The Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services (IICS) Winter 2019 release offers several new capabilities that address key data challenges that businesses are facing today. Highlights are listed below.

Data Integration

• Data discovery in Cloud Data Integration with Enterprise Data Catalog (EDC) integration - Customers can now search and discover enterprise-wide metadata from within Data Integration, import connection & object metadata, and use that information to more easily create new or enrich existing mappings and tasks by connecting with an existing EDC installation.
• “Smart match” recommendations for field mappings increases the frequency of field matches in mappings and tasks. Expanding on the existing automatch, smart match looks for common patterns in field names (prefixes, suffixes, abbreviations, etc.) based on six additional matchers and fuzzy match techniques for recommending field mappings.
• Taskflows can be invoked via APIs for externalized scheduling and execution. With this enhancement, customers now can invoke taskflows on-demand via an API call and provide input parameters for the tasks it orchestrates, allowing customers to fully leverage Data Integration’s parameterization capabilities. Please refer to the Taskflow as a Service FAQ.
• Taskflows have also been enhanced to allow them to embed other taskflows to promote reuse.
• Change data capture has been expanded to include additional sources for DB2 on Linux, Unix, Windows, and iSeries (also known as AS400, i5/OS) platforms, which further enables near real-time changed data propagation capabilities.
• Mass ingestion is extending connector support, adding Google Storage & Google Big Query as targets and HDFS as both a source and target. Additional enhancements expose CRUD-focused APIs.

API and Application Integration

• Support for Kafka Messaging – Messaging is at the core of many publish-subscribe (Pub/Sub) based applications as a means of decoupling producers and consumers of data.  The addition of Kafka for application integration significantly increases current message-based Pub/Sub interactions between data and applications that today are fulfilled using JMS, AMQP, Amazon SNS/SQS, and Azure Service Bus based “topics.” The ability to bridge these message-based events with the Cloud Integration Hub Pub/Sub style of data propagation provides additional integration pattern options making Informatica unique in the flexibility and capabilities it provides for its customers.
• JSON Web Token (JWT) based authentication – The API and Application Integration services now support JSON Web Token (JWT) based authentication, an open standard (RFC 7519) that defines a compact and self-contained way for securely transmitting information between API consumers and REST web services. This provides IICS users that use API Manager with another and more secure means of API authentication.
• API grouping – To better manage the use of JWT tokens and associate their use to multiple API endpoints, a new API “application” grouping capability is being introduced in API Manager. This capability will provide API consumers with fewer tokens to deal with, and API producers will now more easily manage or revoke a consumer’s access to multiple APIs.
• Japanese language support for the API and Application Integration services – In addition to Japanese language support for the Data Integration service, Japanese customers now have access to the API and Application Integration services user interface and documentation in Japanese.
• REST and SOAP Service API-based “service connectors” – distributed via GitHub.

Today 55% of Application Integration customer’s connectivity needs are met using service connectors. A service connector allows customers to define REST (XML/JSON), JSON/RPC, or SOAP service integration using a simple web form, with no coding required. The Application Integration service takes care of the rest. If the service offers a WSDL or Swagger interface document, the service connector can be automatically generated by importing the interface document. By creating service connectors, customers can import and configure pre-built business and data service definitions as reusable assets that they can share and/or move from one environment to another. 

This capability, unique to Informatica, provides customers with unparalleled value. Service connectors avoid lock-in or an inability to make updates as you need them to take advantage of new capabilities or built-in extensibility that an API platform can offer. 

To provide this flexibility to customers and encourage community contribution by customers, partners, and other practitioners, Informatica is establishing a GitHub repository where it will publish the service connectors it has created and which it will share with its customers and partners. Customers and partners are free to use these definitions without restriction, including the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, and distribute these under an MIT license. Informatica will also encourage contributions back to the community. Our goal is simple: drive innovation and reduce perceived barriers to adoption.

Integration Hub

• Informatica has improved the search experience for Hub events and support for the CLOB data type on topics.

B2B Gateway

• ICS B2B Gateway customers will be migrated to the IICS platform as part of the release upgrade and will benefit from all IICS platform capabilities.

Intelligent Structure Discovery

• Intelligent Structure Discovery expanded its parsing capabilities to handle ORC format files and Excel multiple sheet files. The user can now design the structure model based on multiple sheet structures and then use the model at run time to parse Excel files in their entirety.
• With R31, a Structure Parser transformation can be positioned mid-stream to enable a more flexible mapping usage and chaining. In addition, the Intelligent Structure Model detected datatypes are now propagated to the Structure Parser output ports.
• The ISD design time user interface is enhanced with a "find" functionality which allows the user to search for a specific string in the discovered tree fields and get a list of results showing the path and visually correlated with the model representation. The user can also perform actions on multiple elements chosen from the result list such as include, exclude, replace, and even change of element type. The ability to perform actions on multiple elements significantly improves the usability and productivity.
• A new vertical folder view mode will be available in R31 for handling complex hierarchy files.

