Every developer must recognize that the part least expected and least desired about the process is test what we have just finished recently. But why is that? Well, in part because (according to good practices)  we are supposed to constantly be testing what we have programmed so far, since we should not wait until the end of the development cycle to test, this sometimes creates a false illusion that everything works perfectly. On the other hand, we feel that the time we will take testing our newly developed product could be used for continuing the work we have queued or at least doing something more exciting.

Every web development group performs testing of its products, however the delivery always has defects. Those responsible for conducting the tests are struggling to find errors before the product is delivered, but the errors usually end up coming back, even with the best manual testing processes. Automated testing is the best way to increase the efficiency, effectiveness and coverage of testing for web applications.

Manual web testing is performed by a human sitting in front of a computer carefully going through web pages, trying various usage combinations, comparing the results to the expected behavior and recording his observations. Manual tests are repeated often during development cycles, for source code changes and other situations like trying compatibility with multiple operating environments and configurations. An automated software testing tool is able to record once the predefined actions of the test, playback the pre-recorded tests and compare the results to the expected behavior and report the success or failure of these tests to a test manager. Once automated tests are created they can easily be repeated multiple times and updated when needed. Because of this, clever managers have found that automated software testing is an essential component of successful development projects.

Application tests have to be repeated often during development cycles to ensure quality. Every time source code is modified application tests should be repeated. For each release of the application it may be tested on all supported operating systems and hardware configurations. Manually repeating these tests is costly and time consuming. Once created, automated tests can be run over and over again at no additional cost and they are much faster than manual tests. Automated software testing can reduce the time to run repetitive tests from days to hours.

Even the most conscientious tester will make mistakes during monotonous manual testing. Automated tests perform the same steps precisely every time they are executed and never forget to record detailed results.

Lengthy tests that are often avoided during manual testing can be run unattended with an automated software test. They can even be run on multiple computers with different  operative systems and configurations, even multiple web browsers.  The testers will be free to run repetitive manual tests and will have more time to create/record new automated tests and deal with complex features.

Shared automated tests can be used by developers to catch problems quickly. Tests can run automatically whenever source code changes are checked in and notify the team or the developer if they fail. Features like these save developers time and increase their confidence.

At the end of the day, the automated testing will not only improve the developer’s work, but also will improve the quality of delivered work and the company’s image.

Previously we discussed about the reasons for using an automated testing software in our daily work. We at Viaro thought ”why not make a list with some tools that can help us making that transition from manual to automated testing?” Here we present you the results.

The requirements we looked for, were:

•     Multiplatform
•     Multibrowser
•     Short learning curve
•     Well documented

Jameleon

Jameleon is a plug-in driven automated testing tool that separates applications into features and allows those features to be tied together independently, creating test cases. Test cases can be data-driven and executed against different environments and test case docs are generated from the test cases.

Jameleon uses several independent open-source projects to develop the cases:
Jelly – an open-source macro language.
JUnit. – an open-source unit testing framework for Java.

Advantages

• Multi OS
• Written using  open standards such as Java and XML
• Community for support
• Complete API

Disadvantages

• The OS must be in 32 bit
• Lack of flexibility
• Only works fine in Windows
• Hard to configure and install over linux

Browser support

• Internet Explorer
• Emulated browser

Limitations

• JDK 1.4 or higher
• Test must be created with a third-party application

Programming language

• Java
• XML

Watir

Watir is an open-source (BSD) family of Ruby libraries for automating web browsers. It allows to write tests that are easy to read and maintain. It is simple and flexible. Drives browsers the same way people do. It clicks links, fills in forms, presses buttons. Also checks results, such as whether expected text appears on the page. Is a family of Ruby libraries but it supports the app no matter what technology it is developed in.

Advantages

• It’s a Ruby library
• Multi OS
• Complete API
• Community for support
• Simultaneous playback of multiple scripts

Disadvantages

• Hard to make it work over Linux
• Needs to learn ruby language
• Most of the examples are made for internet explorer
• Every browser requires a different library
• The script has to be programmed one step at the time on console.

Browser support

• Internet Explorer
• Firefox

Limitations

• Knowledge of Ruby
• Knowledge of HTML

Programming language

• Ruby
• Watir syntax

Watij

Watij  stands for Web Application Testing in Java. Based on the simplicity of Watir and enhanced by the power of Java, Watij automates functional testing of web applications through the real browser. Currently Watij supports automating Internet Explorer on Windows only however with a future plan to support Mozilla. Watij supports XPath expressions for finding HTML elements on a page. Watij also manages popup browser windows.

