RenewCert – Renew Expired Certificates

It’s been just over a year when I deployed the RuleManager with a ClickOnce certificate. Today it expired. Visual Studio 2005 would suggest to generate a new certificate file, however none of the existing users would be able to update the Application (because of different certificate keys).
The error you would get is:


System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at System.Deployment.Application.ApplicationTrust.RequestTrust(SubscriptionState subState, Boolean isShellVisible, Boolean isUpdate, ActivationContext actCtx, TrustManagerContext tmc)
at System.Deployment.Application.DeploymentManager.DetermineTrustCore(Boolean blocking, TrustParams tp)
at System.Deployment.Application.DeploymentManager.DetermineTrust(TrustParams trustParams)
at System.Deployment.Application.ApplicationDeployment.CheckForDetailedUpdate()

There is a workaround made by Cliff Stanford RenewCert, which allows you to regenerate an expired certification.

Thanks Cliff!

Oslo meet BizTalk, BizTalk meet Oslo

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.

New Whitepaper on BizTalk + WCF

Just finished reading the excellent new whitepaper from Aaron Skonnard (hat tip: Jesus) entitled Windows Communication Foundation Adapters in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2. Very well written and it provides an exceptionally useful dissection of the BizTalk 2006 R2 usage of WCF. Can’t recommend it enough.

That said, I still have yet to entirely […]

Panel Discussion Notes

Notable from Oliver Sharp, General Manager BizTalk Server:

  • Low Latency messaging will be part of the Oslo project within BizTalk Server.

    It will support both durable and non-durable messaging.

  • “Let me be clear, the next version of BizTalk will support the existing customers

    of BizTalk” which is to say there will be an upgrade path for existing applications.

  • Both XLANG/s and WF engines will be supported on the Oslo release of BizTalk, conversion

    will not be perfect, but there will be an attempt.

  • XLANG/s will get modest investments, but WF will be where strategic investments are

    made.

  • The ISB is from its foundations is standards based.

Notable from Sam Guckenheimer, Group Product Planner Visual Studio Team System:

  • Vista development will unequivocally better on Visual Studio 2008

  • It will be available in a “short number of weeks” for download in trial and MSDN.

  • Model based Architecture edition tools will be evolved into the Modeling tools and

    repository in Oslo.

  • Next version (Rosario)of TFS will include trace-ability from requirements to

    binary, Oslo will then build on that.

Notable from Dino Chiesa, Director .NET Framework

  • “Internet Service Bus” – Hosted service bus meant to enable reach outside the enterprise

    firewall.

Just some notable quotes from the afternoon panel discussion.

Taking Modeling Mainstream – It’s Called "Oslo"

On the heels of the BizTalk Server 2006 R2 launch, this morning we shared some news at the Microsoft SOA & Business Process Conference. Robert Wahbe, VP of the Connected Systems Division, outlined a vision for the future of SOA and Business Process Management which highlights the increased role that Services and Models will play in the next generation of applications. Robert also talked about “Oslo” which is a codename for a set of technical investments which will help take model driven design mainstream.


Why is this set of investments needed? Boundaries. Boundaries exist in today’s business that limit productivity and the role IT plays in solving business problems. These include examples such as the following:



  • Boundaries between business and IT – the inability to work as seamlessly as they would like because they lack a common language

  • Boundaries between technologies – the alphabet soup of protocol, and standards used to connect businesses and apps.

  • Boundaries across the web – the inability to easily cross the firewall due to security and identity constraints

  • Boundaries between an organization, its suppliers, and its customers – leveraging SaaS where it makes sense

  • Boundaries in time – as soon as a system is deployed, like it or not, its legacy

While modeling technology is not new, it is far from mainstream. The vision for modeling tools is the same now that it has been for years – to allow a broad set of users participate in the design of applications. The relationship between business and IT might be best described in a simple language analogy. Business speaks English, IT speaks German. They both speak a little Spanish. When the scenario is reasonable simple, they communicate without issue using Spanish. When things become increasingly complex, they both default to their native language. They didn’t go wrong speaking two languages; they went wrong using a subset of a third language to try to communicate. Modeling technology today is the “third language” in this scenario. There are two major limitations with the current approach.


First, models represent the application or business logic at a specific moment in time; therefore they are rarely in synch, and generally lack the richness that the full application provides. In the finance world, this would be the equivalent of a balance sheet-that is correct when it is printed, but quickly becomes outdated as financial transactions take place. By the very nature of this type of modeling, there is a hand-off where the model leaves the designer, and is sent to the developer to be built in the form of an application. This handoff is imprecise and causes errors. Programmers are brilliant and incredibly hard workers. However, they have to make guesses in interpreting models and translating them into code. Additionally, business professionals change their mind often and tweak models-sometimes without communicating their changing needs to the IT side of the fence.


