WCF

BizTalk and RabbitMQ

Leonid Ganeline — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:18:40 GMT

If you are working with queues in BizTalk Server, the most possible it is the MSMQ (in my experience).

MSMQ is an old man of the Microsoft technology stack. It was created when there were no good standards for messaging. Now MSMQ is wrapped partly in the .NET System.Messaging namespace. It is just a small facelift. MSMQ is still a proprietary technology without well-defined messaging protocol. It means, you cannot use the MSMQ messaging protocol without MSMQ itself.

Now we see vortex of new messaging standards and technologies. One on the top is the AMQP standard and one of the bold implementation of AMQP is the RabbitMQ .

It is one more protocol, one more messaging system which, for sure, can be integrated with BizTalk Server.

Here I will implement the standard queue messaging: sending and receiving messages from BizTalk down through the RabbitMQ queue. I am using the WCF-Custom LOB Adapter (provided from BizTalk side) and the WCF RabbitMQ Binding (provided from RabbitMQ side) to link two systems.

Installation and preparation

Assuming the BizTalk Server and the Visual Studio 2010 are also installed.

Installing RabbitMQ Service

Go to the RabbitMQ site and download the last versions of server and client for Windows. For me it was rabbitmq-server-2.7.1.exe and rabbitmq-dotnet-client-2.7.1-dotnet-3.0.zip. Client includes the WCF binding which I will use lately. There are several good manuals: rabbitmq-dotnet-client-2.7.1-user-guide.pdf and rabbitmq-dotnet-client-2.7.1-wcf-service-model.pdf. I was quite impressed by quality distributives and documentation.
Start rabbitmq--server-x.x.x.exe. It will request to install Erlang. Agree, go to the Erlang site [http://www.erlang.org/] and download it. For me it was Erlang.otp_win32_R15B.exe
Start Erlang…exe. Installation went smoothly.
Start rabbitmq--server-x.x.x.exe again. Installation went smoothly.

RabbitMQ service is installed. You can see it in the Services window.

Creating RabbitMQ Client Base Assemblies

Now it is time to install the client for .NET and WCF binding extension. Use this manual.

~~Downloaded~~ ~~the .msi. Installed it. Hmm… no Rabbit.Client.dll (When I started with Examples, they all need this file. It is a main client dll).~~
~~Downloaded the *-dotnet-3.0.zip. Nope, it was wrong.~~
We need the last rabbitmq-dotnet-client-2.7.1.zip file. Extract everything from this zip.
Made a copy of the Local.props.example file to Local.props file in the same root folder.
Start Visual Studio with RabbitMQDotNetClient.sln and successfully build it. The ..\rabbitmq-dotnet-client-2.7.1\projects\wcf\RabbitMQ.ServiceModel\obj\Debug\RabbitMQ.ServiceModel.dll was created. This dll together with the RabbitMQ.Client.dll are the assemblies used by the RabbitMQ clients.

Set up the RabbitMQ binding extension

Here I really lost a lot of time. It is easy for the C# clients; the RabbitMQ.ServiceModel.Test gives all the information. But we have to use this binding from the WCF-Custom LOB adapter. To do so we have to add the assemblies to GAC, change machine.config, etc. See the WCF LOP Adapter documentation.

Sign the RabbitMQ.ServiceModel and RabbitMQ.Client projects and GAC-ed them.
Insert an <add> node into the config section of machine.config:

<extensions>
      <bindingExtensions>
        …
        <add name="RabbitMQBinding"
          type="RabbitMQ.ServiceModel.RabbitMQBindingSection, RabbitMQ.ServiceModel, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral,   PublicKeyToken=1751e286f1ab778d"/>
      </bindingExtensions>
    </extensions>

Note:

When the binding extension assembly is placed in GAC, we cannot use the above section in the app.config file! This <add> element should be placed only into the machine.config file. Otherwise it cannot be seen in the binding extension list of the WCF LOB Adapter.
Use >Gacutil.exe /l RabbitMQ.ServiceModel
to get the real parameters for your assembly.
I have several machine.config files in folders:

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\CONFIG
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\Config
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\CONFIG
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\Config

Which one to use? My VM is 64bit. BizTalk Host of the port is 32bit. BizTalk is the 2010 version. In my case the right file was the C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\Config\machine.config.

Finally the RabbitMQ binding installed and we can see it in the Binding Type list for WCF-Custom adapter.

Testing

Creating the BizTalk test

I have created two pairs of port for testing.

