Business Process Integration and Workflow

BizTalk Server 2006 Adapters Page

2007-01-23T09:34:00.000+01:00

If you are looking for good resources to get up to speed with the new BizTalk Server 2006 Adapters the msdn page http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/biztalk/aa937652.aspx is providing you a lot of guidance to this. Recently even some Webcasts are added showing you how to do some basic tasks around these adapters.

Have fun.

BizTalk Server 2006 Tutorials have been updated

2006-05-19T11:50:00.000+02:00

You can download an updated version of the BizTalk Server Tutorials here.

BizTalk Glossary

2006-02-08T12:22:00.000+01:00

Hey,

Just found an interesting BizTalk Glossary page. Can certainly be handy for beginning BizTalkers. What not means more experienced ones can not benefit from it :-)

I'l found a second one at http://www.biztalkpro.com/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=121

6 hours of free BizTalk Server 2006 Training

2006-01-30T20:24:00.000+01:00

Although it are beginner courses it is great seeing Microsoft providing these resources, have a look at it.

Clinic 2954: First Look: Microsoft® BizTalk® Server 2006 for Developers

This online clinic provides developers with an introduction to the BizTalk Server 2006 development environment and BizTalk messaging and orchestration services. This clinic also highlights BizTalk features and functionality through demonstrations of common developer tasks.
https://www.microsoftelearning.com/eLearning/offerDetail.aspx?offerPriceId=78008

Clinic 2955: First Look: Microsoft® BizTalk® Server 2006 for IT Professionals

This online clinic provides IT professionals with an introduction to BizTalk Server 2006 and how to deploy and manage applications in a BizTalk environment. This clinic will highlight features and functionality through demonstrations of common BizTalk administration tasks.
https://www.microsoftelearning.com/eLearning/offerDetail.aspx?offerPriceId=77178

Great new article on Workflow by Don Box and Dharma Shukla

2005-12-16T09:26:00.000+01:00

He guys,

Those interested in Workflow should certainly read the latest msdn article written by Don Box and Dharma Shukla http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/06/01/WindowsWorkflowFoundation/default.aspx

It goes really deeper into what the WF contains and how it is build up. A must read!

BizTalk vNext, yes the version after 2006

2005-11-22T22:19:00.000+01:00

You like to see already some previews of BizTalk version vNext, have a look over here to see the improvements on the solution designer
http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=115378
or the mapper
http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=126990

The future still looks bright!

Flat File Help

2005-11-22T22:08:00.000+01:00

Sometimes I use this blog just to keep links easy to retrieve for myself. One like that is the link towards the blogging page that gathers a lot of blogging info concerning working with Flat Files, here it is http://geekswithblogs.net/synboogaloo/archive/2005/04/22/37294.aspx
Have a look at it when you need help on Flat File processing.

BizTalk Server 2006 Launch - Capgemini

2005-11-08T16:50:00.000+01:00

At the world-wide launch yesterday the 7th of November I had a small role in the fact that the project I'm working on was presented.
Case studies are always nice to see that new technology is really being used out there.

See more details at:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/applicationplatform/launch2005/partners/capgemini.mspx

See Capgemini's Global CTO, Andy Mulholland, and Luc Francois Salvador, CEO of Sogeti, speak about the power of Microsoft's new products and how they are enabling enterprise customers to get more for less!
mms://wm.microsoft.com/ms/windowsserversystem/launch/capgemini.wmv

See the Sidmar-Arcelor case study - Technology Service Firm Helps Steel Company Gain Reliable, Manageable Systems
http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/2006/prodinfo/cs-capgemini.mspx

Sometimes it can be simple

2005-10-27T14:42:00.000+02:00

As you might know within expressions in the Orchestration Designer you've got the impression that you can do everything what you can do in C#, but in fact you are using XLang# with its restrictions (see more at http://geekswithblogs.net/cyoung/articles/3820.aspx).

One simple example is how to replace something within a string you receive, as explained in Charles Young article you need to use the stringbuilder class to reach this:

str = HRFile(FILE.ReceivedFileName);
myStringBuilder = new System.Text.StringBuilder(str);
myStringBuilder.Replace("Start","Copy");
readFile_requestInstance.Path = myStringBuilder.ToString();

Happy Anniversary BizTalk & RosettaNet

2005-03-02T20:46:00.000+01:00

Microsoft Launches BizTalk Server 2004 Accelerator for RosettaNet and Highlights Four-Year Anniversary of BizTalk Server

At Four-Year Anniversary, Adoption of Microsoft BizTalk Server Tops 4,000 Organizations

Intel's future supporting the growing Microsoft Platform or is it the inverse?

2005-03-02T20:33:00.000+01:00

Reading this news and following information around Visual Studio 2005 and Longhorn, I'm sure we will need these extra horse powers in the near future. Or is there indeed a none signed agreement between Microsoft and Intel around this ;-)

In the News
- Intel Spotlights Dual-Core and 64-bit Processors at IDF
==== In the News ====
by Keith Furman, keith@windowsitpro.com
Intel Spotlights Dual-Core and 64-bit Processors at IDF
Intel outlined its product roadmap at Intel Developer Forum (IDF)
2005 in San Francisco. The roadmap includes a heavy emphasis on dual- core processors and 64-bit computing. The 3-day conference began with a keynote address by outgoing CEO Craig Barrett who touted the company's wide range of technology and previewed the chip giant's upcoming releases.
Dual-core technology is a key feature of Intel's product roadmap.
The company expects more than 85 percent of its server processors and 70 percent of its desktop processors to be dual core by the end of 2006. Dual-core chips feature two processor cores in one chip, which lets users take advantage of the benefits and performance of having two processors without the additional energy requirements and heat of two processors. Barrett believes that dual-core technology will help the company keep pace with Moore's Law without having to increase a chip's frequency. Moore's Law is a projection by Intel cofounder Gordon Moore back in 1965 that the number of transistors on a chip will double every 2 years.
The first dual-core processors from Intel will ship in the second quarter 2005 with the release of the Pentium Extreme Edition 840 and the new Pentium D chips. The Extreme Edition 840 chip will replace the current generation of Extreme Edition chips, which are aimed at high-end gamers and computer power users. The chip will be a 90- nanometer processor that will run at speeds as fast as 3.2GHz with 1MB of Level 2 cache on each core with 64-bit extensions. The chip will use Intel's 955x Express chip set and have the ability to run two instruction threads on each core. The Pentium D, formerly code- named Smithfield, will be Intel's mainstream dual-core chip for desktops. The chip will be based on the Pentium 4 architecture with the addition of dual-core technology. It will use Intel's 945 Express chip set and run one instruction thread on each core.
Stephen Smith, vice president of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group, gave details about the company's chip plans for the next 2 years, with enough code names to fill a small dictionary. The Itanium 2 will see dual-core technology by the end of the year with a 64-bit processor code-named Montecito. The release will coincide with a new Itanium 2 chip for 2-way systems, code-named Millington. In 2006, Intel will release the next-generation Itanium chips Montvale and DP Montvale, followed by Tukwila, which is built on the 65-nanometer process, and Dimona. Xeon MP chips will see dual-core technology with the 2006 release of Paxville, followed by the 65-nanometer chip Tulsa, later that year. The Xeon DP processor, code-named Dempsey, also will see dual-core technology in 2006. Next-generation Pentium 4 and Pentium Extreme Edition chips include Pentium D Cedar Mill, which will ship in 2006, and Pentium Extreme Edition Presler, which will ship later this year. The Pentium M mobile chip won't be left behind in the dual-core craze, with the release of the Yonah chip in early 2006. The Cedar Mill and Yonah chips will be available in both single- and dual-core versions.
Although slow to embrace 64-bit extensions to the x86 platform, the company is now fully committed to the platform and strongly encourages developers to jump onto the 64-bit bandwagon. Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group, said that by the end of 2006, the company expects all server processors shipped and more than half the desktop chips shipped to be 64-bit enabled.
Gelsinger was joined during his keynote by Microsoft Group Vice President Jim Allchin, who told the audience that Microsoft expects to ship the 64-bit version of Windows XP by early April. The 64-bit version of Windows Server 2003, along with Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1), will ship in late April. Allchin also said the company is committed to supporting Intel's I/O Acceleration technology, virtualization technology, and multicore processors in future versions of Windows.

BizTalk Server 2004 PowerToys

2005-02-23T12:10:00.000+01:00

Thanks to Erik we've got an overview of very usefull and excellent downloadable BizTalk utilities. Go and have a view here.