Advantages

• Works with Jruby
• Complete API
• JUnit framework can be used to write the test
• Supports XPath expressions

Disadvantages

• The script has to be programmed one step at the time on console.
• Only works over internet explorer
• Non multi OS

Browser support

• Internet Explorer

Limitations

• Knowledge of Ruby
• Knowledge of HTML
• JDK 1.4 or higher

Programming language

• Java
• Ruby
• Html

Sahi

Sahi is an automation and testing tool for web applications, with the facility to record and playback scripts. Developed in java and JavaScript, this tool uses simple JavaScript to execute events on the browser. Features include, in-browser controls, text-based scripts, ant support for playback of suites of tests, and multi threaded playback. Sahi runs as a proxy server and the browser needs to use the sahi server as its proxy. Sahi then injects JavaScript so that it can access elements in the webpage.

Windows Communication Foundation

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is a framework for building service-oriented applications. With WCF, you can send asynchronous data such as messages from one extreme to another service. One end of service can be part of a continuously available service hosted by IIS, or may be a service hosted in an application. One end may be a customer of a service that requests data from a service endpoint. Messages can be as simple as a character or a word that is sent as XML, or as complex as a sequence of binary data. Here are a few example scenarios:

1. A secure service to process transactions.
2. A service that provides updated data.
3. A chat service that allows two people to communicate or share data in real time.
4. A panel application that polls data one or more services and displays them in a logical presentation.
5. Exposing a workflow implemented using Windows Workflow Foundation as a WCF service.
6. A Silverlight application to poll a service in search of the latest data sources.

WCF is designed to provide a manageable approach to create Web services and Web service clients.

Characteristics of WCF

WCF includes the following set of features:

1. Orientation to services: Because of the use of WAS standards, WCF enables you to create applications service-oriented SOA, service-oriented architecture is the use of Web services to send and receive data.
2. Interoperability: WCF implements modern industry standards for interoperability of web services.
3. Metadata services: WCF supports publishing service metadata using the formats specified by industry standards such as WSDL, XML Schema and WS-Policy. This metadata can be used to automatically generate and configure clients to access WCF services. Metadata can be published over HTTP and HTTPS, or using metadata exchange standard web services.

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) depends on several resources provided by the operating system for its operation. The following table provides a list of these resources.

Differences with WebServices:

Web ASP.NET  Services are hosted directly in Microsoft Internet Information Service IIS, which are processed and implemented through Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).

Web Services Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) can work with a variety Hosts, Protocols and Clients.

1. Hosts: IIS, resident Console Applications, Windows Services, etc.
2. protocols: HTTP, TCP, MSMQ, HTTP Binary, etc.
3. Client: Windows, Web, Mobile, etc.

ASP.NET Web Services (*. asmx)

It is defined as a code file with extension .asmx and related to class (*.cs or *.vb). ASP.NET then wraps this code as a web service object. This object known how to expose the Web service. This includes serialize SOAP requests, and execute code .NET Framework, and serialize their response to be sent back to the requesting client as a SOAP message.

Project files for ASP.NET Web Service (*.asmx) in Visual Studio are:

1. miservicio.asmx (File Web service access).
2. Miservicio.vb or miservicio.cs   (File Class MyService related .asmx).
3. Web.Config (File Configuration ASP.NET web service)

Miservicio.vb class contains the code base to create features within the service, an example of this is the HelloWorld function that returns a primitive type string value that says “Hello World”:

<WebMethod()> Public Function HelloWorld as String

Return “Hello World”

End Function

Remember that a function is visible from the Web service, you must dial the attribute <WebMethod()>

Key steps to create an ASP.NET Web Service:

1. Service:define and create the functions that will be displayed in the Web service.
2. Hosting service within IIS (Internet Information Service)
3. The reference and call the service from the client application.

WCF Web Services:

WCF (Windows Communication Foundation): The unified programming model, which is defined as a simple way to write services and therefore unifying elements such as Web services (*.asmx) .NET Remoting, Message Queuing (MSMQ), Enterprise Services (COM +) and Enhanced Web Services. WCF does not replace these technologies on an individual basis, but rather provides a simple programming model you can use to take advantage of all these elements together.

