Jean-Paul Smit

InvalidOperationException with Load testing WCF services using VSTS

2010-03-12T22:17:25Z

This is actually a blog post to share my problems with setting up a simple load test for WCF service testing with Visual Studio Team System 2008 Test Edition.

It looks very simple and it is very simple, if you know the trick.

Just for information purposes I tried to setup a load test for a very simple WCF service. It was a service running in IIS and a unit test project calling it. The unit test I wrote worked just fine, so I thought I could use that for the load test.

I added a new Test item and ran the wizard. So far so good. The first thing that went wrong when I tried to run the load test was that the Load Test database was missing. So I had to create the Load Test Results Repository myself. How to do that is described here, but it actually is nothing more than to run a SQL script. If the repository is created, set the connection string in the ‘Administer Test Controller’ menu.

Ready for the second try, but it failed again with the following error:

“System.InvalidOperationException: Could not find default endpoint element that references contract….”

It was clear that the load test couldn’t find the WCF client configuration somehow. After quite some searching I finally found this document with the solution.

When you create a new load test, the “Run unit tests in application domain” setting is false by default, however it should be true in my situation.

Like with most issues, once you know what term to search for it appears to be described fairly well. This quote is from this blog, specifying what this setting is doing:

“When a unit test is run by itself, a separate application domain is created in the test process for each unit test assembly. There is some overhead associated with marshalling tests and test results across the application domain boundary, so when running unit tests in a load test, the application domain is not created by default. This provides some performance boost in terms of the number of tests per second that the test process can execute before running out of CPU. The only drawback is that if the unit test depends on an app.config file, this doesn’t work without creating the app domain. In this case, you can enable the creation of app domain for the unit tests: in the Load Test editor’s Run Setting’s properties set the property “Run unit tests in application domain” to True.”

So after I set the setting to true, everything went smoothly and I must say that load testing is then very easy and cool to do.

BizTalk Software Factory for BizTalk 2009 Service Release

2010-02-24T22:55:00Z

I just released a beta of v2.1 of the BizTalk Software Factory. It is the version for BizTalk Server 2009 and contains some fixes. In the near future some new functionality will be implemented, but for now I hope some annoying issues are fixed.

Please check it out here.

What is fixed:

Fix for x64: the SN.EXE tool is now located based on stored path in the registry
Installation fix: Microsoft.Practices.RecipeFramework.Extensions.dll is now copied to the correct location during setup
BizTalk Deployment Framework support: Moved to v5.0.11 of the deployment framework, together with other minor BDF fixes.

New release of BizTalk Deployment Framework

2010-02-23T11:01:36Z

The guys from the well known BizTalk Deployment Framework have been working very hard lately. Last year there was a version 5.0 beta for BizTalk 2009 solutions and BizTalk 2006 developers had to use version 4.0.

A few days ago they released a new beta of version 5.0 which supports not only BizTalk Server 2009 but also BizTalk Server 2006 and 2006 R2! I’m very happy with these great improvements because v4.0 was much more complex than the beta of v5.0 last year and now they even improved the v5.0 of last year.

I definitely need to dive into this, because the BizTalk Software Factory relies on the BDF for deployment. I already started to fix some x64 issues and now I can integrate the latest version of the BDF as well.

First steps on the SharePoint 2010 BCS path

2010-02-12T22:57:00Z

Because of my work as an integration consultant I’m interested in the new BCS capabilities in SharePoint 2010. It is always good to find out personally what you can and what you cannot do with new technology.

At the SharePoint 2010 connections in the RAI conference center in Amsterdam I saw a nice demo presented by Steve Fox. Like all Microsoft demos things look much easier than in they are in reality.

To find out myself I started a small project. I took this blog by Steve Fox as a guideline because it would be great to get that working in the first place.

I decided to start with the SharePoint Designer to see what you can achieve with regards to the BCS. It turned out that you can create connectivity with SQL Server databases via BCS with the SharePoint Designer very easily. Just click a few times and you can create an external list talking to the database. Cool! I saw a few other options that I would like to investigate more at a later time but are out of scope for now.