File RP -> WCF-Custom (RabbitMQ) SP ->

[RabbitMQ Server]

-> WCF-Custom (RabbitMQ RP) -> File RP

I’ve changed only two parameters: “hostname” and “oneWay” and let others be default:

URL-s for the Send and Receive RabbitMQ Ports set up as “soap.amqp://192.168.11.128/Mytest” for both of them.

Let’s test it.

Small text file was dropped into In folder, consumed by Receive Port, went through the RabbitMQ queue, and appeared in Out folder. Success.

Note:

Now the RabbitMQ binding is set up to process only well-formed Xml documents.
“localhost” as “hostname” works fine.

Using the RabbitMQ Binding Element

The RabbitMQ binding is limited to the Text messaging encoding. If we need to change it or add more binding extensions, we have to use the customBinding type and use the rabbitMQBindingElement together with another element (including another encoding). How to do this?

1. Add the <add> node to the machine.config:

<bindingElementExtensions>
…
<add name="rabbitMQBindingElement" type="RabbitMQ.ServiceModel.RabbitMQTransportElement, RabbitMQ.ServiceModel, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=1751e286f1ab778d"/>
</bindingElementExtensions>

2. Change the Receive Location transport parameters. It was the RabbitMQBinding. Change it to the customBinding. The Transport Binding Element has to be changed to the rabbitMQBindingElement. I changed only one parameter: hostname as “localhost”.

3. Test it as previously.

Conclusion

Using RabbitMQ as one more transport for BizTalk and/or WCF applications is possible and straightforward. The learning curve is short. There are not too many issues with setting up the RabbitMQ Service and Client parts. Actually there isn’t any RabbitMQ side which is exposed to the BizTalk directly. RabbitMQ works only with WCF-Custom adapter and only this adapter communicates with RabbitMQ Service.
Now the RabbitMQ implements limited client functionality for the WCF. RabbitMQ implements the version 9 of the AMQP protocol, not the last 1 version.

Next steps

Next steps are to test this solution with different messaging patterns and try to figure out how to use RabbitMQ advantages (if there are some) over the MSMQ. Potentially the advantages are the simplest implementation of the Request/Response and Duplex patterns, better scalability, better performance, better manageability and support.

BizTalk and WCF adapters: Operation and SOAP Action

Leonid Ganeline — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 22:53:19 GMT

One area here is not so well documented.

When we are filling in the Transport properties for WCF adapter, we see the SOAP Action header section.

What is it? Where we could take the values for Operations and Actions?

If we use the Consume WCF Service wizard, this section is filled up automatically. But sometimes we have to fill it in manually.

Open a WSDL for the Web-service and search for a binding section. If you add the “?wsdl” to the Web-service URL, usually the Web-service WSDL is opened.

That’s how operations and actions in the WCF parameters and WSDL are mapping:

Hope it helps.

WCF: Questions for studying and interview: Routing Service

Leonid Ganeline — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 01:54:34 GMT

This article is a Part 5 of the Interview Questions series.

Part 1: BizTalk: Questions for interview without answers
Part 2: BizTalk: Interview questions and principles
Part 3: WCF: Questions for studying and interview
Part 4: WCF: Questions for studying and interview: Discovery
Part 5: WCF: Questions for studying and interview: Routing Service
Part 6: BizTalk: Advanced Questions

WCF, Routing Service

Q&A

• What are the features of the Routing Service (RS): Protocol bridging; Message transformation; Content-based routing; Application pools; Dynamic configuration; SOAP processing; Service hosting; Error handling; Backup endpoints?
• Which routing scenarios can RS implement: Service aggregation; Interface recomposition; Service versioning; Service chain; Priority routing?
• Is it possible to modify the routing configuration at run time?
• What is the RS doing if there is no match for a message routing?
• Can we route to the mix of the one-way and two-way destination endpoints using a single service endpoint?
• Do we have to create the implementation of the RS as a .NET class or an .svc file with “Service="System.ServiceModel.Routing.RoutingService, …” plus a configuration file is enough?
• What is it a SOAP processing? How it works?
• Can it convert messages between Soap 1.1/Soap 1.2/Soap 2.0 and/or WS-Addressing August 2004/WS-Addressing 1.0?
• What is it a Backup endpoint?
• What is the maximum number of the Backup endpoints?
• What is it a Protocol bridging?
• What is it a Content-based routing?
• How the Priority routing is working?
• How we can host the RS?
• Are there limits on using streaming for the RS? Where we have to buffer the messages?
• How we can expose mex endpoints of the original services through the RS?
• Can we use the RS as a load balancer?

WCF: Questions for studying and interview: Discovery

Leonid Ganeline — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 17:03:46 GMT

This article is a Part 4 of the Interview Questions series.