The WCF application has multiple layers that work together to provide a wide range of features and options for building service oriented applications (SOA).

The files of a Web service project in Visual Studio WCF:

1. miInterfaz.vb or miInterfaz.cs (interface definition file).
2. miservicio.vb or miservicio.cs (File miservicio.svc related class).
3. miservicio.svc (File service access).
4. Web.Config (Configuration File) service.

MiInterfaz.vb file contains the code base to create the specific titles of the functions of the service (called the Contract).

<ServiceContract()> PublicInterface IService1

<OperationContract()>Function HelloWorld () As String

End Interface

BizTalk Server and WCF Integration

Microsoft BizTalk Server, often referred to as simply “BizTalk”, is an Enterprise Service Bus. Through the use of “adapters” which are tailored to communicate with different software systems used in a large enterprise, it enables companies to automate business processes. Offered by Microsoft, it provides the following functions: Enterprise Application Integration, Business Process Automation,Business-to-business Communication and Message broker.

In a common scenario, BizTalk enables companies to integrate and manage automated business processes by exchanging business documents such as purchase orders and invoices between disparate applications, within or across organizational boundaries. Human-centric processes cannot be implemented directly with BizTalk Server and need additional solutions like a Microsoft SharePoint Server.

Development for BizTalk Server is done through Microsoft Visual Studio.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/es-ar/library/bb973215.aspx

Conclusion

WCF tries to address the fact that while the world has embraced the use of webservices and the design of service oriented applications the tools available to the developer to create this new functionality have not changed that much. With a focus on interoperability, both with Microsoft’s own technologies and other vendors solutions, WCF tries to simplify the process of building and maintaining a service oriented system. Built on top of .NET and being compatible with previous  the developer will fin a familiar environment to work and create fast, secure and reliable web services.

One of the features that any Learning Management System must include is the ability to keep track of your students, see their progress, see how committed they are to the course material and identify who may need to pay more attention. Check on how much time they have invested on the course material and in what activities they have participated, you can gain a lot of insight on how your students use the system and adapt the course so they can benefit the most of it.

The tracking system shows you how engaged the user is with the course material, how many of the topics they have accessed, in how many conversations they have participated or at least read them, how many files they have downloaded and how many times they have accessed the course. This will help you when trying to make a profile for any student, trying to understand how he uses and interact with the course and if he is taking advantage of the resources at his disposal.

While using GraspLink you are in complete control of the course, from the people enrolled on it, their access, the content at their disposal and how they may use it. There is no easier Learning Management System you could be using, GraspLink takes care of the details and you focus on teaching and bringing out the best of your students.

GraspLink provides a whole array of tools to track the student’s progress. The ability to create different tasks, assignments, tests, etc. Allows the course administrator to design the grading scheme, tests, quizzes and activities that fits best with his teaching style.

Both the student and the class administrator will always have at their disposal tools to track the student’s progress in class, making really easy to identify student’s with problems and allowing the class administrator to take the measures necessary to help them.

GraspLink as a  Learning Management System includes a powerful and flexible assessment creation tool to allow the course administrator to design  tests that will guarantee that the students have understood and observed the learning material provided to them. This tests can be as long or as short as the course administrator desires, a multitude of question types, the ability to divide the tests on different sections, define time limits for each section and for the complete test.

There are a large selection of question types to create the kind of assessment that suits best the particular topic, direct questions, essay questions, multiple choice, etc. Many of the question types can be automatically graded by the system reducing the time needed by the student to get feedback on his performance.

The course administrator is able to control when the tests are available for the users, the tests can be kept in an unpublished state until the admin decides is time for the students to take it. This allows the course admins and content creators to plan and create the tests ahead of time, activating them when the users are ready to take it. A versioning system also works alongside the assessment tool, making possible the editing of the tests even when they are already published, tracking down and taking care of the users that took the same test at different times.

For a Learning Management System to be effective the students need easy access to the content material and the trainer needs to be able to provide this learning material in an efficient and convenient way.

GraspLink provides a set of tools for learning content creation, these tools allows the users to create learning content directly from the web browser, organize it how they see fit and track how the students are using it. The content can be enriched by multimedia objects like images, videos, flash animations and documents. The content can be as simple or rich as the creator wishes to make it, engaging the users in a multitude of ways and presenting the information on the medium best fitted for each course.

