Nowadays cloud-based, microservice-based, or Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications every so often depend on communicating with other systems across an unreliable network, which leads to unavailability or unreachability for these systems due to transient faults such as network problems and timeouts, being offline, under load or maybe non-responsive.

Polly, a .NET resilience and transient-fault-handling library, offers multiple resilience policies which enable software architects to design suitable reactive strategies for handling transient faults, and also proactive strategies for promoting resilience and stability. Through this post, I will walk you through all the policies/strategies/approaches which Polly library offers to handle transient faults.

Reactive transient fault handling approaches

1. Retry

These short-term faults typically correct themselves after a short span of time, and a robust cloud application should be prepared to deal with them by using a strategy like the “Retry pattern”.

Technically Retry allows callers to retry operations in the anticipation that many faults are short-lived and may self-correct; retrying the operation may succeed maybe after a short delay.

Waiting between retries, allows faults to self-correct. For example, Practices such as ‘Exponential backoff’ and ‘jitter’ enhance this by scheduling retries to avoid them becoming sources of further load or spikes.

2. Circuit-Breaker

There can also be circumstances where faults are because of unexpected events that might take much longer to fix themselves. In these situations, it might be useless for an application to continually retry an operation that is unlikely to succeed. As an alternative, the application should be coded to accept that the operation has failed and handle the failure accordingly.

Using Http retries in these situations could lead to creating a Denial of Service (DoS) attack within your own software. Therefore, you need a defence barrier so that excessive requests stop when it is not worth to keep trying. That defence barrier is precisely the “Circuit Breaker”.

How does circuit-breaker work?

A circuit breaker design pattern perceives the level of faults in calls placed through it and prevents calls when a configured fault threshold is reached.

The circuit breaker can have the following states:

• Closed to Open
• Open to Half-Open
• Half-Open to Open
• Half-Open to Closed

When faults exceed the threshold, the circuit breaks itself (Opens). An open circuit will result in call failure placed through it instead of being actioned and throws an exception immediately. Which means that call is not attempted at all. Thus, it will significantly protect both, a faulting system from an extra load, and allows the working system to avoid placing calls which are unlikely to succeed. Failing instantly in this scenario usually also promotes a better user experience.

After a certain configured time has been elapsed, the circuit moves to a half-open state, where the next call will be considered as a trial to determine the faulty system’s well-being. Based on this trial call, the breaker decides whether to close the circuit (resume normal operation) or break it again.

Note: Circuit-breaker implementation in software systems is like what is in electrical wiring; substantial faults will ‘trip’ the circuit, protecting systems regulated by the circuit.

3. Fallback

A Fallback policy defines how the operation should react in case, even with retries – or because of a broken circuit – the underlying operation fails repeatedly. How much well resilience-engineered your system, failures likely to occur. Fallback means defining a substitute as what you will do when that happens. Its a plan for failure, rather than leave it to have unpredictable effects on your system.

Proactive transient fault handling approaches

Retry and Circuit-Breaker are primary approaches for resilience to transient faults, however, both are reactive, as they react after the failure response to a call has been received.

What will happen if…???

1. Response never comes 
2. The response so delayed that we do not wish to continue waiting
3. Waiting-delay / Waiting-to-React logic could itself have problems

Therefore, to handle the above questions, is it possible to be more proactive in our approach to resource management and resilience? 

Consider a scenario, wherein a high-throughput system, many calls can be put through to a recently failed system before the first timeout is received. For illustration (Example one), with 100 calls/second to a faulted system that is configured with a 10-second timeout, 1000 calls could have been placed before the first timeout is received. A circuit-breaker will react to this situation as soon as defined threshold failures are reached, but till then a resource bulge has certainly occurred and cannot be backtracked.

While Retry and Circuit-Breaker are reactive; Timeout, Bulkhead, and Caching policies configurations allow pre-emptive and proactive strategies. High-throughput systems can achieve increased resilience by explicitly managing load for stability. We will walk through each of these in the below sections one by one.

1. Timeout

Timeout allows callers to walk away from an awaiting call. It will improve resilience by setting callers free when a response seems unlikely.

Moreover, as the above given ‘Example one’ data demonstrates, opting for timeouts can influence resource consumption in a faulting, high-throughput system. 

These kinds of scenarios often lead to blocking up of threads or connections, the memory those awaiting calls consume, and which causes further failures. Consider how long you want to let your awaiting calls consume these costly system resources.

2. Bulkhead

The excessive load is one of the main reasons for system instability and failure. Therefore, building resilience into systems involves explicitly dealing with that load and/or pro-actively scaling to support it.

Excessive load can either be due to:

1. Genuine external demand, for example, spikes in user traffic 
2. Or maybe due to faulting scenarios, where large numbers of calls back up.

