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Seebeyond amateurish support won't help you on deep issues...

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TechnoCat

Programmer
Feb 13, 2004
20
GB

I know this is a place for questions and solutions, but somebody might find this interesting, I'd like to tell my insuccess story with Seebeyond support...

First of all I must say I've worked in IT more than 10 years in disparate areas and, although I'm not Don Box, I think I can discern software that helps me from software that makes easy things difficult...sadly enough eGate (4.5) falls in the second category, but that's just my personal opinion after a little more that 1 year I used it.

The quality of the software itself is not what I wanted to talk about and, besides that, many of you are using it and will have an opinion about it, probably as heartfelt as mine...

What I'd like to make known is the appalling level of support that we have had throughout the development of our application (a large Healthcare integration project).
I could type to exaustion about misleading support, incorrect answers, the lot, but I'll just point one case:

I've been trying to use the java collaboration programming interface for eGate prior to 4.5 (it is a less elaborate interface), as stated in the Collab_reference pdf (at the end).
The docs say that it is possible and then does a great job at explaining how to implement an interface in Java (collab reference or java programming book?), but does not explain how to actaully load the collab in an eWay and how to configure it.
Fair enough one would think it's just as creating a standard Java colaboration, so I tryed for about two days, with very little success.
Besides that, the new Java collab service allows multiple inputs and multiple outputs, whether the old one seemed to only allow one input and one output, it all seemed strange so I resorted to SB support asking if I was using the correct Collaboration service and how to basically make the collab work..."

They answer was: "Regarding your other questions about how to set an eWay up, what type of eWay to use and what collaboration service - these are fairly "open" questions and I'm not sure what informatin you are asking for. If you would like explanation on how to configure eWays, create collaborations and write collaboration rules, then I would politely suggest an eGate 4.5 training course, which covers all these topics. If on the other hand, you have a specific question or problem, support can help you."

Fair enough, the issue wasn't urgent so I was told to focus on other tasks, so I did.
Yesterday I tried to tackle the problem again, so I decompiled some code and found out that the Java collab of version 4.5 would never be able to load an old collab, it simply isn't possible, I then tried all other collab services installed by eGate by default and none worked...Odd.

Then I decided to really make it work and started trying as many things I could think of, none worked, the collab would not be loaded.
Eventually I ended up in the collab services directory and found a dll called stc_collabjava.dll (version 4.5 one is called stc_collabjavaext.dll) and everything got clear, the old collab service is there, but is not installed by default by the installation.
I created the collab service and magically my collab started to work.

Bottom line?
They say "to get the right answer you have to make the right question", but although I had made the right answer ("Am I using the right collab service, which one should I use? How do I set up the collab?") SB support could not point me in the right direction, made me loose valueable time and even sort of bullied me saying I was making open questions and I should have taken some more training.....

So what I mean with this post is, as long as you make beginners questions support will help you, as soon as you get a bit deeper I guess it's about luck, which shouldn't be the case when you pay for a service (uhm, after you paid for the software that is...).

Enough for today, I hope this doesn't offend anybody out there, and I'd be happy to confront my experience with other people's and welcome replies to this in order to make a more positive discussion about this issue.

Anyway, just a few little other question left:

- eGate supports XA transaction (so they say, I'd say it uses). But did you know SB implemented a transaction Manager (obviously) to manage the transaction, but the support service version of the facts (in my experience) is that you cannot hook up to it (register another Resource) from arbitrary code in the CRS, read that cannot use XA APIs.
In reality I succesfully tested a CRS that used undocumented method calls to do it (to a large extent it seemd to work - did not test ELS but XA was fully working).

- did you know that there is an undocumented API to handle the registry management (just the way Enerprise Manager does)? You must use eGate ridiculous UI...
It sounds like an Integration product that cannot be integrated itself!

- did you know that if an import fails (importing components) you don't get any error message, the import just stops?

The list could continue for pages, but I'll stop here, before I start writing about OOA designs...

To you all good luck.

---------------------------------------------------------
Acid-Technocat

"When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong. "
- Buckminster Fuller
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I feel your pain. I asked a simple question (or so I though) not too long ago. "What linux libraries are called from eGate for a regex from a monk transalation?" I still haven't received an answer. I'm thinking my problem is a newer glibc, but haven't tested it yet.

I also work in Healthcare, we are expected to know everything. I can support almost every machine we run, but when there's a problem out of my control (no source code), our vendors should do everything they can to help. My previous inquiry could have been answered easily by an IM to a programmer with access to the source. Simple enough.

Anyway, I'll be looking at new interface engines soon.

Later,
Mark
 
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