Stephen W. Thomas BizTalk MVP

Service Name Not Available and Commerce Server Import Directory BizTalk Issues

Stephen W. Thomas — Thu, 15 May 2008 14:32:15 GMT

Recently I have gotten a rare chance to step away from writing word documents and working with Visio to get to do some exciting BizTalk testing.

As part of my testing, I was pushing BizTalk and various Adapters until they failed. In doing so, sometimes this caused some odd side effects.

Recently, I was seeing thousands of Active Service Instances in BizTalk Administration that looked like this:

The Service Name was simply "Name is not available". To make matters worse, I was not able to terminate the instances. I tried stopping and restarting the hosts, restarting the applications, restarting the Server, but nothing seemed to work.

Out of pure luck, I decided to check the SQL Agent Jobs... and sure enough the SQL Agent was not running. During all my performance testing none of the Message Box clean-up jobs ran and that left BizTalk in an undesirable state. I started the SQL Agent, gave the jobs a few minutes to run, and then was able to clean out the Active service instances.

So the moral of the story, if you see odd BizTalk behavior make sure you check your SQL Agent to ensure it is running and the jobs are completing successfully.

Another minor item I ran into deals with the Commerce Server Catalog Adapter. It has a property called "Import Directory". The Adapter uses this as a temporary file store when submitting messages. This means the BizTalk Host will need read /write access to this location. This is something that can be easily forgotten... like I did.

So what happens if you forget to update this property or to give the folder the correct permissions?

Bad Things. And in BizTalk world, bad things translates into 4 Error Messages per input message in the event log.

Why we get so many errors - I do not know. If I remember correctly, none of them were very useful in correcting the problem.

BizTalk Host Creation and Adapter Assignment Tool Available for Download

Stephen W. Thomas — Thu, 01 May 2008 03:34:21 GMT

What is one of the biggest problems with having to set up BizTalk in a new Environment? Creating all the Hosts, Host Instances, and assigning the Adapters to these new hosts. This process has been made much simpler with the help of the BizTalk Host Setup Tool.

This tool is fed by a configuration file to set up the Hosts, install Host Instances, and assign Adapters to those Hosts. This tool also has the ability to prompt for a user password and reset all the Adapters back to the default Host (this was used extensively when I was testing the tool).

This will allow one developer to create the solution host layout and easily distribute it to others!

How should you set up your Hosts? For starters, you should have a Receive Host, a Send Host, a Process Host, and a Tracking Host. Then, continue to build out the Hosts as needed. In general, it is best for each Adapter to run in its own Host. But I'm a big fan of not taking this to extremes - specifically on single or double server BizTalk installations.

This tool will help you design and build your solutions by making it easy to separate out your processes into multiple hosts even on your developer boxes. It will also make sure all your developers and environments are using Hosts with the same names - a total nightmare to manage.

You can find the download here.

Note: This is intended as a starting point and you are free to build off of it and customize it as needed. It is nothing exciting as I am just wrapping WMI calls with what I hope is more user friendly XML tags. Please remember this and all other code on BizTalkGurus.com is AS-IS and not intended for production use.

I have included two sample config files. The two samples are HostConfig-Demo.xml and HostConfig.xml. Both have comments that should make it easy to figure out what is going on.

I have not tested this tool with remote setups or on anything other than BizTalk 2006 R2 (but anything 2004 to present should work).

Here is a sample of the XML Configuration File:

<BizTalkHostConfig Version="1.0" defaultHost="BizTalkServerApplication" defaultIsoHost="BizTalkServerIsolatedHost">
    <MakeHosts>
        
</BizTalkHostConfig>

Enjoy!

BizTalk 2006 R3 - A Step In The Right Direction

Stephen W. Thomas — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 21:26:23 GMT

As many of you probably know by now, Microsoft has announced the next release in the BizTalk Family. This will be called BizTalk Server 2006 R3.

I for one am excited for this release! Not so much for the new adapters and added features that will be available, but more by what this represents.

Microsoft and the Connection Systems Division are actively working on Oslo (the next generation of model drive design - all in all super cool stuff) so for them to announce a new BizTalk Release before the Oslo release really shows the level of dedication Microsoft has, not only to the product but to the customers currently using it worldwide.

I keep thinking back to 2005 to the days when Windows Workflow and Windows Communication Foundation were first announced and reading blog posts saying "BizTalk is Dead". Here we are three years later and BizTalk is even stronger than ever!