Bulkhead policies promote stability by directly managing load and thus resource consumption. The Polly Bulkhead limits parallelism of calls placed through it, with the option to queue and/or reject excessive calls.

• Bulkhead as isolation : Enforcing a bulkhead policy, a parallelism limit, around one stream of calls, limits the resource that stream of calls can consume. If that stream faults, it cannot consume all resources in the host and thus save bringing down the whole host.
• Bulkhead as load segregation : More than one Bulkhead policy can also be enforced in the same process to accomplish load segregation and relative resource allocation.
  A good comparison will be the check-out lanes of supermarkets, where there are often distinct lanes for “baskets only” as opposed to full shopping carts. This segregation permits for ‘baskets-only’ always to check-out quickly. Otherwise, they could be blocked waiting behind an excess of full shopping carts.
  Configuring multiple bulkhead policies to separate software operations delivers similar advantages, both in terms of relative resource allocation for different call streams; and in ensuring one kind of call cannot exclusively prevent another.
• Bulkhead as load-shedding : Bulkhead policies can also be configured to proactively reject calls beyond a certain limit.
  Why actively reject calls when the host might yet have more capability to service them?
  The answer is it depends on whether you prefer managed or unmanaged failure. Recommending explicit limits enables your systems to fail in predictable and testable ways. Intentionally ignoring the system’s capacity to the server does not mean there is not a limit; it just shows you do not know where the limit ends. Thus, your system is liable to unpredictable, unexpected failures.

3. Cache

Whatever that lessens network traffic, and overall call duration; in turn, rises resilience and improves user experience.

Caching can be configured with multiple caches – in-memory/local caches/distributed caches – in combination. Polly CachePolicy provisions multiple caches in the same call, using PolicyWrap.

Conclusion: This post walks us through multiple configurable resilience policies offered by Polly Library. Neova has the expertise to implement in business applications to make them fault resilient.

Note: For code level details you can reach GitHub community demonstrating all these configurations in detail.

Travel and tourism are near to stand-still due to the COVID-19 pandemic and no one knows when it will restart. A future travel will increase growth to the travel insurance. Travel industries will start coming back online and travellers will start going out again. In a nutshell, until the COVID-19 virus is under control, it’s too soon to judge when people can start booking again.

The Travel / Tourism industry comprises all the companies that provide the services and products that are meant and used by tourists.

As the online travel industry continues to grow, competition between travel providers is at peak.

Choosing a domain name is a big decision, especially in the travel industry. Your URL is one of the first things people notice when they look for online travel research. 

Key things involved in Travel domain setup

• Get a .com domain name that is more specific to your business

            E.g. .travel, .tours

• Keep specific URL to the travel industry 
• Domain expiration renewal reminders enabled
• Remove bunk DNS entries
• Domain protected by WAF or web proxy
• HTTPS enabled using strong, publicly trusted certificate
• Mail Exchanger (MX) records set using mail provider
• MTA-STS to increase mail transport security
• TLS-RPT to report on TLS issues with your email
• DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM)
• “HSTS for email” using STARTTLS
• DNSSEC authenticates your DNS entries to reduce the likelihood of spoofing or maliciously manipulated entries

Reference – https://www.johndball.com/my-domain-name-security-setup-checklist/

What investment is involved in setting up a travel domain?

• You can pay a host agency $400 to $1,200 to get started
• To start your own independent agency, it may cost you between $1,000 and $10,000, depending on the markets you serve. You can build the Mobile apps for IOS and Android.
• Creating a SAAS software as a service platform we can go for Cloud GCP/AWS/Azure based on requirements and how much scaling we need. If we are having an existing business like having relationships with multiple service providers then we can maintain a common Dashboard.

Strategies to increase Revenue

• Create a good website – It is very important to have an attractive and user-friendly website. Ability to do branding( customizing same functionality for multiple users(operators or TMCS)
• Collaborating with social media – It is a good sales technique to do marketing via social media like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc
• Option to choose packages – Combine your services to provide unique experience to your clients
• Request for review – Ask your customers to share their feedback or experiences
• Know your client needs – You need to understand the needs of your customers to speak their language
• Be responsive – Respond to all your customer requests within SLA

Opportunities in Travel Domain

• There are several opportunities in the travel domain, these day many employers give importance to travel/vacations of their employees for the below reasons :
  • Morale boost – The promise of a vacation is enough to keep your employee’s morale high
  • Stress relief – Encouraging employees to take time offs is enough to recharge their batteries and to help them clear their heads
  • Improve productivity – Encouraging your employees to go on vacations can help them in achieving  job satisfaction thus leading to higher productivity
  • Job requirements – Employers can offer travel to their employees to attend conferences, trade shows, meet-ups, etc
  • Redis with Java application: – Employers can offer paid vacations to their employees for certain periods of time
• Opportunity while signing a new client/business – Face-to-face meetings play a vital role in signing the contract. 
• Opportunity of Networking – When you travel, you have the chance to meet new people you would never interact with if you were sitting in your office. This may lead to expanding your company’s footprint with the new contract.
• Broadening the order book with the help of existing clients/customers
• Hotel – This is the best opportunity from which you can earn a good return on investment.
• Travel Agency – Establishing a travel agency is a good option if you want to advise your customer about tour packages, help planning their travel by charging a commission to them.

