While standard options available may work, many times a custom solution is exactly what the Engineering community needs and turns to in any effort to solve a problem and bring the design project to completion.
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By nature, electrical connectors lend themselves to customization. Often one of the last components addressed in the design process, and after key elements have been solidified, a solution to the electrical connectivity equation begins to get attention.
Electrical connectors need to adhere to strict specifications, but sometimes they need to provide connectivity in special, unique ways. This means the configuration of the connector size, contacts, mounting options and other application specific needs must conform to the design of the project and provide reliable operation.
Positronic offers custom connector solutions for Electrical and Electronics Engineering (EEE) projects from aerospace, military, medical and beyond. Positronic experts shared three reasons why a custom connector may be the right solution for engineering design challenges.
Engineers are behind the scenes in every industry – solving problems and utilizing their creative ideas to develop new technologies that make our world a better place. Drones, for example, are being used more often in a variety of applications, including the inspection of wind turbines or electrical towers in remote places. These sophisticated drones require connectors that are small enough to fit the footprint yet keep the connection for power and signal secure. Another unique example is a small connector developed for the antilock braking system and stability control system for military vehicles. These connectors were part of a larger project to modify existing fleet vehicles to improve occupant safety. Each piece of the overall design, such as the custom connector, was an important part of the final project, and the design engineers were able to provide their end customer with a solution that met their precise requirements. There are hundreds of other examples when configuring the right connector can make all the difference for the end design, functionality, and experience for the end user.
Engineers are eager to solve challenges that their customers bring, and these challenges are not always brand new.
Some or part of the project may already be designed, and a connector solution needs to fit into that design. A custom
connector is defined as a simple modification to an existing product all the way to a clean-sheet design done for a unique end user application.
Healthcare x-ray machines are one example where a custom connector is being developed for a specific need. The healthcare company required longer than usual contacts and a plastic shroud. The connector would be immersed in insulation oil, so it was imperative that the connector continued to reliably operate under these harsh conditions. Solar powered irrigation systems present another example where a custom connector was able to fulfill the desired need. The design required a connector to be submersible up to 200 meters and have a current rating of 20 amps. Because of the location where the connector was housed, a 3-pin connector was required with cable to cable connection. A high-speed lithium-ion battery powered wakeboard is designed to fly on the water at 58 kilometers per hour carrying an adult rider. In this example, a press-fit power connector passes 200 amps of continuous current in the harsh sea-water environment, providing the rider a seamless and an exciting experience.
When a project calls for a custom solution, quality should not be compromised. In fact, it is of utmost importance. The connector needs to comply with industry standards, as well as meet the custom need. When looking to source a custom project, make sure the company is qualified and has experience building custom connectors. Also consider cost and lead time, because these affect the result. Generally, a vertically integrated connector manufacturer has the ability to produce all components internally therefore eliminating the dependency on third party restrictions and can deliver a sound solution from the first try. The final product will need to operate consistently, reliably and for a long time. Weigh all options before selecting a partner that will provide a trusted solution. Select a partner who conveys certainty! Keeping an open mind about using custom connectors in any industry, for any application, and working together with the connector company to design a solution that best fits the project, will result in a creative, cost-effective, and desirable experience for everyone.
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Applies to: Azure Logic Apps (Consumption + Standard)
Without writing any code, you can quickly create automated integration workflows when you use the prebuilt connector operations in Azure Logic Apps. A connector helps your workflows connect and access data, events, and actions across other apps, services, systems, protocols, and platforms. Each connector offers operations as triggers, actions, or both that you can add to your workflows. By using these operations, you expand the capabilities for your cloud apps and on-premises apps to work with new and existing data.
Connectors in Azure Logic Apps are either built in or managed. A built-in connector runs natively on the Azure Logic Apps runtime, which means they're hosted in the same process as the runtime and provide higher throughput, low latency, and local connectivity. A managed connector is a proxy or a wrapper around an API, such as Office 365 or Salesforce, that helps the underlying service talk to Azure Logic Apps. Managed connectors are powered by the connector infrastructure in Azure and are deployed, hosted, run, and managed by Microsoft. You can choose from 1,400+ managed connectors to use with your workflows in Azure Logic Apps.
