Where in the world am I?

by | May 4, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

My first tidbit.


 


A recurring issue that pops up with the BAM feature is that of the locale/culture setting. BAM is made up of a number of separate components, SQL, web services, custom tools, and more.  In order for each of the components to operate together effectively, they must all be set to the same locale/culture. In addition, your system and user locale/culture should match those set for BAM.


 


For example, Suppose you are using a Russian deployment of Excel and you create a BAM definition that contains Russian strings for field names and deploy this definition to a BizTalk Server installation that is using US-English.


When the user navigates to the portal and view date/times or sorted lists. The Russian strings will sort with the US-English collation order and dates will be input and displayed using US-English rules.


 


To address this you can change the BAMPortal\Web.config file, by modifying the culture attribute under the <globalization> tag.


 


<globalization requestEncoding=”utf-8″ responseEncoding=”utf-8″ culture=”ru-RU” uiCulture=”en” />


 


Another instance where this can be a problem changing the system or user locale. Say you install Windows Server 2003, English edition and change the system locale to Dutch/Belgium. You then install Microsoft Office 2003 without the MUI packs. When you attempt to deploy a workbook containing  BAM definition you will receive the following error:


C:\myBAM>bm deploy-all -definitionfile:TCM119292-result.xls


Microsoft (R) Business Activity Monitoring Utility Version 3.5.1535.0


Copyright (C) 2006 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.


 


Using ‘BAMPrimaryImport’ BAM Primary Import database on server ‘KW0083’…


 


ERROR: Failed to open BAM Excel workbook file – ‘C:\ myBAM \TCM119292-result.xls’.


Old format or invalid type library. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80028018 (TYPE_E_INVDATAREAD))


 


To deploy the workbook, change you locale back to English and redeploy the workbook.

Where in the world am I?

by | May 4, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

My first tidbit.


 


A recurring issue that pops up with the BAM feature is that of the locale/culture setting. BAM is made up of a number of separate components, SQL, web services, custom tools, and more.  In order for each of the components to operate together effectively, they must all be set to the same locale/culture. In addition, your system and user locale/culture should match those set for BAM.


 


For example, Suppose you are using a Russian deployment of Excel and you create a BAM definition that contains Russian strings for field names and deploy this definition to a BizTalk Server installation that is using US-English.


When the user navigates to the portal and view date/times or sorted lists. The Russian strings will sort with the US-English collation order and dates will be input and displayed using US-English rules.


 


To address this you can change the BAMPortal\Web.config file, by modifying the culture attribute under the <globalization> tag.


 


<globalization requestEncoding=”utf-8″ responseEncoding=”utf-8″ culture=”ru-RU” uiCulture=”en” />


 


Another instance where this can be a problem changing the system or user locale. Say you install Windows Server 2003, English edition and change the system locale to Dutch/Belgium. You then install Microsoft Office 2003 without the MUI packs. When you attempt to deploy a workbook containing  BAM definition you will receive the following error:


C:\myBAM>bm deploy-all -definitionfile:TCM119292-result.xls


Microsoft (R) Business Activity Monitoring Utility Version 3.5.1535.0


Copyright (C) 2006 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.


 


Using ‘BAMPrimaryImport’ BAM Primary Import database on server ‘KW0083’…


 


ERROR: Failed to open BAM Excel workbook file – ‘C:\ myBAM \TCM119292-result.xls’.


Old format or invalid type library. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80028018 (TYPE_E_INVDATAREAD))


 


To deploy the workbook, change you locale back to English and redeploy the workbook.

What to expect

by | May 4, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Hello!


First let me introduce myself. I am Don Glover, Programming Writer for the Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) feature of BizTalk Server. Many of you will never have heard of a Programming Writer, so here is just a smidgin of back ground information. A Programming Writer is a technical writer who has come over to the writing field from a technical, typically development, back ground. Programming Writers are able to bring a deeper understanding of development issues to a product to better support those products that are used by developers.


This blog will be primarily about subjects relating to the BAM feature, though it may occasionally it may touch on broader BizTalk issues. It will also be a place where, when you have questions about the docs, or complaints, you can contact me, the writer, directly  and I can address them by answering your questions and back filling the information into the documentation.  This will be an opportunity for a two way conversation on the state of the documention. The goal is to provide the best documentaion possible.


I look forward to hearing your feedback as we go forward with this endeavor.

Device activation arror when installing Sharepoint Services 2.0 in multi-server environment

by | May 4, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Currently, I am installing BizTalk Server 2004 in a multi-server environment with a remote, clustered SQL Server.  While installing Sharepoint Services 2.0, I encountered the following error after entering the database information:


“Device activation error.  The physical file name “WSS_Config.mdf”  may be incorrect (Error Code: 5105)”


After wasting a full day on figuring out the issue, the issue turned out to be an invalid configuration setting in the SQL Virtual Server settings.  Once I got the SQL Administrator involved, he was able to determine the problem by the nature of the error.  In this case, the path to the data file was missing a colon.


 


 


 


 

BizUnit Code Snippets for Visual Studio 2005

by | May 4, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

I think the BizUnit is a must tool for BizTalk developers. But, as for me, it isn’t easy to memorize the syntax for the steps. I had to switch back and forth between a working solution and the BizUnit sample solution to copy and paste the XML nodes. So..I made some code snippets for BizUnit 2006.



The following steps are the simple instructions for how to install the code snippets:
1. Download and extract the zip file on your local hard disk.
2. In Visual Studio 2005, on the Tools menu, click Code Snippets Manager.
3. In the Code Snippets Manager, select Visual C# in the Language drop-down list box, click Add, select the folder where you extracted the code snippets, and then click Open.
4. In the Code Snippets Manager, select XML in the Language drop-down list box, click Add, select the folder where you extracted the code snippets, and then click Open.
5. In the Code Snippets Manager, click OK to exit.


Hopefully, it will make it a little easier to use BizUnit..


Thanks,
Young

Some thought after using WWF (Windows Workflow Foundation)

by | May 4, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

I thought WWF would be similar to HWS, but I was wrong. After spending some times to use WWF, I realized that it is so cool and I’m convinced that it will be great if the next version of BTS adopts the technology.
I think it provides a good programming model for human-based workflow as well as structured business process, and rule engine. (It should also be interesting to compare it with that of J2EE.)


By the way, I think the WWF APIs heavily use two design patterns named “dependency injection” and “dynamic service locator”. Some of you are already familiar with them. Otherwise, I think understanding those patterns can help to use the APIs. For more information about those patterns, see the Fowler’s article at http://www.martinfowler.com/articles/injection.html.


Thanks,
Young