Express the RFID in you!

Quick Learn one of our training partners has announced upcoming training's on BizTalk RFID. Following are the training dates.

BizTalk Expert Series - RFID         August 25-26

 http://www.quicklearn.com/newsletters/news061808c.htm

BizTalk Expert Series - RFID         October 23-24

http://www.quicklearn.com/newsletters/news061808a.htm

THE RESULTS ARE IN – the first ever WW RFID Solutions Days was a BIG Success!

We were targeting 200-225 attendees for the event - we crossed 300. We were targeting 60 attendees for training and we had more than 100. We had more than 50 customers at the event, and we’ve been getting amazing feedback from various quarters including MS Field, customers and partners following the event!

AMR's note on this - see http://www.amrresearch.com/Content/View.asp?pmillid=21232 captures the essence of the event:

For too long, the fortunes of RFID and the Wal-Mart supplier mandate have been inextricably linked. At the recent Microsoft RFID Solution Days event, though, nary a word was mentioned about the retail giant. In fact, listening to the audience of almost 300 technology vendors and end users discuss their projects, products, and services, it became apparent the industry has weaned itself away from its dependency on Wal-Mart, and grew in other directions. For RFID technology adoption, this is its tipping point.

And boy, did everyone notice this "tipping point" at the WW RFID days event we hosted here in Bellevue in February - my favorite of them all - the following quote from a technology manager from a Fortune 500 company: "“We came expecting an RFID conference – we left inspired"

The conversation is not about RFID anymore, but all about the solutions (over 18 solutions across verticals were on show at the event) utilizing real world visibility (from unstructured processes) can do to take your business processes to the next level.

Onwards to RFID Journal Live this week!

Cheers

/a

Gives us great pleasure to announce the first edition of the WW RFID Solution Days and Partner Expo to be held from February 18-21 @ the Westin in Bellevue, WA.

This event will kickoff with keynotes from industry analysts and business leaders and showcase 14+ content rich breakouts RFID based solutions across verticals being built on BizTalk RFID today - a 2 day solution extravaganza! This will be followed by a 2 day instructor-led deep drill-down training session on the Microsoft campus

This is a unique opportunity for :

• Senior leadership in organizations looking to understand various real-world RFID solutions being deployed at customers across industry verticals on the Microsoft platform
• Technical Decision makers to get exposed to the deep solution expertise that the Microsoft partner eco-system brings to the table to deploy "production-ready" solutions
• The entire audience to understand how technology has matured over the last year in terms of price, performance, and reliability improvements and why BizTalk RFID is changing the solution landscape with a robust, enterprise infrastructure platform
• Solution Architects and Developers to get a detailed understanding of the ‘nuts & bolts’ of our platform by attending the 2 day instructor led training post main conference

Read all about it here and we look forward to seeing you in February!

Cheers!

/a

Sudhir Hasbe recently came on board the RFID team as a Product Manager. In his brief time on the team, Sudhir has been doing a bit of everything from working behind the scenes at EPC Connections, delivering the keynote at RFID Journal Live Europe, putting together a blue print for our breadth partner eco-system, to blogging on his favorite product - BizTalk RFID! We look forward to great things from him and check out Sud's blog for his thoughts on BTS RFID (the 3 pillars post being the latest) and much more! :)

http://blogs.msdn.com/sudhir/archive/2007/12/20/three-pillars-of-microsoft-rfid-platform.aspx

Cheers!

/a

AMR’s John Fontanella recently published his note on the release of BizTalk Server 2006 R2 entitled “Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2: RFID for Everyman” - which is now available on www.microsoft.com/rfid for download.