Q&A: WCF, Discovery

· When the WS-Discovery standard gets approval first time?

· Is the WS-Discovery using the XML format for messages?

· Is the WS-Discovery using the SOAP format for messages?

· What are the versions of the WS_Discovery protocol?

· What version is the default version?

· What is a difference between the Add-hoc and Managed modes? What are the Pro and Cons?

· Describe the message exchange sequences of the Discovery protocol.

· What are the message exchange sequences in the Add-hoc and Managed modes?

· Can the Add-hoc and Managed modes be switched dynamically?

· What messages are multicast and what are unicast?

· What is the Discovery Proxy service?

· It there a default Discovery Proxy service?

· What is the difference between the Probe and Resolve requests?

· What are the response messages for the Probe and Resolve requests?

· What are the response messages for the Probe and Resolve requests if there is no match?

· Who sends the announcement message, service or client?

· What announcement messages are used?

· Is announcement using a Special endpoint?

· Is announcement optional or mandatory?

· How to make a Web-hosted service discoverable? What two options do we have? How AppFabric or Discovery Proxy service is used to help with it?

· What is a FindCriteria class? What are the Search criteria?

· How long a client is waiting the results from the discovery request?

· What happens if a discovery request didn’t get you any service endpoint?

· Can we use different versions together on a single service host?

· What endpoints are used for the Discovery?

· What is a difference between the DiscoveryEndpoint and the DynamicEndpoint? Do we have to use a DynamicEndpoint with a DiscoveryClient?

· What Discovery endpoints are the system endpoints?

· How to make a custom endpoint discoverable?

· Why the UPD protocol is used for discovery? What pros and cons?

· How to use the Discovery Client Channel? What are alternatives?

· What are the pros and cons using the Discovery Client Channel?

· How to create a DiscoveryEndpoint on demand?

· Can you compare the WS-Discovery and the UDDI?

BizTalk and SQL: Alternatives to the SQL receive adapter. Using Msmq to receive SQL data

Leonid Ganeline — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 03:23:40 GMT

If we have to get data from the SQL database, the standard way is to use a receive port with SQL adapter.

SQL receive adapter is a solicit-response adapter. It periodically polls the SQL database with queries. That’s only way it can work. Sometimes it is undesirable. With new WCF-SQL adapter we can use the lightweight approach but still with the same principle, the WCF-SQL adapter periodically solicits the database with queries to check for the new records.

Imagine the situation when the new records can appear in very broad time limits, some - in a second interval, others - in the several minutes interval. Our requirement is to process the new records ASAP. That means the polling interval should be near the shortest interval between the new records, a second interval. As a result the most of the poll queries would return nothing and would load the database without good reason. If the database is working under heavy payload, it is very undesirable.

Do we have other choices? Sure. We can change the polling to the “eventing”.

The good news is the SQL server could issue the event in case of new records with triggers. Got a new record –the trigger event is fired. No new records – no the trigger events – no excessive load to the database.

The bad news is the SQL Server doesn’t have intrinsic methods to send the event data outside. For example, we would rather use the adapters that do listen for the data and do not solicit. There are several such adapters-listeners as File, Ftp, SOAP, WCF, and Msmq. But the SQL Server doesn’t have methods to create and save files, to consume the Web-services, to create and send messages in the queue, does it?

Can we use the File, FTP, Msmq, WCF adapters to get data from SQL code?

Yes, we can. The SQL Server 2005 and 2008 have the possibility to use .NET code inside SQL code. See the SQL Integration.

How it works for the Msmq, for example:

· New record is created, trigger is fired

· Trigger calls the CLR stored procedure and passes the message parameters to it

· The CLR stored procedure creates message and sends it to the outgoing queue in the SQL Server computer.

· Msmq service transfers message to the queue in the BizTalk Server computer.

· WCF-NetMsmq adapter receives the message from this queue.

For the File adapter the idea is the same, the CLR stored procedure creates and stores the file with message, and then the File adapter picks up this file.

Using WCF-NetMsmq adapter to get data from SQL

I am describing the full set of the deployment and development steps for the case with the WCF-NetMsmq adapter.

Development:

1. Create the .NET code: project, class and method to create and send the message to the MSMQ queue.

2. Create the SQL code in triggers to call the .NET code.

Installation and Deployment:

1. SQL Server:

a. Register the CLR assembly with .NET (CLR) code

b. Install the MSMQ Services

2. BizTalk Server:

a. Install the MSMQ Services

b. Create the MSMQ queue

c. Create the WCF-NetMsmq receive port.

The detailed description is below.