• Vehicle Renting – You can rent your vehicle to tourists so that they can go in the direction they want 
• Photography – Photography is another popular option as every tourist wants to create memories of the place they visit. The best option is to tie up with travel agents or hotels to attract customers.

Travel Revenue Growth

• Good Revenue growth is only possible when you sell the right product or service to the right clients at the right price 

• Travel industry operates through a large network of interconnected industries which aim to serve the people on travel 
• Top source of employment – The travel industry is one of the top source of employment across the globe, generating about 10% of employment
• Economic growth – Most of the countries looks at tourism/travel not just to attract tourists but to develop a platform which supports the economic growth of the country
• Travel industry is the source of foreign exchange earnings 

How different industries are dependent on travel domain

• Logistic
• Good transport
• Fleet management

• Globalization has increased the number of passengers/people travelling to foreign countries each year.  The tourism industry plays an important role in managing this commercial activity that creates demand and growth for many other industries.
• Insurance  – Insurance industry largely depends on travel as they offer insurance in a variety of ways. E.g Insurance for medical emergencies, Luggage insurance etc 
• Hotel Industry – Hotels are the popular form of accommodation for people travelling to different locations 
• Food and Beverage industry – This caters to the needs of travellers with the provision of food and drink services. This industry is broadly divided into the below categories:
  • Restaurants – This is the most common category in the Food and Beverage Industry. Restaurants are of different types i.e. Fast Food chains, Family Restaurants, etc. 
  • Catering – Provided in many forms including airplanes, ferries, trains, etc 
  • Bars & Cafes – Bars serves alcoholic beverages along with soft drinks, Cafes serves hot drinks and snacks 

• Entertainment industry – The entertainment industry plays a vital role in the travel industry. Entertainment site / Theme parks can sometimes be the reason for travel
• Casino – Casinos are sometimes connected to Resorts and Hotels. They provide the gambling activities like dice games, card games, etc
• Shopping – Shopping is another crucial aspect of the travel industry. This includes Shopping centers, local markets, Duty-free shops etc
• Financial Services – It mainly includes the services related to Currency conversion 
• Educational – Many people travel to conferences, training sessions, academic institutions.
• Cultural events – Religious or cultural events keep taking place in the world which attracts a number of tourists/travellers from across the globe

Conclusion:

Travel industry brings people from everywhere in the world. This industry also brings the emerging economies along with job creation and more.

For queries related to Travel domain contact sales@neovatechsolutions.com

What is a Dashboard?

A Dashboard is a user interface that visually tracks, analyzes and provides key performance indicators (KPI), metrics and key data points to monitor business or specific processes. 

What is a Travel Dashboard?

Travel Dashboard is a tool to summarize data trends related to air, car rental, hotel, cruise, and vacation packages. Using Travel Dashboard users can configure settings for different environments related to GDS, User management, Configuring TMCs, Travel Agency setup with policies, Vehicle configuration and can also set Location configuration.

Building a Travel Dashboard

There are many factors that need to be taken into account when deciding which elements to include in a dashboard. Some considerations are more relevant for certain processes, and hence it is quite difficult to give specific guidelines that will be suitable for every contingency on how to build a better Dashboard. However, before setting out to create any kind of dashboard there are certain questions you need to ask to understand the ‘story’ for the dashboard is going to tell, how that story can be told as clearly as possible, and who will be the target audience.

Include only the most important content

Key features of the Travel Dashboard

• User Management
  • Corporate
  • Agency
• Service Configuration
• Rate configuration
• Bookings
• Site Visitors
• Policy Management
• Partner Approval
• Reports

Implementation of Dashboard using Asp.Net MVC

Areas in ASP.NET MVC allows us to separate a Web Application into smaller modules and organize the code. For the dashboard,  every module can be created as a separate area and that gives the flexibility to maintain the module code separately.

