Overview
Orchestra is soffico's integration platform for connecting heterogeneous IT and OT environments. It standardizes, transforms, and routes data between systems, machines, and applications that would otherwise speak different protocols and formats, and it automates the processes that tie them together.
Typical use cases include:
- IT/OT integration — connecting PLCs, sensors, and industrial equipment into IT landscapes (ERP, MES, CRM, data lakes).
- System-to-system integration — replacing point-to-point connections between applications with a loosely coupled, centrally managed hub.
- Process automation — orchestrating multi-step, cross-system workflows with BPMN.
Orchestra is designed as a low-code platform: most integration scenarios are configured rather than programmed, so both newcomers and experienced developers can build and maintain them. It is Java-based and platform-independent, scales from single-node setups to highly distributed, clustered architectures, and supports GMP- and security-critical environments as well as general-purpose integration.
The full Orchestra 5 product description covers the platform and its modules in detail.
Platform components
Orchestra consists of the following core applications:
| Component | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Web Designer | Web-based, collaborative development environment for modeling scenarios: connectors, mappings, processes, and templates. A desktop Classic Designer is available for the transition from Orchestra 4.16 and earlier. |
| Runtime & Monitor | Executes scenarios in standalone or cluster mode, with a browser-based Monitor for tracking business and process-level status. |
| Orchestra Bridge | Local companion application that gives the (cloud-hosted) Web Designer access to local data and test execution. |
| Solution Hub | Standalone product for packaging scenarios as reusable solution templates and rolling them out — and updating them — across distributed Runtime instances. |
| Distributed Monitoring | Centralized, time-series-based monitoring across multiple Runtime instances, including a Prometheus metrics endpoint. |
Key building blocks of a scenario
Every Orchestra integration ("scenario") is composed of the same building blocks, modeled in the Designer:
- Adapters / Channels — connectors to external systems and machines. Orchestra ships with over 90 ready-to-use adapters covering protocols such as REST, OPC-UA, MQTT, Kafka, AMQP, MTConnect, JSON, XML, and CSV.
- Mappings — data transformations between source and target structures (graphical, AI based, coding).
- Processes — integration logic modeled in BPMN.
- Environment Entries — environment-specific configuration parameters.
Scenarios are organized into Projects, versioned via Git integration, and can be combined into Bundles for deployment. Dependency Management keeps shared elements consistent across scenarios and versions.
Add-ons and modules
Orchestra's functionality can be extended with modules such as:
- Orchestra AI — MCP-based integration with generative AI models for scenario creation, mapping, analysis, documentation, and deployment support.
- Testing — repeatable, definable tests for scenarios, workflows, and function modules.
- Throttling — configurable rate limiting at channel, scenario, or instance level.
- Human Interaction — lets business users participate in scenarios through a dedicated web frontend, without needing Designer or Runtime access.
- Minifier — CLI tool to build a reduced Runtime artifact for automated deployment pipelines.
Where to go next
- Want the whole picture in one document? Read the Orchestra 5 product description.
- New to Orchestra's architecture? Continue with Orchestra Architecture → Introduction.
- Building your first scenario? Head to the Web Designer docs.
- Rolling out solutions across environments? See the Solution Hub docs.
- Upgrading between Orchestra versions? See Backward compatibility.