Launch of BizTalk Server 2006 Tech Center

by community-syndication | May 3, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

I’m pleased to announce the launch of the new BizTalk Server TechCenter and that BizTalk Server 2006 is now featured on the BizTalk Server Developer Center.

BTS TechCenter: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/biztalk/default.mspx. May is Learning BizTalk Server 2006 Month.

The site features:

• Virtual labs from Marketing.
• The end-to-end tutorial as downloadable Word docs.
• New content on Clustering BizTalk Server.
• Links to the Installation Instructions.
• Links to the Production Documentation published on MSDN.  

BTS Developer Center: http://msdn.microsoft.com/biztalk/default.aspx – May is Orchestration Month:

BizTalk Server Developer Center and the Microsoft BizTalk Server TechCenter have been renewed.

by community-syndication | May 2, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

It has been long time since I posted. I’ve been too pressed with my works and survival in the whole new country.

By the way, the BizTalk Server Developer Center and the BizTalk Server TechCenter  are renewed with BizTalk Server 2006.

Unfortunately, my samples weren’t yet published. I wrote the samples to demonstrate how use SSO as a configuration store, how atomic scopes work, how long-running transactions work, and how to use SQL adapter with atomic scopes. Each sample I wrote includes a test projects using BizUnit, since I think BizUnit is a great tool to repro the samples as well as do unit test.

If you have any ideas or feedbacks about the samples, don’t hesitate to let me know..

Thanks,
Young

BizTalk Server 2006 TechCenter has been launched

by community-syndication | May 2, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Yesterday, May 1st, we launched the BizTalk Server 2006 TechCenter (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/biztalk/). The TechCenter provides easy access to BizTalk Server 2006 technical documentation, downloads, and community, as well as to IT Pro favorites such as the Events & Errors Message Center. Each navigation page within the technical library includes quick access to search BizTalk Server newsgroups and knowledge-base articles as seen, for example, on the Getting Started page. Among many things, the site contains 

Developer Center and Tech Center for BizTalk Server 2006

by community-syndication | May 2, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Important Biztalk 2006 links

by community-syndication | May 2, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

I am trying to put all the links in one place…

Biztalk 2006 Resources 

MSDN Biztalk 2006 Online Help   : Online documentation with Whats New, Architecture, Reference,Utilities, Deployments etc.

Microsoft Biztalk Server 2006 Help in PDF format : Download the above Help in PDF format

MSDN Biztalk 2006 Code Samples : Download the samples on orchestrations, messaging etc.

MSDN Biztalk 2006 SDK Samples : Downloadable SDK samples with guidance for installing and testing the samples.

Microsoft Biztalk Home page   :  Microsoft’s Homepage for Biztalk Server

MSDN On-Demand Downlodable Webcasts : You can now download all the archived webcasts and watch them anytime. Must see.

Expert Biztalk Server 2006 Videos and Samples : Stephen W. Thomas given well demonstrated, downloadable videos and code samples . These work great and one can get over all hands-on practice for Biztalk 2006 !!!

Biztalk Server 2006 First look Clinic for Developers : 90 minute demonstration and instroduction to Biztalk on developer perspective. Good to begin with.

Biztalk Server 2006 First look Clinic for IT Professionals : 90 minute demonstration and instroduction to Biztalk on IT-Pros perspective.

Biztalk Server 2006 Whitepapers : These downlodable white papers give over all understanding of Biztalk Architecture, New features etc.

Biztalk Server 2006 Virtual Labs : Get hand on experience without downloading Biztalk. Go to Microsoft virtual labs and work on various features on Biztalk server 2006.

Biztalk 2006 Unit testing using BizUnit Explained : Unit testing Biztalk server made easier with BizUnit (remember nUnit for .NET?).

Biztalk 2006 Unit testing using BizUnit Download : Download the Beta version of BizUnit and test your Biztalk Server App.

Biztalk Server 2006 New Functoids explained : Biztalk 2006 has few new functoids which make life easier for mappings. See how in this article.

Biztalk 2006 Documentor by Eric : You can create documentation about various artifacts of your Biztalk application.

