BizUnit vs Visual Studio Team Test

Question

With the release of BizTalk 2009 we can now use Visual Studio Team Edition 2008 to leverage some of the team test features. We can unit test maps, schemas, and pipelines ... but from what I can tell, that's about it.

How would you unit test orchestrations for instance?

Well I have been using BizUnit for years already and plan to continue to do so; What I like about BizUnit is that it is extensible and opensource

So ... Who can give me a few reasons why I should be ditching BizUnit in favor of Team Test in Visual Studio?

Answer 1

I looked at the BizUnit page, and it seems to me that you can use BizUnit in conjunction with Visual Studio Team Test. BizUnit is a declarative testing framework that can augment VS Team Test's capabilities. BizUnit does not require VS Team Test, but VS Team Test can provide an excellent mechanism for driving BizUnit test cases.

Answer 2

The new features of BizTalk 2009 will give you much better support for debugging maps, testing schemas and pipelines but as far as orchestrations go, you still need something like BizUnit to cover that need. I would say the build components alone are a reason to upgrade, so you can setup continuous builds within TFS and the like, which before you had to use an open source solution. So specifically to your question you wouldn't ditch BizUnit for anything and its still needed.

-Bryan

Answer 3

You can unit test your orchestration using Bizmock http://www.codeplex.com/bizmock I just looked at it briefly, didn't get a chance to use it on real time projects. But according to the documentation and sample its looks like perfect tool to unit test your orchestration.

Answer 4

In my experience the answer to how you test BizTalk orchestations depends on the type of application that you are writing in BizTalk.

For example BizUnit works very well for testing the usual integration scenarios, but less so (in my opinion) where the BizTalk solution to be tested is written more like a conventional [middle-tier] application.

In the solution I am developing I have several nested orchestrations invoked from a "parent" orchestration with call-orchestration shape. These child orchestrations have logic/work-flow that can and still need to be tested in isolation.

I have been looking at exercising these from a VS Unit test via a "wrapper" orchestration which accepts the required parameters and invokes the orchestration to be tested (via start or call orchestration shape). The wrapper itself is invoked via an incoming message originating at the unit test.

I am also interested in evaluating bizmock.