IICS Platform

• Common Explore productivity enhancements – Improved copy functionality with overwrite & rename conflict resolution options to copy assets within and across folders. “Created by” and “last updated by” attributes as columns for all asset types in the common Explore page.
• Export/import capability for sub-organizations which enables asset migration across environments that use an organization hierarchy. More control and flexibility with enable/disable checksum validation options during export and import.
• Improved export/import error logging along with the ability to access and download export/import logs through the UI and the API.
• API to search, list, and filter assets in projects and folders using a variety of conditions such as timestamp, location, “last updated by,” and tags. This API can also be leveraged along with export APIs to export objects.
• Improvements to the RunAJob utility – Support for projects and folders to invoke tasks by task name.
• Usability improvements – Ability to copy table cell data in the common Explore page, Monitor service, and Administrator service for use in other user interfaces like search boxes and filter conditions for easier task completion.
• Search capability for connections and job monitoring to quickly and easily find needed information.
• Ability to enable and disable a service for agents in a Secure Agent group to effectively deploy workloads and efficiently utilize computing resources.
• Secure Agent registration using tokens (instead of passwords) for increased security and enabling SAML single sign-on.

Operational Insights 

• Operational Insights extends support to the on-premises Data Quality product, in addition to BDM and PowerCenter, with capabilities such as domain health, job run analytics, resource utilization, and alerts.
• Click-through analytics journey from cross-domain to the individual job level and enhancements to job run analytics for on-premises products (PowerCenter, BDM). Plus, enhancements to job run analytics to report on data loaded and data processed.
• Power Center & BDM infrastructure e-mail alert enhancements such as Secure Agent unavailability and Operational Insights data collection failures.

Connectivity Enhancements

New AWS Quickstart for Cloud Analytics Modernization, an end-to-end solution for self-service cloud analytics with Informatica (IICS, Enterprise Data Catalog), Tableau Server, and AWS Services.

Several new connectors and enhancements to existing connectors across ecosystems as listed below. New connectors introduced are highlighted in bold:

• Azure: ADLS Gen 2 Preview, Azure DW V3, Azure Data Lake Store V3, Azure Blob V3 
• Google: Google Cloud Storage V2, Google Analytics, Google Big Query V2, Google Big Query 
• Amazon: Amazon S3 V2, Amazon Aurora, Amazon Redshift V2 
• Salesforce: Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC), SFDC (Sales and Service) 
• SAP: SAP Connector, SAP HANA Cloud Platform (DB) 
• Adobe: Adobe Cloud Platform 
• Analytics: CDM Folders connector preview, Tableau V3, Tableau V2 
• Databases: MySQL Relational, Hive, Greenplum, DashDB, Snowflake 
• Tech: REST V2, WSconsumer, Complex File Processor 
• Microsoft Apps: Microsoft SharePoint Online 
• Oracle: Oracle Netsuite V1, Oracle Relational 

Summary of some of the connectivity enhancements are as follows:

AWS

• Supporting file names longer than 250 characters with S3
• Support for custom JDBC URL for Redshift
• Support for ORC files with S3

Snowflake

• Custom Query metadata fetching without having to run the query

Google

• Custom Query Support for Google Big Query V2 connector
• Pushdown support for Google Big Query thru ODBC
• Google Analytics - Enhancement to fetch fields based on multiple Views IDs from GA
• Google Big Query Mass Ingestion - Direct load Cloud Storage->Big Query

Azure

• Preview of ADLS Gen2 connector: support create target, configurable escape character and text qualifier in R/W scenarios, create and rename directory, rename file, header-less files, support RBAC for all types of AAD Authentication, append data to an existing file, support parameterization
• Azure DW V3: support TARGET NAME OVERRIDE and TARGET SCHEMA NAME OVERRIDE in the writer, support SOURCE NAME OVERRIDE and SOURCE SCHEMA OVERRIDE with the reader, support custom query and multiple objects in CMD and MCT

Microsoft Apps

• Microsoft SharePoint Online: support for agents running on Linux

Analytics

• Preview of CDM Folders connector: new connector, with the ability to write to ADLS Gen 2 in CDM format, and then access the data from Power BI as a dataflow
• Tableau V2: upgrade connector to the latest Tableau SDK

Databases & DW

• MySQL Relational: array insert support
• Greenplum: native reader and writer

NetSuite V1: address 2-factor authentication

Salesforce

• SFDC Sales, Service connector: support latest SFDC API
• Salesforce Marketing Cloud SFMC: insert/update operation for “Non Contact Linked Data Extensions”

Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services Migration FAQ
(Updated: Jan. 23, 2019)

The following questions and answers will help you better understand the Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services migration. This is a live document, and we will be adding questions and answers as they arise.

