What are the different ways to debug integration projects developed using BizTalk, Jitterbit, Websphere message broker etc?

Question

I want to know which integration product provides the best debugging capabilities? Also what are the ways a person typically uses to debug integration projects in different integration products like BizTalk, jitterbit, Websphere message broker, Talend etc. At what granularity can debugging be done in these products?

Answer 1

I can only speak for BizTalk

IMO the following are the most common sources of bugs in BizTalk artifacts:

• Maps
• Subscriptions (including correlations and feedback loops)
• Orchestrations (i.e. validating state transitions / paths)
• Custom .Net Code
• Pipelines

In more detail:

• For mapping, BizTalk is XML and XSLT based - debugging of XSLT maps can be tested within the Visual Studio IDE or with an Xml / Xslt tool such as Xml Spy. You can test with both auto-created test messages or with a custom message. In most instances you should have strongly typed XSD schemas for both source and destination messages, so XML validation will quickly pick up issues.
• Auditing of messages (by enabling Tracking) allows you to grab a message (or sequence of messages) from production and then replay them in a debugging environment. This will allow you to build up test suites / test cases for all permutations for unit / integration testing.
• Subscription errors - BizTalk allows viewing of subscriptions at any point in time, both activating and correlations on existing instances.
• Orchestration debugging is possible using the Orchestration Debugger (HAT), allowing you to step through the shapes of the orchestration.
• Custom Code written in .Net can be debugged and unit tested through usual .Net tools (Visual Studio, MS Unit / N Unit, Moq etc)

There are also several community unit testing tools for BizTalk (although BizUnit is more of an integration test automation IMO) which should help you with proactive and regression testing.