George Nelson [MSFT] : BizTalk Server 2004 Information and Walkthroughs

How to get Biztalk develope edition running after installing XP SP2.

georgenenc — Tue, 17 Aug 2004 18:50:00 GMT

1) BizTalk Server 2004 will stop functioning after the installation of Windows XP SP2 due to changes in the DCOM security model. Windows XP SP2 is available for download now and will be pushed through WindowsUpdate in late August.

Modify the registry with the instructions below to resolve this issue:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;841893

2) The BizTalk Server 2004 Rules Engine component will stop functioning after the installation of the .NET FW 1.1 SP1 due to issues in our implementation which are now resolved. It is expected that all other existing user-level code written in the .NET FW 1.1 will continue to work in the .NET FW 1.1 SP1. The .NET Framework 1.1 SP1 is not yet publically available but will become available shortly.

Download the hotfix for the rules engine component to resolve this issue:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;875540

This hotfix is supported both on the .NET FW 1.1 and the .NET FW 1.1 SP1 so you can install it today if you like.

Using Side by Side Versioning with BizTalk 2004

georgenenc — Tue, 27 Jul 2004 01:32:00 GMT

I have been away for a week in New York again and just got back in the office and cleaned up a little of my emails. In parsing them, I wanted to pass along some information that on Side by Side assembly deployments with BizTalk and how to get this to work.

If you create another version of an already deployed Biztalk assmbly and you would like to start the new version, here is what you need to do to get this to work.

Configure any pipeline components to use a specific version of the schema.
If the schema is redeployed under a different version and this is not done it will fail because it looks up by target name space / root element not by assembly.
Deploy the new version
Bind the orchestrations.
The Manual steps are below
1. Disable the receive location
2. Unenlist the old version using the Explorer (do not stop it), this will prevent new instances from starting while allowing old ones to finish
3. Enlist the new version and start it, all new instances will be created using this one.
4. Enable the receive location

Divide and Conquer

georgenenc — Fri, 16 Jul 2004 20:06:00 GMT

I was watching History channel last night and they were discuss the Napoleonic wars. One of the main strategies used was “divide and conquer”, and it is normally a strategy that I talk about when doing BizTalk development. One of the main purposes of this blog is to give some reusables samples and walkthroughs that can be used as a template for other BizTalk projects. I am hoping that each of the pieces that I am providing can both demonstrate a concept and be used as a template for pieces for other larger BizTalk projects.

When I talk about “divide and conquer” with BizTalk, I am trying to show that you may be tempted to build the workflow of your orchestration and then add your ports and maps and schemas and then deploy it. For a simple workflow this is easy, but when you have a more complex workflow, this can become more cimbersome and difficult to maintain. You may end up sepnding a lot of time in Health and Activity Tracking for trivial issues. What I normally suggest is drawing the workflow, create several small samples that are just pieces of the full orchestration, get each piece working, add them to the full orchestration.

For instance, if you have a workflow like the following that processes an address change for a customer across multiple systems.

1) Receive a document from an external source (SAP, mainframe, FTP etc..)

2) Use a MAP to translate it into a SQL friendly schema to do a database lookup.

3) Use a SQL Request-Response port to verify that it is a valid customer

4) If it is not a valid customer, use a map to translate a response back to the originating source that there is no customer like this.

5) If it is valid, use a scope shape and Request response port to SQL Server to update the customer information

6) Add another port to send a request to a web service which might be a wrapper to Seibel or some other CRM system.

7) Add another send port to update a contact list for an older legacy system that is still in use.

8) You can do this in a parallel shape as separate called orchestrations, but you get the general idea here.

In this case I advocate breaking each of these tasks down into separate orchestrations like the following.

1) An Orchestration that receives a document, applies a map and sends it back out. You can then view the Schema and make sure everything looks correct.

2) Create an orchestration that has a file receive port that you pass just the SQL Schema, have the SQL request-response port and then just add another send port for the repsonse. The flow for this will be receive, send request, get a response, and Send the response. Once again you can view the results and make sure everything is working.

3) Create an orchestration with one with a receive shape, Construct Message, translate, and send shape. This will be for the case of an invalid message.

4) Continue on like this with each piece until you have each piece working.

This might be a bit of overkill, but once you get each piece working you can go back to the main orchestration and simply start adding the Schemas, Maps, Shapes, and ports that worked before and hopefully will have already worked out the problems with any of the messages and schemas and maps without having to spend a lot of time using Health and Activity tracking.

This is just a suggestion that will hopefully save you some development time. This is more of an Extreme Programming technique (http://www.extremeprogramming.org/) with BizTalk, but I find it much easier to build and troubleshoot problems. You end up with your major orchestration and then various smaller pieces. You can then use the smaller pieces to troubleshoot problems as you see them and to test modifications to your maps and schemas before bring them back into the main orchestration.

