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Runtime environment configuration

A runtime environment is the execution platform for running tasks. You must have at least one runtime environment in each organization so that users in the organization can run tasks.

A runtime environment consists of one or more Secure Agents. A Secure Agent is a lightweight program that runs tasks and enables secure communication across the firewall between your organization and

Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services

You can create and access a runtime environment in the following ways:

Use the Informatica Cloud Hosted Agent.: This is the simplest and quickest option. The Hosted Agent is included with every installation of
Data Integration
.

When you want to access data in an SaaS environment, you can use the Informatica Cloud Hosted Agent. The Hosted Agent runs within the
Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services
hosting facility, so there's nothing to install.

The Hosted Agent can run mapping, synchronization, and replication tasks that use certain connectors. To find out if the connector that you use supports the Hosted Agent, see the help for the relevant connector.
Configure a runtime environment on the cloud.: This is the second simplest method. The installation wizard does all the work behind the scenes to set up and configure a Secure Agent on AWS, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure.

Configuring a runtime environment on the cloud creates a virtual machine on the cloud platform, which can incur additional costs.
Download and install a Secure Agent.: When you need to access data on-premises or when you want to access SaaS data without using the Hosted Agent, you can download and install a Secure Agent manually.

Download and install a runtime environment manually when you need to perform any of the following tasks:

Run the agent on Windows.
Install the agent on a local machine or a VM on a cloud platform other than AWS, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure.
Access data sources that are behind a firewall.
Run tasks that can't run on other runtime environment types. For example,
Data Ingestion and Replication
tasks must run on a local Secure Agent.

You can install one Secure Agent on each physical or virtual machine. Each agent that you install is added to its own group by default. You can add multiple agents to a group to balance workloads and improve scalability.
Configure a serverless runtime environment.: A serverless runtime environment is an advanced serverless deployment solution that doesn't require downloading, installing, configuring, and maintaining a Secure Agent or Secure Agent group.

Compared to the multi-tenant model on the Hosted Agent, a serverless runtime environment uses an isolated, single-tenant model that provides a dedicated server with virtual machine resources to run tasks. The serverless runtime environment auto-scales with the size of the workload while your data remains in your cloud environment.

For more information about configuring a serverless runtime environment, see
Runtime Environments
in the Administrator help.