When you use a connector operation for the first time in a workflow, some connectors don't require that you create a connection first, but many other connectors require this step. Each connection that you create is actually a separate Azure resource that provides access to the target app, service, system, protocol, or platform.
Sometimes though, you might want to call REST APIs that aren't available as prebuilt connectors. To support more tailored scenarios, you can create your own custom connectors to offer triggers and actions that aren't available as prebuilt operations.
This article provides an overview about custom connectors for Consumption logic app workflows and Standard logic app workflows. Each logic app type is powered by a different Azure Logic Apps runtime, respectively hosted in multitenant Azure and single-tenant Azure. For more information about connectors in Azure Logic Apps, review the following documentation:
In multitenant Azure Logic Apps, you can create custom connectors from Swagger-based or SOAP-based APIs up to specific limits for use in Consumption logic app workflows. The Connectors documentation provides more overview information about how to create custom connectors for Consumption logic apps, including complete basic and advanced tutorials. The following list also provides direct links to information about custom connectors for Consumption logic apps:
In single-tenant Azure Logic Apps, the redesigned Azure Logic Apps runtime powers Standard logic app workflows. This runtime differs from the multitenant Azure Logic Apps runtime that powers Consumption logic app workflows. The single-tenant runtime uses the Azure Functions extensibility model, which provides a key capability for you to create your own built-in connectors for anyone to use in Standard workflows. In most cases, the built-in version provides better performance, capabilities, pricing, and so on.
When single-tenant Azure Logic Apps officially released, new built-in connectors included Azure Blob Storage, Azure Event Hubs, Azure Service Bus, and SQL Server. Over time, this list of built-in connectors continues to grow. However, if you need connectors that aren't available in Standard logic app workflows, you can create your own built-in connectors using the same extensibility model that's used by service provider-based built-in connectors in Standard workflows.
In single-tenant Azure Logic Apps, a built-in connector with specific attributes is informally known as a service provider. For example, these connectors are based on the Azure Functions extensibility model, which provide the capability for you to create your own custom built-in connectors to use in Standard logic app workflows.
In contrast, non-service provider built-in connectors have the following attributes:
Isn't based on the Azure Functions extensibility model.
Is directly implemented as a job within the Azure Logic Apps runtime, such as Schedule, HTTP, Request, and XML operations.
No capability is currently available to create a non-service provider built-in connector or a new job type that runs directly in the Azure Logic Apps runtime. However, you can create your own built-in connectors using the service provider infrastructure.
The following section provides more information about how the extensibility model works for custom built-in connectors.
Based on the Azure Functions extensibility model, the built-in connector extensibility model in single-tenant Azure Logic Apps has a service provider infrastructure that you can use to create, package, register, and install your own built-in connectors as Azure Functions extensions that anyone can use in their Standard workflows. This model includes custom built-in trigger capabilities that support exposing an Azure Functions trigger or action as a service provider trigger in your custom built-in connector.
The following diagram shows the method implementations that the Azure Logic Apps designer and runtime expects for a custom built-in connector with an Azure Functions-based trigger:
The following sections provide more information about the interfaces that your connector needs to implement.
This interface includes the methods that provide the operations manifest for your custom built-in connector.
Operations manifest
Link to M&T
The operations manifest includes metadata about the implemented operations in your custom built-in connector. The Azure Logic Apps designer primarily uses this metadata to drive the authoring and monitoring experiences for your connector's operations. For example, the designer uses operation metadata to understand the input parameters required by a specific operation and to facilitate generating the outputs' property tokens, based on the schema for the operation's outputs.
The designer requires and uses the GetService() and GetOperations() methods to query the operations that your connector provides and shows on the designer surface. The GetService() method also specifies the connection's input parameters that are required by the designer.
For more information about these methods and their implementation, review the Methods to implement section later in this article.