Biztalk 2006 Deployment Explained 

One feature everyone liked most about Biztalk Server 2006 is the ease of deployment.

Everyone who deployed apps in Biztalk 2004 (and also earlier versions.. of course) knows how painfull it can be sometimes.

With Introduction of “Biztalk Application” and in-built MSI packaging, export and import features deploying a Biztalk 2006 application is very easy.

See how in the following articles…..

Biztalk 2006 Packaging and Deployment -1

Biztalk 2006 Packaging and Deployment -2

Biztalk 2006 Packaging and Deployment – 3

Biztalk Interview Questions

Biztalk Server Interview Questions & Answers – 1 : Few Interview questions and answers

Biztalk Server Interview Questions & Answers – 2 : Few Interview questions and answers

Other Biztalk Resources

Find all Biztalk related news : Look for the latest news

Code Project Biztalk Resources :  There is lots of information on Biztalk 2004 and 2006 here …

 More on Biztalk  From MSDN TV : Watch whats happening in Biztalk…

Hope it will be of some help for beginners…..

Consolidate to a single BizTalk database? Yes you can!

by community-syndication | May 1, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

I ran into a interesting and undocumented feature of BizTalk 2006 a couple weeks ago that I thought I’d share.  A colleague of mine, Jim Bowyer, had found out that with BizTalk 2006, you can consolidate most of your BizTalk database into a single one. 

For those of you that aren’t completely familiar with the internals of BizTalk, the following SQL Server databases are used to power a BizTalk environment (Note: some may not appear in your environment if you chose not to install all available BizTalk features)

1. MessageBox Databases


2. SSO Credential Database


3. BizTalk Analysis Database


4. BizTalk Configuration Database


5. Human Workflow Services Admin Database


6. BizTalk Rules Engine Database


7. BizTalk Base EDI Database


8. BizTalk Tracking Database


9. Notification Service


10. Windows SharePoint Services Configuration


11. Windows SharePoint Services Content


12. BAM Star Schema


13. BAM Primary Import


14. BAM Archive


15. BAM Analysis (OLAP)


16. BAM Notification

 (For a more complete outline of these DB’s (and what they are used for) check out this page )

Now that’s quite a number of databases to maintain and manage, so it’s natural that smaller organizations might be slightly intimidated about having to install, manage and support so many.  I found out last week that a new feature has been introduced to BTS 2006 that will allow smaller customers to consolidate nearly all of these databases into single one. (The exceptions being the BAM Notification and EDI DBs).

Now since this feature was introduced post Beta 2, the documentation surrounding it is pretty weak.  Additionally, the guidance around this concept is still almost non-existent. So here’s what I’ve been able to find out from our product team.

Reasons for:

• You are looking for a simplified install


• You are looking for simplified management post install


• You are looking for new variations of disaster recovery beyond the standard ones recommended with a multi-DB installation (i.e. you might be able to use database mirroring instead of having to rely on log shipping. Note: our product team has fully tested this and therefore doesn’t support it yet)

Reason against:

• You are really going to limit your ability to scale out your DB tier. Under a normal install, you would be able to place different DBs on different machines. You lose that ability under this type of set


• The testing that has been done for this type of install is admittedly very small. I haven’t seen any real numbers around potential performance impacts that this might have.


• The lack of documentation, testing and formal support for this feature

It should be noted that this feature is included for small BTS installations and shouldn’t be considered for larger enterprises. 

If you do decide that you do want to go ahead with this, here’s how:

During the configuration stage of your install, you can specify that you would like to install all features into the same database.  (All except for the EDI and BAMAlertsNSMain databases – as stated above).   When you fire up the BizTalk Server Configuration tool, and you’re at the stage where you can select the features you want to install. This is where you can specific the consolidation. You’ll need to specify the same database name for each feature (except EDI and BAM Alerts). After you do this, remember to adjust the connection settings when you use the BizTalk Server 2006 Administration MMC Snap-in.  By default, it will want to connect to a database called BizTalkMgmtDb.  If you consolidate your databases into a one new database then you need to specify that new one in the MMC.  You do this by right-clicking the BizTalk Server 2006 Administration node and selecting “Connect To Existing Group“.  This gives you the option to select a SQL Server and Database that the management db lives on. 

