Few months back I had written a post titled "Managing complex RFID Network". As RFID deployments go from pilots to production managing RFID networks will be critical. It is same as managing any other mission critical systems. As I wrote in previous article BizTalk RFID comes with out of box support for System Center Operations Manager. Let's say suddenly one of our RFID devices fails in your shipping dock you want your IT folks to immediately know so they can fix it and get business underway. System center provides the infrastructure to monitor your environment in real time.
Following is a very simple demo of how BizTalk RFID and System Center Operations Manager work together to provide a solution to monitor your physical world.
Note; Ofcourse you can reuse the events and other infrastructure built for SCOM and leverage it with other systems like HP OpenView or IBM Tivoli.
Many of you have asked me details about Microsoft ISV program. Finally I have got the right set of info for you. :) Follow the link below to become ISV partner for Microsoft. ISV partner program has many benefits like ability to deliver total solution to customers, reduce TCO for customers etc.
The program also adds some accountabilities for partners. Please go through the program guide and drop me a comment if you have additional questions.
Link: http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/programs/isv/default.mspx
iGPS is one of the largest RFID Deployments on BizTalk RFID platform. Xterprise is the partner involved in providing end to end solution for IGPS. Now we have a video case study of this deployment online. Please let us know if you have any additional questions.
With the support of an all-Microsoft solution, Intelligent Global Pooling Systems (iGPS Company LLC) is revolutionizing the world's supply chain by providing manufacturers, suppliers and shippers of unitized loads with the world's first RFID-tagged all-plastic pallet pool. Manufactured to exacting standards, iGPS's pallets are edge rackable, lightweight, extremely durable, consistent in size, hygienic, and – thanks to embedded RFID tags – fully traceable.
Microsoft Case Studies: iGPS
iGPS CS 300Kbps.wmv
New report by Michael Dortch, Aberdeen Group on RFID and IT. I have read the report and it is really a good one.
Best-in-Class companies enjoyed an average 75.4% year-over-year increase in the number of applications meeting or exceeding external SLAs
Best-in-Class companies enjoyed an average 16.7% year-over-year increase in IT infrastructure operational efficiency and business responsiveness
Best-in-Class companies enjoyed an average 1.92% year-over-year reduction of unplanned downtime
The report is available at :RFID and IT Report
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
OATSystems has been purchased by Checkpoint Systems.
June 23, 2008—Checkpoint Systems, a manufacturer and marketer of RF- and RFID-based solutions for merchandise identification, tracking and security, announced today that it is purchasing RFID middleware and applications provider OATSystems. According to the company, the acquisition is designed to create a one-stop shop for retailers looking to leverage RFID to better track and manage inventory.
RFID Journal - - RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) Technology News & Features
This week at Tech-ed dev week I had 1 session on BizTalk RFID titled "Microsoft BizTalk RFID in Real World Deployments: Connecting Movements in the Physical World to Enterprise Applications".
We showed how developers could use BizTalk RFID and very easily collect events from RFID devices and integrate those events into backend applications using BizTalk Server. I think session was well received. We had 65+ attendees in the session with overall score of 7.73 which is in top 5 sessions in our track.
Other than this I also recorded a video for my first video podcast. Tech-ed team had done a great job of having production team onsite to record 20 minutes sessions. Title of our session was "Mobile RFID Scenarios". Link for the video will be available in 1 weeks time.
If you are planing to attend Tech-Ed It Pro week check out the RFID sessions and attend our booth to learn more about RFID and also win Zune's everyday. Enjoy
This week was Tech-Ed Developer week. Bill Gates kicked off the event. It was huge event with more than 4000 developers attending. BizTalk RFID was there too. Cathexis one of our core partners showed a complete end to end RFID enabled attendee management for our booth. People could come in and get their batches and register for prices. We gave away 1 Zune everyday and few instant prices. People came again and again to the booth to increase their chances of winning.
Many developers were excited to see how they could build RFID enable applications in .NET without much hassle. Go BizTalk RFID!!! We are now gearing up for Tech-ED IT Pro next week which will have double the attendance.
Few photos from our booth and conference...
Microsoft has a huge partner eco-system. RFID4U is a leader in RFID training. RFID4U has put together a training on BizTalk RFID to train customers and partners. I would like to get your feedback on the training.
