Overview

This page describes the connector concept in Novacura Flow

Connectors

A connector is a component that gives Flow access to remote systems.

Connector Services

A connector service is an independent component that can run on a different machine than other parts of Flow. If Flow Server runs in the cloud, the connector service can run on-premises, providing access to systems not otherwise accessible for Flow Server.

The only hard requirement is that the connector service must be able to access the Flow Server. Other than that, the service can run pretty much anywhere, including non-windows operating systems and in the cloud.

The other way around is not necessary, Flow Server does not need to be able to access the connector service directly. If it can, it can use a more efficient communication strategy, but it will work either way.

Since the connector service can access Flow Server (but not the other way around), the connector service needs to be the one that establishes the connection. This, in practice, means that you cannot establish a connection to a connector service from Flow Studio or via some configuration of the Flow Server. Once a connection has been established, you can configure some of the settings of a configuration of a connector service from Flow Studio, but not all of them.

So where do you configure the connector service then? The connector service has an administrative interface where you configure connections to Flow Servers and define connector configurations. Any given connector service can hold any number of configurations and establish connections to any number of flow servers (within reason). This means that you can use the same connector service for many Flow Servers if that makes sense for you.