Step 1: Right click on the project, click Add and click on Area

Step 2: Enter the Area name and click Add

Step 3: Area gets created and Add Controller to Areas > Dashboard

Step 4: Now that we have Controllers created, right-click on Index action and click Add View

Set the start page in DashboardAreaRegistration.cs

Set the start page in DashboardAreaRegistration.cs

public override void RegisterArea(AreaRegistrationContext context)
{
context.MapRoute(
"Dashboard_default",
"Dashboard/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
new { action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
<font style="background-color: #ffff00">new string[] { "DashboardApplication.Areas.Dashboard.Controllers" }
</font> );

 Similarly add folders for different modules with MVC components Controllers, Views, and Models.

In total we have five Areas , all areas have AreaRegistration.cs that are AgencyUserAreaRegistraion.cs, CorporateUserAreaRegistration.cs, RateConfigurationAreaRegistration.cs, DashboardAreaRegistration.cs and ServiceConfigurationAreaRegistration.cs classes respectively and all are inheriting AreaRegistration class, and also a route defined for the Area. These routes should be registered inside the Application_Start() method of Global.asax file.

A dashboard controller needs to be created to handle all the dashboard activities. Each widget will be treated as an individual child action. This child action is a type of action in the controller, where it can only be called from its parent.

DashboardController.cs

using System; 
using System.Collections.Generic; 
using System.Linq; 
using System.Web; 
using System.Web.Mvc; 

namespace AspNetMVCDashboard.Controllers 
{ 
public class DashboardController :Controller 
{ 
// 
// GET: /Dashboard/ 

public ActionResult Index() 
{ 
return View(); 
} 
#region Child-Only 

[ChildActionOnly] 
[OutputCache(Duration = 1, VaryByParam = "None")] 
public ActionResult UsersConfiguration() 
{ 
return View(); 
} 
[ChildActionOnly] 
[OutputCache(Duration = 1, VaryByParam = "None")] 
public ActionResult RecentBookings() 
{ 
return View(); 
} 
[ChildActionOnly] 
[OutputCache(Duration = 1, VaryByParam = "None")] 
public ActionResult ServiceConfiguration() 
{ 
return View(); 
} 
[ChildActionOnly] 
[OutputCache(Duration = 1, VaryByParam = "None")] 
public ActionResult SiteVisitors() 
{ 
return View(); 
} 
#endregion 
} 
}

 SiteVisitors.cshtml

<script type="text/javascript"> 
google.load("visualization", "1", { packages: ["corechart"] }); 
google.setOnLoadCallback(drawVisitorChart); 
function drawVisitorChart() { 
var data = new google.visualization.DataTable(); 
data.addColumn('string', 'Year'); 
data.addColumn('number', 'New Visitors'); 
data.addColumn('number', 'Return Visitors'); 
data.addRows([ 
['2017', 1000, 400], 
['2018', 1170, 460], 
['2019', 860, 580], 
['2020', 1030, 540] 
]); 

var options = { 
title: 'Site Visitors' 
}; 

var chart = new google.visualization.LineChart(document.getElementById('chartVisitors')); 
chart.draw(data, options); 
} 
</script> 
<div class="dashboardItem"> 
<div class="dashboardItemHeader">Site Visitors</div> 
<div class="dashboardItemBody"> 
<div id="chartVisitors" style=""></div> 
</div> 
</div>

 Index.cshtml

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> 
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> 
<head runat="server"> 
<title></title> 
<script src="<%= Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery-1.5.1.min.js") %>" type="text/javascript"></script> 
<link href="<%= Url.Content("~/Content/site.css") %>" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> 
<link href="<%= Url.Content("~/Content/dashboard.css") %>" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> 
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://www.google.com/jsapi"></script> 
</head> 
<body> 
<div class="pageHeader"> 
<h1>Dashboard </h1> 
</div> 
<div class="pageBody"> 
<div class="dashboard"> 
<div class="dashboard3Col"> 
<div class="dashboardCol"> 
<% Html.RenderAction("User Configuration", "DashBoard"); %> 
<% Html.RenderAction("Recent Bookings", "DashBoard"); %> 
</div> 
<div class="dashboardCol"> 
<% Html.RenderAction("Rate Configuration", "DashBoard"); %> 
<% Html.RenderAction("Service Configuration", "DashBoard"); %> 
</div> 
<div class="dashboardCol"> 
<% Html.RenderAction("Site Visitors", "DashBoard"); %> 
</div> 
<div class="dashboardFooter"></div> 
</div> 
</div> 
</div> 
</body> 
</html>