With the upcoming BizTalk R3 release and the not-so-distant Oslo Platform release, I can only imagine where BizTalk will be a few years from now.

The BizTalker Volume 12 - Sending to a WCF Receive Adapter

Stephen W. Thomas — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:52:55 GMT

Last week I released volume 12 of The BizTalker. This issues' feature article was written by Dwight Goins of QuickLearn and talks about working with the WCF Adapter in BizTalk 2006 R2.

Also covered is the new BizTalkBlogs.com and the new training available on BizTalk-Training.com

You can view the newsletter online or to make sure you don't miss out simply subscribe!

More on the Commerce Server BizTalk Adapters - General How-To's

Stephen W. Thomas — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 04:09:53 GMT

To keep on the Commerce Server Adapter line of blog posts here is another minor pain point I ran into.

I was setting up the Commerce Server Catalog Send Adapter on a multi-server BizTalk Environment. I opened up BizTalk Admin and configured the Send Port.

I went to run the solution and I received the following error:

"Failed to create Catalog Context in 'Commerce Server Catalog Send Adapter'. Message:"

Turns out that the Send Host for the Catalog Adapter was running on another Server so the registry subkey was missing. Oh, and since this was also a 64-bit Host the keys were written in the wrong place - same as the Orders Adapter.

To fix this, all I had to do was open the Send Port on the other Server and click OK. This created the registry key. Then, I simply had to move it into the correct location.

Here are some general How To's I've put together when working (mostly when configuring) with the Commerce Server Adapters:

1. Always create Send and Receive Ports on the Servers you intend to run them on. (Not sure what happens when you import an MSI - will get to that soon)

2. Do not expect any of the Adapters to work in a BizTalk Group scenario. In fact, disastrous results may occur if ran in Group Scenarios. (Hope to test clustering the service soon).

FACT: Catalog and Orders do not operate in Group Scenario. See the help guide for more info.

3. Expect manual configuration if working with 64-bit hosts.

4. Make sure you read the Commerce Server 2007 help guide including "Performance Considerations for the BizTalk Adapters" and "Concurrency Issues with the BizTalk Adapters" and "Troubleshooting the BizTalk Adapters" sections.

5. Remember how easy it is to set up and work with the Adapters! :). All in all, they provide us a lot of great benefits!

More to come as I continue to work with the Adapters.

Follow-up on Commerce Server Orders Receive Adapter

Stephen W. Thomas — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 04:49:17 GMT

Just wanted to post a few follow ups to my post last week on the Commerce Server Orders Receive Adapter running in a 64-bit host.

During testing on another server, I received the following error: "Failed opening or reading the Registry subkey: Software\Microsoft\Commerce Server 2007 BizTalk Adapters\Orders\<somekey>. Message: Requested registry access is not allowed."

This was because when I created the new registry key, I did not give the host user permission to access it. So make sure to do so when adding this key.

Also, something else I discovered that is applicable to both 32-bit and 64-bit hosts of the receive adapter is that the Receive Adapter will double process orders when running the host on two separate BizTalk Servers - i.e. you make it highly available. I think the help guide talks about this a little but it was not very clear.

I would guess you'd need to cluster this service to achieve high availability. But I haven't tested that out yet. Nor do I know how the locally written registry key would come into play.

Commerce Server Orders Adapter on 64-bit BizTalk in a 64-bit Host

Stephen W. Thomas — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 16:33:46 GMT

Recently I have spent a lot of time working with the Commerce Server 2007 Orders Adapters for BizTalk.

Getting it set-up and running on a single machine with BizTalk and Commerce Server together was not too hard (although anyone who thought BizTalk 2004 was hard to install should try installing Commerce Server). Getting everything to work correctly on a 64-bit BizTalk Server installation was another story.

I was running BizTalk 2006 R2 64-bit with a 64-bit process Host. I was setting up the Commerce Server Order Receive Adapter just like I had many times, only to receive the following two errors:

90% of the time:

Access to the registry key 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Commerce Server 2007 BizTalk Adapters\Orders\<some key>' is denied.

10% of the time:

The Messaging Engine failed to update the configuration for the receive location "Receive Location1" with URL "<some address>" for adapter "Commerce Server Orders". Reason: "Object reference not set to an instance of an object.".

For those of you who have not worked with the Orders Adapter before, when you create a new Receive Location the adapter creates a local registry key to use to store the last polling time. When I set up this receive location, I checked the registry by doing a search for "<some key>". I found the key inside the registry and noticed it was automatically created for me by the BizTalk Adapter as it should have been.

