December, 2005

In this blog entry I will show two different ways to use logical functoids to affect the output of the mapping process. Just as in the last mapping blog entry these two examples are at the top of the list of mapping questions people ask me. The first...

Is anyone confused about the conflicting terminlogy I have seen in the BizTalk documentation regarding BizTalk message headers and contexts ? I have always understood a message to be just a context and a body. There is no 'header' in a BizTalk message...

I am looking for input on the practicality of using the BizTalk Adapter Framework to build a custom adapter. For those of you who have used it what were your experiences, good or bad? Can you describe the development process as to how you took the Framework...

Mapping Empty or Missing attributes and elements with different combinations of parameters: Required/Optional, Min/MaxOccurs, Default, Fixed When I create maps it is annoying to guess which values I'll get if I have to mapping Empty or Missing attributes...

Recently I needed to include exception handling in a web service call to an external party. I learned a couple of things and thought I’d highlight them here. Exception handling doesn’t always behave the way you expect when you are trying to catch exceptions...

Many of the blog entries that I write about are based on questions that customers ask me. One of the areas that customers tend to ask most about are advanced mapping topics. I thought it would be a good idea to take many of these questions and post them...

Since I have seen enough questions on this, I will officially post here about it (and we might have a KB Article on it ... not sure how that works for BETAs though). There is a new sql agent job you will find on the messagebox database server called ManageMessageRefCountLog_<messagebox>...

Here's a sql script I use against the BizTalkMgmtDb when I'm debugging issues that I think are caused by botched deployments: SELECT nvcName AS AssemblyName, nvcVersion AS Version, DATEADD(hh, DATEDIFF(hh, GetUTCDate(), GETDATE()), dtDateModified) AS...

The forthcoming release next year of Visual Studio Foundation Server will include two methodology templates for the next version of MSF (the Microsoft Solution Framework). These are MSF for Agile Software Development (MSF Agile) and MSF for CMMI Process...

The below mapping example could most likely be accomplished using a series of BizTalk maps. In the maps, Table Looping / Table Extractor / Looping functoids etc. could be used to perform the transformation. Sometimes it makes sense to craft your own custom...

BizTalk has a lot of “artifacts”. That's the name of the BTS objects. Here I try to classify these artifacts from a point of view “Which tool is used to work with artifacts”: PS Unfortunately I've lost comments when copy this table from Excel. If you...

If you have installed BizTalk 2006 with SQL Server 2005 you may have noticed that the MessageBox_Message_ManageRefCountLog_BizTalkMsgBoxDb job is failing as shown in the job history capture below. The detail of the error is as follows: Executed as user...

If you have installed the EDI option with BizTalk 2006 beta 2, but are not actively using it I would recommend that you disable it - just stop the BizTalk Base EDI Service in Service Manager. You may have noticed this already, but if not there is a memory...

I have used the Pipeline Component Wizard written by Martijn Hoogendoorn on a few occasions now and would say it is an excellent weapon in your BizTalk armoury, especially for those who are new to writing custom pipeline components. Up until now I had...

The December Connected Systems User Group meeting is right around the corner and we have a great speaker lined-up. Come to the meeting and learn how to effectively use BizTalk's pub/sub model to create decoupled solutions. Time/Date: December 13th - 6pm...

I have been spending a lot of time on my current project working on the operations and monitoring phase of the project life cycle. During discussions about the differences between MOM 2000 and MOM 2005 there have been many questions and a bit of confusion...