Code

.NET code

…

using System.Xml;

using System.Xml.Linq;

using System.Xml.Serialization;

//namespace MyCompany.MySolution.MyProject – doesn’t work. The assembly name is MyCompany.MySolution.MyProject

// I gave up with the compound namespace. Seems the CLR Integration cannot work with it L. Maybe I’m wrong.

public class Event

{

static public XElement CreateMsg(int par1, int par2, int par3)

{

XNamespace ns = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/Sql/2008/05/TypedPolling/my_storedProc";

XElement xdoc =

new XElement(ns + "TypedPolling",

new XElement(ns + "TypedPollingResultSet0",

new XElement(ns + "par1", par1),

new XElement(ns + "par2", par2),

new XElement(ns + "par3", par3),

)

);

return xdoc;

}

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

…

using System.ServiceModel;

using System.ServiceModel.Channels;

using System.Transactions;

using System.Data;

using System.Data.Sql;

using System.Data.SqlTypes;

public class MsmqHelper

{

[Microsoft.SqlServer.Server.SqlProcedure]

// msmqAddress as "net.msmq://localhost/private/myapp.myqueue";

public static void SendMsg(string msmqAddress, string action, int par1, int par2, int par3)

{

using (TransactionScope scope = new TransactionScope(TransactionScopeOption.Suppress))

{

NetMsmqBinding binding = new NetMsmqBinding(NetMsmqSecurityMode.None);

binding.ExactlyOnce = true;

EndpointAddress address = new EndpointAddress(msmqAddress);

using (ChannelFactory<IOutputChannel> factory = new ChannelFactory<IOutputChannel>(binding, address))

{

IOutputChannel channel = factory.CreateChannel();

try

{

XElement xe = Event.CreateMsg(par1, par2, par3);

XmlReader xr = xe.CreateReader();

Message msg = Message.CreateMessage(MessageVersion.Default, action, xr);

channel.Send(msg);

//SqlContext.Pipe.Send(…); // to test

}

catch (Exception ex)

{

…

}

scope.Complete();

}

SQL code in triggers

-- sp_SendMsg was registered as a name of the MsmqHelper.SendMsg()
EXEC sp_SendMsg'net.msmq://biztalk_server_name/private/myapp.myqueue', 'Create', @par1, @par2, @par3

Installation and Deployment

On the SQL Server

Registering the CLR assembly

1. Prerequisites: .NET 3.5 SP1 Framework. It could be the issue for the production SQL Server!

2. For more information, please, see the link http://nielsb.wordpress.com/sqlclrwcf/

3. Copy files:
>copy “\Windows\Microsoft.net\Framework\v3.0\Windows Communication Foundation\Microsoft.Transactions.Bridge.dll” “\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\v3.0 \Microsoft.Transactions.Bridge.dll”
If your machine is a 64-bit, run two commands:
>copy “\Windows\Microsoft.net\Framework\v3.0\Windows Communication Foundation\Microsoft.Transactions.Bridge.dll” “\Program Files (x86)\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\v3.0 \Microsoft.Transactions.Bridge.dll”
>copy “\Windows\Microsoft.net\Framework64\v3.0\Windows Communication Foundation\Microsoft.Transactions.Bridge.dll” “\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\v3.0 \Microsoft.Transactions.Bridge.dll”

4. Execute the SQL code to register the .NET assemblies:

-- For x64 OS:

CREATE ASSEMBLY SMdiagnostics AUTHORIZATION dbo FROM 'C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.0\Windows Communication Foundation\SMdiagnostics.dll' WITH permission_set = unsafe

CREATE ASSEMBLY [System.Web] AUTHORIZATION dbo FROM 'C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\System.Web.dll' WITH permission_set = unsafe

CREATE ASSEMBLY [System.Messaging] AUTHORIZATION dbo FROM 'C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\System.Messaging.dll' WITH permission_set = unsafe

CREATE ASSEMBLY [System.ServiceModel] AUTHORIZATION dbo FROM 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\v3.0\System.ServiceModel.dll' WITH permission_set = unsafe

CREATE ASSEMBLY [System.Xml.Linq] AUTHORIZATION dbo FROM 'C:\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\v3.5\System.Xml.Linq.dll' WITH permission_set = unsafe

-- For x32 OS:

--CREATE ASSEMBLY SMdiagnostics AUTHORIZATION dbo FROM 'C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.0\Windows Communication Foundation\SMdiagnostics.dll' WITH permission_set = unsafe

--CREATE ASSEMBLY [System.Web] AUTHORIZATION dbo FROM 'C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\System.Web.dll' WITH permission_set = unsafe

--CREATE ASSEMBLY [System.Messaging] AUTHORIZATION dbo FROM 'C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\System.Messaging.dll' WITH permission_set = unsafe

--CREATE ASSEMBLY [System.ServiceModel] AUTHORIZATION dbo FROM 'C:\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\v3.0\System.ServiceModel.dll' WITH permission_set = unsafe

5. Register the assembly with the external stored procedure:

CREATE ASSEMBLY [HelperClass] AUTHORIZATION dbo FROM ’<FilePath>MyCompany.MySolution.MyProject.dll' WITH permission_set = unsafe
where the <FilePath> - the path of the file on this machine!

