BizTalk Server 2006: Managing a Successful Performance Lab Whitepaper

by | Oct 3, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Hey all,

 

Check this new whitepaper out… 

 

Abstract:

 

Part of every application’s pre-production testing should include performance and stress testing.  You should know the limits of your platform and your applications with certainty prior to ever receiving or sending a live message in production use.

 

Performance and stress testing can also intersect with capacity planning.  Understanding upfront what type of hardware you’ll require and how much will be critical for your business.  Also, if your company has very strict requirements for volume or latency with constraints on hardware, proving that the system can meet the required goals with expected hardware will be key.

 

This document exists to provide some general guidance around approaching performance labs with BizTalk Server 2006.  For specifics, we have made reference to correlated documents that already exist on the web or in the product documentation for additional assistance.

 

Here is the link:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=60e8c48e-2139-40d0-98fa-78233b3b64cf&displaylang=en

New BizTalk 2006 Performance Papers from HP

by | Oct 3, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication


Having a great time here at the SOA and BPM Conference in Redmond. Got to hang out with Stephen Thomas, Alan Smith, Scott Colestock, Matt Meleski, Larry Beck, Jon Flanders and lots of other fellas. It’s so foreign to me being in a room with dozens of folks who deeply know this product. I’m used to a small customer subset of knowledgable folks, not a big group of peers with a deep base of experience.


One thing I’ve seen here at the conference that I wanted to share is a new set of whitepapers from HP that outlines a series of case studies and performance tests on BizTalk Server 2006. You can find such nuggets such as Case study: HP internal migration of Microsoft%u00ae BizTalk Server 2004 to 2006, and SMB deployments for Microsoft%u00ae BizTalk Server 2006 and a collection of whitepapers on performance of BizTalk 2006 on various HP hardware configurations.. Very nice stuff.


Technorati Tags: BizTalk

Attending Microsoft SOA and Business Process Conference at Redmond – Day 0

by | Oct 3, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

I arrived in Bellevue, Washington on Sunday for the Microsoft SOA and Business Process Conference, the conference officially started tonight with with the Early Registration Reception at Parlor Billards.  It was great to catch up with the poeple I had met at last years conference and to finally put faces to the people I have been talking to via the BizTalk MVP monthly conference calls.  The next 4 days are packed with lots of BizTalk, BPM and SOA information, I am sure that I will be suffering a good case of information overload by the end of the week.

Web Services Software Factory

by | Oct 3, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

One technology that I’ve been spending a lot of time with lately is the Web Services Software Factory, also known as Service Factory, produced by the patterns & practices team.
Don Smithhas played a central role in its developmentand has providedsome valuable learning resources on his blog to help you get up to speed quickly.
Service Factory is designed to speed up and simplify the process of building quality Web services, primarily through the guidance packages that come with the installation. There are two flavors of Service Factory guidance packages: one for ASMX (which has already shipped on MSDN) and another for WCF, which is still under development. The WCF version is expected to ship around the same time as .NET 3.0. However, you can get early community releases for review on the community site found on gotdotnet.
Just yesterday, the team released a new version of the WCF guidance packages. You can download the new versionhere. Here are a few notes from the download page:
The WCF guidance packages have now been updated to work with RC 1 and the September CTP.
Everyone who’s been asking about RC 1 should grab this download and have at it!

New features include a recipe for generating Message Contracts and a new Security Code Analysis recipe to check your configuration files.

We have not included the reference implementation (RI) because we expect it will change considerably from the RI that is part of the July Service Factory release. We are also not including documentation in this drop. The plan we are shooting for (from not until we release in December) is to drop GPs and the RI once a month and to also drop the written guidance once a month but 2 weeks apart. As always, we are interested in your feedback on this approach.

I’ve written a few articles on both the ASMX and WCF versions of Service Factory that will be published over the months ahead. I’m very optimistic about the future of this technology — Service Factory is positioned to provide official tooling and guidance that Web service developers have been clamoring for in recent years.

Unzip commandline tool

by | Oct 3, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

I have been looking for a simple command line tool to unzip files for a long time.
Put this together since I couldnt quite find one I liked. So here is the exe if you
have been looking for one. I use it as a barebones unzipper with dos batch files etc.
Its a shame windows xp/2003 doesnt have anything that can be called by and external
tool. When I get time I also want to look in the windows APIs to see if there
is a way to call an api to do unzip etc. 

 

Here is syntax “Funzip zipfileName”. Its free under GPL.
I am too lazy to add readme and package it etc. If you need source code or additional
features etc. let me know. Based on SharpZipLib
by Mike Krueger. The sample code had some bug with directory creation etc so I
fixed it.

 

Download
Funzip (88 KB)

Disclaimer:- Use at your own risk. Covarius or author not liable for any damage arising
from use or miuse of this tool (Funzip.exe)

Microsoft SOA and Business Process Conference

by | Oct 3, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Microsoft is holding their SOA and Business Process Conference this week in Redmond. This is the show that was called the Business Process Management and Integration Conference last year.
I’ll be at the show on Thursday and Friday and will be delivering the following two sessions with Gruia Pitigoi-Aron from the BizTalk team:
  • BizTalk Web Services: The Next Generation (Friday, 10:00am)
  • BizTalk WCF Adapters In-Depth (Chalk Talk, Friday, 1:00pm)
We have some killer demos in place to illustrate some of the new features made available by the new WCF adapters. The worlds of BizTalk and Web services are coming together in full-force.
If you’re around, stop by and say hello. Pluralsight is a silver sponsor this year so you’ll find our booth with the rest of the exhibitors. I’ll be hanging there most of the time while not speaking.

Opening Party

by | Oct 3, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

The SOA & Business Process Conference welcome reception sponsored by Microsoft Office was a lot of fun (those Office folks know how to throw a party! (Thanks Christian)). We had about 200 people in a large roped off section of Parlor Billiards. It’s a new establishment at Lincoln Square. It’s pretty nice. I’d certainly choose to hold another event there in the future.


So the venue was nice but the best part was the people of course. I spoke with a ton of old friends and new. Stephen Thomas stopped by to talk about the gig he just finished up at Pacific Life for Brad Sherrell (Edmund gave me the real scoop later). I hung out with Rod Da Silva from the International BizTalk User Group (and a BizTalk Server instructor for Developmentor) for a while. I had a great conversation with Scott Allen from Microsoft New Zealand. He taught me how to sell BizTalk. :^) Mark Berry (and the twins) are doing really well and the next time he comes to Redmond he promised to bring me a bushel of raspberries. Chris Vidotto and Bill Chestnut from the land of Aus were in the house. Jim Boyer and Chris Brakel from the Microsoft Canadian sub were around as well. Chris promised to take care of me when I head up to Toronto at the end of the month, so I’ve got that going for me. :^) QuickLearn was out in force! Greg, John, Dwight and Shelly were all there. My wife and I went to diner after the reception with Jon Flanders as well.


That’s just a sample of all of the cool folks I got to hang out with tonight. It was a great time. What a good start to the conference. I’ll be at the Microsoft conference center bright and early tomorrow reporting on the event as it unfolds. So good night for now!