This document is organized in sections by Service: common questions, Data Integration questions, API and Application Integration questions, and Data Integration Hub questions.

Common Questions

1. When will the Informatica Cloud to Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services migration begin?

Migration to the new Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services platform will begin in early Q2 2018.

2. What order of services will the migration follow?

As a first step, Informatica Cloud Services (ICS) customers that do not use the Informatica Cloud Real Time (ICRT) services will be migrated. ICRT customer migration, including customers that have licensed Cloud Premium services, is commencing in July 2018. ICRT customers are grouped by functional usage. Migration of customers is planned to be completed before the end of 2018.

3. Where can I find more information about the new features and behavior changes in Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services?

See the IICS Navigation Overview for ICS and ICRT Users video to for a quick tour of IICS. This video provides an overview of Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services for users that are already familiar with Informatica Cloud.

The Migration folder of the Cloud Application Integration Community Site provides links to a number of resources that can help you with this. These include:

For ICS Users

• IICS Navigation Overview
• Intro Demo to Cloud Data Integration
• Essential Cloud Data Integration Demos

For ICRT Users

• IICS Navigation Overview
• Video: 6-minute Overview of API and Application Integration Services For ICRT Users
• Video: Cloud API and Application Integration Services Navigation Overview for ICRT Users
• Overview of Informatica Cloud Intelligent Services and API and Application Integration for ICRT Service Customers
• ICRT Service Migration to the Cloud API and Application Integration Service
• Informatica University Success Academy Videos for Cloud Application Integration

4. Will all customers be migrated at the same time?

Migration will be performed in multiple batches to ensure maximum flexibility and a minimal amount of disruption to customers. These batches may include ICS and ICRT customers.

5. When will customers be notified about the migration?

Customers will be notified 6 weeks prior to the migration. The communication will go out to all users of the Informatica Cloud organization being migrated.

6. What is the migration process?

All customers will be migrated to a Sandbox environment before they are migrated to the production environment. The Sandbox environment will be available to you for at least three weeks, to allow you to perform testing. Your Informatica Cloud assets will be migrated to the Sandbox environment, but an asset that you create in the Sandbox environment will not be migrated to the production environment. If you create assets in Informatica Cloud during the three weeks of preview testing, these assets will be migrated to the production environment. After the three weeks of the preview, testing has elapsed, your organization will be migrated to the production environment. If you have concerns or need more time please contact Informatica Global Customer Support.

7. Should all customers test the migration?

Yes, all customers are expected to test the migration in the Sandbox environment. It is critical for all customers to participate in the testing to ensure a smooth transition from Informatica Cloud to Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services. As a minimum, Informatica recommends that you test at least one organization with a good mix of use cases.

8. Are there any special instructions for using the Sandbox environment?

Yes. When you are notified of the upcoming migration you will be able to access your Sandbox environment. The following instructions apply to the Sandbox environment:

• You can access the Sandbox environment after Informatica notifies you that your organization has been migrated to the Sandbox environment. To access the Sandbox environment, open the Sandbox environment URL (https://dm-sandbox.informaticacloud.com/identity-service/home) using your Informatica Cloud credentials.
• Customers that have licensed Data Integration (previously ICS) should verify that they can access the Data Integration Service
• Customers that have licensed Application Integration (previously ICRT or Cloud Premium customers) should verify that they can access the Application Integration Service
• If you are unable to access either service, contact Informatica Global Customer Support.
• If your company uses a firewall, you may need to update your whitelist of IP addresses. The Secure Agent IP address ranges differ among Informatica Cloud, the IICS Sandbox environment, and the IICS production environment. The approved Secure Agent IP address ranges for the production and Sandbox environments are listed in KB article 524982.
• Download a Secure Agent for the Sandbox environment.
  Existing preview agents will not be upgraded. Uninstall any previous preview agent, and then download and install a new preview agent from the Sandbox environment. The new Secure Agent will point to the Sandbox environment and allow you to run jobs.
  Note: On Windows, you must install the Secure Agent on its own machine. You cannot run multiple agents on the same Windows machine. On Linux, you can install multiple agents on the same machine if you install them under a different ID and folder.
• Update your tasks and connections to use the new Secure Agent that you downloaded from Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services.
  Tip: If you have the Secure Agent Cluster license, you can add the preview agent to an existing Secure Agent group so that you won't have to update tasks and connections individually.
• If you want tasks in the Sandbox environment to run on the schedules that you defined in Informatica Cloud, edit the tasks and save them. Schedules are migrated to the Sandbox environment, but they are not activated. When you save a task, the schedule will be re-activated.
• Clear your browser cache if you see a blank screen or the message, “Internal Server Error. Please contact Support.” This issue is caused by a browser caching problem. Clear your browsing history, including all cookies and all cached images and files, and then close the browser. Re-open the browser and log in again.