6. Create the external stored procedure
CREATE PROCEDURE sp_SendMsg

(

@msmqAddress nvarchar(100),

@Action NVARCHAR(50),

@par1 int,

@par2 int,

@par3 int

)

AS EXTERNAL NAME HelperClear.MsmqHelper.SendMsg

Installing the MSMQ Services

1. Check if the MSMQ service is NOT installed.
To check:
Start / Administrative Tools / Computer Management,
on the left pane open the “Services and Applications”,
search to the “Message Queuing”. If you cannot see it, follow next steps.

2. Start / Control Panel / Programs and Features

3. Click “Turn Windows Features on or off”

4. Click Features, click “Add Features”

5. Scroll down the feature list; open the “Message Queuing” / “Message Queuing Services”; and check the “Message Queuing Server” option

6. Click Next; Click Install; wait to the successful finish of the installation

Creating the MSMQ queue

We don’t need to create the queue on the “sender” side.

On the BizTalk Server

Installing the MSMQ Services

The same is as for the SQL Server.

Creating the MSMQ queue

1. Start / Administrative Tools / Computer Management,
on the left pane open the “Services and Applications”,
open the “Message Queuing”, and open the “Private Queues”.

2. Right-click the “Private Queues”; choose New; choose “Private Queue”.

3. Type the Queue name as ’myapp.myqueue'; check the “Transactional” option.

Creating the WCF-NetMsmq receive port

I will not go through this step in all details. It is straightforward.
URI for this receive location should be 'net.msmq://localhost/private/myapp.myqueue'.

Notes

· The biggest problem is usually on the step the “Registering the CLR assembly”. It is hard to predict where are the assemblies from the assembly list, what version should be used, x86 or x64. It is pity of such “rude” integration of the SQL with .NET.

· In couple cases the new WCF-NetMsmq port was not able to work with the queue. Try to replace the WCF- NetMsmq port with the WCF-Custom port with netMsmqBinding. It was working fine for me.

· To test how messages go through the queue you can turn on the Journal /Enabled option for the queue. I used the QueueExplorer utility to look to the messages in Journal. The Computer Management can also show the messages but it shows only small part of the message body and in the weird format. The QueueExplorer can do the better job; it shows the whole body and Xml messages are in good color format.

MVP Global Summit 2010. Pictures

Leonid Ganeline — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 17:23:02 GMT

It was a long ago.

Smart guys from all across the world were in one place, at Microsoft campus.

There are pictrures from the MVP (Microsoft Most Valuable Professional) Summit 2010 in Bellevue and Redmond, WA.

All pictures are here:

http://public.fotki.com/leogan/cities_and_countries/usa/2010_mvp_summit/

Here are mostly BizTalk and CSD MVPs.

See list of BizTalk MVP here https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/communities/mvp.aspx?product=1&competency=BizTalk

list of the Connected System Developer MVP -
https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/communities/mvp.aspx?product=1&competency=Connected+System+Developer

UDDI standard is a niche technology. Why?

Leonid Ganeline — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 23:35:13 GMT

New standard the UDDI was announced several years ago [see the history in Wikipedia]. The UDDI future was promising. I was sure for that. I thought, the future is for Web-services [WS], and it is. Isn’t that mean, we need services to search Web-services in internet, some Registries/Catalogs of the Web-services?

How we could find the WS in internet? Google Search was not effective in this; it is still not effective now. By any means, the UDDI idea should win; all WS-s should work with UDDI Registers. There was no way to live without UDDI. WS-s should be everywhere and to find the right one we should use the UDDI. We thought so.

The big companies started to invest in UDDI: IBM, Microsoft, SAP, and more. Smart people were writing UDDI standard, developers were writing UDDI systems. Big companies announced about public UDDI Registers in internet. Future was without clouds.

What happens after this? Several years ago Microsoft, IBM closed they UDDI Registers in internet. Now there aren’t big public UDDI Registers. We have some but they are miserable. Seems, nobody wants to publish the WS-s in these Registers.