 RateConfig.cshtml

@{ 
Layout = "~/Areas/RateConfiguration/RateConfig.cshtml"; 
} 
<!DOCTYPE html> 
<html> 
<head> 
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width" /> 
<title></title> 
</head> 
<body> 
<div> @Html.ActionLink("Dashboard", "Home")</div>
<div class="dashboardItem"> 
<div class="dashboardItemHeader">Rate Configuration</div> 
<div class="dashboardItemBody"> 
<table class="tbl"> 
<tbody> 
<tr> 
<td>Select Corporate</td> 
<td> 
<select id="SelectCorp"> 
<option>ABC Travels</option> 
<option>Mars Corps</option> 
<option>ALink Travels</option> 
</select> 
</td> 
<td>Rate Type</td> 
<td> 
<select id="SelectRateType"> 
<option>Hourly</option> 
<option>Flat</option> 
<option>Retail</option> 
</select> 
</td> 
</tr> 
</tbody> 
</table> 
<input id="Configure" type="submit" value="SAVE" /> 
</div> 
</div> 
</body> 
</html>

Output:

Conclusion:

In a single click, we can visualize and dissect complex data in a dashboard with the help of dynamic filtering applied across every module. Complete visibility of your travel spends with consolidated data from multiple sources (GDS and partner agencies).

Optimize future travel spend with predictive forecasting and travel trend analysis by easily identifying possible savings through purchasing and booking behaviors. Identify cost savings opportunities pre-ticketing to reduce spend.

When we think about the travel management system, we can compare it to the globally connected wide internet network. Each and everything which comes under the travel management system is important, connected to each other and very well organized.

What is a travel management system?

Travel Management System (TMS) is an end to end complete software solution which helps the end-users or travel agents to manage service providers, bookings, pricing, tracking, analyzing the inventory, etc.
This travel management solution may include all the travel branches like Hotel, Car, Bus, Rail, Air, individual, or group tourist package.

Key features of TMS

It is very important to understand effectively the features of TMS as we are traveling internationally or domestically. Below are some safe and economically affordable features which need to be implemented by those who are developing these software solutions.

1.User-friendly booking options

Every business is dependent on its user experience. As far as the travel industry is concerned,  if a user faces any difficulties in booking their rides, accommodation, etc they will approach other TMS. To avoid losing business or customers, building a user-friendly booking tool is most important. 

2.Tracking of users’ trips, bills

Booked a ticket for your next trip? There is still some more work to be done by the agency. This is the time where the work of a travel agency starts, providing feasible services like booking, billing, check-in, check out,  tracking of their customers is also equally important.

3.Transportation matters

Any user who is availing the air, hotel services, may expect the transportation should be available on a single platform on which they can book their pre-post air transportation like car, bus, or train.  Many TMS can think of extending their services in cars, buses, rail.

4.Customized policies

The policy is the most important feature in the travel management system not only for end-users but also for agents and agencies. Policies may differ for each and every service.

• Different pricing policy for normal citizens and senior citizens
• Global Policies for domestic and international travel may vary
• Advance booking policies may vary to each agency 

5.Customizable workflows

What if any user has a different situation than you listed in your policies? Then every TMS system should have the ability to adapt to change and act on new workflows to tackle that situation. 

6.Easy Payment options

We can expect easy and upgraded  payment options other than cash from TMS while traveling like QR codes, UPI IDs, online banking, debit or credit cards  

7.Wide inventory

Maintaining a large inventory(large number of hotel/car/ bus vendors, agents) in travel management systems are most beneficial. If you don’t have enough availability of low-cost accommodation, it may tend towards loss of great market exposure eventually resulting in loss of business.

8.Mobile app to broadcast necessary information

According to a survey, more than 3 billion people use smartphones nowadays, so it will be easy for Travel management systems to start sending updates on a mobile app for all the users

9.Store user profile’s data

To avoid repetitive approaches to fill forms or user information, it is important to have a feature of auto-saving user’s data such as personal information, PNR details, travel history, etc.

10.Clear Out of policy information

If any Air/Hotel/Car service is not operational due to any reason, the user expects from travel management to send a clear message that this Service is Out of Policy.

11.Being in touch with the traveler during the entire journey

Giving comfortable service can be achieved by being in touch with a customer every now and then. Also being in touch will be beneficial for marketing future packages.

12.Frequent Traveler policies

Every company has a different policy for its frequent travelers. Some provide points that can be redeemed in the next journey or they provide a card to swipe and avail discounts. Either way the travel management system should have an option to save travelers points for their loyal customers.

13.Consolidate invoicing options

In every billing system, prices are divided into different categories. The pricing breakup should be in a consolidated manner which makes a customer aware of all the prices he is paying for.

14.No redirects

There are many companies that don’t have their own service providers, so they internally have a contract with other providers and sell on their own sites or companies. It’s the travel management system that end-users should see any redirect while availing services from particular companies

15.Reporting features for Admin

By default Admin users of any system have more responsibilities than other users, the admin has to generate different kinds of reports related to existing /spent inventories. Arrival and departure history reports, out of policy providers reports, etc.

16.Classified management for different agents, agencies

The TMS can be used by different agents and agencies and it may not require the same kind of user interface/management for all the agents as they are nor serving the same types of services. So it will be easy for agents and agencies if TMS provides classified storage and operational options for all.