ICRT service users should also review the ICRT Service Migration to the Cloud API and Application Integration Service guide.

9. Which web browsers can customer use with IICS?

IICS supports the following browsers: Google Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer 11, and Mozilla Firefox. For more information, see the PAM for Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services (IICS) on Informatica Network.

If you use IE11, note the following:

• You must enable cross-origin support (CORS) in the browser. For information about enabling CORS in IE11, see the "Enabling CORS in Internet Explorer 11" topic in the Data Integration online help.
• The time stamps displayed in the Monitor service and on the My Jobs page in Data Integration appear in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

10. What will happen to Secure Agents during the production migration?

During the production migration, all of your Informatica Cloud Secure Agents will be upgraded to the latest version. Secure Agents that you downloaded from the IICS Sandbox environment will not be upgraded.

The migration process retains the following items:

• Connection properties that you stored with a local Secure Agent.
• Secure Agent configuration property changes.
• All files that you copy to <Secure Agent installation directory>/apps/Data_Integration_Server/ext/

The migration process does not retain manual changes that you made to configuration files in the Secure Agent installation directory or its subdirectories.

Note: As a best practice, Informatica recommends that you back up your Informatica Cloud Secure Agent directories before the migration so that you can restore them easily in the unlikely event of a rollback.

11. How much disk space is required to upgrade the Secure Agent?

To calculate the free space required for upgrade, use the following formula:

Minimum required free space = 3 * (size of current Secure Agent installation directory - space used for logs directory) + 1 GB

12. For customers that use a firewall, what are the Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services URLs that need to be included in the whitelist of approved IP addresses?

The approved Secure Agent IP address ranges for production and Sandbox environments are listed in KB article 524982.

13. Will there be any downtime for migration, and if yes, what is the expected downtime?

The migration will affect your service’s availability. The exact duration of the downtime will be communicated to each customer as part of the migration notification. The exact downtime depends upon the number of Informatica Cloud assets and organizations that a customer has. Informatica estimates the downtime to be in the range of 1-4 hours.

14. What will happen to the old Informatica Cloud organization after the migration is completed?

The Informatica Cloud organization will be deactivated, but its metadata will be retained for 30 days post-migration to ensure that Informatica has a copy for comparison and for roll-back in case of unforeseen issues.

15. Will my organization ID change after migration?

Yes. You will get a temporary organization ID in the Sandbox environment. During production migration, your organization will get a new, permanent organization ID.

16. Can customers choose the migration schedule?

Informatica will build the migration batches and communicate the migration schedule to each customer. If the published schedule does not meet your needs, customers are requested to contact support to reschedule to a different migration batch.

17. If a customer has more than two organizations, can they be migrated in separate batches?

While this is possible, Informatica doesn’t recommend this. Customers should consider the impact of having the organizations in different platforms for even a short duration. Customers should work with their customer success manager and Informatica Global Customer Support to ensure that organizations are scheduled in the appropriate batches.

18. Are there any security changes in Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services?

We have introduced user-defined roles in Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services. User roles are automatically created for corresponding user groups in Informatica Cloud. If there are any asset-level custom permissions in Informatica Cloud in which asset permissions granted to a user are higher than the permissions granted to the user via the user group, then these asset permissions are not honored for the user. Customers need to pay attention to this and manually adjust asset-level permissions as needed.

19. When should we do a rollback?

Post-migration, if the customer raises a P1 ticket that can’t be resolved within 24 hours, Informatica will consider the rollback option. Rollback should be done only after all other avenues to resolve the issue have been exhausted. Rollback requires an approval from the project management team.

20. Is the rollback automated?

Informatica has a rollback script that deactivates the Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services organization, reactivates the Informatica Cloud organization, and downgrades the Secure Agent back to the Informatica Cloud version. If any jobs have been run in Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services either partially or successfully prior to the rollback, the state of those jobs and their job logs will not be rolled back, nor will they be ported back to Informatica Cloud.

21. I created a new organization in Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services using my Informatica Cloud username. Can my Informatica Cloud user account be migrated if there is already an IICS user account with the same name?

Usernames in Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services must be unique. If there is already an IICS user account that has your Informatica Cloud username, then your IICS username will be appended with some extra characters to form a unique name. For example, if your Informatica Cloud username is infaclouduser, your IICS username might be changed to infaclouduser.IICS. (Your Informatica Cloud username will not change.) Informatica will send you an email with the new IICS username, and you will be able to log in to IICS using the new name.

If you use SAML or Salesforce single sign-on and there is already an IICS account with your username, the IICS username that appears in your user profile will be appended with a string such as “.SAML” or “.Salesforce” to ensure that the username is unique. You will be able to log in to IICS using single sign-on as you did with Informatica Cloud.