Second, having models live in isolation means that no one has a single view of the application end to end. For example, business analysts might model requirements, processes, and policy; architects might model schemas, services contracts, and high level designs; developers might create executable models for workflow and rules; IT professionals might model deployment maps and application health.


Each model is critical, but they are all trapped in silos.  This is really inefficient. There is only one way to solve this – the tools need to be unified, and the models need to be the application. No more import / export. No more silos.


So hopefully this gives you a view into what we see as the problems and stumbling blocks the industry is facing, which brings us to the announcement of something we are really excited about. “Oslo”


Oslo is the codename for a set of technical investments that will be delivered through the next versions of our application platform products such as Visual Studio, System Center, BizTalk Server, BizTalk Services, and .NET Framework. Oslo will take model driven design mainstream. To make this real, we are investing in two key areas.


First, we will continue to invest deeply in our SOA platform. We will invest to make sure customers can easily span client, server, and cloud through BizTalk Server and BizTalk Services.  We want to enable organizations to build applications that use web-based infrastructure, premises infrastructure or both.


The second investment area is to make modeling a mainstream part of application development.  We are building a general purpose modeling language, tools, and repository to bridge across all the models within an application, moving models to the center of application development. Models will no longer just describe the application, they will be the application.


“Oslo” will surface through the products our customers already know. We are announcing investments in five key areas across the Server and Tools business.



  • Server: BizTalk Server “6” will continue to provide a core foundation for distributed and highly scalable SOA and BPM solutions, and deliver the capability to develop, manage and deploy composite applications.

  • Services: BizTalk Services “1” will offer a commercially supported release of web-based services enabling hosted composite applications that cross organizational boundaries. This release will include advanced messaging, identity and workflow capabilities.

  • Framework: The .NET Framework “4” (not to be confused with 4.0) release will further enable model-driven development with Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Workflow Foundation (WF).

  • Tools: New technology planned for Visual Studio “10” will make significant strides in end-to-end application lifecycle management through new tools for model-driven design of distributed applications.

  • Repository: There will also be investments aligning the metadata repositories across the Server and Tools product sets.  System Center “5”, Visual Studio “10” and BizTalk Server “6” will utilize a common repository technology for managing, versioning, and deploying models.

While the dream of model driven design is not new, our approach to solving it is. The technology investment we are making will make this real. While we are proud of our early efforts, we are even more proud that our partners share this vision with us. Having our Business Process Alliance partners see the value in this technology and commit to using it in their own offerings is a testament to its value. Having a broad ecosystem around this technology will drive additional productivity gains for customers.


So excited you want to learn more? Feel free to check out the following sites for everything from paterns and practices, to videos highlighting today’s news:


www.microsoft.com/soa


www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/soa-bpm


 

Microsoft news releases issued at SIBOS

 


A couple of weeks ago I was attending SIBOS in Boston (Oct. 1-5).


SIBOS is a premier financial services show sponsored by Swift held in Boston attracts 6,500+ attendees from global corporates, corporate banks, asset & fund managers.


I’d like to bring to your attention four news releases that were issued by Microsoft at SIBOS.


 


The announcement that the functionalities within the BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT would now be featured within the core BizTalk Server product, was making quite an impact. Banking customers reacted very positively to learning that BizTalk Server would provide them with out-of-the-box support of EDI, SWIFTNet, and soon ISO 20022 support.


 


Microsoft BizTalk Server Customers Gains Enhanced Access to SWIFTNet (here)


Microsoft BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT becomes part of Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2 and achieves SWIFTReady Gold Financial EAI 2007 label.


 


Three releases were about customer wins, showing how the 10th largest bank in the world by assets under management – Santander; one of the top 100 users of Swift – KAS Bank; and the reputed oldest bank in the world — Banca Monte Dei Paschi di Siena, all had chosen to base their payments infrastructure on Microsoft products and technologies in particular BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT.


 


Grupo Santander Selects Microsoft Technology for its Enterprise Payments Infrastructure (here)


New flexible system to provide leading Spanish banking group with faster payment services and increased efficiency of process development and business operations.
A proof of concept done for the Grupo Santander project has proved the system (build on BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT) would be able to handle 62 million messages per day, with processing rates of 1,156 messages per second!


 


KAS Bank Streamlines SWIFT Connectivity and Increases STP by Using Microsoft Technologies (here)


Dutch bank implements BizTalk Server and BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT.


 


Microsoft Helps Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena Reduce Operating Costs by 50 Percent with new Bank-to-Bank Payments Solution (here)


Solution to enable bank to reduce payments processing from days to near-real time, while providing banks with greater visibility in cash flows and credit levels, and support for SEPA directive.


 


Regards,


Ofer Ashkenazi