Why the UDDI Registers are not popular as Google or Yahoo Search?
This all resembles to me the “pre-google” days, while each new site must be “promoted” into the search engines. We could register a new site in some engines without problems, in some engines only with payment or registration. Then the Google was born. Google is gathering new sites by itself and automatically included them to the Google register. Explicit procedures were changed to implicit, automatic procedures.

Maybe the same was happened with the Registers for WS-s?

But what was happened, the most of the WS-s did not want to be “promoted”. Most of the WS-s are created for the limited user audience. Those users know all information about the WS, its address, its meta-information (Wsdl, Wsd-s, bindings, etc.). Moreover it is unlikely anybody outside of the circle of the trusted users could access this information.
There were other reasons that let the UDDI standard go down.
One of the reasons was the standard itself. It was not simple, nor clear, nor easy to use standard. Creators make it all-embracing (maybe creators thought so) and designed in smallest details, big and clumsy. It was popular in these years creating internet standards in such fashion; include in standards all and everything. Standards of those years were set apart as monolithic and huge. Standards tended to include all knowledge of specific area. Of course, they were not as large as monster-standards like EDI or HL7. But they were not as laconic and segmented as modern standards (for example, the family of the WS-* standards).

But the most negative factor was the fact the UDDI was substituted by other more advanced technologies. Now most of the Web-services show the meta-information on the predefined URL. All Wsdl-s, Xsd-s, and bindings are placed together with Web-service not in specialized Registers. In this way the Web-service makes itself independent, self-describing. User didn’t have to search the WS meta-information somewhere else. Users need to know only the URI (address) of the WS. It is not wise to use UDDI Registers to store only addresses. UDDI Registers are too complex, too overloaded with unused functionality for this simple task.

As a result the UDDI standard and UDDI services are now used only in small, narrow areas. For example, the UDDI service is used in the Microsoft BizTalk Server (see ESB Toolkit 2.0). Web-service Register has to be in the ESB, because the whole idea of ESB is based on principle, that user is publishing messages in ESB and the Bus knows what services should process the messages, knows all addresses, knows all format transformations.

But if we are returning to the generic case of the Web-service, all we need to know is the address of this WS.

UDDI let us find the WS by key words as it is in the Yahoo Directories. It happens this feature is not a user requirement at all.

The UDDI standard in the niche standard not universal so far.

—————————————-
Links:
[UDDI. Official site]
[Why are IBM, Microsoft and SAP discontinuing the operation of the UDDI Business Registry]
[UDDI in Microsoft]
[BizTalk. ESB Toolkit 2.0. UDDI in BizTalk]

Book “SOA Patterns with BizTalk Server 2009” by Richard Seroter, review

Leonid Ganeline — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 01:10:57 GMT

Book “SOA Patterns with BizTalk Server 2009” by Richard Seroter, review

Here is a page from publisher ([PACKT] Publishing) http://www.packtpub.com/soa-patterns-with-biztalk-server-2009/book

Questions:

Who is the reader of this book? What is the knowledge and experience level of the reader? How good is the book structure?

I think the reader should be a seasoned BizTalk developer. It is not for an entry level developer.

This book is for architects, but for architects with wealthy knowledge of the BizTalk. I would suggest it for a senior BizTalk developers, which is equal to an Integration Architect title.

You can read the first three and the last four chapters of this book only for a quick review of your knowledge.

I highly recommended the chapters from 4th to 7th. They are from Richards’s wealthy experience. They are the heart and soul of the book. I would like to see much more such interesting things, maybe in next edition of this book?

Is it about BizTalk 2009 or about BizTalk?

Chapters from 9th to 12th are about BizTalk 2009 features and tools. Other chapters are more common and do not depend on the last version. They are more than that, better than that.

Is it about SOA Patterns?

Yes, it is.

Is it the “recipe” book?

The book contains a few good recipes, but indeed it is not a recipe book.

Is it the button-to-button book?

No, luckily it is not.

How is the book covering the topics?

Chapter	Audience	Level (1-5)	Grade (1-5)
Chapter 1: Building BizTalk Server 2009 Applications	Architect Developer	3 1	3 1
Chapter 2: Windows Communication Foundation Primer	Developer	1	1
Chapter 3: Using WCF Services in BizTalk Server 2009	Developer	3	3
Chapter 4: Planning Service-Oriented BizTalk	Architect	3	4
Chapter 5: Schema and Endpoint Patterns	Developer, Architect	3	5
Chapter 6: Asynchronous Communication Patterns	Developer	4	5
Chapter 7: Orchestration Patterns	Developer, Architect	5 3	4 4
Chapter 8: Versioning	Developer	3	3
Chapter 9: New SOA Capabilities in BizTalk Server 2009: WCF SQL Server Adapter	Developer	3	3
Chapter 10: New SOA Capabilities in BizTalk Server 2009: UDDI Services	Developer	3	2
Chapter 11: New SOA Capabilities in BizTalk Server 2009: ESB Guidance 2	Developer	3	3
Chapter 12: What's Next

