BizTalk lessons from the field

BizTalk Posters Updated for BizTalk 2009

2009-02-04T18:43:27Z

The MS Technical Editors responsible for the BizTalk posters have recently updated some of the posters for BizTalk 2009. Check them out at the following URLs: · BizTalk Server 2009 Scale-out Configurations Poster · BizTalk Server 2009 Database Infrastructure Poster · BizTalk Server 2009 BAM Poster...(read more)

BizTalk 2006 R2 Certification

2009-01-30T09:38:43Z

In a recent internal discussion I was enlightened to the fact that there is a BizTalk Server 2006 R2 certification exam available. This exam is available at http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/Exams/70-241.aspx , so get going and be one of the first to get your BizTalk certification updated....(read more)

BizTalk 2009 Public Beta and ESB Guidance V2 CTP Available!

2008-12-08T19:24:00Z

After a very valuable and interesting TAP (Technology Adoption Program) process, a public beta of BizTalk Server 2009 is now available at https://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=218 . In unison, the CTP of the ESB Guidance Toolkit v2 is also being released, and is available at http://codeplex.com/esb . Go and grab it! For those who are not aware of these two technologies, the detail below should provide good context: BizTalk Server 2009 With the public beta release of BizTalk Server...(read more)

“Dublin” and “Oslo” in the words of a Technologist

2008-10-28T11:28:08Z

David Chappell is both a technologist and an amazing wordsmith. In his most recent whitepaper, titled A First Look at WF 4.0, “Dublin”, and “Oslo” , he does an amazing job of detailing the new release of WF, and the new “Dublin” and “Oslo” technologies. Read it at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd200919.aspx . For those who focus on BizTalk, and who may be feeling that “Dublin” is encroaching on BizTalk’s territory, make sure you read the section titled “Dublin” and BizTalk Server...(read more)

BizTalk Challenge Scenario 1 - Solution

2008-10-20T12:22:16Z

Quite a while back I posted what was to be the first in a series of BizTalk Scenarios that could be used as a practical learning aid. I was hoping to have the solution for this scenario uploaded within a month of that post, but alas it was not to be. The idea of posting the solution is that it would serve as a reference solution that could be used to compare your solution for the scenario with my proposed solution. By comparing different approaches to solving the same problem one...(read more)

Update on Wednesday's User Group Meeting

2008-10-05T21:59:16Z

The guys from K2 have provided some more detail on what they will be showing us during the User Group meeting on Wednesday: Home Improvement Retailer – Integrated Sales Order Solution. Charles (Sales Officer) creates a new sales order. Customer data is received from SAP using BizTalk. (Using BizTalk SAP Adapter) Charles submits the order. K2 uses BizTalk to do a credit check on an IBM server. (Using BizTalk Host Adapter for IBM DB2) Based on the data received from the IBM server an approve...(read more)

Sending an HTML Email without an Orchestration

2008-09-11T15:44:17Z

There is plenty of information on the Net relating to being able to send an HTML email from BizTalk using a dynamic SMTP port and an orchestration (see here and here ). At a client I needed to achieve the same objective, but without the use of an orchestration and with a static SMTP port. The basic requirement was that the customer was looking to develop a solution that would make use of the standard send port filters, outbound map resolution, and BizTalk's management console to provide...(read more)

BizTalk Server 2009 == BizTalk Server 2006 R3

2008-09-05T16:24:13Z

Some very interesting news around BizTalk today. Not only was there the announcement around BizTalk's future on the BizTalk Server Roadmap page, but there was a Q&A session with Oliver Sharp , the General Manager for the Connected Systems Division. Some really cool info is contained in these updates. The first point of interest is that the announcement and Q&A provide a very clear commitment to BizTalk customers that existing investments in BizTalk will not be lost, that BizTalk...(read more)

ESB Management Portal Installation Error

2008-08-11T19:02:39Z

Anyone who has worked with the ESB Guidance Toolkit will tell you that the complex and troublesome installation of the toolkit is one of the most common reasons for the toolkit not getting wider coverage and usage. The next release of the toolkit (due at around the same time as BizTalk 2006 R3) will make the installation process significantly simpler. In the meantime, however, those wanting to use the functionality of the toolkit will find that the installation guide created by Peter...(read more)

Biztalk Challenge ScenArio 1

2008-06-23T14:12:43Z

As the first in what I hope will be an on-going series of scenario challenges, I have uploaded a pack of information to the South African BizTalk User Group website ( http://biztalkug.co.za/media/p/61.aspx ). This pack includes a scenario overview document, as well as some sample files that will be used in implementing and executing the scenario. This is not a step-by-step walk-through of how to accomplish a specific task; it is a practical scenario that has been created to provide a common,...(read more)

Challenge: Execute a Map and Return the Result, WITHOUT an Orchestration

2008-06-16T19:37:00Z

The Issue Earlier this week Bennie Wentzel , a developer from a customer I was engaged with last year, posed me a question which went something like this: If I have a synchronous web service receive port, how can I return the result of a map on this receive port to the calling web service client, without using an orchestration or the ESB Guidance Toolkit ? Although I had never done this before I was pretty sure it was possible, so I took this as a challenge and set out to prove that it could be done....(read more)

South African BizTalk User Group Website Finally Up!