Next the Visual Studio approach. I learned a best practice to always start with an empty SharePoint project and then add the necessary items. I added a ‘Business Data Connectivity Model’

By leaving everything to default, this is what the solution and entity looks like:

Because I didn’t like the defaults I decided to change the name of the feature and BDC model. Then I added a WCF Service library to function as service layer between the SharePoint 2010 external list and the SQL Server database. At the end the solution and entity looked like this:

Actually that is where the trouble began. One advice, don’t change the defaults if you’re trying to learn BCS. Just changing the ‘Identifier1’ into ‘CustomerId’ can cause serious trouble and your external list just won’t work. You have to dive into the SharePoint logs to figure out what exactly is going on. The good thing is that I know now where to find the logs (C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\LOGS).

The basic thing is that you have to define an entity which represents the object you’re retrieving. For me it was nothing more than the following, much like in Steve’s blog:

public partial class MyDidagoEntity
{
    public string CustomerId { get; set; }
    public string FirstName { get; set; }
    public string LastName { get; set; }
    public string Street { get; set; }
    public string Zipcode { get; set; }
    public string City { get; set; }
    public string Country { get; set; }
}

Then you implement the ‘CRUD’ methods in the entity service.

ReadItem
ReadList
Create
Update
Delete

In the entity service I called my own WCF service and mapped the objects coming from the WCF service to the entity I defined as ‘MyDidagoEntity’. The ReadItem mehod looks like this:

public static MyDidagoEntity ReadItem(string id)
{
    // Call the service to get the data
    DidagoService.DidagoServiceClient client = new DidagoService.DidagoServiceClient();
    DidagoService.Customer customer = client.GetCustomerById(int.Parse(id));

    MyDidagoEntity MyDidagoEntity = new MyDidagoEntity();
    MyDidagoEntity.CustomerId = id;
    MyDidagoEntity.FirstName = customer.FirstName;
    MyDidagoEntity.LastName = customer.LastName;
    MyDidagoEntity.City = customer.City;
    MyDidagoEntity.Country = customer.Coutry;
    MyDidagoEntity.Street = customer.Street;
    MyDidagoEntity.Zipcode = customer.Zipcode;
    return MyDidagoEntity;
}

One thing I learned so far is not to change the type of the Id of the item you want to read. I changed this from ‘string’ to ‘int’ but didn’t get away with it. I have to dive into this but to get this working, leave it as string.

There are tools in Visual Studio (like the BDC Explorer) that help you with building and changing the XML definition (which is still there), but one way or another I ended up search and replacing things in the XML definition anyway.

The final challenge was to get the WCF client configuration in the right web.config. Because I mostly skipped SharePoint 2007 I had to learn where to put it. After some trial and error I found out it should be in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\80\web.config.

To make a long story short: I got it to work!

It actually is a pretty cool technology that I expect to be used by a lot of companies. I’m sure I’ll run into this in the future so it is my job to be prepared.

Hotfix for Biztalk Server 2009 development Environment

2010-01-25T09:27:35Z

For all you guys developing BizTalk 2009 solutions a hotfix was brought to my attention by Thiago Almeida’s blog.

From the Microsoft support site:

“FIX: You experience various problems when you develop a BizTalk project that references another BizTalk project in Visual Studio on a computer that is running BizTalk Server 2009”

On a computer that is running Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009, you use Microsoft Visual Studio to develop a BizTalk application. In your BizTalk project, you add a reference to another BizTalk project. In this scenario, you may see the following behavior:

The orchestrations in the referenced BizTalk project may show compiler warnings.
The changes that are made to the referenced BizTalk project are not propagated on to the referencing project.
When you edit the orchestrations of the referenced project, XLANG errors are thrown. These errors may disappear after the orchestrations are saved and recompiled.
After you deploy the referencing project, the local copies of the referenced project’s binaries are deleted.
After you deploy the referencing project, various errors or warnings occur in Orchestration Designer.

Information about the hotfix can be found here.

