#1161 - Use of Semaphores in OIC - Part 1

Introduction 

Semaphores, within the context of software, can be used as synchronisation tools to manage how multiple processes access a shared resource.

OIC related use cases could include - 

• FIFO
• Synchronisation between async integrations
• Singleton
• Scatter/Gather
• Resequencer
• etc.

This post will document a simple implementation of using semaphores to enable synchronisation between 2 async integrations. My 2 integrations are async create order and async create customer. The rule is simple - an order can only be created for an existing customer. If the customer does not exist in the customer DB, then async create order has to wait until async create customer does the necessary. 

Before I begin, a BIG Shout Out to my very esteemed colleague, Antony R. for the initial idea. He also set up the whole semaphore / OCI Cache infrastructure and provided the 2 key integrations - acquire and release semaphore.

Let's begin with the semaphore implementation.

The Semaphore Implementation

This is the python based UI we will be using.

Underlying this is OCI Cache - 

More about the cache in a later post; now lets proceed to the 2 semaphore integrations - acquire and release -

I will not go into detail here, suffice to say, one acquires and the other releases the semaphore. 

The Create Order Use Case

Here are the 2 async integrations -

async create order

This integration does the following - 

• Check if customer already exists
• If yes
• Create order for customer
• If no
• Acquire semaphore
• Invoke async create customer
• Payload will include semaphore details
• WHILE Semaphore not acquired
• Attempt to acquire the same semaphore again
• If Acquired 
• Create order for customer
• Release semaphore
• Exit WHILE 

The request payload is - 

{ "custFirstName" : "Niall", "custLastName" : "Commiskey", "custCountry" : "Ireland", "product" : "iBike", "price" : 4999 }

async create customer

This integration does the following - 

• Create customer in customer DB
• Release semaphore

The request payload is - 

{ "firstName" : "Niall", "lastName" : "Commiskey", "country" : "Ireland", "channel" : "Create Customer", "requestor" : "OIC" }

Acquiring the Semaphore

The request payload for AcquireSemaphore is as follows - 

{ "channel" : "channel", "stream" : "stream", "requestor" : "job-17", "timestamp" : "2026-07-10T17:00:00Z" }

So what's the unique key here? It's the combination of channel and stream.

For this simple demo I will use the combination of firstName and lastName as the stream. I will call the channel Create Customer.

I have added the following lookup to the project -

Note the different requestors, we'll see how they are used presently.

Releasing the Semaphore

The request payload for ReleaseSemaphore is as follows - 

{ "channel" : "channel", "stream" : "stream", "requestor" : "job-17" }

Implementing async create order 

Check if the customer exists.

If found, store the customerId in a variable.

Otherwise, acquire the semaphore, 
setting requestor to the lookup value for requestor-pre-cust-create - OIC-CreatingCust.

I then invoke the async create customer integration. This integration will create the customer in our ATP powered customer DB and then release the semaphore.

I then try to acquire the semaphore, but this time using the requestor - OIC-CreatedCust. We will continue in the WHILE loop until the semaphore has been released by the async create customer integration. 

I get the customerId of the newly created customer and release the semaphore.

The final step - 

Let's try this out.

Running the Use Case

Pre-checks

No semaphores - 

No customers / orders -

Check out the screenshots below to see how the semaphore is processed - 

Semaphore created with the holder OIC-CreatingCust

There is a backlog - OIC-CreatedCust trying to acquire CreateCustomer / Phillip Commiskey

The semaphore has been released, so now OIC-CreatedCust can acquire - 

The async create order integration has released the semaphore -

Check the Customer DB - 

Summa Summarum 

This is just one case where semaphores could be applied. As stated in the introduction, others include - 

• FIFO
• Singleton
• Throttling

More about those later.

Cerevisia Aestiva

Today's beer is another gem from Franconia. 

