The essence of my work!

I do rather have more things, hanging nice straight down, not twisted together,
than a couple things tight in a nut!

http://www.infoq.com/articles/rest-soap

System.ServiceModel.ExceptionDetail is not marked as serializable.

I have two different environments, test and prod with the same dll:s deployed, on production, the orchestration throws an error and suspends the orchestration when it tries to serialize something after a message has been sent through the outgoing port. The receiver of the message sent to "SendGeneralLog" has successfully received the message.

I figure that this error has to do with the state serialization of the orchestration. I.e. after each send or receive operation Biztalk saves the state for normal and long-running transaction scopes.

The thing I don't understand is why a 'System.ServiceModel.ExceptionDetail' message has been created and by who? The service that the port calls do return HTTP 202 return code and has successfully saved the received message, the service do not return any soap exception. 

Please I appreciates all ideas.

xlang/s engine event log entry: Uncaught exception (see the 'inner exception' below) has suspended an instance of service 'AMRForDMS.AMRQueryCurrent(8fecfabe-9d3a-8fde-f582-660051209750)'.
The service instance will remain suspended until administratively resumed or terminated. 
If resumed the instance will continue from its last persisted state and may re-throw the same unexpected exception.
InstanceId: 3080c288-758e-4cb5-8517-f325d706b9a3
Shape name: SendGeneralLog
ShapeId: e41fa0df-20ca-4149-b2fb-d5df9ec1042e
Exception thrown from: segment 15, progress 12
Inner exception: Type 'System.ServiceModel.ExceptionDetail' in Assembly 'System.ServiceModel, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089' is not marked as serializable.
        
Exception type: SerializationException
Source: mscorlib
Target Site: System.Reflection.MemberInfo[] InternalGetSerializableMembers(System.RuntimeType)
The following is a stack trace that identifies the location where the exception occured

   at System.Runtime.Serialization.FormatterServices.InternalGetSerializableMembers(RuntimeType type)
   at System.Runtime.Serialization.FormatterServices.GetSerializableMembers(Type type, StreamingContext context)
   at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.WriteObjectInfo.InitMemberInfo()
   at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.WriteObjectInfo.InitSerialize(Object obj, ISurrogateSelector surrogateSelector, StreamingContext context, SerObjectInfoInit serObjectInfoInit, IFormatterConverter converter, ObjectWriter objectWriter, SerializationBinder binder)
   at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.ObjectWriter.Write(WriteObjectInfo objectInfo, NameInfo memberNameInfo, NameInfo typeNameInfo)
   at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.ObjectWriter.Serialize(Object graph, Header[] inHeaders, __BinaryWriter serWriter, Boolean fCheck)
   at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.BinaryFormatter.Serialize(Stream serializationStream, Object graph, Header[] headers, Boolean fCheck)
   at Microsoft.XLANGs.Core.ObjectSerializer._serialize(Object graph, StringLookup sl)
   at Microsoft.XLANGs.Core.ObjectSerializer.SerializeStateManager(IStateManager stateMgr, StringLookup lookup)
   at Microsoft.XLANGs.Core.Service.Persist(Boolean dehydrate, Context ctx, Boolean idleRequired, Boolean finalPersist, Boolean bypassCommit, Boolean terminate)
   at Microsoft.XLANGs.Core.LongRunningTransaction.PendingCommit(Boolean ignore, XMessage msg)
   at Microsoft.XLANGs.Core.ExceptionHandlingContext.PendingCommit(Boolean ignoreCommit, XMessage msg)
   at Microsoft.BizTalk.XLANGs.BTXEngine.BTXPortBase.SendMessage(Int32 iOperation, XLANGMessage msg, Correlation[] initCorrelations, Correlation[] followCorrelations, Context cxt, Segment seg, ActivityFlags flags)
   at AMRForDMS.AMRQueryCurrent.segment15(StopConditions stopOn)
   at Microsoft.XLANGs.Core.SegmentScheduler.RunASegment(Segment s, StopConditions stopCond, Exception& exp)

XLANGMessage mockup

If you pass Microsoft.XLANG.BaseType.XLANGMessage to a helper function from an orchestration, you probably need a mockup version of the XLANGMessage, I do not want to run the whole orchestration to test out my helper functions. I google and i found a blogpost by Mark describing how to do this.
http://biztalk-dev.blogspot.se/2009/06/unit-testing-with-xlangmessage.html

The main thing is that the class XLANGMessage is abstract and can't be instantiated, we need to make an implementation of it. Mark has mocked the basics of an concrete class that derives from XLANGMessage.

