Crosscheck Networks Support Blog

Crosshcheck Networks at STARWEST 2011 Conference

2011-08-17T19:30:00.000-04:00

Crosscheck Networks will be exhibiting at STARWEST 2011 in Anaheim CA. If you will be attending please stop by the booth!

http://www.sqe.com/starwest/

SC Magazine: Federation 2.0 - An Identity Ecosystem

2011-08-10T13:33:00.001-04:00

Deb Radcliff's defining, informative and well thought out article on the current state and future of Federated Identity is a must read for all SOA, Networking and Security professionals. According to Deb (excerpts from article):

Federated identity, the process of authenticating someone across multiple IT systems and organizations, is taking on new meaning with the growth of cloud and mobile.

Synovus Bank, with 30 banks on the East Coast, didn't want to manage the identities of its approximately 100,000 commercial and 200,000 home-based customers. It also wanted its identity management to occur outside its firewall. So Synovus recently started using Crosscheck Network's Forum Sentry XML Gateway service between these users and their applications.

“Users and their sessions authenticate on the Forum structure, their SAML assertions are signed by Forum, and Forum also issues their secure tokens,” says Santosh Kokate, lead technical analyst with Synovus. “The beauty is I have online banking sitting safely behind the identity gateway and the identities and authentication are established there. I don't have to manage those identities or write a single line of code to make federation happen.”

Synovus also supports authentication for mobile users through REST (Representational State Transfer), which supports HTTPS-based assertions for when Kokate estimates are 8,000 mobile banking customers at this point (and more planned in the future). Because Synovus' intermediary, Crosscheck, supports these and other standards, Synovus can adapt to different types of identity federation requirements as needed.

For complete article, click Federation 2.0: An Identity Ecosystem.

SearchSOA Article Covering SOA Testing in the Real World

2011-08-08T13:14:00.009-04:00

Jack Vaughn, Editor-in-Chief of SearchSOA, published this article on real life scenarios in SOA Testing and general SOA adoptions trends. Article highlights include:

A well built re-usable service will have high demand and a high number of transactions and consumers.
Through automated SOA Testing products such as SOAPSonar, 100% scenario coverage is possible.
Endurance and performance testing are also a core part of SOA Testing.
Service traffic includes traffic from RESTful services and has resulted in portals driving overall JSON, XML and SOAP message structures.
It's not just about A2A communication driving this traffic anymore.

Full article here: Financial firm finds highly scaled testing for proliferating SOA services

Troubleshooting issues with Microsoft Excel Data Sources defined in SOAPSonar and CloudPort

2011-08-05T15:32:00.011-04:00

SOAPSonar and CloudPort users may run into an issue when using Excel Data Sources. Specifically, not all rows of a column are returned when there are both alphanumeric and numeric values.

This is not a bug in SOAPSonar or CloudPort, rather, it is a Microsoft issue with querying Excel worksheets as queries which is documented here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/194124/EN-US

Generally, CSV files should be used as they do not have this column type detection issue. To resolve the problem, either:

1) Convert the file to CSV and use the CSV representation

2) Make the column either completely numeric or completely alphanumeric.

3) If the column types are mixed, ensure an alphanumeric value appears within the first 8 rows

4) Change the registry entry documented in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/194124/EN-US to something larger than "TypeGuessRows=8."

Contact support@crosschecknet.com for more details or further assistance resolving this issue.

SOAPSonar and CloudPort Web Service Testing Tools Integrate Natively with HP Quality Center

2011-08-02T14:44:00.000-04:00

Both of the SOAP/XML/REST/JSON Web services testing tools SOAPSonar and CloudPort from Crosscheck Networks have EMAP certified native integration with HP Quality Center.

Native Quality Center Integration allows direct browsing and publishing to HP QC Projects. For full details on the HP Quality Center integration, please see:

https://helpdesk.crosschecknet.com/entries/172398-docs-soapsonar-hp-quality-center-integration-guide.

Introduction to MTOM: A Hands-on Approach

2011-07-31T17:09:00.004-04:00

An MTOM introduction and tutorial.

With web services-based SOA now being deployed across Global 2000 enterprises, transmitting attachments such as MRI Scans, X-Rays, Design Documents and Business Contracts using SOAP messages has become a common practice.

SOAP Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism (MTOM), is a W3C Recommendation designed for optimizing the electronic transmission of attachments. Through electronic transmission of documents, corporations can realize significant cost savings and better service levels by eliminating the use of postal mail. Paper-based manual tasks can be replaced with simple and efficient electronic processes where binary data can be transmitted between organizations through standards such as MTOM.