Highlighting the benefits of BizTalk Server 2006 R2, John opines that BizTalk RFID will be a key driver in enabling mainstream adoption of RFID solutions. In this report, John notes that with the introduction of BizTalk to the RFID market, it will help eliminate RFID middleware technologies, which were the industry standard to date and were a hindrance in driving mainstream adoption, as they were separate from existing enterprise applications. In addition, John notes Microsoft’s market presence as a key driver in adoption.  Key benefits that John includes in his piece are:

• Expertise
• Cost
• Technology partnerships
• Market presence

Key takeaways include:

• “A long time in the coming, Microsoft has finally launched its RFID BizTalk Server. The ramifications of its introduction will reverberate throughout the world of RFID, making this a watershed moment in the ongoing effort to create mass adoption of the technology.”
• “With the entry of Microsoft into the RFID market, companies now have an RFID platform developed and supported by one of the world’s largest technology companies that fits neatly into their enterprise, supply chain, and manufacturing SOA strategies. From the reader to enterprise applications, the introduction of BizTalk Server 2006 R2 allows for a consistent technology approach that can’t be replicated by independent middleware vendors.”
• “Looking at the long-term picture, Microsoft’s entry is the most significant RFID event we will see in 2007, and we expect our pre-BizTalk RFID  forecast of 20% growth in spending in 2008 to be blown away.”

For those of you wondering what has changed in recent time wrt extracting value out of RFID data and making it work for your organization to drive real time agility, this is a *must* read. In addition to painting a comprehensive picture of 'then vs. now' John's articulation of the changing market landscape, and the capabilities that are being delivered by innovative software solutions atop horizontal enterprise platforms emphasize the shift in factors causing both the maturation and mainstream adoption of the technology from a value to business perspective.

Cheers!

/a

Biztalk RFID made it's debut in TechED EMEA this week (our premier EMEA developer + IT Pro event -> http://www.mseventseurope.com/teched/07/itforum/content/Pages/Default.aspx)

This year we hosted a total of 5,250 attendees at this event

• 4,000+ customers and partners
• 200 Microsoft delegate attendees
• 350 sponsor and exhibitor delegates and staff
• 300 Microsoft Ask-The-Expert Staff, MVP staff and MCT Staff
• 80 press and analyst people
• 300 speakers (Microsoft and 3rd party)

Together with TechEd Developers the week (5-9 November) before that makes it 9,250 people in Barcelona this week getting upto speed on the latest and greatest of Microsoft technologies.

Daenet, one of our core gold certified partners presented a breakout session on BizTalk RFID to this audience and this talk was received with considerable enthusiasm in the developer community given the new applications that this stack enables at the edge and the hub of an enterprise in the form of innovative real time applications.

Read all about this in Andreas's blog here, and check out the great new samples for BizTalk  RFID that Daenet demonstrated at the talk and have published on their blog.

This has been a busy week for BizTalk RFID, with a keynote and breakout session at RFID Journal Live in Europe as well - watch Sudhir's blog to hear all about his European tour of duty!

Cheers!

/a

On the road again this time waiting for a flight to JFK in Logan (one of my least favorite airports) and what better time than to sit back and recollect the events over the last week in Chicago that included everything from Kevin Turner (our COO) launching BizTalk Server R2 (and speaking to the power of RFID as a transformational technology for business), 14 different partners exhibiting solutions in our booth, a breakout session on BizTalk RFID with 4 customer co-presenting with me, and of course the countless innovative products that were on display that highlighted the innovation on the ground that's happening in this space.

It all started on the evening of the 2nd of October with Kevin kicking off the conference with a keynote on enabling the real time business - having spent weeks behind the scenes with numerous folks on the keynote (content and demo which was my little cameo on stage with Kevin) we were all looking forward to this with nervous excitement, and boy was it worth the wait! Kevin's energy and passion for this space came out time and again, and his personal street cred in RFID (I for one did not know he was the project lead when Wal-Mart first started experimenting with RFID years ago!) resonated extremely well with the audience of over 500 people - so much so that I heard people in passing saying that this was the best ever keynote at an EPC conference yet. My demo (an end-end RFID enabled supply chain demo (demo clip on www.microsoft.com/rfid) which included a grand entrance by Matt Eschbach, the global alliance manager for Intermec playing the fork lift operator (on the Crown WAV (Work Assist Vehicle) equipped with an Intermec Mobile RFID Smart Shelf - you can spot him on the right corner of the picture below - was received very well and helped showcase the applicability of RFID in driving business efficiencies when integrated with core supply chain business processes and surfaced via collaborative business intelligence (through SQL reports, and Sharepoint).

