ODI - Overview of Oracle Data Integrator Topology

 This section contains these topics:

• Physical Architecture
• Contexts
• Logical Architecture
• Agents

Physical Architecture

The physical architecture defines the different elements of the information system, as well as their characteristics taken into account by Oracle Data Integrator. Each type of database (Oracle, DB2, etc.), Big Data source (Hive, HBase), file format (XML, Flat File), or application software is represented in Oracle Data Integrator by a technology.

A technology handles formatted data. Therefore, each technology is associated with one or more data types that allow Oracle Data Integrator to generate data handling scripts.

The physical components that store and expose structured data are defined as data servers. A data server is always linked to a single technology. A data server stores information according to a specific technical logic which is declared into physical schemas attached to this data server. Every database server, JMS message file, group of flat files, and so forth, that is used in Oracle Data Integrator, must be declared as a data server. Every schema, database, JMS Topic, etc., used in Oracle Data Integrator, must be declared as a physical schema.

Finally, the physical architecture includes the definition of the Physical Agents. These are the Java software components that run Oracle Data Integrator jobs.

Contexts:

Contexts bring together components of the physical architecture (the real Architecture) of the information system with components of the Oracle Data Integrator logical architecture (the Architecture on which the user works).

For example, contexts may correspond to different execution environments (Development, Test and Production) or different execution locations (Boston Site, New-York Site, and so forth.) where similar physical resource exist.

Note that during installation the default GLOBAL context is created.

Logical Architecture:

The logical architecture allows you to identify as a single Logical Schema a group of similar physical schemas (that contain datastores that are structurally identical) that are located in different physical locations. Logical Schemas, like their physical counterparts, are attached to a technology.

Contexts allow logical schemas to resolve to physical schemas. In a given context, a logical schema resolves to a single physical schema.

For example, the Oracle logical schema Accounting may correspond to two Oracle physical schemas:

Accounting Sample used in the Development context

Accounting Corporate used in the Production context

These two physical schemas are structurally identical (they contain accounting data), but are located in different physical locations. These locations are two different Oracle schemas (Physical Schemas), possibly located on two different Oracle instances (Data Servers).

All the components developed in Oracle Data Integrator are designed on top of the logical architecture. For example, a data model is always attached to logical schema, and data flows are defined with this model. By specifying a context at run-time (either Development or Production), the model's logical schema (Accounting) resolves to a single physical schema (either Accounting Sample or Accounting Corporate), and the data contained in this schema in the data server can be accessed by the integration processes

Agents:

Oracle Data Integrator run-time Agents orchestrate the execution of jobs. These agents are Java components.

The run-time agent functions as a listener and a scheduler agent. The agent executes jobs on demand (model reverses, packages, scenarios, mappings, and so forth), for example when the job is manually launched from a user interface or from a command line. The agent is also used to start the execution of scenarios according to a schedule defined in Oracle Data Integrator.