The Hofmuehl brewery is located in Eichstaett, about 60km away from where I'm living. The town is famous for its Catholic bishopric and it was a bishop who founded the brewery in 1492. The Securalisation laws from 1803 resulted in the state taking over the brewery, but it passed through many hands since then - including Eugène-Rose de Beauharnais, the adopted son of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Their Helles is 4.9% - a light, hoppy beer, great for hot summer evenings.

 

 

 

#1160 - Download the OIC Audit Log via API

Introduction

The 26.07 release saw the OIC audit stream augmented with logging of OIC activity stream views. Essentially telling us who looked at what in the activity stream. Let's try this out - 

I click on the Instance ID link and check out the activity stream -

Now let's check the audit log - 

I click the Audit link -

User niall.commiskey@oracle.com viewed activity stream for 
integration id: AA_ERRORS/SYNC_UPDATE_ORDER (1.0), 
instance id: clbG7JACEfG9ee_6FVinEA, business identifiers: (orderNr: 123), 
tracing level: Audit

So how can we download such via the OIC api?

/ic/api/integration/v1/monitoring/auditRecords?integrationInstance=yourOICInstance

Here's an example from Postman - 

Note the query filter parameters available - 

So let's try out some of these - 

https://design.integration.us-phoenix-1.ocp.oraclecloud.com/ic/api/integration/v1/monitoring/auditRecords?integrationInstance=yourOICInstance&q={timewindow:'6h'}

The above applies a timewindow of 6 hours to the query.

{
    "items": [
        {
            "auditTrailMessage": "User niall.commiskey@oracle.com viewed activity stream for integration id: AA_ERRORS/A_CALLING_B (1.0), instance id: 7WR6yZAEEfG8D-EccQuiTg, business identifiers: (orderNr: 310397), tracing level: Production",
            "operationName": "view",
            "resourceType": "activity stream",
            "timeStamp": "2026-08-04T13:04:27.897+0000",
            "userName": "niall.commiskey@oracle.com"
        },
        {
            "auditTrailMessage": "User niall.commiskey@oracle.com viewed activity stream for integration id: AA_ERRORS/A_CALLING_B (1.0), instance id: 7WR6yZAEEfG8D-EccQuiTg, business identifiers: (orderNr: 310397), tracing level: Production",
            "operationName": "view",
            "resourceType": "activity stream",
            "timeStamp": "2026-08-04T13:03:51.287+0000",
            "userName": "niall.commiskey@oracle.com"
        },
        {
            "auditTrailMessage": "User niall.commiskey@oracle.com unlocked lookup AA_ERRORS/orderValues ",
            "operationName": "unlock",
            "resourceCode": "orderValues",
            "resourceName": "orderValues",
            "resourceType": "ICS_DVM",
            "timeStamp": "2026-08-04T13:03:15.409+0000",
            "userName": "niall.commiskey@oracle.com"
        },
        {
            "auditTrailMessage": "User niall.commiskey@oracle.com updated lookup AA_ERRORS/orderValues ",
            "operationName": "update",
            "resourceCode": "orderValues",
            "resourceName": "orderValues",
            "resourceType": "ICS_DVM",
            "timeStamp": "2026-08-04T12:59:42.378+0000",
            "userName": "niall.commiskey@oracle.com"
        },
        {
            "auditTrailMessage": "User niall.commiskey@oracle.com locked lookup AA_ERRORS/orderValues ",
            "operationName": "lock",
            "resourceCode": "orderValues",
            "resourceName": "orderValues",
            "resourceType": "ICS_DVM",
            "timeStamp": "2026-08-04T12:59:24.919+0000",
            "userName": "niall.commiskey@oracle.com"
        },
        {
            "auditTrailMessage": "User niall.commiskey@oracle.com viewed activity stream for integration id: AA_ERRORS/SYNC_UPDATE_ORDER (1.0), instance id: clbG7JACEfG9ee_6FVinEA, business identifiers: (orderNr: 123), tracing level: Audit",
            "operationName": "view",
            "resourceType": "activity stream",
            "timeStamp": "2026-08-04T12:47:03.378+0000",
            "userName": "niall.commiskey@oracle.com"
        },
        {
            "auditTrailMessage": "User niall.commiskey@oracle.com viewed activity stream for integration id: AA_ERRORS/SYNC_UPDATE_ORDER (1.0), instance id: clbG7JACEfG9ee_6FVinEA, business identifiers: (orderNr: 123), tracing level: Audit",
            "operationName": "view",
            "resourceType": "activity stream",
            "timeStamp": "2026-08-04T12:46:08.602+0000",
            "userName": "niall.commiskey@oracle.com"
        },
        {
            "auditTrailMessage": "User niall.commiskey@oracle.com viewed activity stream for integration id: AA_2607_NEW_FEATURES/DATA_TRANSLATE_DEMO (1.0), instance id: yvkVeo__EfGSfZ-fcacITg, business identifiers: (orderNr: 123), tracing level: Production",
            "operationName": "view",
            "resourceType": "activity stream",
            "timeStamp": "2026-08-04T12:27:07.547+0000",
            "userName": "niall.commiskey@oracle.com"
        }
    ],
    "links": [
        {
            "href": "https://design.integration.us-phoenix-1.ocp.oraclecloud.com/ic/api/integration/v1/monitoring/auditRecords?integrationInstance=...",
            "rel": "self"
        },
        {
            "href": "https://design.integration.us-phoenix-1.ocp.oraclecloud.com/ic/api/integration/v1/monitoring/auditRecords?integrationInstance=...",
            "rel": "canonical"
        }
    ],
    "totalResults": "8"
}