Hope that helps and keep on BizTalking…

Rules: A response to James McGovern’s questions

by community-syndication | Apr 30, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

I recently came across a post (http://duckdown.blogspot.com/2006/01/outstanding-questions-on-rules-engines.html) from James McGovern dating back to the beginning of the year is which he had asked a number of questions about Rules engines.   As Rules engines have become a subject of some interest to me over the last eighteen months or so, I though I would have a go at providing some answers.   In my own inimitable style, I of course wrote far too much to be accepted as a comment on James’ web site (sorry, James)!   So I’ve expanded my replies a bit more and posted them here at http://geekswithblogs.net/cyoung/articles/76795.aspx.   I hope they are of some interest.

Pipeline Testing Library – Part 2

by community-syndication | Apr 28, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Continuing from part
1, we’ll now see how to handle schemas and execute receive and send pipelines
with the pipeline testing library.

Configuring Known Document Specifications

If you want to use an assembler or disassembler on your pipeline, you’ll need to make
sure that it can resolve the necessary schemas based on the fully qualified schema
type, or the root element name (namespace#root). To accomplish this, you’ll need to
make sure that the pipeline is aware of “known” document specifications before you
execute them, so that the mock pipeline context can return the correct value when
IPipelineContext.GetDocumentSpecByName() or IPipelineContext.GetDocumentSpecByType()
is invoked by the assembler/disassembler component.

The library supports this through the AddDocSpec() method on the ReceivePipelineWrapper
and SendPipelineWrapper classes. AddDocSpec() takes as an argument a Type handle referencing
the strongly-typed, SchemaBase-derived class generated by the BizTalk project system
when you compile an schema into a BizTalk Assembly. Here’s an example:

ReceivePipelineWrapper pipeline =

   PipelineFactory.CreateEmptyReceivePipeline();

pipeline.AddDocSpec(typeof(Schema2_WPP));

AddDocSpec() will automatically handle multi-root schemas and make all roots in the
schema known to the pipeline context, so you don’t have to worry about that. You can
also add as many document specifications as needed, as long as there are no conflicts
among them (i.e. don’t add two schemas with the conflicting namespace#root names).

Executing Pipelines

Now that we can configure the necessary components and schemas into our pipelines,
we are ready to execute them. For both receive and send pipelines, you execute them
using the Execute() method. However, it is defined with a different signature in both
the ReceivePipelineWrapper and SendPipelineWrapper classes: Receive pipelines take
a single IBaseMessage argument and return multiple messages in a MessageCollection
object. Send pipelines, on the other hand, take multiple messages in a MessageCollection
object as input and return a single IBaseMessage object as ouput.

Here’s a complete example of configuring and executing a receive pipeline:

>

ReceivePipelineWrapper pipeline =

   PipelineFactory.CreateReceivePipeline(typeof(ReceivePipeline1));

//
Create the input message to pass through the pipeline

Stream stream = DocLoader.LoadStream(“SampleDocument.xml”);

IBaseMessage inputMessage = MessageHelper.CreateFromStream(stream);

//
Add the necessary schemas to the pipeline, so that

//
disassembling works

pipeline.AddDocSpec(typeof(Schema1_NPP));

pipeline.AddDocSpec(typeof(Schema2_WPP));

//
Execute the pipeline, and check the output

MessageCollection outputMessages = pipeline.Execute(inputMessage);

Here’s a complete example of executing a send pipeline, with multiple inputs:

>

SendPipelineWrapper pipeline =

   PipelineFactory.CreateSendPipeline(typeof(Env_SendPipeline));

//
Create the input message to pass through the pipeline

string body =

   @”<o:Body
xmlns:o=’http://SampleSchemas.SimpleBody’>

      this
is a body</o:Body>”;

MessageCollection inputMessages = new MessageCollection();

inputMessages.Add(MessageHelper.CreateFromString(body));

inputMessages.Add(MessageHelper.CreateFromString(body));

inputMessages.Add(MessageHelper.CreateFromString(body));