So what was the registry permission problem?

This page in the Commerce Server 2007 help guide was helpful in finding the bug... I mean problem. This states that on a 64-bit BizTalk Server, the Commerce Server Adapter uses two different registry locations depending on if your host is 32-bit or 64-bit.

For a 32-bit Host, the keys should be here:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Commerce Server 2007 BizTalk Adapters

For a 64-bit Host, the keys should be here:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Commerce Server 2007 BizTalk Adapters

Since my host is a 64-bit Host, the error message above is correct in the location it is looking for the registry settings.

So what happened to the settings I saw in the registry? It turns out they were put into the Wow6432Node and I did not notice the full path to the registry key.

The fix was simple. All I had to do is move the keys the Adapter created in the incorrect location into the expected location for the 64-bit Host. Note that this process will need to be done any time the Registry Key changes, which on a production server should be almost never or any time you add a new receive location.

To summarize:
When running a 64-bit Host with the Commerce Server Orders BizTalk Adapter, you need to move the auto created registry keys from the Wow6432Node location to the correct location.

Note that 32-bit Hosts running on 64-bit BizTalk Servers do not have any issues, nor do 32-bit BizTalk Servers.

Commerce Server Orders Receive Adapter: Search clause factory failed

Stephen W. Thomas — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 05:06:05 GMT

Sometimes getting BizTalk to communicate successfully with Commerce Server 2007 using the provided Orders Adapter can be tricky.

Here is a quick tip when initially setting up the Orders Receive Adapter in BizTalk 2006 R2.

If you receive the following error:

Creating the search clause factory failed for Commerce Server Orders Receive Adapter. Message You are not authorized to perform the requested operation.

Make sure the user the BizTalk Host is running under is added to the Commerce Server Order Web Service using azman (I made the user an Orders Admin) and that anonymous access is disabled on the site hosting the web services.

If you are on the same domain and Windows Authentication is enabled, make sure you are not supplying a user name and password on the receive location.

Hope this helps!

Catalog Imports into Commerce Server with the BizTalk Adapter

Stephen W. Thomas — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 03:32:28 GMT

Recently I've been doing some work Commerce Server 2007 and BizTalk Server 2006 R2. I have been using the Microsoft supplied Commerce Server Adapters for integration between Commerce Server and various systems.

For those of you who do not have a lot of experience with Commerce Server, both the BizTalk Adapters and the Commerce Server Catalog Manage use the supplied Commerce Server Web Services for Catalog Imports.

When working with large catalog imports, both tools will run into a minor limitation with the file size.

You may start to see this error when working with large catalog imports:

"The import failed because the import file is larger than the maximum size allowed on your server. Contact your system administrator."

This is because the default maximum file size is around 200 MB.

Good news! This value is very easy to update. Simply navigate to the web.config file of the Catalog Web Service.

Look for the following attribute of of the catalogWebService node:

All you need to do is change the value, reset IIS, and you are all set to upload larger files.

I've ran files in excess of 1 GB though both the Catalog Manager and the BizTalk Catalog Commerce Server Adapter. I'm very surprised with the overall performance and shocked the whole thing does crash with such large files!

The BizTalker Vol 11 - Remove BAM Definitions During BizTalk Application Uninstall

Stephen W. Thomas — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 23:25:54 GMT

A few weeks ago I released Volume 11 of The BizTalker. This issue, featuring an article by Eric Stott, walks though the automatic removal of BAM definitions during the uninstall of a BizTalk Application.

Read this issue online.

Be one of the first to receive the BizTalker by signing up for the free email newsletter here.

Updated BizTalk Community Blog OPML File

Stephen W. Thomas — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 04:55:00 GMT

I've made some updates to the BizTalk Community OPML File. I currently have 88 Active BizTalk Bloggers on the list.

Most of these can be found on our community blog aggregation site.

For anyone wishing to use their own blog reader, the updated OPML can be found here.

I also have a separate list of not-so-active BizTalk Blogger. These people may have moved blogs or changed career - but the existing content is still relevant. That OPML file can be found on the same download page.

As always, if you know any BizTalk blogs not on the list, please let me know.

As a special bonus, check out the OPML download page above to see a sneak peak at the new layout of BizTalkGurus.com! The new look and feel will be going site-wide in the near future. Feel free to post any comment of what you like or don't like!

