ESB Toolkit Series – Part III ‘Itinerary, Transformation, Endpoint Resolution and Routing’

 

If we look at the ESB toolkit, it allows for flexibility by several features, of them, I would like to explain three which I think need some clarification;

Abstraction of your business process

by defining these as building blocks, using them inside an Itinerary, which allows you to re-use these blocks

Runtime Transformation

instead of configuring this using In-Outbound maps / maps being called in Orchestrations

Dynamic Endpoint resolution

instead of setting this using a pipeline / orchestration in dynamic maps, or static send ports

 

If we look at the ESB Toolkit dynamic features, it builds on the Business Rule Engine, by providing Vocabularies;

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Abstraction of your business process

In this scenario, we can use the Business Rules Engine to determine which process to start. In classic BizTalk we do this in general, based on the MessageType. The ESB Toolkit, allows you to do this in a different way. You can basically, dynamically start your process based on information in your message, and as an Itinerary is set of abstracted building blocks, we can design our system to be even more loosely coupled.

The On-Ramp will determine which Itinerary to start, this by using ‘The Resolver and Adapter Provider Framework’. In the On-Ramp when can select the Itinerary (with the ItinerarySelector pipeline component), which can select the Itinerary to use (using a ‘static’ itinerary, determine it by using ‘Xpath’ or call the rule engine using a so called BRI resolver).

Let’s consider the scenario, where a message depending on a value in the message, should start a specific process;

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  • We Create a Rule which looks into the message

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  • Inside the Rule we set the Itinerary name

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  • We call the Rule from the On-Ramp using the BRI resolver and the ItinerarySelect pipeline component will add the Itinerary services to the Itinerary and start off the Itinerary

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Once the Itinerary is started, we can call so called ‘ItineraryServices’. Which are available in Messaging Services and Orchestration Services (custom).

Runtime Transformation

Runtime transformation, allows to determine the map to use by calling a business rule (for instance, based on a message). This is something we can do in our Itinerary, by leveraging the TransformService (which is an Itinerary Service of the type ‘Messaging’);

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Note: This uses a BRE Resolver, it is also possible to use other resolver like a static / Xpath / BTDF SSO etc.

With the BRE Resolver, we can set the map to apply;

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Dynamic Endpoint resolution

Dynamic endpoint resolution allows to determine the endpoint to use at runtime, so we can use a rule to determine (for instance

The last service we can call (besides orchestrations) is to determine the endpoint;

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This allows us to dynamically define the Endpoint, based on a rule, which can be done inside an orchestration, but since we prefer to work message based, this is now something, which provides for more scenarios. This also works using a resolver; static, or dynamically by calling a BRE resolver;

image

 

We can test all these features with the ESB Rules Test tool! And after using it, I added a small dialog which allows you to pick the Rule from the BizTalk Rule Store..

 

Changes v1.1

“Sander Nefs, a fellow integration specialist has added the PolicyPicker feature to pick the name of the Policy from the Microsoft.RuleEngine” Glimlach

What's New For This Release
- PolicyPicker

 

How to test Specifying an itinerary

Open the XML file in the TestTool and specify the following properties:

  • Select the “ESB.Itinerary” Fact.
  • Enter the name of the Policy in containing the Business Rules.
  • Enter the Document Type of the message.

How to test Dynamic transformation

Open the XML file in the TestTool and specify the following properties:

  • Select the “ESB.TransformInfo” Fact.
  • Enter the name of the Policy in containing the Business Rules.
  • Enter the Document Type of the message.

How to test Dynamic Routing

Open the XML file in the TestTool and specify the following properties:

  • Select the “ESB.EndPointInfo” Fact.
  • Enter the name of the Policy in containing the Business Rules.
  • Enter the Document Type of the message.

 

So, hopefully this has shown more about the capabilities of the ESB Toolkit, the usage and even ways to test this (even with some modifications by automated Unit testing).

 

 

Regards,

Sander

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