What is an Access Point?

An Access Point is a private server provisioned to communicate securely with CIC in the cloud and is required to create an Endpoint in a private data center, for example, in your back end. Access Points enable CIC to connect to such private Endpoints securely without requiring you to open inbound ports.

To create an Access Point, you install and activate the CIC Agent software on the private server. See The CIC Agent and Managing Access Points.

Use Cases for Access Points

There are two basic use cases that require Access Points: File System Endpoints and Database Integration.

File System Endpoints

A File System Endpoint allows a folder or directory accessible from the access point server—a local file system, a mounted network file system, or, on a Windows Access Point, a UNC path—to act as a source or destination for data transfer. The Access Point allows the File System Endpoint to connect to CIC. See File System Endpoint.

Database Integration

Database integration allows CIC to communicate directly with a database. In one type of database integration, the Access Point functions as a proxy that CIC can use to exchange data with a database. See Database Integration for more information.

The CIC Agent

The CIC Agent is a lightweight and headless piece of software you can deploy on a variety of traditional enterprise systems, allowing you to connect your private infrastructure (whether local or remote) with CIC. The CIC Agent can connect to a local file system, a Linux share, a Windows UNC path or a database. You install the Agent as part of creating an Access Point.

High Availability 

CIC supports High Availability CIC Agents (HA Agents) that provide continuity of services even when our customers experience hardware glitches.

Note: HA Agents do NOT provide mid-job switchover or increased throughput.

Up to 5 CIC Agents (called Nodes) can service a single Access Point. If a node goes down, the other nodes continue processing new jobs. CIC selects the first node activated to be the leader node. If the leader node goes down, a new leader is automatically selected by CIC.

For more information, see High Availability CIC Agents.

CIC Agent System Requirements

The system where you install the CIC Agent must meet the following requirements: