On the fifth day of Christmas my true love sent to me: Five BizTalk VLabs

Inspired by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Days_of_Christmas_%28song%29; enabled by Windows Live Writer!

On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me

Five BizTalk VLabs,

Four Demystifying Programs,

Three Products Launching,

Two cool industry conferences,

And the source code to Tafiti.

I've been a fan of the MSDN Virtual Labs for a while now and it is a great way to get your fingers dirty with code without dirtying your corporate/production box. If you are part of the unlucky few who are unable to go out and grab the latest CTPs from Microsoft, this is a great way to poke around and learn as you go.

My personal feeling is that BizTalk (BTS) should be part of every serious short list when planning implementation of Service Oriented applications (if you love WCF and WF, you'll love BTS).

The ESB Guidance is a great way to add value to new/existing BizTalk environments. If you've never played with BizTalk, try these five BizTalk 2006 Virtual Labs.

The Labs include:

• MSDN Virtual Lab Express: What's New in BizTalk Server 2006
• MSDN Virtual Lab: New Features for Deploying and Managing a BizTalk Application in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Integrating Business Rules in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 Working with Maps
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 Working with Schemas

Wishing you more Holiday Cheer!