Let me know if anyone else has any thoughts or other practices they use for developing BizTalk applications.

Using Scope shapes in Long running transactions and more adapter stuff

georgenenc — Thu, 15 Jul 2004 18:48:00 GMT

A demo I sometimes show during various BizTalk presentations is one that shows how to compensate for problems with using long running transactions in BizTalk Server. This sample was originally developed by Erik Leasburgh and Raman Mahal. I created the walkthrough so we can show how to create the sample and hopefully provide details to show how it works so others can use it as a template for their designs. The problem we are trying to solve is that the atomic transaction shape in orchestration doesn’t really provide true atomic transactional semantics when used with a transactional adapter like SQL, FTP etc.

Let’s say I have an orchestration which has a send port which is bound to SQL Adapter Send port for sending the message to the SQL Database. For transactional purposes the developer has enclosed this send shape in an atomic transaction. Also in the same transaction there’s another send shape which is sending messages to another system. Both these sends should commit totally or should rollback.

Now during runtime say Send1 to SQL Server succeeds, but Send2 to the other system fails and because of that Send1 has to be rolled back. A user would think that since the 2 sends are in atomic scope in the orchestration, the orchestration will take care of the rollback process. This is not the case, you will need to compensate for this in your Orchestration. The sample and walkthrough shows you how to do this. This is a version 1.0 of my docs, so let me know if this works or if you see any problems.

Adapter Whitepaper Released

georgenenc — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 21:54:00 GMT

For those of you who have been or are writing adapters a new white paper, "Adapters: A Developer's Guide" is now available on GotDotNET at

http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/wsservers/bts2004/BTS2004AdapterDevGuide.zip.

This was written by Kevin Smith, former developer for the BizTalk Server product team, it is great reading for after a long holiday weekend....Enjoy

HAT walkthroughs and other trivial New York information

georgenenc — Fri, 25 Jun 2004 18:53:00 GMT

I am prepping for a trip to New York and pulling together some demos and other miscellaneous information. One of the pieces of information I usually give out is more information on using HAT to debug problems. I normally pass along a whitepaper written originally by Guy Lau which I have updated. Please feel free to use to give you examples on how to use HAT in different scenarios.

Now on to the important stuff like pizza in New York!

Since I am frequently traveling in New York, I thought it might be nice to pass along a couple of places to eat and drink if you ever find yourself in the city. I normally am either in the financial district or midtown so locations are convenient to there.

I can't mention going to New York without mentioning Pizza. If you have the time to go to Brooklyn, Grimaldi's is probably the best pizza in the world. Check it out if you have time. http://www.grimaldis.com/. If you need something more local to Manhattan John's pizza is also really good or at least a close second. There are multiple locations. http://www.newyorkmetro.com/pages/details/8512.htm. The original place is in the village off of Bleeker. I think it is slightly better than, the Times Sq location, but Times Sq is a better sit down place.

Once you have tried Pizza, try SeraFina's http://www.serafinarestaurant.com/. The 61st street restaurant is a great place. Great Italian outside of Little Italy.

Anyway, just a couple of tidbits. There are plenty of other places to check out, but these are a couple that I always have to stop by.

I hope you find the HAT walkthrough useful and if there is anything missing please let me know.

Walkthrough on using the SQL Adapter with BizTalk 2004

georgenenc — Tue, 22 Jun 2004 23:42:00 GMT

A piece of documentation that I thought would be useful would be more information on using the SQL Adapter with BizTalk to retrieve data from SQL. I decided to write a walkthrough on this, so hopefully this will be useful. Links to whitepaper and project are in SQLTest.zip and can be found here. http://www.winisp.net/georgenenc/sqltest.zip

Creating Batch files to deploy BizTalk 2004 assemblies

georgenenc — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 19:40:00 GMT

I wanted to focus this message on passing on some documentation on creating a deployment machanism to move from development to testing without having to run the deployment wizard over and over. Since I seem to be constantly modifying my samples and demos and redeploying them, I thought it might be nice to find a way to create a batch file to reuse my samples on different machines and even save them to a CD to take with me anywhere. Along the way I started looking into the way the BizTalk SDK samples were created and decided to copy them.

Once I got this figured out, I basically documented it and posted it here. Please use this as a guide to help you create your own mechanism to go from your development machine to QA. Will keep you form constantly have to run the deployment Wizard to remove it and add it back in.

I also have found a tool written by Erik Leasburg and Mariusz Borsa that can be used to modifying the binding files. The source and tool is located here. Usage instructions will show up when you run it without arguments form the command prompt.

I hop you find this helpful and let me know what you think.