Testing ESB Toolkit Business Rules

Introduction

In the ESB toolkit for BizTalk Business Rules can be used in the following scenarios:

  • Dynamic routing
    • Dynamically routes a message, based on the content of a known message type
  • Dynamic transformation
    • Dynamically transform a message from one type to another, based on the content of a known message type
  • Specifying Itineraries
    • Select an itinerary based on the content of a received message

It is not very difficult to create business rules policies in the Business Rule Composer that can be used for one of these scenarios but is not so easy to test the created policies because it’s not documented how to do it. You have to find out which specific classes, properties and methods are used and in which DLL libraries they are located. So I made %u200b%u200ba sample tool with which these ESB Toolkit classes can be tested! ( –;

 

Description

In the sample project is a Windows Forms Application located that calls the Business Rules Engine to test the business rules.

With the sample tool policies can be tested that have one of the following vocabularies from the ESB toolkit:

  • ESB.EndPointInfo
    • Set End Point Outbound Transport Location
  • ESB.TransformInfo
    • Set Transform Transform Type
  • ESB.Itinerary
    • Set Itinerary Name

 

Dynamic routing

Create a business rule in the Business Rule Composer that dynamically routes a message, based on the content of a known message type.

This example is based on: How to Implement Content-Based Routing Using a Business Rules Policy for a Known Message Type
See also:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff699643

 

 

How to test Content-Based Routing

Specify the following properties in the sample tool to test Content-Based Routing :

  • ESB Toolkit Fact: ESB.EndPointInfo
  • Policy Name where the specific business rules are located
  • Document Type of the message

 

Dynamic transformation

Create a business rule in the Business Rule Composer that dynamically transforms a message from one type to another, based on the content of a known message type

 

 

How to test Dynamic transformation

Specify the following properties in the sample tool to test  dynamic transformation:

  • ESB Toolkit Fact: ESB.TransformInfo
  • Policy Name where the specific business rules are located
  • Document Type of the message

 

Specifying Itineraries

Create a business rule in the Business Rule Composer That selects an itinerary

This example is based on: How to Select an Itinerary Using a Business Rules Policy
See also:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff699745

 

How to test Specifying an itinerary

Specify the following properties in the sample tool to test  selecting an itinerary:

  • ESB Toolkit Fact: ESB.Itinerary
  • Policy Name where the specific business rules are located
  • Document Type of the message

 

How the sample works

In the sample .NET application is a reference added to the Microsoft.RuleEngine.dll assembly, which contains the classes required to call the business rules engine. This may be in either $\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft BizTalk or $\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010\.
Also are the necessary policy and fact objects created. Now the the business rule policy can be executed, as shown in the following listing:

 

Download

You can download the sample tool with the source code here:

http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Testing-Business-Rules-in-28396b66

Updating Filter Categories – Modifying the People Refinement Web Part

1. Open PeopleResults.aspx page in edit mode

 
2. Click on the refinement panel drop down and click on Edit Web Part

3. On the People Refinement Panel Editor, expand the Refinement panel

4. Click on the Elipses () on the Filter Category Definition

5. Change the FilterCategories XML
Copy the XML from the editor window (step 4) into an XML […]
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Win A Free Copy of Packt’s Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010 Certification Guidebook

The author team is pleased to announce that we have teamed up with the publisher,Packt Publishing, and are organizing a give away.  Three lucky winners stand a chance to win an e-copy of our book.
Overview of Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010 Certification Guide

Includes a comprehensive set of test questions and answers that will prepare you for the actual exam.

The layout and content of the book closely matches that of the skills measured by the exam, which makes it easy to focus your learning and maximize your study time in areas where you need improvement.

Read more about this book and download free Sample Chapter: http://www.packtpub.com/mcts-microsoft-biztalk-server-2010-certification-guide/book

Also, feel free to check out some of the community reviews of the book:

How to Enter?
All you need to do is email MctsBTSBook@hotmail.com and let us know in a couple sentences why you would like to get your BizTalk Certification.

DeadLine:
The contest will close on Friday, September 7th, 2012 . Winners will be announced on this blog and will be contacted by email.

BizTalk Community series: Introducing Jeroen Hendriks

For most people the holiday season is over. That does account me as well, however there is one fun trip ahead of me to the US (California). Before I go I have another story for you on a BizTalk community member Jeroen Hendriks, the founder and owner of the BizTalk Admin blog.

Jeroen works as a consultant for Axon Olympus. His work mostly consists of advising customers on how to maintain a BizTalk infrastructure, designing and implementing new BizTalk infrastructures. Besides his day-to-day job he maintains the BizTalk Admin blog, where a group of BizTalk’ers blog about BizTalk administration related topics.

“If anyone is interested, we are always looking for new bloggers.!”

After his bachelor in technical business administration Jeroen did a technical traineeship (MCSE boot camp) and ended up as a middleware administrator for an insurance company. There he was responsible for Websphere MQ and BizTalk Servers.

“BizTalk and I were a good fit because now, 7 years later, I still work daily with the product.”

Jeroen specializes in administration and engineering. Development is something, which he regrettably has not picked up yet. It is one of his goals for the coming year to learn some C# and BizTalk development.

On his job Jeroen has the following to say:

“As an administrator / engineering I worry about how to meet the SLA requirements. Maximum downtime, performance and maximum data loss are important requirements. The excellent scalability and high availability options in BizTalk help me getting the job done. Not surprisingly these are some features I really like in BizTalk. Also the ease of administration has been improved in each version. I remember the time when there wasn’t even a concept called applications in BizTalk (2004).”

His view on sharing knowledge is as follows:

“When I started in the IT internet and search engines were already well established. Whenever I needed some information or had a problem the answer was mostly just one search query away. There are so many blogs, forums, etc. were people help each other out. I would like to encourage your readers to contribute to the community. It is not only helpful to others, but also for yourself. Just give it a try and find out for yourself.”

In his spare time Jeroen likes to play around with technology, for example with the Raspberry PI and the Netduino.

“I don’t know why, but turning lights on and off through the internet is fun!”

Besides technology Jeroen is currently studying Moroccan Arabic. It seems that learning technologies suits him better than learning languages, because his wives one year old nephew is picking it up quicker than him, yet he feels it is good fun.

Jeroen has been studying martial arts (karate, jiu-jitsu, etc.) for almost 15 years now. For the last 6 years has has been a karate instructor at a local karate school. That taught him that becoming good in something is one thing, but teaching it to others is something totally different. At the moment Jeroen is looking for a new challenge. After the summer he wants to start with some kickboxing and MMA. Who knows we might see him perform in the octagon for the UFC.

I like to thank Jeroen for his time and contributions for the BizTalk community.

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