2008-06-15T11:41:00Z

After much promise, and many requests, the web site for the South African BizTalk User Group has now been launched. Please pay us a visit at http://www.biztalkug.co.za/ . Thanks to Ryan Crawcour for taking the initiative on this, and thanks to all those who offered help and services. What we need now, though, is YOU ! The content at the site is still parse, so come and register at the site and help contribute to the user group by participating in the forums, reading blogs, writing blogs (simply register...(read more)

BizTalk Toolbox: BizTalk MessageViewer HAT Plugin

2008-05-27T13:00:12Z

As a BizTalk developer I have come to rely rather heavily on a variety of tools to assist with various aspects of developing, deploying, documenting and testing BizTalk solutions. The latest addition to this toolbox is the BizTalk MessageViewer HAT Plugin, referred to me by a colleague, Willem Fourie.

This little utility is a nice time-saver, allowing you to view tracked messages from within BizTalk's Health and Activity Tracking (HAT) tool. Traditionally, if you wanted to see a tracked message from within HAT you would need to save the message to disk, and then load the message from disk. Your other option for viewing messages is to use the BizTalk Group Hub, but that is geared towards displaying messages that are suspended, and does not by default display messages that have been successfully processed. This new plug-in, available at http://www.codeplex.com/btsviewerhatplugin, hides this from you and presents you with a functional UI in which to view the message(s) selected.

The tool is very new - only having been released in its version on the 23rd of May - so there are few kinks to still work out of it, but it is nevertheless a great time saving tool, and one I will certainly be monitoring for further development, and using on a frequent basis.

I will endeavour to add more information on the tools that I use over the next few posts. What are the tools you are using?

Latest BizTalk Hotrod (Issue 4) is now Available!

2008-05-22T14:43:00Z

For those that are aware of the BizTalk Hotrod magazine will know how informative and jam-packed this resource is. Those of you who are new to the Hotrod will marvel at the amount of content available in this freely available download.

Here's some more detail on the contents of this issue, from Todd van Nuurden, the self-proclaimed "Pirate Technology Specialist", as posted at http://biztalkhotrod.com/default.aspx:

Hi BizTalk Fans,

Its finally Spring here at BizTalk Hotrod HQ and Issue 4 has finally been put to bed! In this issue you’ll see that we’re continuing our expansion into WF (Windows Work Flow) and WCF (Windows Communications Foundation). Why, you ask, would we do this? Well BizTalk is the future! And we want to bring our .NET friends into the BizTalk fold and as you’ll see BizTalk continues to expands its process server capabilities across the Microsoft platform. We’ve also expanded our coverage to include folks new to BizTalk Server so check out Sal’s “In the Beginning” article

As always we’re looking for new ideas and new authors so if you’re interested please contact us.

Oh we’re also considering a BizTalk Hotrod Resource issue that would include articles by BizTalk software partners as well as links to all the coolest BizTalk Content on the web. So if you have content that we should link to or publish let us know.

Issue 4 of the Hotrod is now available at http://cid-b6c859f7a5f75e63.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/Q2FY08_biztalk.pdf. Go and get it!

XMLValidatingReceive Pipeline Clarification

2008-05-22T10:38:23Z

In my previous post on the default behaviour of the XMLReceive pipeline with respect to validating a message against a schema I detailed the creation of what I termed the "XMLValidatingReceive Pipeline". In response to this posting, Payal Arya emailed me the following question with respect to this posting, which highlighted the need for more clarity around how the pipeline works:

"Your posting was very helpful, however I had one question that what's the use of XML Disassembler and Party Resolution in the Pipeline, when only XML validator solves the purpose."

After getting this question, and reading through my post again I clearly did not detail the reasoning for the use of these components, so here goes.

The reason why I kept the XML Disassembler and Party Resolution components in the pipeline is that I wanted the standard XML Receive pipeline to be enhanced with an automatic schema validation function. This would then provide me with an enhanced, generic pipeline I would be able to use in any development that required schema validation. This required that I keep the same functionality that the XMLReceive pipeline provided, and just extend its functionality: so that the XMLValidatingReceive pipeline effectively becomes an evolution of the XML Receive pipeline's generic functionality.

The alternative, if you wanted the simplest pipeline that would still do schema resolution and validation, would be to create a pipeline that just has the Xml Validator component in the pipeline. As the Xml Validator component will automatically resolve the schema from the message's target namespace and root node name, it would be able to identify the schema associated with the received message, and then perform the validation as well.

By keeping the XML Disassembler component in the pipeline, however, the pipeline will still support any envelope and debatching processes embedded in the schema design, and the debatched messages would then be validated by the Xml Validator component. Similarly, by including the Party Resolution component, any party resolution logic that you may require in your solution is still supported. Obviously, if you do not require either of these functions in your solution and you do not want to incur the overhead of these additional components you could exclude these pipeline components, and your pipeline would still perform the validation function.