22. Do I need to change the API endpoints that I am using on Informatica Cloud?

After migration, login API requests will be automatically redirected to Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services. This redirection service will be available through February 28, 2019. As before, you must construct subsequent API requests based on the <serverUrl> and <icSessionId> that was received in the login response. Ensure that you have not hard-coded the base URL for any other API endpoints other than the login API endpoint.

After February 28, you must replace your current Informatica Cloud domain URLs with the Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services (IICS) URLs mentioned in KB article 524982 to use the APIs in IICS. (For example, if your POD is located in North America, the new IICS domain URL is https://dm-us.informaticacloud.com, and the V2 login IICS API endpoint to use is https://dm-us.informaticacloud.com/ma/api/v2/user/login.)

23. How do I leverage new features such as export/import through APIs in Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services?

New features such as export/import are currently only available through the V3 APIs. To leverage these APIs, use the V3 endpoints described in the REST API Reference. (For example, use the V3 login API with the following endpoint: https://dm-us.informaticacloud.com/saas/public/core/v3/login.)

24. What are the Cloud Application Integration IP Address ranges that you need to add to your list of approved IP addresses?

Please review the https://kb.informatica.com/faq/7/Pages/21/535281.aspx articles for the whitelist of either Domain names or the IP address ranges.

Data Integration Questions

1. Does the customer have to change mappings, tasks, connections, processes, or other assets after migration to make them work?

The production migration process is seamless, and existing assets will continue to work after migration without manual changes. (Please see question 2 for potential post-migration tasks.)

2. What are customers expected to do before, during, and after migration?

Before:

1.     Ensure that no metadata is modified during the migration window.

2.     As a best practice, back up your Secure Agent directories so that you can restore them easily in the unlikely event of a rollback.

3.     Set up appropriate blackout window.

4.     Ensure that your Informatica Cloud Secure Agents are up and running.

5.     Make sure that you have completed any task provided by Informatica Global Customer Support for migration.

6.     Prepare a checklist to validate post-migration.

During:

Monitor your email for any communication from Informatica Global Customer Support.

After:

1.     Log into the new Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services organization and do a quick validation to ensure that all metadata counts are in line.

2.     Verify that jobs are running as expected.

3.     Reset the blackout window.

4.     Review the activity logs and audit logs.

5.     If you see any discrepancies, log a support ticket as soon as possible.

3. Are there any manual steps involved in the migration?

Informatica is making every effort to automate the migration from end-to-end. However, there are certain areas that need attention:

• If you use the REST API and have enabled two-factor authentication for your organization, add the following IP addresses to the list of “Trusted IP Ranges” in Informatica Cloud before the migration:
  APP and APP3 PODs: 206.80.52.0/24, 206.80.61.0/24, 209.34.91.0/24, 209.34.80.0/24
  APP2 POD: 206.80.52.0/24, 168.128.27.61/32, 168.128.27.47/32, 168.128.29.12/32, 168.128.29.92/32
• Outbound message links will change and must be updated post migration in Salesforce. Informatica will redirect for 4 weeks after the migration, but the new links need to be updated in Salesforce.
• If you use SAML single sign-on, you must download the IICS service provider metadata after the migration and deliver the metadata and the IICS single sign-on URL for your organization to your SAML identity provider administrator. Additionally, ensure that you update the IICS single sign-on URL and app in your identity provider application.
• Contact Validation tasks will not be migrated. You need to convert to an Address Doctor based web service to cleanse the addresses.
• Data Assessment tasks will not be migrated. You need to convert to DQ Radar before the migration.
• Any task flow that references a Contact Validation or Data Assessment task will not be migrated. If you want the task flow to be migrated, adjust the task flow logic and remove the Contact Validation and Data Assessment tasks before migration.

4. What will happen to views after the migration?

Public views in Informatica Cloud are replaced with tags in Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services. All assets in the view will be labeled with a tag in IICS Data Integration that has the same name as the view. For example, if you created custom view called SalesObjects that contained 30 mappings in Informatica Cloud, all 30 mappings will be labeled with the tag SalesObjects in IICS Data Integration.If the same view name was used for different asset types, the tag names will have different suffixes in IICS Data Integration. For example, if you created the SalesObjects view for mappings and also for mapping tasks, mappings might be labeled with the tag SalesObjects and mapping tasks with the tag SalesObjects_1.You will be able to browse tagged assets and view all assets with a specific tag.Private views, views that are associated with connectors, and activity log views are not migrated.

5. Which versions of the REST API can I use with Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services?

REST API version 1 is no longer supported. For IICS, use REST API version 2 and version 3. The Informatica Cloud Data Integration REST API Reference explains the two REST API versions in detail and how to use each of them to interact with Data Integration using REST API calls.

