reliability of spring integration esb - esb

How the reliability of message transmission be protected in the spring intergration?
For example, the server crashed when messages transforming in the router, or messages were processed failed in splitter and transformer?
How the mechanism handles those situation?Is there any references or documents?
Any help will be appreciated!

Also, if your entry point is a channel adapter or gateway that supports transactions (e.g. JMS, AMQP, JDBC, JPA,..) and you use default channels, the entire flow will take place within the scope of that transaction, as the transaction context is bound to the thread. If you add any buffering channels or a downstream aggregator, then you would want to consider what Gary mentioned so that you are actually completing the initial transaction by handing responsibility to another reliable resource (as opposed to leaving a Message in an in-memory Map and then committing, for example).
Hope that makes sense.
Shameless plug: there's a good overview of transactions within the Spring Integration in Action book, available now through MEAP: http://manning.com/fisher/
Regards,
Mark

By default, messages are held in memory but you can declare channels to be persistent, as needed. Persistent channels use JMS, AMQP (rabbit), or a message store. A number of message stores are provided, including JDBC, MongoDB, Redis, or you can construct one that uses a technology of your choice.
http://static.springsource.org/spring-integration/docs/2.1.1.RELEASE/reference/html/

Related

Implement Spring JMSTemplate without acknowledgement

We have a requirement is to build spring boot command line applicarion where we have to send messages to queue.
Only request queue has been setup.
As there is no response queue setup, we are not getting any acknowledgement from client side if they receive a message or not.
Right now I am using Spring's JMSTemplate send() method to send message to request queue and SingleConnectionFactory to create one shared connection as this is commmand line application
As there is no acknowledgement/response to message we send to request queue, End to end testing is difficult.
If destination/request queue connection is obtained and message is sent without any exception, I consider it a successful test.
Is it a right to implement Spring JMS templates send() method only ? and not following jms template send/receive pattern
Note: It is not possible to setup a response queue and get any acknowledgement from client side.
In JMS (and in most other messaging systems) producers and consumers are logically separated (i.e. de-coupled). This is part of the fundamental design of the system to reduce complexity and increase scalability. With these constraints your producers shouldn't care whether or not the message is consumed. The producers simply send messages. Likewise, the consumers shouldn't care who sends the messages or how often, etc. Their job is simply to consume the messages.
Assuming your application is actually doing something with the message (i.e. there is some kind of functional output of message processing) then that is what your end-to-end test should measure. If you get the ultimate result you're looking for then you may deduce that the steps in between (e.g. sending a message, receiving a message, etc.) were completed successfully.
To be clear, it's perfectly fine to send a message with Spring's JMSTemplate without using a request/response pattern. Generally speaking, if you get no exceptions then that means the message was sent successfully. However, there are other caveats when using JMSTemplate. For example, Spring's JavaDoc says this:
The ConnectionFactory used with this template should return pooled Connections (or a single shared Connection) as well as pooled Sessions and MessageProducers. Otherwise, performance of ad-hoc JMS operations is going to suffer.
That said, it's important to understand the behavior of your specific JMS client implementation. Many implementations will send non-persistent JMS messages asynchronously (i.e. fire and forget) which means they may not make it to the broker and no exception will be thrown on the client. Sending persistent messages is generally sufficient to guarantee that the client will throw an exception in the event of any problem, but consult your client implementation documentation to confirm.

Why should I build my own error/exception handling into a Webflux application?

When there is some internal exception in a Webflux application, why do I want/need to write code to handle these exceptions? I understand handling issues and returning appropriate ServerResponse bodies when the service client incorrectly invokes a service, or when a non-error-condition (i.e., query returns empty cursor, etc.) occurs.
But, other than generating debug information into a logfile, is there anything to be gained by rolling-your-own exception handling components? This approach makes "more sense" to me in a monolithic application, where one is trying to avoid a scenario where the app "just dies".
But, for a service implementation, especially if there's some incentive not to expose too much about the internal implementation to a client, why wouldn't Spring's default error/exception handling (and "500 Internal Server Error" response/message) be sufficient.
So, after some time and thought (and little, but still helpful-and-appreciated feedback), I guess it boils down to:
(a) - It provides a localized context to "do things", like logging information about the exception/error condition, or categorizing the severity of the exception within-the-context of a server-client interaction.
(b) - It provides a localized context to hide/expose information from a client, based on the nature of the exception/error condition and whether the server is deployed in a production or test environment.
(c) - Being localized, it makes maintenance/modification a bit easier, as the handling of exceptions/errors is not scattered throughout the code.
(a) and (c) are enough to make me believe it's worth the effort.

