.net and other interesting dev stuff in PA : BizTalk

August Philadelphia Area BizTalk User Group meeting

sspotts — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 02:43:00 GMT

We had our third meeting tonight, and had about 9 attendees. Unfortunately for the late cancellations, we had a great session by Michael Webber and Darrin Weber from Air Products who presented their document tracking solution and deployment strategy. Lots of custom adapters, integration with Remedy, and more. Good stuff!

The BizTalk User Group meets on the first Wednesday of each month in the Microsoft Malvern office. Their new support web site is at www.pabtug.com. If you're in the Philadelphia area, and interested in meeting with other BizTalk users, developers, analysts, and managers, be sure to sign up at the web site to get onto the mailing list for meeting announcements.

iWay to Sell .Net Adapter Source Code to Microsoft

sspotts — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 02:22:00 GMT

The New York-based company, which has a stable of about 280 prebuilt adapters to back-end systems, announced Tuesday it's selling the source code and intellectual property from eight of its adapters to Microsoft. See the article...

Sign Up for BizTalk Server 2006 Beta 1

sspotts — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 00:02:00 GMT

Become part of the BizTalk Server 2006 Beta Team and get BizTalk Server 2006 Beta 1. BizTalk Server 2006 builds on the core architecture of BizTalk Server 2004 and makes strides in all dimensions of business process automation including application-to-application, business-to-business, and business-process management.

Sign up today as part of the BizTalk Beta Team and help test BizTalk Server 2006 betas. As a beta tester, you will be asked to install, test, and report bugs on BizTalk Server 2006 Beta 1.

Go to http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/evaluation/bts2006beta.mspx for more info.

Philadelphia Area BizTalk User Group July 6 meeting

sspotts — Fri, 17 Jun 2005 19:31:00 GMT

The Philadelphia Area BizTalk User’s Group will have its July regular meeting at the offices of Microsoft Corporation in Malvern on July 6, 2005 from 7 – 9:00 PM. The featured speaker is Jason Ellsworth-Aults of IntelliMark.

Jason will be discussing Memorial Hospital’s implementation of BizTalk for a health care EAI solution using the HL7 Accelerator.

Discussion of future plans for the user group and member Q & A will follow the presentation. Come help us decide on an official name for the group!

Please register for the event at http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032277406&Culture=en-US.

First Philadelphia area BizTalk User Group meeting held tonight

sspotts — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 01:29:00 GMT

We had 15 people, plus myself and Steve Mohr (the user group leader) attend our first Philadelphia Area BizTalk User Group meeting tonight. We discussed what the format of the group should be, what kind of information everyone is interested in, and how everyone will contribute to the group.

One new member suggested that everyone should, at the next meeting, commit to something he/she will do to support the group - and ask for something that he/she wants from the group. Everyone thought this was a good idea and next month we should see some real ownership of the group by the group.

We'll be meeting on the first Wednesday of each month at 7pm in the Microsoft Malvern office (45 Liberty Blvd, Ste 210, Malvern, PA 19355). Traffic and location was fine for this time of day.

It looks like we'll be initiating a group newsletter with meeting info, tips and tricks, links to docs, webcasts, tools, and other resources, etc. One member "volunteered" to host a web site to support the group, and when that's ready I'll post about its location.

I'll also post when we have the presentation topic for next months meeting, along with registration info.

Connected Systems Competition

sspotts — Wed, 27 Apr 2005 05:06:00 GMT

Do you dare?

Show us what a great developer you are!
Show us how innovative you can be!
Win $50,000 USD.

Demonstrate your skills with SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005 and BizTalk by entering the Connected Systems Developer Competition. There are 15 categories that will be used to judge the competition.

Call to Form a Philadelphia Area BizTalk Server User’s Group

sspotts — Fri, 22 Apr 2005 19:40:00 GMT

7:00 PM June 1, 2005 at Microsoft Corporation, Malvern, PA

You installed the software. You bought the book. You started your first project.

Things happened.

Microsoft BizTalk Server is breaking out in our area. What did you learn? What did you try? What will you never, ever do again?

Come share your experience.

It’s a good time to form a user’s group focusing on BizTalk in our area. You should be part of it. What should we discuss and how should it work? Roll up your sleeves and bring your ideas because everything is on the table.

Our inaugural meeting will be led by Stephen Mohr, co-author of Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 Unleashed and local BizTalk consultant. This will be a bare-bones, meet-greet-organize type of meeting designed to identify and connect people using BizTalk in the greater Philadelphia area. We’ll be looking for your ideas about what you want to do, learn, and most of all, share with the rest of us! For this to work, you have to take a hand! The agenda will be:

• Welcome and introductory comments
• Stephen’s Stupid BizTalk Tricks
• Where do we go from here?
• The author explains why programming books are so bad
• Who wants to volunteer for….?
• Name the UG

The Greater Pennsylvania District of Microsoft Corporation hosting this group in it's Malvern office:

45 Liberty Blvd, Ste 210
Malvern, PA 19355

Slight change...

To Register, please go to:

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032275422&Culture=en-US

BizTalk Server 2004 Service Pack 1 and Adapter Migration Toolkit Released

sspotts — Thu, 27 Jan 2005 04:52:00 GMT

Just got this info from Scott Woodgate...

Get it here. I strongly recommend that everybody trys this in your test environments and then puts it into production. Along with the usual bug fixes provided in service packs you can expect up to a 10% performance increase in some scenarios. This is thoroughly recommended and has been well tested by our EAP customer (thanks).

Along with Service Pack 1 we are also releasing the BizTalk Server 2004 Adapter Migration Toolkit. The adapter migration provides interfaces for BizTalk Server 2002 components and adapters such as AICs and Pre-processors. If you are migrating you will find this helpful.

Biztalk Patterns

sspotts — Sat, 22 Jan 2005 08:36:00 GMT

Check out the patterns on gotdotnet that Scott Woodgate outlined on his blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/scottwoo/archive/2005/01/10/350346.aspx

14 Free on-line BizTalk Server 2004 Hands-on labs available

sspotts — Sat, 22 Jan 2005 08:33:00 GMT

14 BizTalk Hands-on Labs are now publicly available in the full-featured MSDN Virtual Lab at: http://msdn.demoservers.com/login.aspx?group=biztalk

It's simple to access, and there is no complex setup or installation required to try out Biztalk Server 2004. You'll have access to the following labs:

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 - Creating Schemas

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 - Creating a Schema Map

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 - Enabling Message Routing

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 - Creating a Custom Encryption Pipeline

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 - Creating a Deployment Package

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 - Tracking and Debugging Messages

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 - Creating and Debugging an Orchestration

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 - Working with Orchestration Shapes

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 - Creating Transactions

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 - Consuming a Web Service

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 - Publishing a Web Service

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 - Integrating Business Rules

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 - Enabling Business Activity Services

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 - Enabling Business Activity Monitoring

You get a downloadable manual and a 90-minute block of time for each new modile. You can also sign up for additional 90-minute blocks at any time.