Oracle JD Edwards Internet of Things (IoT) orchestrator: an example

The theory

The term 'Internet of Things' is rather vague. According to the Wikipedia definition, the 'Internet of Things' refers to the fact that people-operated devices such as desktops, tablets and smartphones will soon be in the minority on the internet. In this scenario, the majority of internet users will consist of semi-intelligent devices, called "embedded systems".

As a result, everyday objects will become entities on the internet that can communicate with people and with other objects and then make autonomous decisions on that basis. There are currently more than 9 billion devices connected to the internet. In the years to come, this number is expected to increase exponentially to hundreds of billions.

And then there is the word ‘orchestrator’. An orchestrator is a person who adapts an existing piece of music or composition for a different scoring, a particular style or a particular occasion (source: Wikipedia). Now replace the words person and music with the words system and data item and the function of this new tool becomes clear: adapting data items received through the internet to a format that can be processed in Oracle JD Edwards applications. How and when the data must be edited is determined by four individual components in the IoT Orchestrator:

• White list: this component performs a rough security check (pass/fail) to detect whether the received data originated from a certified device.
• Rules Engine: This component designs the rules that determine what must be done in response to the received data.
• Cross-Reference: this component defines the relationships for converting incoming data to data that is meaningful for the system. For example, a sensor ID that is translated into an item number.
• Service Request: This component regulates the call to an Oracle JD Edwards application or email service