Open alternatives to Windows Workflow

Pre-warning: There are some other questions similar to this but don't quite answer the question (these include: Alternatives to Windows Workflow Foundation?, Can anyone recommend a .Net open source alternative to Windows Workflow?)
We are developing a system that is an event based state machine, currently we are investigating windows workflow, our system needs to be low latency in its response to events from a multitude of sources (xmpp, http, sms, phone call, email etc etc) coming into the system, scalable and resilient and most importantly customisable. For a variety of reasons (and due diligence) I am looking for open workflow engines that support functions similar to Windows Workflow Foundation (and more - if possible), mainly (but it doesn't matter too much if there are engines that don't support some features):
Persistence of long running tasks, and resumption of tasks on external events
High performance, low latency
Ability to develop custom actions
The ability to specify workflows dynamically
Tracking and tracing
I am not constrained to platform or language, and I would love some help and tips from you guys so that I can start to investigate the engines more closely and any experiences you had with the engines.
Paul.
I invite you to examine Stateless further, as suggested in the answer to my SO question can-anyone-recommend-a-net-open-source-alternative-to-windows-workflow. to achieve the goal of a long running state machine is very simple in that you can store the current state of your state in a database and re-sync the state machine when needed. Consider the following code from the stateless site:
Stateless has been designed with
encapsulation within an ORM-ed domain
model in mind. Some ORMs place
requirements upon where mapped data
may be stored. To this end, the
StateMachine constructor can accept
function arguments that will be used
to read and write the state values:
var stateMachine = new StateMachine<State, Trigger>(
() => myState.Value,
s => myState.Value = s);
With very little effort you can persist your state, then retrieve that state easily later on.
In respect updating the workflow dynamically, if you configure a state machine such as
var stateMachine = new StateMachine<string, int>();
and maintain a separate file of states and triggers in XML, you can perform a configuration at runtime by looping through the string int value pairs.
"Java side":
Apache ODE (Orchestration Director Engine) executes business processes written following the WS-BPEL standard. It talks to web services, sending and receiving messages, handling data manipulation and error recovery as described by your process definition. It supports both long and short living process executions to orchestrate all the services that are part of your application.
http://ode.apache.org/
OSWorkflow can be considered a "low level" workflow implementation. Situations like "loops" and "conditions" that might be represented by a graphical icon in other workflow systems must be "coded" in OSWorkflow.
http://www.opensymphony.com/osworkflow/
Shark is an extendable workflow engine framework including a standard implementation completely based on WfMC specifications using XPDL (without any proprietary extensions !) as its native workflow process definition format and the WfMC "ToolAgents" API for serverside execution of system activitie
http://www.enhydra.org/workflow/shark/index.html
Python side:
http://bika.sourceforge.net/
http://www.vivtek.com/wftk/
I this will help you :-)
You might consider implementing your flow as an actual state machine. Tools like State Machine Compiler and Ragel can help with this. State machines, in many circumstances, are just what you need to implement insanely complex behavior that is testable, and rock-solid. I don't claim to be a Windows work flow expert, but from what I have seen, I question its superiority over coding your own state machine, either by hand or using a tool.
You might want to check out Simple State Machine.
If you feel like you want to have more control over things and want to roll your own it might be helpful to check out the Saga support that projects like NServiceBus and MassTransit use. Sagas look to be very similar to WF workflows but are POCO objects and I believe both projects just use NHibernate for Saga persistence.
I'm going to recommend you take a few hours to look at the book Open-Source ESBs in Action. "Orchestration" and "Choreography" are the key buzzwords to look at when dealing with "enterprise service busses." The systems for .NET are quite expensive (BizTalk is in the price range of a decent car, the price of Tibco is in the price range of a decent house).
Other links:
Open ESB project
Comparison of OpenESB and ServiceMix (both of which are the subject of the "In Action" book above.
Try Drools for JAVA, I personally have never tried it but I know several commercial applications are based on drools.
http://www.jboss.org/drools/
You could also upgrade to .NET 4.0 there are major improvements in the Workflow in the new framework. I know if I was writing a new workflow application I would jump to 4.0.
Good Luck
JBoss JBPM
Consider Workflow Engine, a lightweight all-in-one component that enables you to add custom executable workflows of any complexity to any .NET or Java software, be it your own creation or a third-party solution, with minimal changes to existing code. It supports custom actions and commands, has timers and supports parallel workflows. And there's a free version.
You can take a look at Imixs-Workflow, which is an event driven approach of a state machine based on bpmn 2.0. It specially focuses on human-centric long running tasks.