The keynote concluded with a great panel discussion between Mark Roberti (RFID Journal Live founder and editor), Steven Martin (who runs the BizTalk and .NET Product Management teams in MS), Michael Reed (GM for Intel RFID), Frank Lanza (head of global RFID operations at HP), and James Allard (P&CEO of Blue C Sushi). Q's ranging from what is happening with RFID that's different today, benefits of the partner driven approach to building solutions, to the specific benefits that a small 50 member restaurant like Blue C expected to achieve were fielded by Mark, and answered with aplomb by the panelists.

To me the significant takeaways from the individual perspectives on stage were:

1. The cost and complexity associated with RFID deployments are history - we have a rich and cost effective platform today that allows organizations to build and deploy production ready solutions (Steve Martin, MS)
2. There is a huge spike in the request for end-end solutions utilizing RFID (both in supply chain integration, and in asset tracking) and compliance as an ask is slowly fading to the background given the arrival of enterprise ready solution sets (Frank Lanza, HP)
3. Hardware costs are dropping rapidly, numerous form factors (especially in the mobility space) are proliferating, and reliability of readers are increasing as well (Mike Reed, who manages the R1000 team at Intel)
4. RFID is at a price and feature parity point that it can now be used to drive biz efficiencies not just for the enterprise but also for innovative SMB solutions such as the inventory management system at Blue C Sushi. In addition to providing efficiencies, RFID is also capable of providing real competitive advantage to an organization of any size on the operational front.
5. We are clearly seeing the bar for solutions move from pilot to production and working RFID solutions are not chimera anymore (All)

The icing on the cake (both in the panel during the keynote and in my session) was James Allard from Blue C - his clear articulation on the benefits that RFID is providing his small business today, and the plans he has for the future with the data he will gather over time to improve the overall customer service experience provided a lot of insight into how this technology was driving benefits across the spectrum, and gave the nay-sayers a lot to chew on in addition to just plain old good Sushi ;)

In addition to all of this I was very fortunate to have James, Puneet (from CHEP), Dean (from Xterprise talking about the Siemens VDO deployment), and Steve from Intel Manufacturing, all talking to the audience about the key learnings from their deployments that were built on BizTalk RFID, with the good and the bad of their experiences to date - we hope this provided the audience with data points and insight into how customers of all shapes and sizes were using the platform to deploy solutions today.

We had great feedback on the partner solutions that were being demonstrated in our booth and announced a partnership with HP connecting our platform with SAP to provide end-end supply chain solutions for enterprise customers. In addition to all of this, seeing the h/w innovation unfold firsthand in this space (sub $1000 readers based on the R1000 chip from Alien, readers with various mobile form factors from Kinetics and Samsung, the 'mouse' RFID reader from Diester etc.) were all highlights showcasing a rapidly maturing industry, and a sign of exciting times ahead!

In conclusion, wanted to leave you with a snapshot of the events that unfolded at EPC - enjoy! :)

Kevin in action at the keynote

Slides from the talk: 'why this is an important area for Microsoft'

it's demo time with Matt on the WAV in the extreme right delivering cases of vacuum cleaners with RFID tags :)

Our panelists in action

A busy booth with 14 partners!

James Allard at Blue C Sushi and I crossed paths 7 months ago, and ever since I've only had admiration for his relentless passion to innovate and provide only the best of the best to his customers - a true visionary in more than one way, and a personality that's worth traveling miles to meet!