6. Can I use the runAJobCli utility to run tasks in Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services?

Yes. To use the utility in Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services, update the restenv.properties file to use the new Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services URL:

• Sandbox environment: baseUrl=https://dm-sandbox.informaticacloud.com/ma
• Production environment: baseUrl=https://dm-us.informaticacloud.com/ma

Note that if you run the utility with the task name (-n) option, and you have multiple tasks with the same name in different folders, the utility runs the task in the Default folder. To run a task in a different folder, use the task ID (-i) option instead of the task name option.

7. The ODBC and JDBC drivers are missing from my MYSQL connector. How do I fix this?

In Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services, Informatica no longer includes the MySQL ODBC and JDBC drivers with the MySQL connector. Before you use the MySQL connector, download and install the drivers. For information about installing and configuring the drivers, see the following article or videos:

• Article: How to Install the JDBC and ODBC Drivers for the MySQL Connector

API & Application Integration Questions

1. ICRT Service (including Cloud Premium) customers should be aware of the following:

Preview/Sandbox Migration:

Service URLs

Create and invoke processes in the sandbox account. However, do not use sandbox service URLs in any production activity. Sandbox service URLs are not permanent and are only for testing.

Be careful when you invoke processes in the sandbox environment. Verify that the execution of a process does not affect production. For example, if you execute a "Create Order" process in the sandbox, an order will be created.

Scheduled Processes

Your schedules are migrated to the sandbox in the 'Not Enabled' state. This is to ensure that there is no duplicate process invokes because legacy Informatica Cloud Real Time continues to function during the sandbox testing period. To test schedules, create new processes in the sandbox and assign schedules to the processes.

Invoked Processes

Processes invoked before migration do not appear on the sandbox Application Integration Console service. Use the legacy Process Console to use these processes.

Processes that you invoke using sandbox service URLs will appear in the sandbox Application Integration Console service.

Production Migration:

Service URLs

Post the migration to IICS/CAI Production, the client will still be able to send requests to the older ICRT Service URL, which will be automatically redirected to the equivalent CAI Service URL. However, please note that this redirection will be available only for a short period of time until the end of June 2019. We suggest that you should plan to update your client to send the requests to the new CAI Service URL, as soon as possible to reduce the number of network hops and thereby improve the performance.

Invoked Processes

It is suggested to turn off the requests from the client at the time of migration (that has been communicated over email), although it is not mandatory. Please plan ahead. You need to be cognizant that any requests that are instantiated at the time of production migration, will likely not complete successfully. You might receive an HTTP 500 or HTTP 503 as a response, and the runtime of the instance 'attempted' to be instantiated in ICS/RT will not be migrated to the IICS/CAI Production server.

2. How do I learn about migration?

The Migration folder of the Cloud Application Integration Community Site provides links to a number of resources that can help you with this. These include:

• Overview of Informatica Cloud Intelligent Services and API and Application Integration for ICRT Service Customers
• ICRT Service Migration to the Cloud API and Application Integration Service

• Video: 6-minute Overview of API and Application Integration Services For ICRT Users
• Video: Cloud API and Application Integration Services Navigation Overview for ICRT Users
• Video: IICS Navigation Overview for ICS and ICRT Users
• Informatica University Success Academy Videos for Cloud Application Integration

Most ICRT service customers use ICS data integration services. To see what's available to you as you migrate to IICS, see the Essential Cloud Data Integration Demos set of videos.

3. How do I prepare for migration?

To prepare for Sandbox, or before and after migration to your Production Environment you should review the ICRT Service Migration to the Cloud API and Application Integration Service document.

4. Where are all my processes and other assets?

All your assets have been migrated to the Default folder on the Explore page.

5. I moved a Mapping Task out of the Default folder. Now, a process that calls the Mapping Task throws an error. What do I do?

If a process uses the Run Cloud Task service, and you have moved the cloud asset from the Default project to another project or folder, you must go to the process and reselect the cloud task. Save and publish the process.

6. Will the Schedules that I created in Informatica Cloud Real Time be migrated?

Yes, all schedules will be migrated to your sandbox account. However, to avoid multiple invokes of the same process, they will be migrated into the 'Not Enabled'  state. Informatica suggests that you verify that no processes are scheduled during the migration window.

7. Will the Informatica Cloud Real-Time Service URLs still be valid?

Yes, old service URLs will still be valid post sandbox migration. Continue to use these URLs until Informatica migrates your organization to a production account. Do not embed sandbox service URLs anywhere.

8. Do I need to republish assets after migration?

No, you do not need to republish assets after migration. All published assets will be migrated in the published state.

9. Will my Secure Agent be migrated? Do I need to download an agent again?

Your Secure Agent will be migrated, as will all assets that are published to the agent. You do not need to download an agent again.

10. What are the Cloud Application Integration IP Address ranges that you need to add to your list of approved IP addresses?

