NoESB - A Marketing Gimmick ?!

Some API vendors are doing a peaceful web-oriented fighting with some ESB vendors. The core content is, ESB is not required or better don't use it if you want to improve your time to market and making the organizational software foundation agile.
   Well, well, all those arguments I see are related to cloud and new products/development. The interesting part is putting forward that API Gateway is a replacement for the ESB, where the API Gateway does the similar functionality to ESB. Now this argument itself debunks the theory of "NoESB", when you have subset of similar functionality in 2 different approaches.
   Did some more Googling and landed up at WSO2 site - a popular API vendor, not that I am fan of it. In SlideShare API-Centric Architecture  they have a clear point on that their API gateway is actually a full-blown ESB with some constraint and one has the choice to install the missing features to make it a ESB !
   ESB has their role as much as API, like for integrating in complex scenarios, file/ftp based and legacy application integrations. At the same time, I am a strong supporter on "smart ends and dumb pipes", which I have many times seen violated in BPEL processes. Business logic should be encapsulated in its domain and not be floated in a middleware. This is where the µservices principle stands attractive.
   It is a pity to see vendors(again!) playing their marketing games and continuing with the confusion era as much as it started with SOA. Beware is the only word, I say to myself !

  

Journey of Integration

The usual Initial Ramblings
            In my new job I am supposedly THE person in getting an integrated integration solution(along with external consultants) in place and thereby lend for future business process automation. Prior to this one, I was working in Oracle SOA in BPEL-JDeveloper combo. and all was honky dory - basically all where happy and ended/continued in peace and love !  This is not the case now - good to keep me ticking in my integration knowledge pursuit and bad when you see so many difference techniques, approaches, thoughts and more importantly our wonderful vendors pursuit to keep it confusing - may or may not be deliberate but obviously for monetary purposes.

Let's Take Off !

Been reading lots of articles, some books and watching my mind in putting together all that was read. Simply put, a lot of stuff and very little conclusion with more towards confusion. Let us go through the list of magic words - SOA, BPEL, ESB, EDA, Messaging, Integration frameworks, Middleware, Process Orchestration, Process Choreography, Process Workflow, BPM, BAM, Queues, Microservices, REST, API and the endless list continues.

      Statements like this "Design and publish APIs for end customers, B2B, or mobile - APIs can be in SOA or REST" make things more a hell. This is supposedly from integration leaders' product documentation. APIs can be in SOA ?!  SOA is an architectural principle and SOA can be pursued through SOAP over HTTP (that is what the doc. is probably trying to say), REST style services, Microservices and anything more some integration gurus can add to.
    Since we touched upon SOA, let us probably look at the different approaches of SOA. The technical gurus prefer the word "Service Oriented Approach" instead of "Service Oriented Architecture", which seems from history (when I was physically a kid !), a failure, across the geography.

From my perspective, SOA could be implemented as "BPEL" or "ESB".  The choice of which one depends on the needs, which makes sense isn't it ?! Hope you are part off the minority!

•  BPEL is fine for long-term processes and involves human interaction. Due to the language nature, it is heavy and can involve complex logic, including business ones. This is where it may not suit the new fad of get SOA the right way - Mrs. Microservices, where you want to keep the smarts at the end points and not in the middleware.
• ESB is a mechanism to move messages supposedly in a light weight manner with minimal required logic/actions to the message within the bus/pipe. This may fit the Mr. Microservices design style. The other denouncing term is "Egregious Spaghetti Box". So watch out what you are trying to achieve. Keep you principles clear and focused. 

Hope I haven't added another mess to the existing mess in the integration world.

Great links for Maps

Coloring
Going through some links but can't stop appreciating this nice online app. for choosing color combination while authoring maps - Color Brewer. If someone knows of anything more please do drop in a comment.

Symbols

• Check-out MapBox MAKI to download set of commonly used symbols while creating point objects.
• Penn State Uni  Symbol Store. It includes a nice way to prepare the symbol "AFTER" adding to the cart.

ERP and Maps

Long-time since I blogged something....lots of changes from then to now!
Different job(can't say new!), different positions and ofcourse new kids as a bonus :-)
  I have been doubling up as a Spatial Systems Co-ordinator along with my SOA integration tasks, the former being in simple terms taking care off map-based applications and any data related to it. Very interesting and a useful one for the business and end-users. In that way proud of my efforts. Off recently we are implementing a ERP solution and me being part off the SOA integration team has brought in a new perspective in terms of mapping and integration solutions.
   

jqGrid with ASP .NET Web Forms

A quick write-up on my findings to use the amazing jqGrid v3.4.3 with ASP .NET 2.0 Web Forms. Surprisingly, there is no clear demo./website which enumerates on this usage. After some effort, got it finally working. Please note this is w.r.to ASP .NET 2.0 and I am just a day/two old with jqGrid!