Not only did James convert me into a Sushi addict with fabulous food, but has also gone on to prove that the right technology used in the right circumstances with a little bit of passion and vision thrown in can often result in a heady mix!

if you needed any more convincing around the fact that RFID is here and RFID is now!, check out

www.onten.net, or

http://www.onten.net/Blogs/laura/rfid-sushi/

to read all about how Blue C uses BizTalk RFID and to better manage their restaurant.

enjoy! :)

Cheers

/a

As the interest in BizTalk RFID grows, something that I look forward to doing is pointing readers to great blogs on this platform as well as blogs of experts who are using BizTalk RFID to create innovative new applications - my hope is that there will be a rich community of us sharing our experiences to the world and growing the knowledge pool of RFID savvy users!

Two of them I'd like to introduce you to today are:

1. J. Kalyanasundaram (a.k.a. JKAT) - http://blogs.msdn.com/kalyanaj/
2. Mick Badran (aka MickieB) - http://blogs.breezetraining.com.au/mickb/

JKAT runs the BizTalk RFID Tools team and if you are a developer reading this and stifling a yawn, look no further -> click on the link above to get the 'The Ins and outs of what you can do with BizTalk RFID', straight from the horses mouth! :)

Mick (more on him later in a launch diaries episode) is one of those MVP's who reminds you of how life in the fast lane of ever changing technology needs to be savored and enjoyed - the passion for new technology in this man is to be seen to be believed and Mick has always had BizTalk RFID in his mirrors since day one, when I interacted with him and David McGhee to put together a RFID demo for the SOA conference in Australia more than a year ago :) - his BizTalk RFID knowledge / work has been pure joy to witness and I am sure you'll enjoy the RFID gems on his blogspot (anyone remembers MS RFID Services? - Mick does ;))

I hope you will enjoy the views and knowledge that both JKAT and Mick share with our small but expanding community.

I will be looking to keep adding more super-starts to this blog - so if you are out there and doing some great work on BizTalk RFID, drop me a line :)

Until next week

Cheers

Anush

Some highlights from AR / PR coverage (if you missed them)

1. AMR’s coverage of BizTalk RFID (Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2: RFID for Everyman)

2. Manufacturing Business Technology - Microsoft touts new edition of BizTalk as low-cost solution for linking global supply chains (http://www.mbtmag.com/article/CA6478610.html?q=microsoft)

3. A plethora of articles including the following:

• Computerworld Microsoft rolls out next release of BizTalk Server
• CRN Microsoft Ships New BizTalk Server Release With RFID, Enhanced EDI Support
• eWEEK Microsoft Ships BizTalk Update
• InformationWeek Microsoft BizTalk Talks To More Applications, Servers With Upgrade
• InfoWorld Microsoft touts RFID, EDI in BizTalk Server upgrade
• IT World Canada BizTalk Server update tags RFID support
• Manufacturing Computer Solutions Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2 to take productivity to the edge
• Network World Microsoft delivers RFID with BizTalk 2006 R2
• RFID Journal RFID News Roundup: Microsoft Releases BizTalk Server 2006 R2
• ZDNet UK Microsoft releases latest BizTalk Server
• Silicon.comMicrosoft has launched its BizTalk Server 2006 R2 with a heavy focus on embracing RFID technology.

A blow by blow account (in pictures) of the launch in Taiwan - kudos to the entire MS Taiwan organization for putting together a great event.

Enjoy :)

Cheers!

Anush

Snap-shots from Taiwan:

Time

9:30  

Opening Show

 Taiko御鼓坊

9:30 – 9:45

Opening speech

 Davis Tsai

General Manager, Microsoft Taiwan

9:45 – 10:25

Keynote speech - Empowering Dynamic IT

Dr. Donald Ferguson

Technical Fellow of Platform & Strategy, Microsoft Corporate

10:25–10:45

Break

10:45–12:15

BizTalk Server 2006 R2 –

Extending the Connected Enterprise

Oliver Sharp General Manager, Microsoft BizTalk Server Group , Kerry Kruase Intel Marketing Director for Intel’s RFID Operation,HP Debasish Roy RFID Consultant  COE HP APJ Michael C. Woods Technical Product Group Manager