Please review the https://kb.informatica.com/faq/7/Pages/21/535281.aspx articles for the whitelist of either Domain names or the IP address ranges.

11. What will happen to the existing managed APIs after the migration?

Managed APIs will not be migrated. If an API Manager customer needs to migrate the existing managed APIs, then the customer should contact the customer success manager or support manager.

12. Will the managed API URLs still be valid?

No, old managed API URLs will not be valid post-production migration if you do not arrange with your customer success manager to migrate the existing managed APIs. Instead, create a new managed API for each service that you want to manage, and use the new URL.

If you do request to migrate existing managed APIs, the old URLs will resolve after production migration and DNS resolution. However, it is recommended to use new URLs.

13. Can I still use the old API Manager?

After production migration, do not use the old API Manager. Instead, use Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services API Manager to create and perform all operations with managed APIs.

14. Can I use sandbox API Manager URLs after production migration?

No, do not embed sandbox URLs anywhere.

15. Do I need to manually update the Salesforce guide setup URLs after migration?

Yes, you must manually update the Salesforce guide setup URLs after migration. The guide setup URLs will not be automatically redirected after migration.

You must log in to Salesforce and manually update the Informatica Cloud Real Time Host URL specified under advanced settings in the Guide Setup tab. If you had embedded guide URLs, you must manually update them with the new URLs after migration. See the next question for more information.

16. What are the post-migration tasks that I must perform for the Salesforce managed package?

If you use the Salesforce managed package, you must perform the following tasks after migration:

Log in to Salesforce and verify your guides.

Log in to Salesforce and verify that your guides are visible on the relevant Salesforce object pages. If you do not see your guides, log out of Salesforce, clear the browser cache, and then log in to Salesforce.

Log in to Salesforce and verify the Informatica Cloud Real Time Host URL.

Log in to Salesforce and verify that the Informatica Cloud Real Time Host URL specified under advanced settings in the Guide Setup tab is correct.

The format of the Host URL must be as follows: <Cloud Application Integration URL>,<Informatica Organization ID>

For example: https://na1.ai.dm-us.informaticacloud.com,afdq9RWEA4vjIQWQcE88XB

To view your Cloud Application Integration URL, log in to Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services and select the Application Integration service. From the browser address bar, copy the URL from https till .com as shown in the following image:

To view your Informatica Organization ID, log in to Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services, select the Administrator service and then click Organization. Copy the Informatica Organization ID displayed in the ID field as shown in the following image:

17. Can I use Guide Designer in Salesforce to create a new guide?

No. Informatica does not support Guide Designer in Salesforce. To create a guide, log in to Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services and use the Application Integration Guide Designer.

18. What are the post-migration tasks that I must perform for Data Integration tasks that use custom permissions?

If you had assigned custom permissions to a Data Integration task and are invoking the Data Integration task through an Application Integration process or a guide, after migration, you must complete either of the following tasks:

• Give the Application Integration anonymous user permission to run the associated Data Integration asset.
• Add the Application Integration anonymous user to a user group that has permission to run the associated Data Integration asset.

The following image shows an Application Integration anonymous user account that is authorized to run a Data Integration mapping:

More Information:

If you have licensed Application Integration, Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services creates a system user called CAI_Anonymous_<Organization_ID>. Application Integration needs this user when you invoke an anonymous process that calls a Data Integration task.

Important: Do not edit or delete the Application Integration anonymous user if you need to invoke an anonymous process that calls a Data Integration task.

The following image shows an Application Integration anonymous user account named CAI_Anonymous_6gPInky12gwbSxPUcH8v0H:

19. After migration, why does a process fail if it connects to a service that uses TLS version 1.1 or earlier?

By default, Application Integration uses TLS 1.2 version to connect to third-party services. TLS version 1.1 has been deprecated.

If a process connects to a service that uses TLS version 1.1 or earlier, you must manually edit the server ssl-enabled-protocols property to point to TLS version 1.1.

Perform the following steps after migration:

1. In the Data Integration home page, click Administrator.
2. Click Runtime Environments.
3. Click the Secure Agent for which you want to configure TLS.
4. Click Edit.
5. Under the System Configuration Details section, select the service as Process Server, and select the type as server.
6. Click the Edit pencil icon against the server ssl-enabled-protocols property and set the value to 'TLSv1.1'.
7. Restart the Secure Agent for the changes to take effect.

20. When I start the Process Server on a UNIX operating system, why do I see the following errors:
Cannot write to temp location [/tmp]
"java.io.FileNotFoundException: ... (Too many open files)".

These errors occur because UNIX limits the number of files that can be created by a single process. The NOFILE parameter defines the maximum number of files that can be created by a single process, which is 1024.