Where Level:

1 – developers with entry level knowledge of BizTalk and no working experience

2 – developers with entry level knowledge of BizTalk and small working experience

3 – developers with fair level knowledge of BizTalk and fair working experience

4 – developers with expert level knowledge of BizTalk and fair working experience

5 – developers with expert level knowledge of BizTalk and expert working experience

I have to say, that several parts of this book “must be read” by every BizTalk developer. I insist these parts MUST be an essential part of the BizTalk Documentation from the early start and it is a shame of Microsoft these chapters are not included in the BizTalk Documentation. For example, the Schema Patterns, Chapter 5, how could developers work with Web-services without basic knowledge about basic principles of serializing schemas to .NET classes?

Sometimes author jumps from really interesting discussions about patterns to examples of how to implement it in “too much details” fashion.

When I ticked on the chapters with 2 or 1 grade, I thought “I cannot find any reason to include this chapter in the book. Here Richard presents only the general information but nothing from his experience. Geners description and general examples, but I would prefer to know the expert opinions, expert arguments, expert views, expert pros and cons.” I understand why these chapters are in the book. However, I strongly believe that the book worth reading if the author express his/her opinions in the text.

For Chapter 11 about ESB I would suggest to see the webcast by Richard Seroter “A look at the ESB Toolkit 2.0 in BizTalk Server 2009” http://cloudtv.cloudapp.net/ViewWebcast.aspx?webcastid=2521553277324634479. It is kind of the up-to-date version of this Chapter.

Conclusion

Pros:

“SOA Patterns with BizTalk Server 2009” book contains several very interesting topics.

Book contains an expert point of view.

Book also covers several useful SOA patterns implemented in/with BizTalk Server.

The best part of the book is not only about “how” but about “why” as well.

Cons:

Apparently, the author includes some chapters just to pad the book. But the usable volume is still more than a half. This is good proportion. Yes, it is a good proportion. Usually books of this kind have smaller “performance index”.

Conclusion

This book would be very helpful for the Integration Architects and BizTalk Developers.

Author is one of the most respectful BizTalk experts in the world and his point of view is always interesting.

Must have for every BizTalk Developer.

Highly Recommended

BizTalk WCF-BasicHttp adapter issue with http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema namespace

Leonid Ganeline — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 04:31:51 GMT

BizTalk WCF-BasicHttp adapter issue with http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema namespace

I am using the WCF-BasicHttp adapter to consume outer Web-service and getting the error (actually if I have retry>0, I am getting Warning first. See below:

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: BizTalk Server 2006
Event Category: BizTalk Server 2006
Event ID: 5743
Date:  ...
Time:  ...
User:  ...
Computer: ...
Description:
The adapter failed to transmit message going to send port "..." with URL "...". It will be retransmitted after the retry interval specified for this Send Port. Details:"Unable to read the stream produced by the pipeline.
Details: The value 'd:date' is invalid according to its schema type 'http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema:QName' - 'd' is an undeclared namespace. ".
...

or (After retry the previous message the retry limit for this port)

Event Type: Error
Event Source: BizTalk Server 2006
Event Category: BizTalk Server 2006
Event ID: 5754
Date:  ...
Time:  ...
User:  ...
Computer: ...
Description:
A message sent to adapter "FILE" on send port "..." with URI "..." is suspended.
Error details: Unable to read the stream produced by the pipeline.
Details: The value 'd:date' is invalid according to its schema type 'http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema:QName' - 'd' is an undeclared namespace.
MessageId: ...
InstanceID: ...
...

Very srange. When I tried the same Web-service with SoapUi, the result of the verification of the Response message is similar.

line 8: Invalid xsi:type qname: 'd:string' in element ...@http://...

What is wrong with response message?