13:30-14:20

Anush Kumar

RFID Platform Product Manager, Microsoft Corporate

T.J. Fang

Associate Vice President, Quanta Computer

Daniel Chang

Technology Manager, Microsoft Taiwan

Bobby Mark

ARCHITECT ,Microsoft Taiwan

Jason Chou

Consultant ,Microsoft Taiwan

14:40-15:30

Kris Horrocks

Sr. Technical Product Manager for SOA at Microsoft Corp

Steven Martin

Director , Connected System Products Management, Microsoft Corp

Michelle Chen

Sr. Business Development Manager, Microsoft Taiwan

Dr. Joe Chang

CJCU RFID Research Center Centers , Taiwan

Albert Wang

Project Manager ,FPG Taiwan

15:50-16:40

Registration

RFID Welcome Gate

1000+ people in attendance!

Other News Clippings

TV

070911 USTV News (0’23”)

Headline: RFID Technology platform launched in Taiwan

070911 CtI News (0’32”)

Headline: Industry, government and academia collaborated to create RFID opportunities

070911 ERA News (0’42”)

Headline: RFID applied extensively in daily lives

070911 TTV News (1’12”)

Headline: Microsoft releases RFID solution, Taiwan the first stop

070911 SET News (0’19”)

Headline: High-tech glory of Taiwan, first stop of worldwide launch program

070911 FTV News (1’44”)

Headline: Taiwan’s RFID Technology in lead in Asia. Microsoft praised for achievement

070911 ETTV News (1’32”)

Headline: Taiwan’s RFID achievements world renown

Newspapers

070911  Commercial Times 工商時報 A12

Headline: Microsoft’s application platform added with RFID solutions

070911 Commercial Times工商時報 A13

Headline: BizTalk Server launched and Taiwan’s RFID achievements demonstrated

070912  Apple Daily 蘋果日報 B5

Headline: Microsoft  supports RFID development and launches new software in Taiwan

070912  Economic Daily News 經濟日報 C7:

Headline: Microsoft pleased to see  prosperous RFID development in Taiwan

Subhead: New version of software launched in Taiwan, the first stop of Microsoft’s worldwide launch program

070912  DigiTimes 電子時報 5:

Headline: Microsoft launched new version of BizTalk Server

Subhead: RFID business opportunities expected to grow 6 times in 4 years

070913  Economic Daily News 經濟日報 B7:

Headline: Microsoft BizTalk technology yields positive result

Subhead: Taiwan takes lead in global product launch; Microsoft demonstrates RFID, EDI and SOA success case studies

Online Media

070911 CNET

Headline: New version of Microsoft BizTalk to speed up RFID  applications and development

070913 CNET

Headline: Microsoft: BizTalk SOA applicable to non-Windows platforms

070911 DigiTimes Online

Headline: Microsoft confronts with  IBM by delivering rapid-implemented, low-cost and core process focused SOA solutions

A whirlwind (and extremely exciting!) 2 weeks it has been as we launch BizTalk server RFID world-wide and I wanted to share with you the excitement and the rich, robust RFID solutions (from the Enterprise to the SMB) that are being enabled world-wide on this platform today.

The first wave of events began in Taipei, where over 1000 people attended a packed show (opened by a high energy performance on drums called Taiko) to hear about the new features in BizTalk Server R2, and see live applications from partners (see below for a blow by blow account in pictures) including the live fish traceability initiative (with real fish!) by Tekho group (video on www.microsoft.com/rfid).

Our global launch partners, Intel and HP, set the tone for the event by articulating the power of the platform and the opportunities that the joint efforts have enabled in both the hardware space (surfacing capabilities of readers running the R1000 chip to the end user) or the enterprise software solutions space (supply chain visibility solutions from HP) for the end user. My break-out session was attended by a packed and enthusiastic audience (thanks to Dean and Matt from Xterpise and Intermec for flying across the globe and discussing how BizTalk RFID enables end-end RFID solutions by partners from Pallet to Sushi tracking) and Taiwan was ready to go on BizTalk RFID!