Following are details of the training in words of RFID4U
---------- Start ----------
Microsoft BizTalk RFID Pro Training (http://www.rfid4u.com/services/biztalkrfidpro.asp)
RFID4U, leader in RFID learning solutions, has recently announced new one day course on Microsoft BizTalk RFID Server 2006 R2 for technical people planning to evaluate, understand or deploy BizTalk RFID server. This one day course will take you on an entertaining but extremely informative ride into the world that goes on behind BizTalk RFID. After completing this course, you will be able to describe common BizTalk RFID Server 2006 R2 scenarios and how BizTalk RFID Framework works. You will also be able to identify the tools provided in the BizTalk RFID Server 2006 R2 development environment. Here is the course outline:
- What Is BizTalk RFID Server 2006 R2?
- Examining a BizTalk RFID Application
- Test a BizTalk RFID Server Application
- The BizTalk Server Development Environment
- Adding Devices to BizTalk RFID Server
- Reading/Writing Tags
- BizTalk Processes and Rules
- BAM – Business Activity Monitoring
Microsoft BizTalk RFID Pro Training is available both onsite and in public classes.
Private on-site training, led by experienced instructors, is available to organizations that want to minimize their travel time and expenses by scheduling classroom courses at their own facilities. RFID4U can deliver standard or customized course content to best fit your educational and financial requirements. Scheduled training classes are conducted by experienced instructors at Public Training locations and dates listed below for $495 per participant. Public training is a good option for organizations that would prefer not to use their own facilities or that may have only a few employees who require training.
Location - Dates
- San Jose, CA - May 9, 2008
- Dallas, TX - May 16, 2008
- Chicago, IL - June 6, 200
- Denver, CO - June 19, 2008
- Dallas, TX - July 25, 2008
- Denver, CO - August 14, 2008
---------- END ----------
Microsoft has a huge partner community around RFID. This week with the launch of beta for our mobility platform we got a great response from our mobility partners. Following are quotes from our key partners
Motorolla: “BizTalk RFID Mobile represents an exciting opportunity for Motorola to build on our track record of delivering innovative products to meet customer needs,” said Joe White, VP RFID business development, Motorola Enterprise Mobility. “Motorola is actively partnering with Microsoft so that our customers will be able to reliably and seamlessly run applications on BizTalk RFID Mobile.”
Intermec: "As a committed leader in the application of mobile RFID, we believe that Microsoft's BizTalk RFID Mobile will help accelerate the adoption of RFID by easing integration," said Intermec Director of RFID Business Strategy, Chris Kelley. "With the release of the Microsoft BizTalk RFID Mobile, Microsoft partners will have a unified interface to all Intermec mobile and fixed readers, as well as our RFID-enabled printers."
Psion Teklogix: “We’re committed to working with Microsoft towards the integration of our rugged mobile computing devices with Microsoft’s innovative BizTalk RFID Mobile platform. Compatibility with Microsoft’s BizTalk RFID platform will offer our customers an unprecedented ability to leverage RFID applications throughout their enterprise” said Aneline Ghita, RFID Project Manager, Global Solutions Group, Psion Teklogix.
Samsung: “Samsung is excited to support BizTalk RFID Mobile and see this innovative product drive a evolution in the RFID market,” said Chungkoo Yoon, Vice President Samsung.
Unitech: “Visibility of edge process is critical business decision, we are glad to announce that unitech readers now support BizTalk Mobile. Microsoft is once again making it simple and easy to create solutions to empower the mobile worker to act on real world visibility. Together with Microsoft BizTalk & Unitech, the industry now has a best-of-breed platform to build and deploy these real time solutions. And as a core partner of Microsoft BizTalk RFID, we are implementing Microsoft BizTalk RFID and Unitech RFID readers for Unitech RFID Reader Inventory & Shipping System.” said Judy Huang, Global RFID Director of Unitech.
Last week we announced beta release of BizTalk RFID Mobile. We released BizTalk RFID Server last September and we have received a very positive response from market place. We have customers all over the planet deploying RFID systems on BizTalk RFID in a very short period of time.
Our customers span from small Sushi chain in Seattle to IGPS the 2nd largest UHF RFID deployment in US. We have been getting lot of good feedback from our customers and one consistent ask has been for mobility platform. We have made development and deployment of RFID solutions really simple with BizTalk RFID Server and customers wanted same on mobile devices. Hence we are going Mobile.... :)
What is BizTalk RFID Mobile?
