Difference between synchronous and asynchronous in oic

 Difference between synchronous and asynchronous in oic

In Oracle Integration Cloud (OIC), the terms synchronous and asynchronous refer to the communication pattern between systems or within integrations — specifically, how the sender and receiver interact in terms of waiting for a response.

🧠 Quick Mnemonic:

• Synchronous = "Stop and wait"   5 min (300 sec)

• Asynchronous = "Send and go" 6 hrs async with schedule 

🔄 Synchronous Integration

📌 Definition:

A synchronous integration waits for a response after sending a request. The client (caller) is blocked until the OIC integration finishes processing and returns a result.

✅ Key Characteristics:

• Real-time interaction

• Immediate response required

• Integration returns data or a status to the requester

• Timeouts are important to manage

• Often used in API-like interactions (e.g., REST/SOAP)

📦 Example:

An external system calls a REST-triggered integration in OIC to validate a customer. The integration calls Oracle ERP, gets the validation result, and returns it immediately to the caller.

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🔁 Asynchronous Integration

📌 Definition:

An asynchronous integration does not wait for a response. The caller sends a request and continues without waiting for the process to complete.

✅ Key Characteristics:

• Fire-and-forget behavior

• No immediate response; may use callbacks, queues, or notifications if needed

• Suitable for long-running or batch processes

• Common in event-driven or scheduled flows

📦 Example:

An ERP system sends a file to OIC. OIC picks up the file (via File/FTP trigger), processes the data, and stores it in a database — no response is sent back to ERP.

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🔁 Comparison Table

Feature	Synchronous	Asynchronous
Communication style	Request-Response	Fire-and-Forget
Caller waits for reply	Yes	No
Response	Required (status or data)	Optional (via callback or notification)
Best for	Real-time APIs, UI-driven requests	Background jobs, long processes
Complexity	Simple	Can involve callback or correlation
Error handling	Handled inline in response	Often handled via logging or alerting

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🔧 Real-world Example in OIC:

Scenario	Type
REST API call that returns order status	Synchronous
Scheduled job that loads 10,000 records to ERP	Asynchronous