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 documentation Update

2005-02-15T07:44:00.000+01:00

The Microsoft BizTalk Server documentation team is pleased to announce the release of the RTW+6 documentation set for BizTalk Server 2004 (Documentation Update 2). This update contains numerous fixes to the existing documentation based heavily on customer feedback that was gathered through our documentation feedback mechanism. The updates are available for download at the following locations:
· BizTalk Server 2004 Core Documentationhttp://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=CDD47461-F4E2-4BC6-B5C2-2018AFF2823D&displaylang=en
· BizTalk Server 2004 User Guide for Information Workershttp://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=9F718376-28DB-498E-989A-008728F41840
· BizTalk Server 2004 Tutorialshttp://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=9C64562C-3FA7-49BA-885E-82213D00776E

The online help version (MSDN) for the core documentation is available here: · http://www.msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/def/htm/ebiz_def_portal_page.asp
We would also like to announce that the BizTalk Server 2004 Installation guide has been updated and can be viewed at: · http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=32FF7D19-9E25-44CE-8A8C-03E3EB5D726F&displaylang=en
The update to the installation guide includes the following:
· Active Directory requirements and considerations
· Emphasis on the latest security requirements
· Updates to the most current known issues with BizTalk Server 2004

In addition to the fixes introduced, we have also been busy over the past few months producing other valuable content that lives outside of the core documentation.
This includes:
· Implementing UAN on BizTalk Server 2004 to Integrate Siebel and SAP
· BizTalk Server 2004 Technical Guide for Certificate Management
· BizTalk Server 2004 and IPSec Deployment Guide
· Creating a Highly Available BizTalk Server Environment
· BizTalk Server 2004 Database Sizing (DTA) Guidelines

BizTalk Server Service Pack 1 released

2005-01-27T10:17:00.000+01:00

As for each product a Service Pack 1 release is always an important milestone. From today on you can get it here.

Overview
BizTalk Server 2004 Service Pack 1 addresses a variety of customer scenarios and contains a collection of hotfixes, security fixes and fixes for performance and stress. Microsoft recommends that all BizTalk Server 2004 customers deploy SP1 across all editions of BizTalk Server to ensure their implementations are up to date.

IMPORTANT: BizTalk Server 2004 SP1 is not compatible with BizTalk Server 2002 and BizTalk Server 2000 systems.Please be sure to read and review the SP1 documentation before installing SP1.

New BizTalk Competency Exam Debuts - Link is online

2005-01-25T08:27:00.000+01:00

Preparation guide for exam "Developing E-Business Solutions Using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004" at http://www.microsoft.com/learning/exams/74-135.asp

Article at:
http://mcpmag.com/news/article.asp?EditorialsID=761

Microsoft released another "partner competency" exam this week: Exam 74-135, Developing E-Business Solutions Using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004, was released Monday, January 17, but the exam made its formal debut Tuesday at Microsoft's Envision Conference, a summit of the company's sales and channel partners, which is taking place this week in Seattle.
According to information published on the guides for similar exams released late last year, partner competency exams "validate that individuals in a partner environment are efficient and capable of deploying multifaceted IT solutions to their customer with skills across multiple Microsoft products and technologies." These exams also do not qualify test takers as Microsoft Certified Professionals.

To find out more about the new partner competency exams, see the earlier news report, "New Exams Target Competencies," at http://mcpmag.com/news/article.asp?editorialsid=755.
To find out more about the Microsoft Certified Partner program, click here (Microsoft Passport registration is required for access); for Microsoft Competencies, click here. (As this report was being posted, the exam objective guide did not appear on the Microsoft Learning site; a link to it will be provided when it goes live on that site.)

BizTalk Server Web Publishing Tips

2005-01-14T08:46:00.000+01:00

Two things I often encounter when giving assistance in BizTalk project that uses the BizTalk Web Services Publishing wizard.
The first is rather simple and more related towards Visual Studio .NET nevertheless it's often not known. Often you don't find the menu item back within the Visual Studio .NET environment to start the BizTalk Web Services Publishing Wizard, this in fact is nothing else than an external tool you can simple add yourself.
1) Go within Visual Studio to the Tools - External Tools menu item.
2) Choose Add
3) Fill in following:
Title: BizTalk &Web Services Publishing Wizard
Command: C:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004\BTSWebSvcWiz.exe
Arguments: Assembly="$(TargetPath)"
Initial directory: C:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004
4) Click Apply
From now on you've got the Menu Option beneath the Tools menu.

A second tip is once you've deployed a BizTalk Web Service often it doesn’t work the first time you'll try it out. Unfortunately you get then always a very descriptive error stating "Internal SOAP Error..." with as good as no detail about the real exception. Also HAT doesn’t show more than this often. If you've get a look at the public newsgroups about BizTalk you'll see this error is asked a lot for.
A help for this is that you can adopt the Web.config file of the generated Web Service to provide you more error details.
1) Open the Web.config of the Web Service project that has been generated.
2) At the bottom you’ll find following section:

<appSettings>



<add key="ThrowDetailedError" value="False" />

</appSettings>

3) Put the value on "True"
4) Save the file

If you'll then retry you will see a more detailed description, very often related to the values that are contained within the XML Document you are sending.