What are the best practices to log an error?

Many times I saw logging of errors like these:
System.out.println("Method aMethod with parameters a:"+a+" b: "+b);
print("Error in line 88");
so.. What are the best practices to log an error?
EDIT:
This is java but could be C/C++, basic, etc.
Logging directly to the console is horrendous and frankly, the mark of an inexperienced developer. The only reason to do this sort of thing is 1) he or she is unaware of other approaches, and/or 2) the developer has not thought one bit about what will happen when his/her code is deployed to a production site, and how the application will be maintained at that point. Dealing with an application that is logging 1GB/day or more of completely unneeded debug logging is maddening.
The generally accepted best practice is to use a Logging framework that has concepts of:
Different log objects - Different classes/modules/etc can log to different loggers, so you can choose to apply different log configurations to different portions of the application.
Different log levels - so you can tweak the logging configuration to only log errors in production, to log all sorts of debug and trace info in a development environment, etc.
Different log outputs - the framework should allow you to configure where the log output is sent to without requiring any changes in the codebase. Some examples of different places you might want to send log output to are files, files that roll over based on date/size, databases, email, remoting sinks, etc.
The log framework should never never never throw any Exceptions or errors from the logging code. Your application should not fail to load or fail to start because the log framework cannot create it's log file or obtain a lock on the file (unless this is a critical requirement, maybe for legal reasons, for your app).
The eventual log framework you will use will of course depend on your platform. Some common options:
Java:
Apache Commons Logging
log4j
logback
Built-in java.util.logging
.NET:
log4net
C++:
log4cxx
Apache Commons Logging is not intended for applications general logging. It's intended to be used by libraries or APIs that don't want to force a logging implementation on the API's user.
There are also classloading issues with Commons Logging.
Pick one of the [many] logging api's, the most widely used probably being log4j or the Java Logging API.
If you want implementation independence, you might want to consider SLF4J, by the original author of log4j.
Having picked an implementation, then use the logging levels/severity within that implementation consistently, so that searching/filtering logs is easier.
The easiest way to log errors in a consistent format is to use a logging framework such as Log4j (assuming you're using Java). It is useful to include a logging section in your code standards to make sure all developers know what needs to be logged. The nice thing about most logging frameworks is they have different logging levels so you can control how verbose the logging is between development, test, and production.
A best practice is to use the java.util.logging framework
Then you can log messages in either of these formats
log.warning("..");
log.fine("..");
log.finer("..");
log.finest("..");
Or
log.log(Level.WARNING, "blah blah blah", e);
Then you can use a logging.properties (example below) to switch between levels of logging, and do all sorts of clever stuff like logging to files, with rotation etc.
handlers = java.util.logging.ConsoleHandler
.level = WARNING
java.util.logging.ConsoleHandler.level = ALL
com.example.blah = FINE
com.example.testcomponents = FINEST
Frameworks like log4j and others should be avoided in my opinion, Java has everything you need already.
EDIT
This can apply as a general practice for any programming language. Being able to control all levels of logging from a single property file is often very important in enterprise applications.
Some suggested best-practices
Use a logging framework. This will allow you to:
Easily change the destination of your log messages
Filter log messages based on severity
Support internationalised log messages
If you are using java, then slf4j is now preferred to Jakarta commons logging as the logging facade.
As stated slf4j is a facade, and you have to then pick an underlying implementation. Either log4j, java.util.logging, or 'simple'.
Follow your framework's advice to ensuring expensive logging operations are not needlessly carried out
The apache common logging API as mentioned above is a great resource. Referring back to java, there is also a standard error output stream (System.err).
Directly from the Java API:
This stream is already open and ready
to accept output data.
Typically this stream corresponds to
display output or another output
destination specified by the host
environment or user. By convention,
this output stream is used to display
error messages or other information
that should come to the immediate
attention of a user even if the
principal output stream, the value of
the variable out, has been redirected
to a file or other destination that is
typically not continuously monitored.
Aside from technical considerations from other answers it is advisable to log a meaningful message and perhaps some steps to avoid the error in the future. Depending on the errors, of course.
You could get more out of a I/O-Error when the message states something like "Could not read from file X, you don't have the appropriate permission."
See more examples on SO or search the web.
There really is no best practice for logging an error. It basically just needs to follow a consistent pattern (within the software/company/etc) that provides enough information to track the problem down. For Example, you might want to keep track of the time, the method, parameters, calling method, etc.
So long as you dont just print "Error in "