17.Advertising/ Marketing of affordable packages

Any user who wishes to travel somewhere or buy something, he needs a pocket-friendly available package. To attract customers, different travel agencies offer an attractive package with a lot of discounts. But marking of that packages is important and that must reach to maximum people and for that agencies should plan the best broadcasting strategies. 

18.Robust software solution

The business of the travel industry totally depends on festivals, holidays, and different packages. There are a few days where these travel solutions may face huge traffic, so every travel agency should have a robust system to handle the traffic. 

19.Strong Customer Care Support

If a customer has any issues related to any bookings or reservations or during travel or after travel, customer care support comes in the picture here. The travel companies or agencies should provide strong, polite, and supportive services to their customers so that the customers are satisfied with the services provided and the company is happy with the customers’ feedback in order to grow their business.

20.User Manuals

There are different kind of users who are using the software solutions, not necessarily all users are technically sound or aware of the system, so most of the Travel companies should provide user guides to the customers which would help them to understand and use their solutions comfortably and they can experience better service.

Conclusion
If any Travel organization implements all the features listed above in their software solutions, it can help end-users to experience a better travel management system. There is always a scope of improvement, so we can make changes to our traditional way of managing travel services and give users a user-friendly solution

What is Globalization and localization?

Globalization is the process of designing the application in such a way that it can be used by users from across the globe i.e. in multiple cultures. 

The CultureInfo class holds culture-specific information, such as the associated language, sub-language, country/region, calendar, and cultural conventions. The cultures have a hierarchy, such that the parent of a specific culture is a neutral culture and the parent of a neutral culture is the InvariantCulture.

Neutral culture is a culture that is associated with a language but not with a country or region. A specific culture is a culture that is associated with both a language and a country or region. We specify the invariant culture by name by using an empty string (” “) in the call to a CultureInfo instantiation method.

Localization is the process of customization of a product or service to meet the needs of a particular language, culture.

These two things go together.

Why is localization important?

Localization of product or service improves customer satisfaction, increases customer base, and helps to enter a new market.

The key point of making your application localizable is to separate the page content from your logic implementation.

When something needs to be displayed on a web page, never put them directly on the page file or in the backend logic. By giving the content a key, which can be linked to the real content for the proper language setting.

Localization in ASP.NET MVC:

ASP.NET MVC was built on top of the ASP.NET runtime so all features provided by ASP.NET can be used in MVC such as caching, session state, and localization. 

In traditional ASP.NET Webforms application resource files are used to store the content of the application with different cultures and using the ResourceManager class to retrieve them which can be generated by Visual Studio automatically.

To understand Localization let’s have an example:

Here is the example of having a web page supported by two languages:

• English
• Hindi

Steps to follow:

1. Go to Add

First put all content out of the pages and the controllers. ASP.NET provides a special folder named App_GlobalResources which contains the resource files for the content of all cultures. Just right-click the project in the solution explorer window and create the folder under the Add > Add ASP.NET Folders menu.

Implementation of Localizing App for different cultures

2. In App_GlobalResources add two resource files for 2 languages: English and Hindi

• English language would be the default language of this application to create a Global.resx file firstly, then Global.hi-IN.resx. The middle name ‘hi-IN’ is the culture name of this language.
• The Visual Studio will help us to generate the accessing class for them.

Important! Make sure to change the access modifier of each resource file you create to the public. The Properties section also checks that resource files Custom Tool property value is “PublicResXFileCodeGenerator” and the build is “Embedded Resource”. Otherwise resource files won’t be compiled and won’t be accessible.

3. Adding Model and Attribute to Properties:

Add a model with the name “UserDetails.cs” and then add a display attribute with the name similar to the resource “Name” column.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;  
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;  
using System.Linq;  
using System.Web;  
using MvcLocalization.LocalResource;  
  
namespace MvcLocalization.Models  
{  
    public class UserDetails  
    {  
  
        [Display(Name = "FirstName", ResourceType = typeof(Resource))]  
        [Required(ErrorMessageResourceType = typeof(Resource),  
                  ErrorMessageResourceName = "FirstNameRequired")]  
        [StringLength(50, ErrorMessageResourceType = typeof(Resource),  
                          ErrorMessageResourceName = "VldFirstNameLength")]  
        public string FirstName { get; set; }  
        [Display(Name = "LastName", ResourceType = typeof(Resource))]  
        [Required(ErrorMessageResourceType = typeof(Resource),  
                  ErrorMessageResourceName = "LastNameRequired")]  
        [StringLength(50, ErrorMessageResourceType = typeof(Resource),  
                          ErrorMessageResourceName = "VldLastNameLength")]  
        public string LastName { get; set; }  
        [Display(Name = "Salary", ResourceType = typeof(Resource))]
        [Required(ErrorMessageResourceType = typeof(Resource),
                  ErrorMessageResourceName = "SalaryFormat")]
        public double Salary { get; set; }
 