Edit the UNIX security configuration file to allow a larger number of files to be opened. Configure the value of the NOFILE parameter to raise the limit from the default 1024 value. A value of 10240 should suffice.

Open the file /etc/security/limits.conf and add the following line:

- nofile 10240

If you are unsure of the value, you can set the value to unlimited.

21. After migration, why does a process still show the status as running even though it successfully completed earlier in Informatica Cloud Real Time?

If you had published a process on the agent and the status still shows as running even though the process successfully completed in Informatica Cloud Real Time, you must manually apply a patch to fix the issue. For more information, see the following Informatica Knowledge Base article: 566279.

Integration Hub Questions

1. What will happen to the existing Integration Hub artifacts after the migration?

Integration Hub artifacts will not be migrated. Informatica Cloud publication and subscription mappings and tasks will be migrated and can be used to create Integration Hub artifacts in Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services. If an Integration Hub customer needs to use the existing Integration Hub artifacts in Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services, then the customer should contact the customer success manager or support manager prior to the migration.

B2B Gateway Questions

1. What will happen to organizations that are defined in B2B Gateway with invalid Informatica Cloud user credentials?

Organizations with invalid Informatica Cloud user credentials will not be migrated. Before you start the migration, verify that the Informatica Cloud user credentials in the B2B Gateway Settings page are valid.

2. What will happen to existing B2B Gateway artifacts after the migration?

All of your B2B Gateway artifacts, including customers, suppliers, and monitoring rules, will be migrated. Customer and supplier schedules will be created in Administrator.

3. What will happen to intelligent structure models that are used in B2B Gateway partner definition after the migration?

Intelligent structure models that are used in B2B Gateway partner definitions will be created in Data Integration.

4. What will happen to B2B Gateway events after the migration?

B2B Gateway events will not be migrated.

5. Will the URLs of the Run Partner API and Event Status API still be valid?

No, Run Partner API and Event Status API URLs will not be valid after the migration. You must update the API requests with the new URLs, as follows:

• Run Partner API request: https://<pod>-b2bgw.dm-us.informaticacloud.com/b2b-gw/api/v1/partner/run
• Event Status request: https://<pod>-b2bgw.dm-us.informaticacloud.com/b2b-gw/api/v2/event/status/<eventId>

...where <pod> is the name of the Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services point of delivery (PoD) where you access Cloud B2B Gateway. For example: usw1.

Informatica Cloud RCA for 06Oct17

Cloud Integration Hub Technical Deep Dive Webinar and Demo

Scott Hedrick, Director Product Marketing, Etty Afriat, Director Product Management, Amit Vaswani, Product Specialist Leader
Sep 6, 2017 8:00 AM PT     Click here to Register

Are you starting to build up difficult to manage data integration spaghetti as your cloud data integrations proliferate? Organize and simplify multi-point cloud data integrations with Cloud Integration Hub, the modern publish/subscribe solution for efficiency and productivity. Reduce data transfer and API charges by removing redundant Cloud synchronizations with Informatica’s Hub for data. Jumpstart your use of the Cloud Integration Hub with the new Salesforce Accelerator. Existing Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services Premium and Advanced customers can get started right way with the one year of basic Cloud Integration Hub with their subscriptions.

In this webinar, we will:

• Provide a technical overview of the key capabilities and value of Cloud Integration Hub by Informatica experts
• Demo the latest version of Cloud Integration Hub including the new Salesforce Accelerator
• Show how existing Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services customers can get started with the one year of basic Cloud Integration Hub included in their subscriptions.

ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS REPORT

Are you facing issues after the Informatica Cloud Spring '17 upgrade? We are here to help. We have identified some of the common issues encountered by users and pulled together a list of solutions to help you address them. Read on to know more.

Note: If you have any concerns please open a case with Informatica Support by clicking on Contact Support option within Informatica Cloud.

SUMMARY

At the bottom of this post, we have a running list of known issues in Spring '17 upgrade and their solutions. We will continue to update this list so check back later for more updates. If you already have a network.informatica.com login, we recommend following  this post so that you can automatically receive updates for any new issues.

You can also follow us on Twitter @INFAsupport for all the latest updates on Informatica Cloud Spring '17

Informatica Cloud now supports Java 8.  You'll need to uninstall and download the latest agent from the 'agent download' in Informatica Cloud in order to get the Java 8 version of the agent. All upgraded agents were upgraded to the Java 7 version.

If you are interested, or have the requirement to use Java 8, please refer to the following Yonyx with step by step instructions:  498429

The default agent available before Summer' 16 upgrade uses Java 7, and was not updated to Java 8 during the upgrade. The migration to Java 8 needs to be performed by the user. If you download a new agent from Informatica Cloud, it uses Java 8.

Java 8 agents allows better performance when it comes metadata fetch by avoiding the use of the legacy ODBC-JDBC bridge. Java 8 also supports TLS encryption by default.