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Regression Tests on Messaging and Webservice
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Pull the trigger

In a typical IT system there can be hundreds or thousands of messages exchanged every minute. This traffic has its purpose as every message is sent for a reason - it triggers the recipient which usually processes the data it received but may also send back a confirmation message of some sort.

Opensphere allows for modeling that communication and it does it for three kinds of messaging components - JMS Message Producer/Consumer, TIBCO RendezvousTM Publisher/Subscriber and Webservice Client/Server. The trigger in this case can be either an iterator which triggers message sending on every increment or a data row set. In case of the latter, you can define static data set or an SQL statement which retrieves data from a database. Static data is useful in early implementation phase when you’re doing a proof of concept testing or when the communication between components is very simple and predictable. But when you operate heavily on dynamic data sets, the SQL query row set definition is the natural option.

Setting up data driven message triggering is very straightforward: you create a messaging component of your choice (JMS Message Producer, Rendezvous Publisher or Webservice Client) and select the Data Row Set option for the Message Sending Trigger. Next, you click the [Define...] button to open the Row Set Definition window. Now you get to the point where you choose whether you want dynamic or static data triggering.

For the static data set you have plenty options to choose from: you can either input the data manually, import it from a CSV file, load it from an XML file or retrieve it from a database. This way you can set up your messaging component in no time.

You should know that all database connections require you to specify a JDBC driver. If you haven’t done that yet, you can do it in the Opensphere’s Preferences dialog (select Tool -> Tool Options... from the menu bar and select the Database/JDBC entry on the left). You may have to download a JDBC library (usually a JAR file) before and store the jar file in the libext directory of the Opensphere installation.

Dynamic data sets requires specifying the JDBC driver along with the database URL (eg. jdbc:mysql://192.168.1.2:3306/my_db) and database user credentials; and of course the SQL statement to retrieve the data which will trigger message publishing. The SQL query editor implements syntax highlighting and allows for using previously defined substitution variables which can be inserted from a context menu which opens upon a right-click. Once you provide all necessary information, you can click the [Check] button to verify that all given parameters are correct, but it isn’t mandatory as Opensphere will run that check anyways when you click the [OK] button to close the Row Set Definition window.

And voila - you have your dynamic message triggering all set up - enjoy it!

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