Response Message:

<e:Envelope xmlns:d="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:wn1="..." xmlns:wn2="..." xmlns:wn0="..." xmlns:e="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
   <e:Body>
      <wn2:ActionResponse>
         <wn2:MyResponse i:type="wn2:MyResponseType">
            <wn2:Detail i:nil="true"/>
            <wn2:MyMsg i:type="wn2:ArrayOfMyMsgType">
               <wn2:MyMsgType i:type="wn2:MyMsgType">
                  <wn2:MsgDescriptionText i:type="d:string">...</wn2:MsgDescriptionText>
                  <wn2:MsgIdentificationID i:type="d:string">...</wn2:MsgIdentificationID>
                  <wn2:MsgSeverityLevelCode i:type="wn2:MsgSeverityLevelType">...</wn2:MsgSeverityLevelCode>
                  <wn2:MsgSourceText i:nil="true"/>
               </wn2:MyMsgType>
            </wn2:MyMsg>
         </wn2:MyResponse>
      </wn2:ActionResponse>
   </e:Body>
</e:Envelope>

Investigation discovered that the issue is in the namespace prefix "d". If I change it to the "xsd", the error disappeared.

Questions:

How to work around this?
Is it the error in the response message?
Is it an error in the WCF-BasicHttp adapter?

How to work around this issue?
I changed the WCF-BasicHttp port for the old SOAP port and SOAP port works fine.

Is it the error in the response message?
I didn't find any limits for the "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" namespace and for prefixes for it. The only limit is "don't use the prefixes, started with 'xml' letters". It is the common practice to use "xsd" prefix for the "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" namespace. But it is not the rule.
Seems the WCF-BasicHttp adapter is "too smart".

Is it an error in the WCF-BasicHttp adapter?
possible...

Review "MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-503): Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Windows Communication Foundation (PRO-Certification)"

Leonid Ganeline — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 21:58:00 GMT

Review "MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-503): Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Windows Communication Foundation (PRO-Certification)"

http://www.amazon.com/MCTS-Self-Paced-Training-70-503-PRO-Certification/dp/0735625654/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224042536&sr=8-12

I like this series of books (SPTK - Self-Paced Training Kit) because the short theory here is always ended with real world examples. And these examples shows how the product is used in the real situations, to solve the real problems. It is like the prioritization of the functionality.

In the WCF documentation on the MSDN there is no such prioritization, great list of the features is here and no clue what are the main features and what are the secondary, additional features.

In the SPTK books there are no place to all features, the goals of these books are different. There are only the main features and steps how they are used to get the real result. For example, the part about MessageContract. A lot of information are in the MSDN, but it is realy hard to understand what the purpose of the MessageContract is. The real world example is shown in this book, how to use the MessageContract to transmit the license key to the client. Short example gives us the understanding of this artifact.

I am working with Web-services more then 4 years, and last year mostly with WCF-services. I was using this book to review my knowledge to make it more systematic. I didn't use this book to prepare for exam ( See discussion about the sertification exams here http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3280207&SiteID=1 )

I use every information source to *understand* what is going on inside the product, why these features were included in the product, what alternatives were and are. Why so? Knowledge does not stucked in my brain without answers to this questions. I could not study the product in the *button-by-button* style as monkey.

I have to know *why*.

Teaching technics usualy use the patterns how the product should not be used, the samples of the improper practice. Usualy it is hard to teach proper technics without list the improper practices. Sometimes one sample of the wrongdoing is worth dozens samples of welldoing.

How does this series of books the SPTK is different from oother books published by Microsoft?

Here are only described the *main* product features. These features were selected by Microsoft itself and it works as a unofficial priotirizing. It is very important.
Here we see the *real world* problems and ways to resolve them with help of the main product features.
In these books are the concisely description (and sometimes the history) what was the *source of these features*.
Here we could see the samples of the *improper practice*, how the product should not be used.

Pros:

This book is the Microsoft vision of what is the intend of the WCF, how the WCF should be used.
The concise information about WCF is concentrated in the *Lessons*. The real world samples are placed near it. These samples are also concentrated on the main things.
I very like the *Lesson Summary* parts. These lists are the lists of the *prime features* of the WCF.

Cons:

Sometimes the book gives us the method in the samples that are obsolete. Say, the generation of the classes from XSD with XSD.exe utility. Several generation of the Software Factory could make this and SvcUtil.exe so.
Sometimes the description are not perfect. I have feeling that authors did not squeeze out the whole information from the BizTalk team :) and this is not surprize me because of the huge WCF feature pool. (For instance, we are asked on page.66 to comment attribute the [XmlSerializerFormat...] and regenerate scheams again, then make sure these schemas are going to get big differences from the default schemas. All these exisises with regenerating are useless without detailed explanations.)

Conclusion:

I know several good sources of the information about WCF for deep studing.

Samples in .NET SDK
The Book "Programming .NET Components", 2nd Edition by Juval Lowy
MSND forums (http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/wcf/threads/ )

- and this book is good addition to this list.

I mark this book with 5 stars.

It has flaws, but benefits of using it as a fast and reliable source to study WCF are great.

Best regards!