What you need for this book

To be able to describe, work with, and simulate (mock) web services that use the REST paradigm (explained in Chapter 1, Introducing the Concepts and Terminology) easily and in a way that reflects the sort of integrations you are likely to build with ICS, we have chosen to use Apiary.io (although there are other services on the Internet that offer similar capabilities). We chose Apiary.io as Oracle are developing a closer relationship with apiary with other products, so it may be possible that Oracle will develop its ecosystem for ICS to further incorporate apiary in the future. Apiary also offers a pricing model that allows you to get started without any additional expenditure.

Cloud services that offer support for SOAP mocking are limited, in part as REST is overtaking SOAP as a more popular way to provide web services and define them using definition syntaxes such as Blueprint and Swagger. We have adopted Mockable.io for this book – driven by its ease of use and simplicity and again free startup model.

When you first start using ICS, you will use Oracle's cloud managed website, which will allow to select the service(s) that you want and configure users. In this book, we have deliberately chosen not to write about this process so that we can concentrate on the application of ICS, which generally will be of greater value to you, we believe. The process of managing users is relatively simple. In addition to this, both Oracle and their partners will surely assist any customers in managing environment setup as it is in their interests to see customers using their services successfully.