PRO EDI in BizTalk 2006 R2 Book Now Available

Stephen W. Thomas — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:17:42 GMT

I just noticed Amazon.com has a new BizTalk book available. It is called PRO EDI in BizTalk Server 2006 R2 by Mark Beckner.

I have not had a chance to look at this book myself, but with the new EDI changes in BizTalk 2006 R2 I'm sure this book would be a valuable resource - if you had to do EDI....

Please post any comments if you have read or reviewed this book and let us know what you think about it.

Working with the BizTalk WCF Adapter on Windows XP

Stephen W. Thomas — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 04:18:00 GMT

WCF support through the different WCF Adapters provided in BizTalk R2 is a powerful new feature. With the announcement of Oslo, working with the WCF Adapters now is even more critical to a BizTalk Developer.

If you are like me, you do a majority of your BizTalk work on a Windows XP computer or laptop. This can cause some problems when working with the WCF Adapters.

Lets take a look at what needs to be done in order to work with WCF and BizTalk on Windows XP.

First, lets look at the core issue - lack of Application Pools in Windows XP.

Here is what you need to do first in order to work with the WCF Adapters (using IIS - probably the most common scenario for beginners).

- Add your ASPNET user to the Isolated Host Users group

- Make sure your Receive Location is enabled

- Make sure the address in your Receive Location is correct - looks like "/BizTalkWcfServer1234/Service1.svc"

- Restart IIS

Important Note: You can only run one type of WCF Adapter per Application Pool. So on XP, you can only run one type of WCF Adapter at a time. If you want to switch from WCF-BasicHttp to WCF-WSHttp you will need to restart IIS.

On Windows 2003 boxes, each Adapter you want to run through IIS will need a different Application Pool in order to have them co-exist.

Of course, you can always use the Customer Adapter and do anything you want inside that adapter. That adapter is not as user friendly and not really a good place to start for beginners.

Below is a list of common WCF Errors you might encounter when working with the WCF Adapter. In most cases, the error messages give you enough information to correct the problem.

WCF Adapter Common Errors (the error messages are very specific and tell you what to do to fix the problem):

The Messaging Engine failed to register the adapter for "WCF-WSHttp" for the receive location "/BizTalkWcfService1234/Service1.svc". Please verify that the receive location exists, and that the isolated adapter runs under an account that has access to the BizTalk databases.

Potential Causes: Application pool user doesn't have correct permissions, Typo in the Receive location name

The Messaging Engine failed to register an adapter "WCF-BasicHttp". Details: "Registering multiple adapter types within the same process is not a supported configuration. For e.g. HTTP and SOAP receive adapters cannot co-exist in the same process"

Potential Causes: Already have a different adapter type loaded into IIS, Adapter binding types do not match

Receive location for address "/MyService.WCF/MyService.svc" not found. (The BizTalk receive location may be disabled.)

Potential Causes: Receive location disabled, Typo in Receive Location name

The BizTalker Vol 10 - Visual Studios 2008 Released

Stephen W. Thomas — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 21:34:00 GMT

Last week, I released Volume 10 of The BizTalker. The headline for this issue is the release of Visual Studios 2008 and the .Net 3.5 framework.

View this issue here.

Be one of the first to receive the BizTalker by signing up for the free email newsletter here.

Visual Studios 2008 and BizTalk - Think Again

Stephen W. Thomas — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 01:13:35 GMT

Yesterday, Visual Studios 2008 and the .Net Framework 3.5 was released by Microsoft.

I, of course, immediately download the Team Suite edition from MSDN and installed it on a Virtual Machine. Then, went about my daily business of opening up a BizTalk project to get some work done.

The project conversion wizard opened and ran but the projects were unable to open inside Visual Studios. This really wasn't a big surprise and doesn't cause me much pain since none of my projects are working with Visual Studios 2008 yet.

I found a news group post that said a patch for BizTalk might be coming out at some point to allow it to work with Visual Studios 2008. But I have not heard anything about a timeline.

To summarize, have fun working with Visual Studios 2008 but keep in mind you might have a hard time doing BizTalk development.

Upgraded to Community Server 2007 - How's things working?

Stephen W. Thomas — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 05:25:34 GMT

Today (on Tuesday November 6th) I have upgrade the blogs and forums of BizTalkGurus.com to the newest version of Community Server 2007.

You may have noticed the site was down for about an hour during the upgrade and everyone will have to login again.

Please post a comment here or send me an email if you have any problems with the upgrade.

