we are migrating integrations from one environment to another, such as development to testing, if it is a one-click migration, which is possible in some cases, that would have been good.

As of now, we simply export the IIR and import it into the new environment. Migration and the User Interface could be improved.

Make it more similar to the on-premises features. For example, if you can edit the code directly rather than just dragging and dropping, or if you can edit the examples by going into the background, and one-click migration, I'd like to see included in the next release.

We encounter challenges with the solution's REST service while exporting demographic data from Oracle Time and Labor to a third-party application. It is challenging to produce reports for larger data sets.

The logging capabilities could be enhanced. Currently, logs are only retained for a few days, which can be inconvenient for administrators. Ideally, we'd like the option to configure log retention periods, like a month or fifteen days, instead of the current one-week limit.

There is room for improvement with the Process Cloud Service (PCS) component. I would like to be able to implement a workflow in the PCS component because it is not as straightforward to use, even with help from the documentation. We are always having to take training if we want to implement a PCS component. The PCS component is the most complicated aspect of Oracle Integration Cloud Service. The PCS component should either be improved or Oracle should create some training documentation for this component specifically. I have not been able to find any training documentation for the PCS component. 

Oracle has parent and child integrations and once the parent submits a job to the child, it doesn't wait for a response. Some of our use cases are more complicated and there may be one parent integration and two child integrations. In this scenario, if one child finishes first, the parent may remove the second child's integration. This sort of scenario is difficult to resolve because the parent calls the child one integration and does not wait for the response.

In most of the scenarios we have, the child one integration should be completed before the child two integration is called, but the solution doesn't behave in that way. It parallel calls both child one integration and child two integration. What we often do is avoid the parent and child relationship and go for one big complex integration where you do everything for the parent. 

The solution did use to have stability issues, however, that is now dealt with.

The solution is expensive. 

We would always prefer any solution to be more secure. 

Oracle Integration Cloud Service could have better intuitiveness compared to Microsoft products. It has lengthy documentation, making the process of building applications more time-consuming. These particular areas need improvement.

We would love to have more and more ready-to-use interfaces from Oracle. We'd like to download the marketplace right away. We'd like it, so we don't have to put in so much effort with integration. Therefore, I'm still keen to see a continuation in the addition of ready-to-use interfaces. 

Oracle Integration Cloud Service can improve file handling. Currently, our real-time file polling limitation is 10 MB, if that size can be increased it would be helpful. For example, increasing the size from 10 MB to 1 GB.

IDCS doesn't currently have a fully fledged workflow feature like they have in OIM for provisioning lifecycle management of the user, which means having to create a user in IDCS, getting approval for the financials and security before pushing into the Oracle Financial Cloud setup. They have a light version for now and that should be improved. If you want to provision a user with IDCS, you need to kick an approval process and rely on PCS for that, which is risky. We are currently using OIM as an on premise application, where you get the full suite of approval and don't have to go to other cloud applications. That's lacking in ICS. 

There's no out-of-the-box solution like OIM in IDC. There's also no in-built hierarchy for approval. You can't directly use your HR hierarchy for the approval process. It requires writing custom approval policies and maintaining the provision to do that. More approvals features would be good.

Finally, there are two options of database. You can bring your own license, or take the enterprise license and use it as a loan license which unfortunately costs. Given that we're already paying for the database enterprise, why should we go and pay again for the PaaS. We've asked about that but haven't had a good response. 

There is a limitation with the file size that Oracle Integration Cloud Service can read and transform. If an inbound file is larger than one GB, it cannot be transformed within Oracle. In cases where we face that limitation, we have to use other solutions that can handle higher volumes. 

For each delivery, we use it in conjunction with Oracle OIC, which is another Oracle product, and they could make it easier for us to query the underlying data, at least with the Oracle tables. It is a tedious task and we have to write VIP reports and get that data via web services, so that is something that they can improve.

The bulk processing needs improvement. When the data it needs to process is huge, then it does not work well, for example, when we're talking about gigabytes or terabytes. If data is received in this way, then this middleware doesn't work properly.

We would like to see more out-of-the-box adapters with different boundary applications.

The solution needs the support of more EDI protocols, like RosettaNet.

I think this product is evolving and there are certain areas where there are still some limitations. The solution has a payload size limit and there are some legacy applications we'd like to integrate but can't. We can get what we need using our on-premise product, but not OIC. Our clients generally have on-premise servers and they have processes they'd like to convert to OIC but they're not supported and so our clients look for other solutions. I would like to see more flexibility regarding accessibility to files. 

While most of the adapters are available through Oracle Integration Cloud Services, they do not have a lot of features. I would like to see some enrichment in this area and for the solution to go deeper into the applications and upgrade the adapters.

When comparing the solution to its on-premise solution which is also in the Oracle space, Oracle Suite, it is not as feature-rich as the on-premise solutions. It is still at a different level and will take some time to reach that level.

