Maintenance of AppServer Application

Posted by Admin on 07-Aug-2006 11:19

Hello!

We are migrating a v9 classical client-server application to multi-tiers one. We are always using v9, but the target architecture is service oriented. The goal is to be ready for OERA in advance.

The problem nowadays is that many programmers, used to work in C/S environment for many years, have some difficulties to maintain and debug the new N-tiers programs. Some of these programs were put "in prod", and it is very important that poeple know how to maintain and troubleshoot them.

Is there any formula, any algorithm, any methodology to debug and maintain AppServer programs?

Have any of you encountred the same problems? And how have you resolve it? Is there any message that can help "old" programmers accepting and adopting the new architecture?

Message was edited by:

ahaddad

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Posted by svi on 08-Aug-2006 15:26

From a debugging perspective:

The OpenEdge Debugger supports distributed architecture, that is, in can debug AppServer either by stepping into the AppServer program called from the client or by debugging the AppServer session itself. In addition the Debugger can attach to a running OpenEdge runtime.

Finally you can start the Debugger programmatically (from your procedures).

This does not require your application to be using any specific architecture or programming model.

For more information, if you have not already, please refer to the Product Documentation:

http://www.psdn.com/library/kbcategory.jspa?categoryID=129

- OpenEdge Application Server: Developing AppServer Applications, section AppServer Debugging.

- OpenEdge Development: Debugging and Troubleshooting.

Posted by Admin on 09-Aug-2006 07:26

Many thanks. But we are still working in v9. OpenEdge is the next step. It is good news to see that OE will offer us new utils for debugging and troubleshooting.

May be I should give an example of what is happening:

A programmer have to solve problem returned by a user.

This programmer is used to work only in C/S architecture. He was used to search and find the solution examining a unique program containing the user interface (UI)and the business logic (BL) in the same time.

In a multi-tiers architecture, he will feel lost (he is a very good L4G programmer by the way). UI and BL are separated. To help him, I should prepare a sort of general method with well-defined steps . For example:

1- First, examine the appserver log. check if there is a system error on the bl program;

2- If there is no error message on appserver, check the appserver receives the right data

... etc.

Using Progress debugger wille surely helpful in the extreme cases.

I don't know if any of you have encountred the same problems? If there are such procedures? I think these are the usual difficulties when migrating fron C/S to N-tiers??

Posted by svi on 09-Aug-2006 08:35

Not being able to use distributed, remote or attachable debugging ....

If the issues cause error messages you may want to start checking the enhanced loggin facilities and the LogRead utility that reads, queries, sorts, merges etc log files from all OpenEdge products. In addition I'd suggest using Tracing, see the startup parameters:

-clientlog

-logginglevel

-logentrytypes

Posted by Admin on 15-Aug-2006 09:15

Pardon me, but I really would like to know if it is possible to use the newer V.9.1D debugger with Progress V.8.3A. I know that the older version can be used in V.9.1D, but I need to debug some code in 8.3A and would like to take advantage of the extra features in the newer version. I tried changing the program path in the INI file to point to the newer one but received a fatal error message.

Thank you in advance for your response.

Posted by svi on 15-Aug-2006 10:38

No, I am afraid you can't.

Remember that you can, however, recompile and run your code with V9.1 (or even OpenEdge 10) and debug it that way.

Posted by Admin on 25-Aug-2006 13:59

Thanks.

This thread is closed