As you can see - log entries for viewing the activity stream, updating a lookup etc.

Now I query for log entries related to the lookup - q={timewindow:'6h', type:/ICS_DVM/}

Now I query for just a specific integration, HELLOWORLD -

q={timewindow:'6h', code:'HELLOWORLD'}

We can also add the integration version number - q={timewindow:'6h', code:'HELLOWORLD', version: '01.00.0000'}

Back to the type filter - for auditing just schedules I can use - ICS_Schedule - q={timewindow:'1h', type:'ICS_Schedule'}

For auditing libraries use - 

q={timewindow:'1h', type:'API_LIBRARY'}

The filter parameter - ICS_ProjectV2 - refers to integrations - 

Another Approach

One can download the audit trail from the OIC UI - 

Internally, this operation uses the following factory api - 

https://design.integration.yourRegion.ocp.oraclecloud.com/ic/api/integration/v1/monitoring/logs/icsauditlog?q=%7Btimewindow%3A%271d%27%7D&integrationInstance=yourOIC

I try this out in Postman - 

 I can save this to a file - 

Here is a short extract - 

[2026-08-04 15:44:17.007 Z] [userID: niall.commiskey@oracle.com] [niall.commiskey@oracle.com,UNLOCK,ICS_ProjectV2,BLAH,BLAH,01.00.0000,] User niall.commiskey@oracle.com unlocked integration BLAH (1.0)

[2026-08-04 15:44:15.618 Z] [userID: niall.commiskey@oracle.com] [niall.commiskey@oracle.com,UPDATE,ICS_ProjectV2,BLAH,blah,01.00.0000,] User niall.commiskey@oracle.com updated integration BLAH (1.0)

[2026-08-04 15:44:05.760 Z] [userID: niall.commiskey@oracle.com] [niall.commiskey@oracle.com,UPDATE,ICS_ProjectV2,BLAH,blah,01.00.0000,] User niall.commiskey@oracle.com updated integration BLAH (1.0)

[2026-08-04 15:44:04.362 Z] [userID: niall.commiskey@oracle.com] [niall.commiskey@oracle.com,LOCK,ICS_ProjectV2,BLAH,BLAH,01.00.0000,] User niall.commiskey@oracle.com locked integration BLAH (1.0)