Day 3 SharePoint 2010 Connections Amsterdam

2010-01-20T20:35:42Z

Today when I walked in the conference center in Amsterdam it was almost as if I was at the wrong place. It was completely empty. The post conference day with a IT pro and a developer track was filled with only about 100 people.

Of course I attended the developer deep dive by Wouter van Vugt. Yesterday I attended his session about workflow and was overpowered by his speed of speech. Today he presented in a for me more relaxed way.

The things he covered were ‘what is a developer box’, ‘how to upgrade from 2007 to 2010’ and UI customization. Although there were a lot of attendees interested in BCS it was unfortunately not covered. In my view there was not a real agenda about what to cover and what time to spend to it and suddenly it was 4 pm. It was very interesting to see what can be customized in the UI, but as an integration focused developer I would have liked to see more of development behind the scenes like workflow and BCS.

The overall feelings of the SharePoint 2010 connections in Amsterdam are mixed. It was good to see so many familiar faces and talk to so many people, on the other hand the sessions were not that good and if you’re interested in SharePoint and follow a bit what is blogged about it you soon know more than is shown in the sessions. The catering was also limited, especially this third day. Not even a snack during the coffee breaks…...

So what’s next?

Time to spin up my server and get started with some BCS myself :-)

Day 2 SharePoint 2010 Connections Amsterdam

2010-01-19T20:51:45Z

Today was the second day of the 2-day conference. Today I had planned to see more of the back side of SharePoint 2010. After all I am an integration guy.

So I went to see a session about the Business Connectivity Services by Steve Fox. It was a good session which provided a good overview. In SharePoint 2007 it was only possible to read external data and view it in a list, but in SharePoint 2010 the full CRUD operations are supported. It is my expectation that this feature will be used extensively to perform operations on LOB systems. Also with my background in integration I see a lot of possibilities.

Next I attended Integrating workflows into backend systems using Data External Services, presented by Wouter van Vugt. This guy tries to talk twice the speed of sound and you really have to pay attention otherwise you’re lost, or at least that was my experience. I’m not all that into WF data external services and Wouter jumped from one topic to the other. The thing I missed was context and overview. For the more experienced attendees it was probably a meaningful session.

After the lunch I planned my last session. It was about Claims based identity in SharePoint 2010 by Spencer Harbar. This was also a somewhat disappointing session. He probably knows a whole lot about the topic, but he has difficulties presenting it. He talks monotonic, didn’t show any demo and was finished 25 minutes early. The things he discussed where general claims bases topics like the STS. He could have shown more SharePoint specific, in my opinion.

After the last session I rushed to the BTUG meeting, the Dutch BizTalk User Group meeting. The sessions there were very good, as always. It was great to see so many familiar faces and it was terrible I had to leave early, just in the middle of the session I actually came for. Too bad.

Tomorrow is my 3rd day, the developers deep dive. Let’s see what that will bring.

Day 1 SharePoint 2010 Connections Amsterdam

2010-01-18T20:50:00Z

Today started the 2-day SharePoint Connections 2010. It was my first meeting with SharePoint 2010 since I left SharePoint back in 2005. I must say it is an exiting platform which can be used to build great solutions.

The key note was presented by Mike Fitzmaurice of Nintex. As a former Microsoft SharePoint evangelist he took us on a journey through the history of SharePoint. It was fun to watch.

My next session was by Steve Fox, he brought an overview of the developer platform. Steve is a good speaker with a great sense of humor. On the way of course the SharePoint designer and Visual Studio came by. It was useful overview.

Then I went to a session I would normally not attend. The SharePoint BI overview by Mike Fitzmaurice. I’m on a project now with a strong focus on BI so I thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to see what Microsoft did to for example Performance Point Server. Like Steven Forte predicted, BI in SharePoint 2010 will be for the masses. Performance Point Server is integrated and is now a service like the Excel and Visio services. It is much easier to build a custom dashboard in SharePoint 2010.