The online editor for the learning content is easy to use, with no special training required and flexible enough to accommodate most users needs. The support for templates allows the course admin to set visual a style and the content creator to simple concentrate on the content itself. The support for content on different languages makes the task of creating internationalized and localized content as easy as ever while the usage tracking of the content created allows the course administrators to keep an eye on how the students are using the content provided.

But not all content needs to be created online, GraspLink Learning Management System counts with support to upload a number of standard course formats, for example, SCORM. GraspLink provides the interface to upload and administer SCORM material within the platform making it easy to integrate them with the courses.

GraspLink also provides an excellent file storage management system. The users are able to upload, store, share and download their files at any time. A powerful versioning system allows the users to keep multiple versions of the same file online for easy retrieval at any time, so, for example incremental improvements to a presentation or a unit of learning can be tracked down, reverted back to a previous point in time, etc.

Part of being a great Learning Management System is being able to give the students a way to express themselves, collaborate, ask questions and interact with both the faculty & trainers and the rest of the students. GraspLink believes that a good communication is fundamental for a gratifying learning experience and the system presents to the students and course administrators, trainers, teachers, etc. clear, clean and open ways to communicate with each other while using GraspLink.

GraspLink provides this channel mainly by integrating a great message board with the courses and an efficient notifications system so that the students never lose track of what is going on.

The conversations can be deep, engaging and rich by using a great WYSIWYG editor that allows a great deal of expression and customization for each message while at the same time being really easy to use even for the most novice user. Any active user on the site will find it easy to follow and participate on the conversations and even when they are away they will be able to stay updated with email notifications, new conversations will also be marked when they log in again so they can review and catch up on anything they have missed.

The posts can be expanded with multiple attached files, enriching the message and making it a valuable tool for the exchange of information. The fine tuned permissions system guarantees that only the pertinent users will be included on the conversation, you can forget about spam invading your conversations and if any user behaves out of line there are multiples ways to deal with the troublemakers.

Moderation and administration of the message boards is part of the system, so the administrators can have a great deal of control about what is being posted. Creating new message boards take just a couple of clicks and they can be managed with great detail, from how the conversations will be presented (threaded or plain), set the level of freedom for the users within each board.

The notifications system is not limited to the message boards, any activity can be tracked and reported on. This way the students can make sure to not lose track of assignments, new learning material, new files, etc. The course administrator have tools that allow them to create and send mass emails, communicating with all the students easily and quickly.

GraspLink Learning Management System provides these basic tools for communication, making it simple, clean and effective. Helping both teachers and students to reach each other, share and communicate.

SSIS is a product included with Microsoft’s SQL Server and it is the Microsoft propose for Extract, Transform and Data load. It is also Microsoft’s recommend tool for data cleansing.

SSIS works by building packages, made up of tasks, that can move data around from source to destination and transform it along the way.

The Import and Export Wizard

Microsoft has produced a simple wizard to handle some of the most common and needed tasks: importing data to one SQL server database from one local or external database or exporting data from a one of our SQL Server databases. The Import and Export Wizard protects us from the complexity of SSIS while allowing us to move data between any of these data sources:

1. SQL Server databases
2. Microsoft Access databases
3. Microsoft Excel worksheets
4. Other OLE DB providers

Steps

To import some data using the Import and Export Wizard, follow these steps:

1. Launch SQL Server Management Studio and log in to your server.
2. Open a new query window.
3. Create a new database with the name you want:

1. CREATE DATABASE Name_DB

1. Click the Execute toolbar button to create a new database.
2. Expand the Databases node in Object Explorer
3. Right-click on the Name_DB database and select Tasks

1. Import Data

1. Read the first page of the Import and Export Wizard and click Next.
2. Select SQL Native Client for the data source and provide login information.
3. Select the database we want as the source of the data to import.
4. Because we’re importing data, the next page of the wizard will ask us the connection information for our new database, in this case is Name_DB database.
5. Select Copy Data From One or More Tables or Views and click Next. (Note that if we only want to import part of a table we can use a query as the data source instead.)

1. Select the Tables you want to import

1. After select the tables, the wizard will automatically assign names for the target tables.
2. Check Execute Immediately and click Next.
3. Click Finish to perform the import. SQL Server will display progress as it performs the import.

1. Now you have your database with all the imported data.

Working with Connection Managers

SSIS uses connection managers to integrate different data sources into packages. SSIS includes a variety of connection managers that allow you to move data around from place to place.