BizTalk RFID Mobile is an RFID platform for Windows Mobile and CE. BizTalk RFID Mobile consists of a runtime engine, tools, and components to develop, deploy, and manage RFID solutions on mobile devices. In combination with BizTalk Server RFID, the mobility release provides a platform for real-time decision making. BizTalk RFID Mobile extends management and event processing to mobile devices and allows communication between the server and mobile platforms.
MOBILE APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT
· Engine, tools, and framework for developers, ISVs, and SIs to build device agnostic, mobile applications utilizing RFID & Sensor data on devices running Windows CE or Windows Mobile
· Out of the box services for rich integration with BizTalk Server 2006 R2 to surface real time data in structured processes
ENTERPRISE MANAGEABILITY & STANDARDS SUPPORT
· BizTalk RFID Mobile provides ability to surface RFID hardware inventory to System Center Configuration Manager(SCCM)
· BizTalk RFID Mobile provides ability to surface device alerts to System Center Operations Manager(SCOM) via BizTalk Server RFID
STORE AND FORWARD, REMOTE MANAGEMENT, AND DISCOVERY
The ability to communicate with BizTalk Server RFID is controlled by the Server Connector service. This service includes the ability to store events locally, forward them to the server. Server Connector also allows a remote manager to discover and manage a Windows Mobile device.
SQL SINK SERVICE
BizTalk RFID Mobile supports using a SQL database to store events and information on the mobile device, in much the same way that BizTalk Server RFID does. This ensures that data collected on a device is not lost in the case of network outage and events are reliably delivered to a host running the BizTalk Server RFID platform for further processing and integration with back-end systems
There are lot of online resources on BizTalk RFID. It is sometimes difficult to find them hence I have tried to consolidate them on this blog. Following are few more resources
Press Release
Factsheets:
BizTalk RFID Whitepapers
Let me know if you are looking for some information and cannot find it.
Last week was a big week for RFID in Microsoft. We hosted the first WW Microsoft RFID solution days. It was first RFID event of its kind hosted by Microsoft with major involvement from our core RFID partners, Microsoft RFID team, BizTalk Field and Microsoft Industry vertical team.
With more than 300 attendees, more than 50 unique customers, 16 core partner sponsors and major representation from MS Field the event was very well received. I have been receiving continuous emails from various attendees saying the event had exceeded their expectations. Keynote for the event was given by John Fontanella from AMR Research and Charles Johnson Director WW Manufacturing at Microsoft.
Along with the event on 18th and 19th we had 2 days of post conference training on BizTalk RFID. Our initial plan was to train 60 attendees. We had to increase that number to 100 and still could not provide seat to everyone interested. The training went so well that everyone attending training was in class and working on there labs almost until 7:00PM on second day. That just shows the passion in our eco-system to learn and make things happen. Please contact Mick(mickb@breezetraining.com.au) or Venkatesh(venkar@s3edge.com) for questions around the training.
Microsoft RFID team and Field is excited about the opportunities RFID is opening up and our partners are executing on various engagements.
We are all "FIRED UP AND READY TO GO!!!!". Vote for BizTalk RFID !!!!!! (Did I go to far.. :):))
The best quote I heard was from one of our enterprise customers
“We came expecting an RFID conference – we left inspired”
Following are few snaps from the event.
1. Dinner at Blue C Sushi
2. Post event training
BizTalk RFID is a comprehensive RFID platform. The most powerful feature of the platform is extendibility. One great way of extending the platform is to write event handlers. You can write .NET code to develop new event handlers to enable new scenarios.
What are event handlers?
BizTalk RFID has built-in event processing pipeline which is deployed at the edge of enterprise. When RFID events are received from RFID devices they are sent through this pipeline for processing. You can run rules on these events, store these events, send them to existing applications or leverage existing EAI or BPM infrastructure.
Community Effort
I have spoken to various customers and partners over last couple of months. I think every customer is unique, with unique set of systems and unique set of business requirements. I feel a good community effort to provide building blocks in form of additional event handlers will help many customers and partners.
Please come join us to extend our RFID community and grow RFID adoption. Please register at http://www.codeplex.com/rfid. Leave a comment on the main page of the project and we will add you to the project team.