Design question: How can I access an IPC mechanism transparently?

I want to do this (no particular language):
print(foo.objects.bookdb.books[12].title);
or this:
book = foo.objects.bookdb.book.new();
book.title = 'RPC for Dummies';
book.save();
Where foo actually is a service connected to my program via some IPC, and to access its methods and objects, some layer actually sends and receives messages over the network.
Now, I'm not really looking for an IPC mechanism, as there are plenty to choose from. It's likely not to be XML based, but rather s. th. like Google's protocol buffers, dbus or CORBA. What I'm unsure about is how to structure the application so I can access the IPC just like I would any object.
In other words, how can I have OOP that maps transparently over process boundaries?
Not that this is a design question and I'm still working at a pretty high level of the overall architecture. So I'm pretty agnostic yet about which language this is going to be in. C#, Java and Python are all likely to get used, though.
I think the way to do what you are requesting is to have all object communication regarded as message passing. This is how object methods are handled in ruby and smalltalk, among others.
With message passing (rather than method calling) as your object communication mechanism, then operations such as calling a method that didn't exist when you wrote the code becomes sensible as the object can do something sensible with the message anyway (check for a remote procedure, return a value for a field with the same name from a database, etc, or throw a 'method not found' exception, or anything else you could think of).
It's important to note that for languages that don't use this as a default mechanism, you can do message passing anyway (every object has a 'handleMessage' method) but you won't get the syntax niceties, and you won't be able to get IDE help without some extra effort on your part to get the IDE to parse your handleMessage method to check for valid inputs.
Read up on Java's RMI -- the introductory material shows how you can have a local definition of a remote object.
The trick is to have two classes with identical method signatures. The local version of the class is a facade over some network protocol. The remote version receives requests over the network and does the actual work of the object.
You can define a pair of classes so a client can have
foo= NonLocalFoo( "http://host:port" )
foo.this= "that"
foo.save()
And the server receives set_this() and save() method requests from a client connection. The server side is (generally) non-trivial because you have a bunch of discovery and instance management issues.
You shouldn't do it! It is very important for programmers to see and feel the difference between an IPC/RPC and a local method call in the code. If you make it so, that they don't have to think about it, they won't think about it, and that will lead to very poorly performing code.
Think of:
foreach o, o.isGreen in someList {
o.makeBlue;
}
The programmer assumes that the loops takes a few nanoseconds to complete, instead it takes close to a second if someList happens to be remote.