SSIS Packages:

The Import and Export Wizard is  simple  to use, but it is just a little sample of the functionality provided by the SSIS. To really appreciate the full power of SSIS, you’ll need to use the Business Intelligence Development Studio to build an SSIS package. A package is a collection of SSIS objects including:

1. Connections to data sources.
2. Data flows, which include the sources and destinations that extract and load data, the transformations that modify and extend data, and the paths that link sources, transformations, and destinations.
3. Control flows, which include tasks and containers that execute when the package runs. You can organize tasks in sequences and in loops.
4. Event handlers, which are work flows that runs in response to the events raised by a package, task, or container.

Steps

To Create a project:

1. Launch Visual Studio 2005, 2008.
2. Create a Project
3. Select Business Intelligence Projects

1. Select the Integration Services Project template. You will have your empty SSIS project

To add some connection managers to your package, follow these steps:

1. Right click on the Connection Managers  Tab and it will display a pop up menu

1. It will display the Connection Manager dialog box
2. Select New
3. The provider select SQL Native Client

1. Select the Server Name
2. Select Windows authentication or SQL Server authentication
3. Select your database
4. Click OK
5. On the Connection OLE DB manager dialog box Click ok
6. Now you will have an OLE DB connection

Control Flows

This is where you tell the SSIS what the package is going to do. You create your control flow, as creating an aspx page,  by dragging and dropping controls from the toolbox to the surface, and then dragging and dropping connections between the objects.

The objects available to Drop are divided in four groups:

1. Tasks: Different activities than an SSIS package can do, such as execute SQL statements or transfer  objects from one SQL Server to another SQL Provider.
2. Maintenance Plan tasks: are a special group of tasks that can handle jobs such as checking  the database integrity.
3. The Data Flow Task is a general purpose task for ETL (extract, transform, and load) operations on data.
4. Containers: Objects to hold a group of tasks, such as the Data Flow object.

Steps:

To add control flows to the package:

1. Make sure you are in the SSIS project, and on the Control Flow Tab is selected

1. Drag a Data Flow object from the toolbox to the and drop it on the designer page

1. This is a simple Idea about how can you create the Control Flow, yo can add more object and connect them selecting the green arrow and dropping on the object you want to connect.

Data Flows

This is where you specify the details of any Data Flow tasks that you’ve added on the Control Flow tab. Data Flows are made up of various objects that you drag and drop from the Toolbox:

1. Data Flow Sources: The data get into the system using this.
2. Data Flow Transformations: Allow to manipulate the data in different ways.
3. Data Flow Destinations: You send the transformed data to this places.

Steps:

This example is a simple use of the data flows, we are going to convert data from one type to an other.

1. Select the Data Flow tab
2. On the Data Flow Task combo select the Data flow you want to use. In this example we are going to use the “Data Flow Taks” created before

1. Drag an OLE DB source from the toolbox and drop it on the designer

1. double Click to the source and it will display one configuration dialog box
2. The OLE DB Connection manager will display the connection we added before
3. select the table or the view you want to use.
4. select “Columns” from the list of  the left side
5. It will display the table columns
6. Select the columns you want to use on the work flow

1. Drag and Drop a Data Conversion Control
2. Drag the green arrow from the OLE DB source and drop it on the Data Conversion Control

1. Double left click to the Data Conversion object and it will display one dialog box

1. 
2. Select the columns you want to manipulate, or to be more specific the columns you want to convert
3. Input Column is the selected column, output alias is the data converted on the type selected on the data type column.

1. now Drag and Drop an OLE DB Destination

1. Drag and drop the green arrow from the Data Conversion object to the OLE DB Destination
2. Double click to the object to display the configuration dialog box
3. select the OLE DB connection manager, remember you can add all the connection you need on the connection manager explained before. We are using the same because we are converting the data and saving in other table on the same database. You could easily do it between two different databases.
4. now go to the list from the left side and select “mappings” it will display the converted data

1. Now test it and you have you first SSIS project.

.

Conclusion

This is an application that we can use for data migration, integration, it eases the task of importing and exporting information from different sources, allowing us to define different processes to manipulate, verify and transform the data before loading it into one or  several destinations. It allows us to migrate data between heterogeneous databases in a relatively easy and reliable way.