Here is a copy of Marks classes, I have also included an example where i used XSD.exe to create a serializble class of a customer message ASCC_CONTAINER. Please don't ask for ASCC_CONTAINER it's not mine to give.

My helper class need to use message.RetrieveAs(typfo(XMLDocument) conversion which I have implemented in the mockup.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using Microsoft.XLANGs.BaseTypes;
using System.Xml;
using System.IO;
using BiztalkHelper.UnpackBase64.Component;
using System.Xml.Serialization;

namespace BTHelperTest
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            //Sample message
            FileStream sf = new FileStream(@"..\..\Sample\2a5e4eed-52c5-4fb6-8a1a-dadbd678bc1a.xml",FileMode.Open,FileAccess.Read);
            System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(ASCC_CONTAINER));
            ASCC_CONTAINER msg = (ASCC_CONTAINER)serializer.Deserialize(sf);

            //Create mockup with sample message
            MockXLANGMessage<ASCC_CONTAINER> ContainerMsg = new MockXLANGMessage<ASCC_CONTAINER>(msg);

            // Test Biztalk helper library
            unpackMessage objUnpack = new unpackMessage();
            XmlDocument retXML = objUnpack.unpackBase64(ContainerMsg);
        }
    }


    public class MockXLANGPart<T> : XLANGPart
    {
        T m_obj;

        public MockXLANGPart(T obj)
        {
            m_obj = obj;
        }

        public override void Dispose()
        {
        }

        public override object GetPartProperty(Type propType)
        {
            throw new NotImplementedException();
        }

        public override Type GetPartType()
        {
            throw new NotImplementedException();
        }

        public override string GetXPathValue(string xpath)
        {
            throw new NotImplementedException();
        }

        public override void LoadFrom(object source)
        {
            throw new NotImplementedException();
        }

        public override string Name
        {
            get { return "MockXLANGPart"; }
        }

        public override void PrefetchXPathValue(string xpath)
        {
            throw new NotImplementedException();
        }

        public override object RetrieveAs(Type t)
        {
            if (t == typeof(T))
            {
                return m_obj;
            }

            if (t == typeof(XmlDocument))
            {
                XmlSerializer serial = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));
                MemoryStream memStream = new MemoryStream();
                XmlTextWriter xmlTextWriter = new XmlTextWriter(memStream, Encoding.UTF8);
                serial.Serialize(xmlTextWriter, m_obj);
                memStream.Seek(0, System.IO.SeekOrigin.Begin);
                XmlTextReader textReader = new XmlTextReader(memStream);
                XmlDocument xmlDoc = new XmlDocument();
                xmlDoc.Load(textReader);
                return xmlDoc;
            }
            return null;
        }

        public override void SetPartProperty(Type propType, object value)
        {
            throw new NotImplementedException();
        }

        public override System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchema XmlSchema
        {
            get { throw new NotImplementedException(); }
        }

        public override System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaCollection XmlSchemaCollection
        {
            get { throw new NotImplementedException(); }
        }
    }

    public class MockXLANGMessage<T> : XLANGMessage
    {
        List<MockXLANGPart<T>> m_parts = new List<MockXLANGPart<T>>();

        public MockXLANGMessage(T obj)
        {
            m_parts.Add(new MockXLANGPart<T>(obj));
        }

        public override void AddPart(object part, string partName)
        {
            throw new NotImplementedException();
        }

        public override void AddPart(XLANGPart part, string partName)
        {
            throw new NotImplementedException();
        }

        public override void AddPart(XLANGPart part)
        {
            throw new NotImplementedException();
        }