    }  
}

4. Adding custom class:

Add a Helper class to set the Cultures. 

using System;  
using System.Collections.Generic;  
using System.Linq;  
using System.Web;  
using System.Web.SessionState;  
using System.Threading;  
using System.Globalization;  
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;  
using MvcLocalization.LocalResource;  
  
namespace MvcLocalization.Helper  
{  
    public class CultureHelper  
    {  
        protected HttpSessionState session;  
  
        //constructor   
        public CultureHelper(HttpSessionState httpSessionState)  
        {  
            session = httpSessionState;  
        }  
        //Enum  
        public enum Language  
        {  
            [Display(Name = "en-GB", ResourceType = typeof(Resource))]  
            English = 0,  
            [Display(Name = "hi-IN", ResourceType = typeof(Resource))]  
            Hindi = 1  
        }  
  
        // Properties  
        public Language cultureLang;  
        public Language CurrentCulture  
        {  
               
            get  
            {  
                return cultureLang;  
            }  
                 
            set  
            {  
                switch (value)  
                {  
                    case "English":  
                        cultureLang = Language.English;
                        Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = new CultureInfo(cultureLang);  
                        break;  
                    case "Hindi":  
                        cultureLang = Language.Hindi;  
                        Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = new CultureInfo(cultureLang);  
                        break;  
                    default:  
                        cultureLang = Language.English;  
                        break;  
                }  
            }  
                 
        }  
    }  
}

5. Adding Controller

BaseController

BaseController in MVC that is inherited by all other controllers. In BaseController, common code is written which can be used in all the pages.

E.g.: by setting the language in the current thread for a multilingual site.

using Localization.Helper;  

using System;  

using System.Collections.Generic;  

using System.Linq;  

using System.Web;  

using System.Web.Mvc;  

  

namespace Localization.Controllers  

{  

    public class BaseController : Controller  

    {  

        protected override void ExecuteCore()  

        {  

            int culture = 0;  

            if (this.Session == null || this.Session["CurrentCulture"] == null)  

            {  

  

                int.TryParse(System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["Culture"], out culture);  

                this.Session["CurrentCulture"] = culture;  

            }  

            else  

            {  

                culture = (int)this.Session["CurrentCulture"];  

            }  

            // calling CultureHelper class properties for setting    

            CultureHelper.CurrentCulture = culture;  

  

            base.ExecuteCore();  

        }  

  

        protected override bool DisableAsyncSupport  

        {  

            get { return true; }  

        }    

    }  

}  

HomeController

Home Controller will inherit BaseController. To add a Controller just right-click on the Controller folder and select Add then inside that select Controller.

using Localization.Helper;  

using Localization.Models;  

using System;  

using System.Collections.Generic;  

using System.Linq;  

using System.Web;  

using System.Web.Mvc;  

  

namespace Localization.Controllers  

{  

    public class HomeController : Controller  

    {  

        public ActionResult Index()  

        {  

            return View(new UserDetails());  

        }  

  

        public ActionResult ChangeCurrentCulture(string id)  

        {  

            //    

            // Change the current culture for this user.    

            //    

            CultureHelper.CurrentCulture = id;  

            //    

            // Cache the new current culture into the user HTTP session.     

            //    

            Session["CurrentCulture"] = id;  

            //    

            // Redirect to the same page from where the request was made!     

            //    

            return Redirect(Request.UrlReferrer.ToString());  

        }    

    }  

}  

6. Add a link button in the View

LoginPartial.cshtml page to display it on all pages of the website/application.

@{  

    Layout = null;  

}  

  

<!DOCTYPE html>  

  

<html>  

<head>  

    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width" />  

    <title></title>  

</head>  

<body>  

    <div>  

    @using System.Globalization  

    @using Localization  

    @using System.Threading;  

    @if (Request.IsAuthenticated)  

    {  

        <p>  

            Hello, @Html.ActionLink(User.Identity.Name, "ChangePassword", "Account",  

        routeValues: null,  

        htmlAttributes: new { @class = "username", title = "Change password" })!  

