Recently I was creating a WebAPI using .net core and one of the things that is a pain is that when you run the api and look at your swagger the names of the controllers arent very friendly. By default if I have a controller called UserAppointmentsController then the swagger generated will look like the below picture. The class definition which gives me this looks like the below. Now Im sure someone will tell me there is an [...]
Recently I wrote a guest post on the Serverless 360 blog talking about how you can implement an API using Functions on Azure. https://www.serverless360.com/blog/real-world-azure-serverless-use-case-to-implement-a-b2b-api
In the current feature set available on Azure one of the most common patterns for implementing an API is to use a combination of Azure Functions to act as the back end of the API where the bulk of the work is done and then to use Azure API Management (APIM) in front of the function as an API proxy to add additional security, management and operational features to make your API better and improve the usability without [...]
I wanted to talk a little about the architecture I designed recently for a Dynamics CRM + Portal + Integration project. In the initial stages of the project a number of options were considered for a Portal (or group of portals) which would support staff, students and other users which would integrate with Dynamics CRM and other applications in the application estate. One of the challenges I could see coming up in the architecture was the level of [...]
While chatting to Jeff Holland on integration Monday this evening I mentioned some thinking I had been doing around how to articulate the various products within the Microsoft Integration Platform in terms of their codeless vs Serverless nature. Below is a rough diagram with me brain dumping a rough idea where each product would be in terms of these two axis. (Note: This is just my rough approximation of where things could be positioned) If you look at [...]
Recently I have been thinking about a sample use case where you may want to expose legacy applications via a hybrid API but you have the challenge that the underlying LOB applications are not really fit for purpose to be the underlying sub-systems for a hybrid API. In this case we have some information held across 2 databases which are years old and clogged full of crappy technical debt which has festered over the years. Creating an API [...]
Recently I was working with Azure API Management creating an API and I needed to create an operation which would return some relatively constant/static data. Lets say for example this was some configuration data such as a list of settings an app could use. With this scenario the challenge is how to implement the solution without having to write much code and making something which will perform well and which will be easy to maintain. I quite like [...]
Recently I presented an Integration Monday session where I talked about how integration developers could leverage Application Insights on Azure to be able to improve the monitoring experience of the typical components we have and I also talked about product positioning and how it might relate to other monitoring and devops style tools. I showed how you might use it in REST API components, WCF components and also in BizTalk applications. The video for integration monday is on [...]
I recently wrote a sample for a WCF behaviour extension to allow you to consume an API in BizTalk if it was secured with Azure Active Directory. In this video I have used that sample to show how you can use the Power BI API from BizTalk Server in a very simple way using the Web-HTTP adapter to consume rest services. The original post with the sample WCF behaviour is on the following link: http://microsoftintegration.guru/2015/11/16/biztalk-wcf-behaviour-extension-for-waad-authentication/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfJ7JIN7ze0
Recently I created a proof of concept using a WCF behaviour extension to consume services which require authentication against Azure Active Directory. The idea here is that if you want to consume an API and wish to use a service account credential you can configure the service account in Azure AD or alternatively on premise and use Azure AD Connect to synchronise the ID to the cloud. Once your credential is in Azure AD you can configure a [...]