Next I visited the ECM (Enterprise Content Management) for the masses by Erica Toelle. It was a new experience for Erica. As she told at the end she wasn’t used to speak for such a crowed but she tried to make the best of it. She was unsure about her live demos Her demo environment stopped working so she had recorded ones, which wasn’t the best choice. However I learned quite a few things from this session I normally would skip when researching SharePoint, like document sets where you can create a set of documents with one click and those documents can also be parameterized. How about records management for auditing purposes and auto-archiving.

My final session of today was presented by one of my favorite speakers, Jan Tielens. Jan can make complex things easy, knows his stuff and is entertaining. He showed how easy it is to use client technology to access SharePoint 2010 using a console application, JavaScript or Silverlight. It is great to see that SharePoint now comes with a client side API which makes it possible to use the object model on a client the same way it can be used on the server. That makes it possible to easily use SharePoint data in for example a Silverlight client.

Like at any conference it is difficult to decide what session to attend and I hope the other session will be available soon.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow!

It wasn’t really a surprise but I ran into quite some familiar faces from fellow freelancers, customers and former colleagues from Macaw. It was great to talk to any of them.

Easy Install Sharepoint 2010 Beta2 on Windows 2008 R2

2010-01-05T20:52:24Z

2010 is an important year for Microsoft with some major releases. One of them is SharePoint 2010.

Back in 2003 I played quite a lot with what was then called SharePoint Portal Server 2003, but due to my focus on BizTalk Server I did almost nothing with MOSS 2007.

Now with SharePoint 2010 coming I want to get on that train again to also be able to work with that part of the Microsoft stack.

Since SharePoint 2010 is in a beta stage, not everything installs as smooth as will be with the final release. Luckily I found a great 1-page install guide which is probably the easiest guide available to install SharePoint 2010 beta2 on a Windows Server 2008 R2 box. It also uses the SQL Server 2008 R2 CTP so you’re in the front seat again.

http://www.chakkaradeep.com/post/Quick-Installation-Guide-for-SharePoint-2010-Beta2.aspx

I’ll also attend the Microsoft SharePoint Connections 2010 on 18/19 January in the Amsterdam RAI Forum Centre. Exciting stuff!

Fixing SSIS Data Flow Task Performance Problems

2009-12-03T15:14:12Z

While working on my current SSIS assignment I ran into some strange performance problems. The package ran fine but it took a lot of time to get a certain Data Flow Task to finish.

The strange thing was that when executing the package in Visual Studio, all elements in the Data Flow Task were ‘green’ but the Data Flow Task itself remained ‘yellow’ for a long time. Eventually the flow finished ok, but it took about 5 seconds to execute all elements in the flow, but the total time of the package was 2 minutes.

The ‘Execution Results’ tab showed that the package seem to spend a lot of time in the ‘Post Execute phase’ and ‘Cleanup phase’.

At first I thought it was something in the Data Flow Task itself, so I removed some items. This didn’t solve anything. The I thought it was something with a table being locked or so, but the SQL monitoring showed no locks during execution.

With such behavior it was hard to find the solution using a search engine, but luckily I found the solution here.

This post saved my life because it suggests to increase the Data Flow Tasks DefaultBufferSize setting. By default it is 10485760 and I increased it with a factor 4. After doing that the package ran in 10 seconds instead of 2 minutes. Great!

If this doesn’t solve your problem, take a look at the Ole Db Destination, if you’re using one. If you use the ‘Table or view – fast load’ make sure unnecessary settings are turned off. For example only check constraints if it is really necessary.

PDC 2009 in less than an Hour

2009-12-01T22:49:18Z

If you’re like me than you’re probably also catching up all the interesting stuff that was presented at the PDC this year. You also probably agree that it is way to much and it is taking way to long to view all the interesting sessions.

Luckily I got an email from Ideablade.com with a link to a presentation which gives an overview of the most important news in less than an hour.

Click here to go to the PDC 2009 Tour by Ideablade.com.

Also a PDF with links to all the sessions are available. You can get them here.

