Exposing JSON/REST endpoints from BizTalk

by community-syndication | Mar 7, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Solutions for consuming REST services from BizTalk has been around for a while, and Jon Flanders has an excellent post about it.  However, very little has been told about exposing REST endpoints, and even less using JSON. If you don’t know about JSON, it’s a lightweight data format, commonly used by JavaScript and JQuery. Part from being less verbose then XML, it can be parsed to a object on the client which makes it easier to navigate (as oppose to using XPath). This can come to good rescue for UI devs who apparently don’t understand XPath 😉

I haven’t yet been in a situation where I’ve had to expose REST/JSON endpoints from BizTalk, but as Kent Weare was being hackled by Bil Simser (MS Word MVP), I was eager to help out.

I begun by creating a custom WCF MessageInspector. My plan was to parse the incoming JSON message to an XML message, and also to change the HTTP verb from GET to POST if the client sent a GET request (BizTalk requires POST). As it turns out, the HTTP verb/Method, can not be changed in the IDispatchMessageInspector. If it was to be changed it would have to be earlier in the channel stack.

Prior to the MessageInspector is the OperationSelector, so I went on creating one implementing the IDispatchOperationSelector interface. After moving the logic from the inspector to the SelectOperation method in the OperationSelector, I ran into a new problem. The method was never called. It seems BizTalk is adding it’s own OperationSelector through its HostFactory. As I wanted to host the Receive Location in a In-Process host (no IIS), making my own HosFactorythis wouldn’t work either

I was forced to dig even deeper in the WCF channel stack. Next step was a custom Encoder. Luckily I found a sample in the SDK which was pretty easy to use. The only problem was I couldn’t access the HTTP verb. However after all this, I was willing to accept this trade-off.

Next up was the serialization and deserialization of JSON. Bil Simser pointed me to the JSON.Net project on codeplex, which made it very easy:

XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.LoadXml(xmlString);

string jsonString = JsonConvert.SerializeXmlNode(doc, Newtonsoft.Json.Formatting.None, true);

How to use the sample:

1. Download the sample here
2. Either run the bLogical.JsonXmlMessageEncoder.Setup.msi or build and add the bLogical.JsonXmlMessageEncoder to the global assembly cache (GAC).
3. Open BizTalk Administration Console. Browse to Adapters and right-click the WCF-Custom Receive Handler. Select Properties.
4. Click the Import button, and select the WcfExtensions.config file found in the project.
5. Deploy the FortisAlberta project to BizTalk.
6. Import the FortisAlberta.BindingInfo.xml to the FortisAlberta Application
7. Start the FortisAlberta Application.
8. Run the WebApplication1 project, and submit an OutageReport.

How to configure a Receive Location manually

1. Add a Request/Response Receive Port and Location.
2. Set the transport to WCF-Custom (no need to host it in IIS).
3. Set the binding to customBinding, and remove the existing binding elements.
4. Add the "jsonXmlMessageEncoder" and the "http transport" extensions.
5. Enable the port.
6. You can use the XmlToJSONConverter that comes with the project to generate the expected JSON format from an XML instance, or use any of the online conversion sites like this one.

How to call the service

<script type="text/javascript">

    jQuery.support.cors = true;
    var jsonRequest = '{"Tweet":{"Author":"wmmihaa","Text":"BizTalk Rock!"}}';

    function ReportOutage() {
        $.ajax({
            type: 'POST',
            url: http://yourdomain.com/submitTweet,
            data: jsonRequest,
            contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
            dataType: "json",
            success: function (msg) {
                alert(msg);
            },
            error: function (xhr, ajaxOptions, thrownError) {
                alert('error: ' + thrownError);
            }
        });
    }
</script>

Please not the JSON above:

“{"Tweet":{"Author":"wmmihaa","Text":"XML Rocks!"}}”. This is going to be translated to:

<Tweet><Author>wmmihaa</Author><Text>XML Rocks!</Text></Tweet>

As there are no namespace, you’d need to add one in the receive pipeline. Alternatively, you could add the namespace in JSON:

{"ns0:Tweet":{"@xmlns:ns0":"http://yourns.Tweet","Author":"wmmihaa","Text":"XML Rocks!"}}

Which would come out as:

<ns0:Tweet xmlns:ns0="http://yourns.Tweet">
  <Author>wmmihaa</Author>
  <Text>XML Rocks!</Text>
</ns0:Tweet>

How to call the service without using parameters

function ReportOutage() {
    $.ajax({
        type: 'POST',
        url: "http://yourdomain.com/submitTweet",
        data: '{}', // empty parameter
        contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
        dataType: "json",
        success: function (msg) {
            alert(msg);
        },
        error: function (xhr, ajaxOptions, thrownError) {
            alert('error: ' + thrownError);
        }
    });

Empty parameters are casted to a message that looks like this: <EmptyJsonMessage/>. As you won’t have an equivalent schema in BizTalk, you can’t parse it using an XmlReceive pipeline. If you want to process the message in an orchestration, you’d need to set the message type of the incoming message to System.Xml.XmlDocument.