//
Add the necessary schemas to the pipeline, so that

//
assembling works

pipeline.AddDocSpec(typeof(SimpleBody));

pipeline.AddDocSpec(typeof(SimpleEnv));

//
Execute the pipeline, and check the output

//
we get a single message batched with all the

//
messages grouped into the envelope’s body

IBaseMessage outputMessage = pipeline.Execute(inputMessages);

BizTalk 2006 Development in Visual Studio 2005

by community-syndication | Apr 28, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

One of the requirements for BizTalk 2006 is that you must use Visual Studio 2005 for development.  This makes sense because everything in BizTalk is now based on the .Net 2.0 Framework.  Microsoft has made a few modifications for the developer on this from.

If you look at the Properties of your BizTalk Project, you now have a couple of new options (You can right click your project, select properties and then navigate to Configuration Properties, Deployment).  You can now enter an Application Name which is a new feature of BizTalk 2006.  If you do not enter a name, it will use the default application (which defaults to BizTalk Application 1).  In this dialog window, you can also specify Redeploy = True (which actually works this time) and you can also specify to restart Host Instances upon deployment.  This really can help speed up your development time.

For Redeployment, you may have a scenario where you have a Schemas Project, Maps Project and an Orchestrations Project.  If you have everything deployed and you make a modification to a Schema in the Schemas Project, you can right click and specify Deploy.  The Tool will now take care of Undeploying the assemblies that rely on the Schemas Project (in this case the Maps and Orchestrations projects) and the new Schemas Project will be deployed.  This will not redeploy the Maps and Orchestrations Projects!  This saves you from having to undeploy everything by hand, but you will still have to go in and redeploy the projects that contained a dependency to the schemas.

Visual Studio 2005 has the same BizTalk Explorer as we had in BizTalk 2004.  If you use Visual Studio to create a Receive Port/Location or a Send Port, it will only look at the default application.  This can cause issues or confusion if you don’t realize what is going on.  If you specify an Application Name for your project and deploy, a new Application will get created for you.  If you then add a Send/Receive Port from within Visual Studio, it will not be using your new Application, but the default application of BizTalk Application 1.  You will need to open the BizTalk Admin Tool and move your Send/Receive Ports from BizTalk Application 1 to your new Application.  There is not much pain in doing this, but you just need to be aware of it.

To ease this process, you can Create and Deploy your Application via Visual Studio.  Then you can open the BizTalk Admin Tool and change the default Application from BizTalk Application 1 to your new project.  You can right click your Application and select Properties.  There is a checkbox that states:  Make this the default application.   Now the BizTalk Explorer in Visual Studio will be pointing to your new Application and all is well.

These are just some basic changes in BizTalk 2006, but they really help out with the development process.

NW Connected Systems May 9th Meeting

by community-syndication | Apr 27, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Hey All, If you’re local to the Seattle/Eastside area, please join us for the next NW Connected Systems User Group Meeting. We are really excited to present the upcoming Tuesday, May 9th meeting and look forward to seeing you. The focus of the discussion is on BizTalk’s Business Rules Engine. Please come ready with questions, problem statements, or general thoughts around development and implementation of the BizTalk toolset. Park on campus and there will be someone at the door to let you into the building. For more information about this event as well as past events, please visit the following site: http://www.nwconnectedsystems.org We will have food, beverages, and door prizes at the meeting. Meeting Details Date: Tuesday, May 9, 2006 Topic: BizTalk Business Rules Engine Speaker: Jurgen Willis, Microsoft Time: 6:00pm – 8:00pm (formal presentation @ 6:30) Location: Microsoft Campus Bldg. 35 / Kalaloch Room #2615 http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/info/usaoffices/pacwest/redmond.mspx Speaker Jurgen Willis is a Program Manager on the Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) team, where he is responsible for the rules capabilities in WF. Prior to working on WF, Jurgen was a Program Manager on the Business Rules Engine that ships with BizTalk Server. Before joining Microsoft, he spent 9 years building applications and integration solutions for Fortune 500 companies. Warmly, Brennan O’Reilly (User Group Steward)…