        public override int Count
        {
            get { return m_parts.Count; }
        }

        public override void Dispose()
        {
        }

        public override System.Collections.IEnumerator GetEnumerator()
        {
            return m_parts.GetEnumerator();
        }

        public override object GetPropertyValue(Type propType)
        {
            throw new NotImplementedException();
        }

        public override string Name
        {
            get { return "MockXLANGMessage"; }
        }

        public override void SetPropertyValue(Type propType, object value)
        {
            throw new NotImplementedException();
        }

        public override XLANGPart this[int partIndex]
        {
            get { return m_parts[partIndex]; }
        }

        public override XLANGPart this[string partName]
        {
            get { return m_parts[0]; }
        }
    }
}

Many thanx to Mark for pointing me in the right direction.

Running my first Cassandra cluster

I like the idea to scale horizontally, and noSql has some db:s that helps with the concept of partitioning data... So here is my first cluster, up n running. For the shaped eyed person you can see that all nodes are on the same host i.e. 127.0.0.x, but to my defense it's only a lab..

/**
  Address         DC          Rack        Status State   Load            Owns    Token
                                                                               163797825623819365665351379564473550862
127.0.0.2       datacenter1 rack1       Up     Normal  11.29 KB        50.00%  78727233893584749799507727706531497998
127.0.0.4       datacenter1 rack1       Up     Normal  15.73 KB        12.50%  99994881826143403765968640671017011214
127.0.0.5       datacenter1 rack1       Up     Normal  11.29 KB        12.50%  121262529758702057732429553635502524430
127.0.0.3       datacenter1 rack1       Up     Normal  11.33 KB        12.50%  142530177691260711698890466599988037646
127.0.0.1       datacenter1 rack1       Up     Normal  15.7 KB         12.50%  163797825623819365665351379564473550862

Simple Made Easy

I saw this presentation a month ago... When you see something that won’t leave your mind for weeks, it's worth sharing. Rich Hickey talks about the idea that even thought a solution looks simple it is not always easy to accomplish, if you turn that around, things that seems like the easy way don't always turn out to become the simple solutions.

This will take one hour of your life, for some of you he may state the obvious, but sometimes it's nice to have words for that thoughts that you may have :
http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy

Post discussion:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3135185

Session state?

Every time I have used the Session["key"] in ASP.Net it has created a hell for the user and me! I have to promise my self to never use it again... I ought my self to build a class that makes cookies equivalent to sessions storage in ASP.net, so that I can search and replace them in legacy code.

The point with session[] is to save the client's state between calls (for one session dho!) and why do that on the server when there is a way to save the state in the client... And the talk about that some client can choose to not use cookies... Yeh right, try to use Internet without cookies!

A simple ticket system, for free.

Here is a solution for a simple ticket system. Sometimes the customers don’t have any ticket system available for the current project. To pass around mail with status of each task is cumbersome and hard to track and will eventually end up with undone tasks. The alternative to use an online system that cost money can sometimes be a political issue and it has to be approved by the project. And to make things harder, the nature of a ticket system, is that it is shared by many peoples and many peoples means many opinions.

This is a pragmatic approach, DropBox! Use it and share it in the project, eventually it will be adopted.

• I have downloaded and modified a spreadsheet from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/
• You can download it here http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18883163/%C3%84renden.xlsx
• Created a DropBox account.(It's free upp to 2gb)
• Created a folder and shared the folder to all members of the project.
• Copy the spreadsheet to shared folder; it will automatically be synchronized to all members of the shared folder when the file is saved.

• Here is one of the most important steps. For each project there is a RSS stream that you can subscribe to; add the RSS feed to Outlook (or your preferred RSS reader that you use). If you don't have events shown in a way that you are used to, you will forget to check if the document has been updated.
• When somebody updates the excel spreadsheet you will get a notification in the Outlook client, and you can instantly see the changes in your synchronized DropBox folder.

The down side is that DropBox is considered as "unsafe" but I can assure you it is not more unsafe than passing the excel file through mail on the Internet. Another downside is that if you have a synchronization conflict, you probably have type in your changes again.