The work flow organization makes creating and defining the different processes, rules and  stages that the information must pass through from source to destination an easier task to tackle. Its integration with the Visual Studio IDE makes working with SSIS a natural task to any experienced developer, making the initial learning curve a lot easier to handle.

An enterprise service bus (ESB) is a combined software architecture that provides essential services to complex architectures through a messaging system (the bus) based on the standards and responds to events. Developers typically implement a ESB using technologies of middleware infrastructure products based on accepted standards.

A ESB generally provides an abstraction layer built upon an implementation of an enterprise messaging system that enables integration experts exploit the value of messaging without writing code. Unlike the case with traditional enterprise application integration (EAI) based on a monolithic battery on architecture, hub and spoke, an enterprise service bus is built on basis functions which are divided into their constituent parts, with a distributed implementation when it becomes necessary, so that they work harmoniously on demand.

A ESB itself does not implement a service-oriented architecture (SOA) but provides the features by which it can be implemented. A ESB should be based on standards and provide flexibility, providing coverage to different means of transport that are capable of implementing both traditional patterns of SOA business architecture enriched with OSA 2.0. The ESB is to isolate the coupling between the service requested and the means of transport. Most ESB providers incorporate principles of SOA and allow independent message formats.

Definitions and Scope

There is no agreement on whether to define an enterprise service bus as a style of architecture as a software product or as a group of software products. While it is true that the use of a ESB involves some adjustment to a specific architecture, the term “enterprise service bus” almost always refers to the software infrastructure that enables this architecture and, in essence, is considered to ESB as a platform for a service-oriented architecture.

An Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) involves flows related concepts such as transformation and routing in a Service Oriented Architecture. A ESB can also provide an abstraction for endpoints.This gives flexibility in the layer of abstraction and easy connection between the services.

ESB Architecture

Using the word “bus” comes from the bus carrying the bits between devices of a computer. The enterprise service bus provides a similar function at a higher level of abstraction. In an enterprise architecture that makes use of a ESB an application will communicate via the bus, which acts as a “splitter message”(message broker) between applications. This approach has the advantage of reducing the number of connected point-to-point needed to allow it to communicate an application. This, in turn, simplifies the “impact assessment”(Impact Analysis)of most of the software. Reducing the number of contact points in a given application, the process of adapting a system to changes of one of its components is made easier.

ESB and software

architecture in a complex, the ESB represents the software element that mediates between enterprise applications and enables communication between them. Ideally, the ESB would have to be able to replace all direct contact with the applications on the bus, so that all communication takes place via the bus. To achieve this objective, the bus must encapsulate the functionality offered by its component applications in a meaningful way. This usually happens with the introduction of a standard business messages. The message model defines a standard set of messages received and transmitted ESB . When a ESB receives a message, routed to the appropriate application. It often happens that as this application has been developed without the same message model, the ESB will have to transform the message into a format compatibility(legacyformat)that the application is able to interpret. An “adapter” software performs the task of making these changes (as does a physical adapter). There is no agreement on whether to consider this adapter as a constituent of ESB or not.

The ESB are based on the precise connection of an enterprise message model and the functionality offered by applications. If the message model does not encapsulate all the functionality of the applications, then other applications that want that functionality may have to go around the bus and call directly to the unpaired applications. This is violating all the principles outlined above and despises many of the advantages of using a ESB.

Most relevant features

The term “Enterprise Service Bus” serves as a catch-all term for a set of capabilities that can deploy systems differently. There is no consensus on whether to consider a ESB as a tangible product or an architectural style and how exactly a ESB should be implemented (for example, centralized(broker or hub) or decentralized end points)). (smart For example, some experts say AOS SOAP + WS-Addressing is the bus. Either way seems agreed to accept some core capabilities as functions of a ESB:

In addition, a ESB should have the following characteristics:

1. general agnosticism about operating systems and programming languages, for example, provide interoperability between Java and. NET
2. general use of XML as a standard communication language
3. support for Web services standards
4. support number of MEP (message exchange patterns) (eg, request / response asynchronous request / response synchronous, send-and-forget, publish / subscribe)
5. adapters to enable integration of support systems, possibly based on standards such as ( Java_EE_Connector_Architecture | JCA),
6. a standardized security model to authorize, authenticate and audit the use of ESB
7. facilitating the transformation of data formats and values, including transformation services (often via XSLT or XQuery between the sending application formats receiving and implementation
8. validation of schemes for sending and receiving messages
9. can apply business rules consistently
10. enriched messages from other sources
11. of division and combination of multiple messages and exceptions handling
12. the provision of a unified abstraction multilayer
13. or processing routing messages conditionally, based on a non-centralized policy (no need for a centralized system of normal)
14. and retention queuing messages if applications are temporarily unavailable