Operation invocations
Operation invocations are the method implementations used during workflow execution by the Azure Logic Apps runtime to call the specified operations in the workflow definition.
If your trigger is an Azure Functions-based trigger type, the GetBindingConnectionInformation() method is used by the runtime in Azure Logic Apps to provide the required connection parameters information to the Azure Functions trigger binding.
If your connector has actions, the InvokeOperation() method is used by the runtime to call each action in your connector that runs during workflow execution. Otherwise, you don't have to implement this method.
For more information about these methods and their implementation, review the Methods to implement section later in this article.
Custom built-in trigger capabilities support adding or exposing an Azure Functions trigger or action as a service provider trigger in your custom built-in connector. To use the Azure Functions-based trigger type and the same Azure Functions binding as the Azure managed connector trigger, implement the following methods to provide the connection information and trigger bindings as required by Azure Functions.
The GetFunctionTriggerType() method is required to return the string that's the same as the type parameter in the Azure Functions trigger binding.
The GetFunctionTriggerDefinition() has a default implementation, so you don't need to explicitly implement this method. However, if you want to update the trigger's default behavior, such as provide extra parameters that the designer doesn't expose, you can implement this method and override the default behavior.
The following sections provide more information about the methods that your connector needs to implement. For the complete sample, review Sample CosmosDbServiceOperationProvider.cs and Create custom built-in connectors for Standard logic apps in single-tenant Azure Logic Apps.
The designer requires this method to get the high-level metadata for your service, including the service description, connection input parameters, capabilities, brand color, icon URL, and so on.
public ServiceOperationApi GetService()
{
return this.{custom-service-name-apis}.ServiceOperationServiceApi();
}
For more information, review Sample CosmosDbServiceOperationProvider.cs.
The designer requires this method to get the operations implemented by your service. The operations list is based on Swagger schema. The designer also uses the operation metadata to understand the input parameters for specific operations and generate the outputs as property tokens, based on the schema of the output for an operation.
public IEnumerable GetOperations(bool expandManifest)
{
return expandManifest ? serviceOperationsList : GetApiOperations();
}
For more information, review Sample CosmosDbServiceOperationProvider.cs.
If you want to use the Azure Functions-based trigger type, this method provides the required connection parameters information to the Azure Functions trigger binding.
public string GetBindingConnectionInformation(string operationId, InsensitiveDictionary connectionParameters)
{
return ServiceOperationsProviderUtilities
.GetRequiredParameterValue(
serviceId: ServiceId,
operationId: operationId,
parameterName: "connectionString",
parameters: connectionParameters)?
.ToValue();
}
For more information, review Sample CosmosDbServiceOperationProvider.cs.
If your custom built-in connector only has a trigger, you don't have to implement this method. However, if your connector has actions to implement, you have to implement the InvokeOperation() method, which is called for each action in your connector that runs during workflow execution. You can use any client, such as FTPClient, HTTPClient, and so on, as required by your connector's actions. This example uses HTTPClient.
public Task InvokeOperation(string operationId, InsensitiveDictionary connectionParameters, ServiceOperationRequest serviceOperationRequest)
{
using (var client = new HttpClient())
{
response = client.SendAsync(httpRequestMessage).ConfigureAwait(false).ToJObject();
}
return new ServiceOperationResponse(body: response);
}
For more information, review Sample CosmosDbServiceOperationProvider.cs.
To use an Azure Functions-based trigger as a trigger in your connector, you have to return the string that's the same as the type parameter in the Azure Functions trigger binding.
The following example returns the string for the out-of-the-box built-in Azure Cosmos DB trigger, "type": "cosmosDBTrigger":
public string GetFunctionTriggerType()
{
return "CosmosDBTrigger";
}
For more information, review Sample CosmosDbServiceOperationProvider.cs.
This method has a default implementation, so you don't need to explicitly implement this method. However, if you want to update the trigger's default behavior, such as provide extra parameters that the designer doesn't expose, you can implement this method and override the default behavior.
When you're ready to start the implementation steps, continue to the following article:
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