As part of the trip to Taiwan, I also had the opportunity to meet and speak with executives from partners and customers deploying applications on BizTalk RFID and was quite frankly blown away by what was being deployed in this region - to be chronicled as part of the upcoming “Launch Diaries” blog posts on this blog – this is a region which is clearly ahead of the curve in terms of bringing transformational real-time applications of value to the market and a region where we will continue to focus our efforts in terms of harnessing the knowledge from these deployments to a world-wide audience.

From Taipei, the next stop was a whirlwind one day quick stop-over at Hong Kong where we had the opportunity to meet about 70 odd partners and customers, mostly new to RFID and BizTalk and discuss the applications that could be enabled by extending the reach of the enterprise to the edge – here too the audience was enthusiastic and extremely engaged - especially when Jerry from CSL, and Winson from Cactus discussed the CHEP deployment and the learnings from the same. Being a logistics hub of mainland China, the applicability of RFID in enhancing transportation and logistics services here is viewed as extremely important, and we see a lot of promise in terms of adoption moving forward.

The last port of call was Sydney, a city I had never been to and was taken in by (vibrant, beautiful city with great people!). We had the opportunity to meet and discuss the R2 release with over 200 odd customers and partners, and if the recent momentum around BizTalk in this region, and the enthusiasm around RFID for traceability efforts is any indication, Australia is another region to be watched in earnest as we put the building blocks in place and educate audiences on why RFID is real, is here today, and BizTalk RFID + Partners is the answer for mass adoption of scalable real time solutions.

As I return back to the US (writing this enroute from Sydney), and start getting ready with the team to make the final push of the launch tour here in the US @ EPC Connections (where Kevin Turner our COO will be speaking at the keynote and addressing how companies can use sensor based technologies to transform their organizations), reading through the recent media reports that have highlighted the launch of BizTalk RFID energizes me even more as we look forward  to to build on what we've created in innovating all the way to the mobile edge, and continue delivering real and tangible value for end users.

To learn more about how BizTalk RFID and Partners can help transform your business, check out the following links:

1. Website: www.microsoft.com/rfid

2. BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Eval Edition: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/bb738071.aspx

3. TechNet Online: Documentation & Help: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb749758.aspx

4. Samples: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/biztalk/bb608378.aspx

5. Installation Guides: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=df2e8a88-fb23-49a4-9ac7-d17f72517d12&DisplayLang=en

6. CHM, Performance white paper, Tutorial Files: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=22b2e8d9-8cda-44f8-8f4e-b372c7660989&DisplayLang=en

Look forward to seeing you all at EPC Connections in Chicago!

Cheers!

Anush.

In this post my aim is to classify/group/categorize all interaction or communication that RFID devices are involved in. I find such high level views very useful for thinking about problems. Hopefully you will too. My plan is to use this as a reference for future posts. Now to the classification

• Operations: Aspects related to using the RFID device from an application. This is the "real" RFID related functionality. Ex. Read/Write/Kill tags, Get/Set IO ports etc.
• Discovery: Discovering when a device becomes reachable/usable or unreachable/unusable.
• Initialization: Performing all the steps related to provisioning the device for use by an application, including loading and ensuring that the right version of firmware is running on the device.
• Configuration: Setting the right set of properties on the device (Ex. Regulatory region, signal strength etc.)
• Diagnostics and Monitoring: Diagnostics is information used to troubleshoot problems with the device. Monitoring deals with health of the device. It also includes asynchronous management events send by the device to flag certain conditions (Ex. Low memory event, failed write event etc.)

The DSPI has support for most of these features. EPCGlobal has standards that map to these categories. LLRP and RP are largely Operations (though there is some diagnostics and monitoring as well). RM maps to "Diagnostics and Monitoring". A new spec called DCI that maps to Discovery, Configuration and Initialization is being developed.