(1) Suggested to not use PageMethods - can look at the "different" pains by different people at this link - http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/152493.aspx.
If needed I can add mine into the list!

(2) The relevant partial code in the *.aspx file(without sending any parameters) is:

.......
.......
jQuery(document).ready(function() {
$('#list').jqGrid({
datatype: function() {
$.ajax({
url: "jqGrid.asmx/jQGridDataASMX",
data: "{}",
dataType: "json",
type: "POST",
contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
complete: function(jsondata, stat) {
window.alert("Status received is " + stat);
window.alert("Response text is: " + jsondata.responseText);
if (stat == "success") {
var thegrid = jQuery("#list")[0];
thegrid.addJSONData(eval("(" + jsondata.responseText + ")"));
}
}
});
},
colNames: ['Col1', 'Col2', 'Col3'],
colModel: [
{ name: 'Col1', index: 'Col1', width: 40, align: 'left' },
{ name: 'Col2', index: 'Col2', width: 40, align: 'left' },
{ name: 'Col3', index: 'col3', width: 200, align: 'left'}],
pager: jQuery('#pager'),
rowNum: 10,
rowList: [10, 20, 30],
viewrecords: true,
imgpath: 'jqGrid-3.4.3/themes/basic/images',
caption: 'jqGrid NewComer - First Grid'
});
});


........
........

When sending parameters to the web service method use the JSON object which is defined in "json2.js"(You can download from - http://www.JSON.org/json2.js).
Eg. var jsonStr = JSON.stringify(data);
and then place the jsonStr variable within the "data" parameter of the $.ajax request like:
url: "jqGrid.asmx/jQGridDataASMX",
data: jsonStr,
dataType: "json",


(3) The complete jqGrid.asmx file is:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Services;
using System.Web.Script.Services;
using System.Web.Script.Serialization;

public class RowElement
{
public string id;
public string[] cell;
}

public class MainGrid
{
public string total;
public string page;
public string records;
public RowElement[] rows;
}


///

/// Summary description for jqGrid
///

[WebService(Namespace = "http://tempuri.org/")]
[WebServiceBinding(ConformsTo = WsiProfiles.BasicProfile1_1)]
[ScriptService]
public class jqGrid : System.Web.Services.WebService {

[WebMethod]
public MainGrid jQGridDataASMX()
{
/* {
total: 'xxx',
page: 'yyy',
records: 'zzz',
rows : [
{id:'1', cell:['cell11', 'cell12', 'cell13']},
{id:'2', cell:['cell21', 'cell22', 'cell23']}
]
} */

MainGrid mg = new MainGrid();
mg.total = "1";
mg.page = "1";
mg.records = "1";

mg.rows = new RowElement[1];
mg.rows[0] = new RowElement();
mg.rows[0].id = "1";
mg.rows[0].cell = new string[3];
mg.rows[0].cell[0] = "cell1";
mg.rows[0].cell[1] = "cell2";
mg.rows[0].cell[2] = "cell3";

return mg;
}

}


(5) The resultant output is:

Hope this helps for someone to get a heads-up with jqGrid and ASP .NET 2.0!


Also check-out a very good site on the jQGrid with ASP .NET using HTTP handlers - http://geeks.netindonesia.net/blogs/cipto/archive/2009/04/03/jqgrid.aspx

Javascript window.location not working in Internet Explorer

If anyone encounters issue of not window.location, window.location.href, document.location and every possible combination not working, try this out instead:

redirect = "http://www.google.com";
setTimeout("window.location.href = redirect",0);


Don't know why it works, but it works!!! Found this issue in both IE6 and IE7.

ASP .NET Tips/Issues

• Even if the the EnableViewState is disabled, still the values are maintained across post-back. Why? Because of something called ControlState, wherein certain details of all controls are maintained always.
• If re-directing to a URL within the local web-site use Server.Transfer rather than Response.Redirect, for quicker response and conserve server resources. The latter is used for re-directing to external site.
• Read the below URL if you get errors such as: "Sys.WebForms.PageRequestManagerParserErrorException"http://weblogs.asp.net/leftslipper/archive/2007/02/26/sys-webforms-pagerequestmanagerparsererrorexception-what-it-is-and-how-to-avoid-it.aspx#2202116 Ignore the part of not using Server.Transfer. It seems the author is not aware of it, I believe!
• Beware using Validation controls within AJAX Controls, eg. UpdatePanel. It is not yet implemented. There is a work around though. Need to wait for an Windows Live Update for it. Check out the link:http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/01/25/links-to-asp-net-ajax-1-0-resources-and-answers-to-some-common-questions.aspx
• When trying to use "~" within script tags in Master Pages, you need to use "DataBinding" on the code-behind page, otherwise look-out for errors. Eg. Map_Admin.master(look both aspx and cs files).