Restrictions

1. Does not support HTTP GET.
2. Does not support Uri parameters, Eg. http://server/Customers?id=16.
3. The encoder supports both XML and JSON, but not both. It will be restricted to the media type set on the encoder.
4. In this sample the response can not be handled in a streaming manner. If the size of the response message is bigger then what is read from the client, this is likely to cause a problem. I haven’t experienced this myself, but if you get into this problem, contact me and I’ll look into it.

HTH    

Blog Post by: wmmihaa

SAP calling RFC hosted in BizTalk

by community-syndication | Mar 6, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

If you have been following this blog you have most likely encountered a few blog posts related to SAP integration.  I also wrote two chapters related to SAP integration in a BizTalk book last year.  In all of the journeys that I have taken with SAP, not once have I encountered a situation were I needed to receive a request from SAP that required a synchronous response.  All of my previous experience required asynchronous messaging with SAP when receiving data from SAP.  We now have a scenario that requires SAP to send BizTalk a “fetch” request and BizTalk needs to provide this information in near real-time.  What was very interesting about this scenario many people within our organization didn’t think, or know it was possible.  I guess it was tough for some to wrap their head around the concept of SAP actually needing information from another system since it tends to be a System of Record.

SAPRFC.INI HUH???

A good starting point for this scenario is in the MSDN documentation.  Initially I thought it would be pretty straight forward and would resemble a situation where BizTalk receives an IDOC.  That was until I received an error similar to the one below indicating that an saprfc.ini file could not be found when enabling the SAP Receive Location.

Log Name:      Application
Source:        BizTalk Server
Date:          3/6/2012 7:12:53 PM
Event ID:      5644
Task Category: BizTalk Server
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      SERVER

Description:
The Messaging Engine failed to add a receive location "Receive Location2" with URL "sap://CLIENT=010;LANG=EN;@a/SAPSERVER/00?ListenerDest=ZRFCADD&ListenerGwServ=sapgw00&ListenerGwHost=SAPHOST&ListenerProgramId=Biztalk_Z_Add&RfcSdkTrace=False&AbapDebug=False" to the adapter "WCF-SAP". Reason: "Microsoft.Adapters.SAP.RFCException: Details: ErrorCode=RFC_OK. ErrorGroup=RFC_ERROR_SYSTEM_FAILURE. SapErrorMessage=Open file ‘C:\SAPINI\saprfc.ini’ failed: ‘No such file or directory’.  AdapterErrorMessage=Error accepting incoming connection. RfcAccept returned RFC_HANDLE_NULL..
 

This really confused me since I could successfully connect to SAP and receive IDOCs.  After some digging, I discovered the following webpage that indicated: “The RFC library will read the saprfc.ini file to find out the connection type and all RFC-specific parameters needed to connect to an SAP system, or to register an RFC server program at an SAP gateway and wait for RFC calls from any SAP system.”

So how do we solve this?

• The first thing that we need to do is to create a System Variable called RFC_INI.  We then need to provide a path and a filename.  For the purpose of my example I used C:\SAPINI\saprfc.ini.

• Next we need to add the contents to our saprfc.ini file.  The values that I needed to provide include:

So if we compare the details between our Receive Location and our saprfc.ini we will see symmetry between the two.  However, the values in the ini file take precedence.

• Now that we have have our SAPRFC.ini file and SAP Receive location in order we can run a connected client test using SM59.  To perform this test, launch the SM59 transaction and then expand the TCP/IP Connections node.

• Scroll through the list to find your RFC Destination.  In my case, I am looking for ZRFCADD.  Double click on this value.

• Click on the Connection Test button to execute the test.

• You should see a successful Connection Test.  If not, there is no point trying to call your RFC from SAP until you get this connection issue resolved.  If SAP can’t perform this “ping test” it won’t be able to actually send you data.  To troubleshoot this you will need to ensure that the values that you have in your receive location/ini file match the values that are defined in SM59.  In most cases you will need to rely upon your BASIS Buddy to help you out.  As I mentioned in my book, I do have a good BASIS buddy so this troubleshooting usually goes smoothly.

• With our connectivity issues out of the way, we can browse for our desired schemas using the BizTalk Consume Adapter Service Wizard and then add them to our solution.

• We can now build out the rest of our application.  In my case I have a very simple map that will add two values that occur in the request message and provide the sum in the response message.

