AGENT

1. Run-time Agents Overview

• Functionality: ODI run-time agents are Java components that manage and orchestrate the execution of jobs.
• Roles: They act as both listener and scheduler agents.
• Job Execution: The agent executes jobs such as:
• Model reverses
• Packages
• Scenarios
• Mappings, and more.
• Job Triggering: Jobs can be triggered in several ways:
• Manually launched from the user interface or command line.
• Automatically triggered based on a predefined schedule in ODI.
• Triggered by external third-party scheduling systems.

2. Single vs. Multiple Agents

• Single Agent Setup: Typically, a production environment requires a single agent for job execution.
• Multiple Agents Setup: For high availability or load distribution, multiple load-balanced agents can be set up. See the "Load balancing Agents" section for detailed instructions.

3. Internal Agent in ODI Studio

• ODI Studio Agent: It is an internal agent that runs within ODI Studio for development and testing purposes.
• Limitations: It does not provide full production features such as:
• Stale session cleanup (removal of sessions that no longer require resources).
• Ability to stop a running session (manual interruption).
• Load balancing (distributing tasks across multiple agents).
• Usage: This internal agent is unsuitable for production environments.
• To use it, select Local (No Agent) as the Logical Agent when running a job directly from the ODI Studio interface.

4. Job Execution Features

• Stale Session Cleanup: External agents are responsible for cleaning up old or inactive sessions.
• Session Management: External agents provide the ability to stop or manage running sessions, a feature not available with internal agents.
• Load Balancing: External agents can distribute workloads across multiple agents, ensuring optimal use of system resources.

5. Using External Scheduler

• External schedulers can trigger ODI job executions by interacting with the agent. This requires proper configuration as detailed in the Administering Oracle Data Integrator documentation.