  

            @Html.ActionLink("Log off", "LogOff", "Account")  

        </p>  

    }  

    else  

    {  

        <ul>  

            <li>  

                @Html.ActionLink("Register", "Register", "Account",  

        routeValues: null, htmlAttributes: new { id = "registerLink" })  

        </li>  

  

        <li>  

            @Html.ActionLink("Log in", "Login", "Account",  

        routeValues: null, htmlAttributes: new { id = "loginLink" })  

    </li>  

</ul>  

    }  

  

    <ul style="margin-top:10px;">  

        @{  

            CultureInfo currentCulture = Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture;  

  

            <li><a href="/Home/ChangeCurrentCulture/English">English</a></li>  

  

            <li><a href="/Home/ChangeCurrentCulture/Hindi">Hindi</a></li>  

        }  

    </ul>   

    </div>  

</body>  

</html>  

Here links are added from where the user will be able to change his website Language. When the user clicks on this link it will call the HomeController ChangeCurrentCulture Action result and it will pass an id to it.

According to that CultureHelper will get input and it will set the Culture for the page.

7. Adding View for HomeController

For adding a View just right-click anywhere inside HomeController and select Add View.

After clicking Add View a new dialog will pop up with the name Add View. Inside that you need to select:

View engine: Razor.

Model Class: UserDetails.

Scaffold template: Create.

Use a layout or master page: Check this Property.

@model MvcLocalization.Models.Userdetails  

  

@{  

    ViewBag.Title = "Index";  

}  

  
<h2>User Details</h2>  

@using (Html.BeginForm()) {  

    @Html.ValidationSummary(true)  

  

    <fieldset>  

        <legend>Userdetails</legend>  

  

        <div class="editor-label">  

            @Html.LabelFor(model => model.FirstName)  

        </div>  

        <div class="editor-field">  

            @Html.EditorFor(model => model.FirstName)  

            @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.FirstName)  

        </div>  

  

        <div class="editor-label">  

            @Html.LabelFor(model => model.LastName)  

        </div>  

        <div class="editor-field">  

            @Html.EditorFor(model => model.LastName)  

            @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.LastName)  

        </div>  

        <div class="editor-label">

            @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Salary)

        </div>

        <div class="editor-field">

            @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Salary)

            @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Salary)

        </div>
<p>  

            <input type="submit" value="Create" onclick="ShowError" />  

        </p>  

    </fieldset>  

}  

@section Scripts {  

    @Scripts.Render("~/bundles/jqueryval")  

}  

Client-Side Validating Decimals in Non-English Cultures:

Download and install the following packages:

Globalize: https://github.com/globalizejs/globalize

Jquery-validation-globalize: https://github.com/johnnyreilly/jquery-validation-globalize

CLDR-JSON data: https://github.com/unicode-cldr/cldr-json#cldr-json

@inject Microsoft.AspNetCore.Hosting.IHostingEnvironment HostingEnvironment  

@{  

    string GetDefaultLocale()  

    {  

        const string localePattern = "lib\\cldr-data\\main\\{0}";  

        var currentCulture = System.Globalization.CultureInfo.CurrentCulture;  

        var cultureToUse = "en-GB"; //Default regionalisation to use  


        if (System.IO.Directory.Exists(System.IO.Path.Combine(HostingEnvironment.WebRootPath, string.Format(localePattern, currentCulture.Name))))  

            cultureToUse = currentCulture.Name;  

        else if (System.IO.Directory.Exists(System.IO.Path.Combine(HostingEnvironment.WebRootPath, string.Format(localePattern, currentCulture.TwoLetterISOLanguageName))))  

            cultureToUse = currentCulture.TwoLetterISOLanguageName;  


        return cultureToUse;  

    }  

}  


<script type="text/javascript">  

    var culture = "@GetDefaultLocale()";  

    $.when(  

        $.get("/lib/cldr-data/supplemental/likelySubtags.json"),  

        $.get("/lib/cldr-data/main/" + culture + "/numbers.json"),  

        $.get("/lib/cldr-data/supplemental/numberingSystems.json"),  

        $.get("/lib/cldr-data/main/" + culture + "/ca-gregorian.json"),  

        $.get("/lib/cldr-data/main/" + culture +"/timeZoneNames.json"),  

        $.get("/lib/cldr-data/supplemental/timeData.json"),  

        $.get("/lib/cldr-data/supplemental/weekData.json")  

    ).then(function () {  

        // Normalize $.get results, we only need the JSON, not the request statuses.  

        return [].slice.apply(arguments, [0]).map(function (result) {  

            return result[0];  

        });  

    }).then(Globalize.load).then(function () {  

        Globalize.locale(culture);  

    });  

</script>  

•  Modify “_ValidationScriptsPartial.cshtml” file to include newly installed libraries

 The above code is configured for validating client-side based on culture.

Output:

It’s taking the default culture, English, when it loads the first time.

Check it by clicking on Hindi :

Conclusion:

This blog explained how to implement the localization on an ASP.NET MVC web application. 

The resource files are utilized as the container of the localization information which is provided by the ASP.NET runtime. 

The localization information can be stored in any place. Here the resource files are used which use the ASP.NET localization support classes.