• The only special consideration that we need to take care of is to set the WCF.Action in the Response message.  We can do this inside a Message Assignment shape.  If you don’t take care of this, you will receive a run time error.

sapResponse(WCF.Action) = "http://Microsoft.LobServices.Sap/2007/03/Rfc/ZISU_RFC_ADD/response";

We now are in a position to deploy our application and start receiving requests from SAP.

Conclusion

Overall the process was pretty similar to receiving IDOCs with the exception of the INI file and the WCF Action property requiring being populated.  Performance is similar to receiving or sending IDOCs so you won’t take any additional performance hits.

HADOOP, HIVE, ODBC, SSIS, SQL Azure, SQL Azure Reporting

by community-syndication | Mar 6, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

ALTER DATABASE demo MODIFY (MAXSIZE = 150 GB, EDITION=’business’)

(…)

(…)

js> #tail iislogsH/part-m-00998
731g2x183 2012-01-25 19:01:05 2012-01-25 19:22:11 16
872410056 a34175aac900ed11ea95205e6c600d461adafbac test1833g4x659 2012-01-27 13:23:31 2012-01-27 13:39:28 4
872410676 a34182f009cea37ad87eb07e5024b825b0057fff test1651hGx209 2012-01-28 18:05:45 2012-01-28 18:41:37 7
872411200 a341afd002814dcf39f9837558ada25410a96669 test2250g4x61 2012-01-27 01:04:45 2012-01-27 01:23:19 5
872412076 a341b71e15a5ba5776ed77a924ddaf49d89bab54 test4458gAx34 2012-02-02 19:00:07 2012-02-02 19:09:12 10
872412288 a341c30edf95dfd0c43a591046eea9eebf35106e test2486g4x352 2012-01-27 17:05:52 2012-01-27 17:27:54 2
872412715 a341cb284b21e10e60d895b360de9b570bee9444 test3126g2x205 2012-01-25 13:07:47 2012-01-25 13:49:20 4
872413239 a341cc54e95d23240c4dfc4455f6c8af2a621008 test0765g7x99 2012-01-30 00:08:04 2012-01-30 00:43:17 5
872414168 a341d37eb48ae06c66169076f48860b1a3628d49 test0885g4x227 2012-01-27 18:02:40 2012-01-27 18:11:12 11
872414800 a341d8762f0d7e1e70ced16ce10786ea50ef3ca7 test2471hHx165 2012-01-29 20:00:58 2012-01-29 20:40:24 6

js> #tail iislogsD/part-m-00998
9 a341d8762f0d7e1e70ced16ce10786ea50ef3ca7 20:40:24 /
872414323 a341d8762f0d7e1e70ced16ce10786ea50ef3ca7 20:07:49 /cuisine-francaise/huitres
872414402 a341d8762f0d7e1e70ced16ce10786ea50ef3ca7 20:00:58 /cuisine-francaise/gateau-au-chocolat-et-aux-framboises
872414510 a341d8762f0d7e1e70ced16ce10786ea50ef3ca7 20:29:52 /cuisine-francaise/gateau-au-chocolat-et-aux-framboises
872414618 a341d8762f0d7e1e70ced16ce10786ea50ef3ca7 20:39:51 /Users/Account/LogOff
872414692 a341d8762f0d7e1e70ced16ce10786ea50ef3ca7 20:09:52 /cuisine-francaise/gateau-au-chocolat-et-aux-framboises
872414900 a341db58e7be1b37828ed5591ba17c251c96a16a 03:00:23 /Modules/Orchard.Localization/Styles/orchard-localization-base.css
872415019 a341db58e7be1b37828ed5591ba17c251c96a16a 03:00:57 /Users/Account/LogOff
872415093 a341db58e7be1b37828ed5591ba17c251c96a16a 03:00:12 /Themes/Classic/Styles/Site.css
872415177 a341db58e7be1b37828ed5591ba17c251c96a16a 03:00:56 /
872415231 a341db58e7be1b37828ed5591ba17c251c96a16a 03:00:44 /Core/Shapes/scripts/html5.js

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE iisLogsHeader (rowID STRING, sessionID STRING, username STRING, startDateTime STRING, endDateTime STRING, nbUrls INT)
ROW FORMAT DELIMITED
    FIELDS TERMINATED BY ‘\t’
    LINES TERMINATED BY ‘\n’
STORED AS TEXTFILE
LOCATION ‘/user/cornac/iislogsH’

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE iisLogsDetail (rowID STRING, sessionID STRING, HitTime STRING, Url STRING)
ROW FORMAT DELIMITED
    FIELDS TERMINATED BY ‘\t’
    LINES TERMINATED BY ‘\n’
STORED AS TEXTFILE
LOCATION ‘/user/cornac/iislogsD’