The tour is from a business application developers perspective and according to the presenter the following technologies should be watched closely:

Silverlight 4 (New Visual Studio ‘Cider’ for Silverlight development)
WCF Data Services (for exposing data)
WCF RIA Services (for building applications)
Entity Framework
OData
Parallelism
F#

The recommended sessions are:

CL01 – Silverlight 4 overview
CL21 – Amazing Bus Apps with RIA Services
CL19 – Building LOB Apps
CL20 – Trusted Apps Out of Browser
CL07 – Mastering RIA Services
CL06 – Networking and Web Services in Silverlight 4
FT24 – Extensible RIA with MEF
CL22 – Building Larget-Scale Apps with Silverlight 4
FT10 – Evolving EF in .NET 4
Manycore and the Microsoft .NET Framework 4 (Stephen Toub)
PLINQ: LINQ, but Faster! (Igor Ostrovsky)
Rx: Reactive Extensions for .NET (Erik Meijer)
F# for Parallel and Asynchronous Programming (Luke Hoban)

After the hour during overview I certainly need more time to see more sessions!

Solving TFS 2010 beta 2 error TF255040

2009-11-30T08:30:06Z

Last weekend I spend some time installing Visual Studio 2010 beta 2 and Team Foundation Server 2010 beta2. I now have a nice server with 12 Gb of RAM so I have some space to run virtual environments side-by-side. :-)

Installation went smoothly but configuration of TFS single server failed with the following error:

“TF255040: Install SQL Server Reporting Services or at a minimum SQL Client Connectivity Tools on the application tier to ensure Analysis Services object model is present for warehouse processing.”

So I started the SQL Server 2008 setup and thought I fixed the error by installing Reporting Services and SQL client tools, but the error remained. The good news about such a specific error code is that you can use it in your search query and so did I.

I found the solution in this MSDN forum.

The solution was easy, just restart the TFS configuration tool:

“The problem in beta2 is we scan for those assemblies once and don't re-scan so after you install to SQL client tools, you need to close and restart the wizards.”

Clear error code, easy solved. Let’s move on!

BizTalk Server Roadmap Presented at the PDC

2009-11-23T09:48:00Z

Last week the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) was held in the USA. At this conference Microsoft gives an insight in the future of their products and ambitions.

Also news about BizTalk was presented. At least 2 new releases were announced:

BizTalk Server 2009 R2, with these features:

Visual Studio 2010 support
SQL Server 2008 R2 support
Windows Server 2008 R2 support
Enhanced designer tool for mappings
FTPS adapter
Performance tuning dashboard (to allow easy access to the BizTalk performance (latency) knobs)
Improved support for event processing (used for RFID)
Powershell scripts to automate management
New System Center Operations Manager pack

BizTalk Server vNext, with this focus:

Deep application platform alignment, including AppFabric (aka Dublin) and WF 4
Enterprise connectivity for AppFabric
On-premises Server and Cloud Service Symmetry

A video about the roadmap can be viewed here.

Want to know more about these exiting announcements, take a look here:

Malformed data in SSIS

2009-11-10T11:47:42Z

At the moment I’m on a project which involves SQL Server Integration Services 2008. I had experience with DTS packages back in SQL Server 2000, but things have changed quite a bit.

After some reading and trying I built a new package. It was quite easy, reading data from one table, adding a column and writing it to another table. I used the Ole DB data flow source and because the destination was a SQL Server I decided to use the SQL Server destination data flow.

After a few runs I found out that the data in my destination table was malformed. Some fields contained correct data, but most were wrong. It looked like the data was shifted in one way or another.

Adding debugging to the package showed me that the problem had to be in the SQL Server destination data flow.

Some trial and error work didn’t result in a solution so I finally replaced the SQL Server destination data flow with the Ole DB destination data flow. It turned out to do the trick!

I’m not sure why SSIS behaved like this, because the data entering the data flow component was ok.

BizTalk Server 2009 VPC available

2009-10-27T21:35:00Z

Microsoft released a demo VPC for BizTalk Server 2009. It contains demos and hands-on labs aiming for integration with Sharepoint Server 2007 and WF 3.

Get it here: Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009 Demo VPC

The VPC will expire on October 1st, 2010.

Update: The download seems to be corrupted, I got a CRC error !!