A Frends Agent is the actual execution engine, the part which executes the integration flows or processes. Each Frends Agent works independently from other components and does not rely on any other component to function: e.g., the Frends UI can be offline for maintenance, but the Agents will still execute Processes and respond to requests.

The Agents communicate with the Frends UI through a Service Bus connection; Azure Service Bus for cloud or hybrid installations, and Service Bus for Windows Server or RabbitMQ for on-premise installations. The Agents receive configuration updates, among other things, through the Messaging queues and use them to report back execution logs and statistics.

Each Agent is also always assigned to a single Agent Group.

Agents update the deployed integration flows automatically after receiving an update notification through the Messaging queue. This means that once you click "Deploy" on the UI the Agent will automatically download and take into use the desired version of a Process.

HTTPS Triggers require the Agent to have a certificate available in the local machine certificate store. We recommend providing a thumbprint for a valid certificate that is located in the local machine store. If no certificate thumbprint is provided in the configuration, the Agent installer will request one from the AD domain. If the Agent installer cannot get a certificate from the domain controller, it will create a self-signed one. The expiration of the certificate provided by the domain controller depends on the domain settings, while the self-signed certificate will expire after 20 years..

The Agent will continue using the same generated certificate until the Agent is fully uninstalled. The generated certificate is removed on uninstall from the local machine certificate store and forgotten about. This means that you may regenerate the certificate by uninstalling and then re-installing the Agent, this will recreate the certificate and set it up for the Agent.