SELECT * FROM iislogsheader LIMIT 20

SELECT * FROM iislogsdetail LIMIT 20

DROP TABLE [dbo].[iislogsheader]
GO

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[iislogsheader](
    [rowid] bigint IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
    [sessionid] [nvarchar](334) NULL,
    [username] [nvarchar](334) NULL,
    [startdatetime] [nvarchar](334) NULL,
    [enddatetime] [nvarchar](334) NULL,
    [nburls] [int] NULL,
PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED
(
    [rowid] ASC
)
)

DROP TABLE [dbo].[iislogsdetail]
GO

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[iislogsdetail](
    [rowid] bigint IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
    [sessionid] [nvarchar](334) NULL,
    [hittime] [nvarchar](334) NULL,
    [url] [nvarchar](334) NULL,
PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED
(
    [rowid] ASC
)
)

Related link | Lien connexe: Partager vos données via SQL Azure

Benjamin

Blog Post by: Benjamin GUINEBERTIERE

Create a SQL Azure database | Créer une base SQL Azure

by community-syndication | Mar 6, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Related link | Lien connexe: Partager vos données via SQL Azure

Benjamin

Blog Post by: Benjamin GUINEBERTIERE

Doing a Multi-Cloud Deployment of an ASP.NET Web Application

by community-syndication | Mar 6, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

The recent Azure outage once again highlighted the value in being able to run an application in multiple clouds so that a failure in one place doesn’t completely cripple you. While you may not run an application in multiple clouds simultaneously, it can be helpful to have a standby ready to go. That standby could […]
Blog Post by: Richard Seroter

New BizTalk Book Announced – (MCTS): Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010 (70-595) Certification Guide

by community-syndication | Mar 5, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Today I found out that the latest book that I have been contributing to is now available for pre-order.  I got involved with this project right around the time that my  last book was published.  Our editor on that book offered us the opportunity to work on this book.  Johan Hedberg, the lead author, was also extended this opportunity.  So after a moment of weakness, and perhaps a few beers on a boat ride in Stockholm, I agreed to get involved in this book as well.  Joining us on this adventure is Morten la Cour who lives in Denmark and also has a vast amount of BizTalk experience.

The book is a preparation guide for the latest BizTalk Server 2010 Certification.  In this book you will be provided with practical examples of the skills that will be measured on this exam.  In our book we do cover each of the areas that will be tested including:

• Configuring a Messaging Architecture
• Developing BizTalk Artifacts
• Debugging and Exception Handling
• Integrating Web Services and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Services
• Implementing Extended Capabilities
• Deploying, Tracking, and Supporting a BizTalk Solution

We also include valuable sample questions at the end of each chapter and also include an entire chapter at the end of the book that should provide you with a good gauge as to whether or not you are ready to write the test.  This book is not a brain dump.  If you are looking for any easy way out you won’t find it here.  But if you already have a good base of BizTalk knowledge and are willing to put in the effort to really understand the content in this book, I am confident that you will do well on the exam.

I would also like to extend thanks to the technical reviewers that have spent hours reviewing our content which without a doubt has increased the quality of the book.  Our reviewers include:

• Steef-Jan Wiggers
• Mikael Hakansson
• Jan Eliasen
• Genuine Basil

The anticipated publish date is in May, 2012.  In the mean time, you can read more about our book on the Packt website :  http://www.packtpub.com/mcts-microsoft-biztalk-server-2010-certification-guide/book

PDF and CHM versions of Windows Azure Service Bus Developer Guide Available & Azure Service Bus 2-day Course

by community-syndication | Mar 1, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

I’ve just added PDF and CHM versions of “Windows Azure Service Bus Developer Guide”, you can get them here.

The HTML browsable version is here.

I have the first delivery of my 2-day course “SOA, Connectivity and Integration using the Windows Azure Service Bus” scheduled for 3-4 May in Stockholm. Feel free to contact me via my blog if you have any questions about the course, or would be interested in an on-site delivery. Details of the course are here.

Tellago’s Technology Update: Enterprise Mobility That Doesn’t Suck

by community-syndication | Mar 1, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

It’s time to rock the enterprise mobility world. Next week we will be hosting a webinar to talk about a new, modern, fresh and super cool approach to enterprise mobility. Tellago’s enterprise mobility lead Chris Love will showcasing (that’s right not…(read more)
Blog Post by: gsusx

Cumulative update package 4 for BizTalk Server 2010

by community-syndication | Mar 1, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

As of yesterday, BizTalk 2010 has a fourth cumulative update available already!
This CU includes 8 product updates based on customer escalations.

Download & info: Cumulative update package 4 for BizTalk Server 2010