The only problem I seem to be having is I keep getting logged out every few minutes. If anyone else has this problem, let me know.

All my forum and blog templates have been reset to the base layout. So over the next few days (ok maybe week or two) I'll up trying to get them back to normal or at least updating them to something other than the default.

I'm also thinking of removing or stopping the aggregated blog posts I have on the site (http://www.biztalkgurus.com/blogs/biztalksyn/).

Does anyone use this feature of the site? Love to get some feedback on this.

Thanks.

Advanced BizTalk Orchestration Session Slides and Demos for Download

Stephen W. Thomas — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 03:48:14 GMT

I've posted the power point slides and three demos from the SOA and BPM Conference.

The three demos cover:

1. Untyped Messages and Dynamic Transforms

2. Partner and Self Correlating Ports

3. Convoys

You can find the content here:

http://www.biztalkgurus.com/soa2007/index.aspx

This package also includes the Convoy Virtual Subscription viewer I showed in the demo. This can also be downloaded separately here.

I'd also love any feedback from anyone who attended the session. Did the Horse Racing and Bowling example help simplify Convoys? Should I have covered something else or go into more details?

Thanks.

Oslo meet BizTalk, BizTalk meet Oslo

Stephen W. Thomas — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 02:59:00 GMT

Today at the SOA Conference in Redmond Microsoft publicly announced Oslo. The next generation of Service Oriented Technologies that will be included in the next major wave of product releases.

Oslo will focus on two core areas: modeling and services.

While Oslo itself is not a product, it will most likely have modeling tools specific to building, monitoring, and deploying Oslo based solutions.

Oslo will introduce new service offerings with a strong focus on "cloud" based technologies - using BizTalk Services. But clients will still be able to leverage in house solutions.

Oslo will be part of upcoming releases of major software platforms including:

Visual Studio “10”

System Center “5”

BizTalk Server “6” (a.k.a. BizTalk vNext)

BizTalk Services “1” (yes, it will come out of beta someday)

.NET Framework “4”

What to do if you are an an existing BizTalk Developer?

I've heard it from many BizTalk developers I've worked with in the past years. What should we do with Work Flow replacing BizTalk? I'm sure the same people will be thinking... What should we do now with Oslo on the way?

I think this statement from the Directions on Microsoft document says it best:
"The most important product in the Oslo initiative is BizTalk Server V6, which will deliver a new messaging component based on Windows Communication Foundation and a new workflow engine based on the Windows Workflow Foundation"

Right now: Keeping working with BizTalk! With the understanding that down the road BizTalk will have enhanced support for WCF and WF. Make sure you give the Directions on Microsoft document a read and remember it is still early on in the cycle so really anything is possible right now.

Don't get scared... but we have to face the music that most likely Business Processes as we know it (Orchestrations) will be phased out and replaced with Work Flow. As I see it, this is a huge step forward and expands the boundaries on what is possible inside BizTalk Server.

Not since the release of BizTalk Server 2004 have I been so excited about an upcoming Microsoft product release!

We can expect to see some type of beta releases starting in 2008.

Full press release is here.

BizTalk Advanced Orchestration Session at SOA Conference

Stephen W. Thomas — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 20:04:03 GMT

I'm just putting the final touches on my demos for my session at the 2007 SOA and BPM Conference in Seattle.

My session is on Friday, November 2nd at 10 AM in the Cascade room. Session details are below.

Hope to see you there!

Track: Solution Architecture Track

Session Title: BizTalk Advanced Orchestration Concepts and Best Practices

Session Level: 300

Session Abstract:

Business processes are a required component in most Enterprise Integration solutions today. Business processes are modeled, designed, and built inside BizTalk Server using Orchestrations. Orchestration can range from a few simple shapes to a complex multi Orchestration, Transactional process. This session focuses on highlighting Advanced Orchestration features and best practices that can be used to shorten development time and increase overall Business Process reusability. Topics covers are: Untyped Messages, Dynamic Transforms, Starting Orchestration, Passing Port Parameters, and Convoys.

BizTalk Server 2006 R2 RTM now on MSDN

Stephen W. Thomas — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 12:53:00 GMT

Microsoft has released the developer edition of BizTalk 2006 R2 on MSDN. Along with Windows 08 RC0.

Anyone with MSDN access should now be able to access the software. Non-MSDN users can still access R2 but its a free trial version.

I'm not sure what the plans are for posting other editions on MSDN or what the time frame is.

Happy BizTalking!