[2026-08-04 15:43:20.055 Z] [userID: niall.commiskey@oracle.com] [niall.commiskey@oracle.com,UNLOCK,ICS_ProjectV2,BLAH,BLAH,01.00.0000,] User niall.commiskey@oracle.com unlocked integration BLAH (1.0)

[2026-08-04 15:43:18.303 Z] [userID: niall.commiskey@oracle.com] [niall.commiskey@oracle.com,UPDATE,ICS_ProjectV2,BLAH,blah,01.00.0000,] User niall.commiskey@oracle.com updated integration BLAH (1.0)

[2026-08-04 15:43:11.085 Z] [userID: niall.commiskey@oracle.com] [niall.commiskey@oracle.com,UPDATE,ICS_ProjectV2,BLAH,blah,01.00.0000,] User niall.commiskey@oracle.com updated integration BLAH (1.0)

[2026-08-04 15:43:09.583 Z] [userID: niall.commiskey@oracle.com] [niall.commiskey@oracle.com,LOCK,ICS_ProjectV2,BLAH,BLAH,01.00.0000,] User niall.commiskey@oracle.com locked integration BLAH (1.0)

[2026-08-04 15:43:04.313 Z] [userID: niall.commiskey@oracle.com] [niall.commiskey@oracle.com,UNLOCK,ICS_ProjectV2,HELLOWORLD,HELLOWORLD,01.00.0000,] User niall.commiskey@oracle.com unlocked integration HELLOWORLD (1.0)

Note the format - 

[2026-08-04 15:44:17.007 Z] [userID: niall.commiskey@oracle.com] [niall.commiskey@oracle.com,UNLOCK,ICS_ProjectV2,BLAH,BLAH,01.00.0000,] User niall.commiskey@oracle.com unlocked integration BLAH (1.0)

Compare this to the structured response from the previous api -

 

{"auditTrailMessage": "User niall.commiskey@oracle.com unlocked

integration BLAH (1.0)",

 "operationName": "unlock",

"resourceCode": "BLAH",

"resourceName": "BLAH",

 "resourceType": "ICS_ProjectV2",

 "resourceVersion": "01.00.0000",

"timeStamp": "2026-08-04T15:44:17.007+0000",

 "userName": "niall.commiskey@oracle.com"

}

The UI offers other filters - 

Let's look at the api call OIC makes to retrieve audit records for the project AA_NEW_PROJECT.

https://design.integration.us-phoenix-1.ocp.oraclecloud.com/ic/api/integration/v1/monitoring/auditRecords?offset=0&limit=50&q=%7Btimewindow%3A%271d%27%2C+projectCode%3A%27AA_NEW_PROJECT%27%7D&integrationInstance=yourOICInstance

As you can see, it's using the api we discussed earlier, just with a different query.

This time query is set to q={timewindow:'1d', projectCode:'AA_NEW_PROJECT'}

I try this out in Postman - works a dream, so this is another filter we can use. We can also leverage the other filters available in the UI. These are listed below.

Summa Summarum

As I hope I've shown, /ic/api/integration/v1/monitoring/auditRecords, is a useful api, with a powerful set of filters. 

Let's recap on them, firstly, those I garnered from the OUC designtime - 

• projectCode - filter on a specific project
• code - filter on a specific integration
• action - designtime action e.g. UNLOCK
• userName - filter on OIC user

Now to the documented filter - type -

• API_LIBRARY - filter to return only Library related log entries
• ICS_Schedule - filter to return only Schedule related log entries
• ICS_DVM - filter to return only Lookup related log entries
• ICS_ProjectV2 - filter to return only Integration related log entries, albeit a cryptically name type.

Net, net - I hope it can help in ensuring your design time audit trail can be exported efficiently.

Cerevisia aestiva

Today's beer is a Export Dunkel (Dark) from Spalter Brauerei. A stronger beer, 5.5%, with a true caramel colour. This is a perfect malt infused beer, which can be enjoyed at any time of the year. Spalter Brauerei is the only communally owned brewery in Germany. Ca. 5000 locals are involved in keeping this great brewing tradition alive.