The categorization also maps to how different pieces of software in an enterprise interact with a device (not incidentally). Management software's interaction falls into Diagnostics and Monitoring, Configuration and Initialization (Ex. MOM/SCOM, SMS/SCCM etc.). Application software interaction falls into Operations. It might have some Discovery component to it as well.

Provisioning RFID devices i.e. initial setup of a device to make it functional, involves Discovery, Configuration and Initialization (Do you know of any Provisioning software? Is enterprise level device provisioning specific to RFID devices?)

I would like to find out what you think of this classification. It will be great if you can let me know if I have missed anything.

I am a developer on the Biztalk RFID team. I have been on this team since its inception. Phew... it has been a long march!! But, I am excited about all the work we have put in being used in the "real" world.

One of the main areas of my work is "Asynchronous Event Processing" (so you know who to blame... :)). My posts will be centered around this topic. I also plan/hope to touch upon future directions of the product.

I have seen some confusion regarding how the Deploy method (including some posts on MSDN forums http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=1474&SiteID=1) in an event handler is used. I felt a description of the Deploy method's "role in the universe" would be useful. Parts of this description are in the product documentation but split in various places.

When ProcessManagerProxy.DeployProcess is called on an RfidProcess, the Deploy methods are called on all the event handlers in it. The Deploy method is like setup for an event handler. When StartProcess is called later on, the instantiated event handler can assume the setup or "Deploy" has already been done.

The out-of-the-box SqlServerSink's Deploy method sets up the database schema required for the event handler to use later on. It also gives permissions for the RfidUsrAcc to post to the database that it has created. The permissions bring up an interesting aspect. DeployProcess runs under the credentials of the caller. The caller (if you are using RfidManager, the credentials under which RfidManager is executing) is impersonated inside BIztalk Rfid Server where the DeployProcess is executed. The idea is that setup usually requires higher privieleges than normal execution. Thus in the case of SqlServerSink creating a database and schema requires higher privileges (create database etc.). Whereas just posting events requires fewer privileges (insert into a particular table). When a higher privileged user calls DeployProcess, her credentials are used to setup the user. The higher privileges are used only during DeployProcess (again DeployProcess is done before a process executes) thus giving us better security. RfidUsrAcc (under whose identity the event handlers execute), can have just the privilges required to do their work (in this case post to a table).

Let me take another example where Deploy will be useful. Let's say an event handler writes all the events it sees to C:\Data\Somefile.xml (some file) to be more concrete. The Deploy step of the event handler creates the file and gives permissions to RfidUsrAcc to write to it. Without deploy, RfidUsrAcc we would have had to give file create privileges to RfidUsrAcc for C:\Data. This would mean all RFID processes (and providers) will have the same privileges. Instead, if an Administrator on the machine (or any user that has appropriate privileges to create the file) calls DeployProcess, and the Deploy method sets up the file, RfidUsrAcc can just have write permissions to this one file, thus locking down what RfidUsrAcc could do.

Attached is some code that illustrates the above example. Note processRuntimeUser in the code is the same as RfidUsrAcc.

Deploy vs Init

EventHandlers have an Init method. The Init is called each time the event handler is executed and is like a constructor for the event handler (unlike Deploy which is like Setup). Just like event handler methods, it executes under the RfidUsrAcc identity. In the attached example Init could have opened the file.

Note: The identity under which Biztalk RFID service runs in called RfidSvcAcc (whether it's a local account or a domain account). The identity under which event handlers execute (and providers also) is called RfidUsrAcc. On Windows XP, these two are the same. On Win2k3, they are different because we host the event handler in IIS worker processes.

Note: RfidManager calls DeployProcess automatically when a user tries to start a process from it. If the DeployProcess fails, it is silently ignored. There is no explicit way to say DeployProcess from RfidManager. RfidClientConsole exposes DeployProcess though.

Janakiram Goteti