KingswaySoft offers Integration Gateway, which is designed to act as a gateway (as the name implies) to receive HTTP-based messages from webhook interfaces available within your applications and services in order to achieve real-time integration. This is typically done by sending/relaying the messages to a message queuing system which further facilitates the actual integration. The Integration Gateway is also designed to work as a Windows service that runs in the background while it listens to webhook calls, to trigger upon receiving. Another important feature made available in the tool is that it can also work in other ways to help with scheduling and executing package that does not require real-time triggers. Say, for example, you have a cleanup job that needs to run daily to perform certain truncations or deletions, a package that sends out a status email periodically, or even a job that needs to pull logs every minute, etc. Now, this doesn't just limit to packages that perform simple jobs but is also applicable to packages that run as batch processes for unidirectional or bidirectional integrations, which do not need to be in real-time. Furthermore, even for packages that use webhooks for real-time synchronization, you could have the package running in a 24-hour loop using the scheduler (more details on this can be found in our blog post linked here), while listening to the message queue for any triggers. In short, for any such cases that involve scheduling a package for periodic execution, you could use the scheduling option available in KingswaySoft's Integration Gateway. Some benefits of running your packages through the tool would be:
- Better control on execution schedule using CRON scheduler
- A unified center to handle your webhooks as well as your package execution
- Intuitive user interface
- Easy logging feature
- Runs as a Windows service in the background
In this blog post, we will be showcasing how the above can be achieved using our Integration Gateway.
Adding and Configuring a Scheduled Task
As a first step, we would start by adding and configuring a Scheduled Task, after we have launched the KingswaySoft Integration Gateway console application. To do so, we would navigate to the Scheduled Tasks tab as shown in the image, and click on Add Scheduled Task. This will create a new task, and in here, provide a name as an identifier for the job.
Now, for scheduling, the application supports CRON expression, which is a command based utility to set up and maintain schedules that utilize a specifically formatted expression. Each character in a CRON expression represents the following.
Using our software, you don't have to be a CRON expert in order to build a proper schedule. Rather you can build this using the CRON Builder feature shipped with the software. To do so, you would click on the ellipsis button next to the CRON Expression option to open up the CRON designer. Here, you can see that there are time denominations, from seconds to Months, with which you can choose to execute the packages in a precise and periodic manner. Based on the choices that you make, you will notice that the CRON Expression changes. In our examples, we switch to the Minutes tab, and choose Every 1 minute starting at 0 minute, which implies that the job starts exactly one minute after the Integration Gateway service is started, and continues triggering the job every minute. If you wish to see the schedule for the foreseeable future, you can click on the "Execution Schedule" tab to view it.
Once you have your schedule set, you can add your package to the Integration Gateway. For that, click on Add Destination and choose <New SSIS Package> from the drop-down list.
Once done, you can click on the Configure Connections button, which will take you to the Outbound Connections tab, where you can enter the package details.
Configure Outbound Connections/Package settings
In this tab, you can enter the package's name as an identifier, and then choose the package from the file path. Note that the path that you provide would need to be accessible by the integration Gateway. Provide the package password if any (depending on the SSIS ProtectionLevels you have set on the package, please go through this blog post for more details), and choose the TargetServerVersion. You can turn on the Enable Logging option to get the execution logs collected and saved after you have chosen a Log Directory where the log files will be generated and saved after each execution. Click on the Test Connection button to verify the package is accessible as expected.
When you are done with the configuration, you can Save the settings and hit the Start button in the Integration Gateway to start the service. You could close the console UI which would leave the service running in the background for the scheduled jobs. After each execution, the log files will be generated in the folder you had setup. And if you wish to preview the logs from within the Integration Gateway, you could do that as well.
Conclusion
Using KingswaySoft Integration Gateway, you can easily schedule and execute packages, while logging the executions for reference. The Integration Gateway tool acts as a multifunctional module for your integration requirements and provides you a one stop-solution, with an intuitive and user interface to configure your jobs.
We hope this has helped!