Conclusions

Main Benefits

1. Accommodation from existing systems faster and cheaper
2. Greater flexibility, easier to change if new requirements.
3. Based on Standards
4. Scale point solutions to enterprise deployment Bus (distributed).
5. Service types ready-to-operate(ready-to-use)predefined
6. Mayor settings instead of having to code integration.
7. No central rules engine without center divider
8. incremental patches instant turn-off time, the company does “refactoring.”

Main disadvantages

1. Normally requires Enterprise Message Model, which requires additional administration.
2. Requires ongoing management of message versions to ensure the purported benefit of a flexible coupling. An administration incorrect, inadequate or incomplete versions of message can lead to a match instead of the intended strict matching flexible.
3. Normally requires more hardware for a simple messaging system point-to-point.
4. Expertise is required in the analysis of middleware to configure, manage and operate a ESB.
5. Mayor overall latency caused by messages that go through the extra layer of ESB , especially when compared with the communications point-to-point. The higher latency is also triggered by an extra XML processing (ESB typically uses XML as a language of communication).
6. The ESB becomes a single element failure.
7. Although ESB systems may require significant effort to implement, they do not produce a commercial value without the subsequent development services that take advantage of the created infrastructure.

Here is a video expanding on the ESB characteristics

O/R Mapping

The Object/Relational Mapping is a technique to translate the data between two different and most likely incompatible representation systems. We usually mean by this to convert an object model domain to a representation in a relational database management system

These two representations are clearly different, while an object is usually composed of non-scalar attributes (other objects, collection of objects, etc.) while a database table is usually a collection of scalar values (char, ints, etc.) For example: A “Person” object may contain multiple “Address” objects and each “Address” object may contain reference to object representations for “Country” and “Region”, while a Person object may be referenced as a single entity, one variable, on the object oriented environment it needs multiple tables, attributes and relationships to represent the same information on a relational database.

The O/R Mapping tools attempt to do this “translation” of the objects model to a relational model to a Relation Database Model created and dictated by our “Domain Model”. Our main goal by doing this mapping is to translate the object model in a form that makes possible to save our objects to a relational database, keeping the ability to easily query and retrieve the objects to be used again on the object oriented environment and maintain all of its relationships and properties during the translation.

NHibernate

NHibernate is a free open source software solution for Microsoft .NET that provides a framework to map an object domain model to some of the most popular relation database systems. Created as a port of Java’s Hibernate, NHibernate maintains the same functionality, principles, design and even the same documentation largely applies to both.

NHibernate is available for download from the project’s sourceforge page on both source code and binary distributions. To start using it we simply need to add references to NHibarnet’s DLLs from our .NET projects. The binary distribution includes a “Required_Bins” directory with all the DLLs we need to start using NHibernate (other useful DLLs are also included on different directories).

NHibernate’s main configuration and mappings are both configured using XML files, these XML files define which objects and attributes will be translated to a representation in the database. In the NHinbernate’s configuration file it is possible to define the target database and the way to connect to it this makes extremely easy to change database technologies, in the best case scenario a migration to a different technology would involve just changing a couple of lines.

Supported RDBMS

1. Microsoft SQL Server 2005/2000
2. Oracle
3. Microsoft Access
4. Firebird
5. PostgreSQL
6. DB2 UDB
7. MySQL
8. SQLite

NHibernate is a perfect match to apply Domain Driven Design. For development NHibernate recommends to apply Test Driven Development, it is not only used by NHibernate itself but it also includes the necessary libraries to work with the NUnit framework.

NHibernate lends itself to use the Repository Pattern to get access to the data, this to accomplish a decoupling of the underlying technology  (database), make testing easier and to facilitate the replacement of any component.

Resources:

Tutorial “Your First NHibernate based application” (be careful while using 64 bits systems and the SQL Compact Edition version. It is safer to use the SQL Server Express edition)

NHibernate Community Page.

“How-Tos” for NHibernate

NHibernate FAQ (blog with many tips, tutorials and answers to some of the most common NHibernate issues)

Fluent NHibernate