In future releases, Oracle could benefit from improvements to orchestration and level of monitoring. Some design aspects are not present in orchestration and there needs to be a more granular level of monitoring or more dashboards. 

I would like to see this product be more compatible and support the deployment on other clouds like AWS or Azure. 

Oracle Integration Cloud Service can improve the downloading and uploading of files. I've submitted this issue to the Oracle Idea Labs. The issue is from the front end of Oracle Integration Cloud, we cannot download or upload a file directly or drag and drop it.

Some of the adapters could be enhanced to make integration even simpler.

The example I would use is the GMail interface - it requires Base64 encoded content. But to make the interface simpler, the API should provide the encoding and the adapter simply accept plain text.

In designer mode, sometimes the browser closure or other unknown issues can cause strange behavior, which requires a restart. I've also experienced issues with caching.

It would be helpful if there were more tutorials or documentation to learn about Oracle Integration Cloud Service.

There could be much improvement in integration and automation within the solution.

The solution needs better dashboarding. There should be reports on running reloads, how things are being deployed and what's in the pipeline. If there was a nice dashboard to have a look at this information, that would allow for more control of the tool itself.

From a performance perspective, there could be more improvements done.

Improvements can be made in several areas, as follows:

• Configurable timeouts on each connection would be better than a single global timeout that applies to all. The rationale for why timeouts are necessary is described here: https://weblog.singhpora.com/2019/07/fault-tolerance-in-integration-flows.html  In my opinion, this feature can actually save resources (CPU, memory) for Oracle and also deliver better runtime functionality to customers. 
• Retryable scopes and activities could be useful. 
• Easier ability to edit a DB operation via DBAdapter when a schema changes, such as a column added or removed from a table (Update Aug 2022: it's possible via the wizard but needs a slightly non-intuitive series of steps) 
• Ability to add Java libraries for very corner situations like file/ftp adapter valves, which is a feature that exists in Oracle Service Bus and can be very useful in some rare situations.
• OIC arteracts should support standard source control formatting for easier comparison across versions

There are a few features that we noticed are not in the cloud. There are some improvements needed. One example is the graphical user interface that needs to improve, it could be easier to use.

They should include more integration for the solution with other platforms. Also, they should provide tutorials for beginners to learn about the processes.

I'd like to see features for more complex integrations that require different sources and destinations in an all-in-one integration. ICS is currently less flexible than SOAR and that could also be improved. The product also lacks options for writing code and logic and that's where the flexibility is lacking. 

The solution could benefit from using things like AI and machine learning. For example, with certain orchestration fails it would be helpful to look at them as a way to either terminate or re-issue or restart the whole process again.

Oracle-based automation blueprints for the majority of the integrations would be helpful to have in a future release.

There are some default recommendations that shouldn't be done in some of the firewall integrations. At the end of the day, I don't use the product straight out of the box. Some of the finer integrations have problems like looping or standard patterns that we will have to integrate with Windows and Linux right away. 

It would be helpful if Oracle could provide one quick deployment method.

The solution needs to provide good oversight over the entire integration platform, with more analytic capabilities.

There are certain functionalities which at this moment ICS doesn't cover, such as B2B integration. ICS doesn't cover B2B, but Oracle has SOA CS, which is, in my opinion, nothing but a SOA Suite in a cloud environment. It's the same product. We can use that product to do the B2B. ICS in particular doesn't cover that.

Also, it has some limitations around the message size and the number of messages. Those are certain limitations which I would say if they could improve, it would do better.

These are some of the things I would say that should be improved.

The rest is good and I like the product.

There's still a lot of room for improvement, but it is coming out very well considering that it is only something like two years old. It came out very well.

I think it's now going through some changes. More and more customers have started adapting. That's where we know how it can fit into different segments of the market. They started introducing at a very decent pace. I think as they start expanding it worldwide, more and more customers will discover the gaps in the product. It's more of the fitment. The companies installing the Oracle cloud will start understanding how to do the gap fit analysis. That is the key, from what I understand.

It could be improved in the supply chain. I think some of these features are just available to their own consulting services, their own professional services arm. Not all features are available to the implementation partners. So especially the features that are related to leverage mission turning and artificial intelligence. They're still not available to the partners in reality. So in that case, if they make tools framework available for us, then we would give them an eight.

The product has to mature a lot. I think they've created a lot of cloud integration platforms, and their integration cloud has to mature a lot more in terms of features and capabilities. There are other improvements for the integration cloud, like how it works with EPI.

They should bring in more orchestration and integration because it's a cloud-based solution. Now the platform is not built in a way that you can define.

I'd like to see more options regarding error analysis, especially when technical errors occur, which would be great. There could be more documentation as well.

Our client was quite concerned about the cost, which is something that could be reduced.

Having more documentation about different use cases and test cases would be helpful when it comes to integration.