GREAT

2005-01-07T10:07:00.000+01:00

Some useful things I discovered the last weeks thanks to Scott's blog:

* In the past I've already giving some training on BizTalk and .NET. To facilitate the training and to get started fast I'll start most of the time with a Virtual PC image with the development environment on it. Like this we can dive directly into the product and don't have to start with installing it first (which is still very often a painful thing).
But after the course people like to continue with exercises and very often the are asking then on how to get their hands on a development environment. Now there is a great solution for this request that is the Visual Studio Hosted Experience you need to register yourself the first time. But from then on you can learn .NET and since a few weeks also BizTalk Server in a hosted environment. So you just need an internet connection and you can start off with exercises.
Great stuff try it out. Hopefully SQL Reporting Services will be available soon to.

* Another thing I discovered thanks to Scott’s blog was the implementation of some of the integration patterns described in the practice & patterns book. There are 2 gotdotnet workspaces available to have a look at. This is just great suspense.

I myself have been rewarded with the MVP status for the Windows Server System - BizTalk Server, Great no? So expect to see me often in the BizTalk Community newsgroups in the future (it's really the place to be to see what people are doing with the product). And I'm working on some articles about HAT and Orchestrations with Web services and BPEL that hope will be finished soon.

Happy New Year and a GREAT 2005

Article about Transaction Processing in Distributed Service-Oriented Applications

2004-11-30T13:36:00.000+01:00

Transaction in a service Oriented Architecture stays a hot topic in the article of Jon you find some guidance in the problems it creates and how new transaction protocols will support this.

Transaction Processing in Distributed Service-Oriented Applications
The ACID transaction model has served the industry well in the past, but Jon Maron points out that it has some major drawbacks when applied to the loosely coupled service domain.
Transaction in a service Oriented Architecture stays a hot topic in the article of Jon you find some guidance in the problems it creates and how new transaction protocols will support this.

A first book more than worth it

2004-11-26T13:50:00.000+01:00

Scott's book, Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 Unleashed, has been released, at least you can order it already I didn't receive yet my copy but I'll hope to receive it soon. To get a glimpse on how it is build up you can read already a sample chapter about Building Message Specifications (=BizTalk Editor) and if the whole book will be of this quality it's promissing.
Not that a earn any money with it but it's a book every BizTalk Server fan should have a copy of.

SQL Server 2005 Webcasts

2004-11-22T20:59:00.000+01:00

It's time to spend some evenings with the upcoming SQL Server 2005 Webcasts. I remember the webcasts concerning BizTalk server 2004 and they were a very reliable source of information so expect no less from the SQL Server 2005 Webcasts.
Check them out at http://msdn.microsoft.com/training/webcasts/#SQL2005

Is BizTalk Server 2004 a real BPM server

2004-11-18T21:29:00.000+01:00

Great whitepaper from David Chappell here, that places BizTalk towards what BPM servers should consist of. A must for every architect that needs to defend the use of BizTalk.

Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 Service Pack 1

2004-10-15T13:22:00.000+02:00

If you are using Virtual PC 2004 you'll be certainly intrested in the Service Pack 1
I'll use it all the time, to test something (Visual Studio Whidbey) to install different operating systems (BizTalk on a Win2003 and Development on a XP box for example) and so on, cool thing (remember the times from dual boots, swapping disks,...).
And if you ever want to return to a clean 'image' make sure you save your vhd (Virtual Machine Hard Drive Image) somewhere so a simple copy just restores your backup image.

Download it now!
I'll test it today and will post my remarks or comments over here.

Overview

Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 Service Pack 1 (SP1) contains the latest software updates for Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 that improve the reliability, performance and manageability of Virtual PC. Updates have been made to improve the performance of Windows XP Service Pack 2 as a guest in Virtual PC, to improve the manageability of virtual machines when used with SMS 2003 Service Pack 1, and to provide support for running Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition as the host operating system. Some of the fixes included with SP1 have been previously released as separate updates. This service pack combines them into one update.

Pipeline development

2004-10-13T16:35:00.000+02:00

If you need a good introduction in how pipeline component development works go and read Christof's article

Introduction to Custom Pipeline Processing in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 http://www.microsoft.com/belux/nl/msdn/community/columns/claessens/custompp.mspx

I would say more from this because finding good resources on how to work with streams is hard to find, and streams are the bases of Pipeline Component development.