Click below for the full article:

Introduction to MTOM: A Hand-on Approach

SOAPSonar and CloudPort License Activation Questions

2011-07-27T13:22:00.001-04:00

For assistance troubleshooting license activation issues with SOAPSonar and CloudPort, please view the article posted on the Crosscheck Networks Support Online Support Portal.

After installing the Crosscheck Networks products, license activation is necessary before the products launch. The activation procedures are the same for both products and there are two methods of activation - online (automatic) and manual (via email).

Read the full article here.

Where to find the latest SOAPSonar and CloudPort Release Notes

2011-07-25T13:09:00.002-04:00

The latest SOAPSonar and CloudPort Release Notes can always be found here:

http://www.crosschecknet.com/doc/releasenotes.php

SOAPSonar and CloudPort Installation Requirements

2011-07-23T14:11:00.006-04:00

The following is a list of requirements for installing SOAPSonar and CloudPort (all editions).

Operating Systems Supported:

Windows 7 32bit
Windows 7 64bit
Windows Vista 32bit
Windows XP
Windows 2008 Server
Windows 2003
Windows 2000

NOTES: SOAPSonar can be run on MAC and UNIX based systems through the use of a Virtual Machine running a Windows OS.

Minimum System Requirements:

1GB RAM (Minimum)
1GHz CPU (Minimum)
250MB Free Disk Space
.NET Framework

Additional Installation and Activation Requirements:

Local Administrator rights - full access to registry (only necessary for install and initial activation)
Network connectivity for activation (online via HTTPS or manual via email)

For more information on running SOAPSonar with Adminstrator rights see:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11841-run-administrator.html

If you plan on heavy performance testing with SOAPSonar, please contact Crosscheck Networks support to discuss recommended requirements.

Running SOAPSonar and CloudPort on Virtual Machines

2011-07-21T18:00:00.000-04:00

Both SOAPSonar and CloudPort from Crosscheck Networks can be installed and will run successfully in virtual machine (VM) environments - including VMware, Microsoft Virtual Server, and many other virtual machine products.

For more information and troubleshooting steps please visit:

https://helpdesk.crosschecknet.com/entries/251546-faq-running-soapsonar-and-cloudport-on-a-virtual-machine

WSDL Retrieval Issues with SOAPSonar or CloudPort

2011-07-20T15:40:00.001-04:00

This article covers various issues experienced when retrieving (capturing) and parsing a WSDL file via URI with both the SOAPSonar and CloudPort products.

HELPFUL TIP: In many cases the WSDL retrieval via URI fails because the URI does not include the ?WSDL syntax. While the service endpoint in the WSDL itself will not show the ?WSDL at the end of the URI, definitely addd the ?WSDL to the end of the URI when attempting to capture the WSDL file via URI.

WSDL Capture Error:

This error typically indicates that SOAPSonar was unable to reach the host and therefore unable to capture of the WSDL. Ensure that SOAPSonar has network access to the server hosting the WSDL file and ensure the network path specified in the URI is correct. If necessary, configure the Proxy Settings on the File>>Settings and Preferences>>Global Proxy Settings screen.

WSDL Parsing Error:

While the error syntax may vary, this error typically indicates that SOAPSonar was able to connect to the server hosting the WSDL, but the file retrieved is not a valid WSDL file. Very often the cause of this is the failure to add the ?WSDL syntax to the end of the URI.

Authentication Errors:

If the service is requiring a form of protocol authentication on the HTTP GET for the WSDL retrieval, SOAPSonar will prompt the user to enter the credentials by opening the HTTP Credentials window. If the correct credentials aren't provided, eventually SOAPSonar will show the 401 Unauthorized error.

HELPFUL TIP: If you are unable to load the WSDL via URI into SOAPSonar, try the same URI in a browser on the same system. If the WSDL can be retrieved by a browser, the same URI should work in SOAPSonar. If the WSDL loads in a browser and not in SOAPSonar, check the browser's proxy server settings and configure the same in SOAPSonar.

Crosscheck Networks Support Online Helpdesk Site

2011-07-20T14:18:00.000-04:00

In order to better assist our growing user community, we have launched the Crosscheck Networks Online Support Portal. Please visit the site to open/view support tickets, access our documentation and FAQs, and for the latest information on the Crosscheck Networks products.

For assistance with SOAPSonar and CloudPort please visit:

https://helpdesk.crosschecknet.com

For assistance with the Forum Systems products (Sentry, Presidio, STS) please visit:

https://helpdesk.forumsys.com