Consuming RESTful services from BizTalk Server using AtomPub

by community-syndication | Apr 24, 2008 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

In a previous post I explained the importance for traditional integration servers and ESBs to embrace REST as one of the architecture styles used to interact and expose resources. For the simplicity of this post (and to avoid starting a religious war…(read more)

BizTalk RFID goes Mobile!! My Smartphone is getting a make over!

by community-syndication | Apr 24, 2008 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

BizTalk RFID ‘v2’ is in early TAP (Technology Adopter Program/phase) and runs on Windows
Mobile Devices…pretty cool!

Now Microsoft have moved RFID not only into the common household framework, but also
provided the reach with Mobile devices.

Rather than in the classic RFID model where tags move and Readers are *fixed*. We
now can have Readers that move and tags that are *fixed*.
(lots of ideas for this one!)

Check out a stream of RFID ‘stuff’ from YOUTUBE

RFID goes Mobile…

>

What is RFID….

>

Future Supermarket!

BizTalk 2006 ‘R3’….starts to form

by community-syndication | Apr 24, 2008 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Christmas has gone, Easter too…..but here’s something to smile about. There’s some
HUGE things cooking on the horizon in the land of BizTalk.

We want SQL2008….we want VS2008 and we want the world of connectivity to/from BizTalk
to be *easy*. Also as BizTalk RFID goes mobile….we want to go there too! Control,
manage, deploy/stop/start processes etc etc.

Here’s a start….

Steve Martin (heads up the Connect Systems Division – CSD at Microsoft in Product
Management) spilt the beans and let me tell you….when are the betas coming out!!!!!!!

http://blogs.msdn.com/stevemar/archive/2008/04/23/biztalk-server-platform-updates.aspx

Enjoy

Ron Jacobs Video on SOA Platform of the Future

by community-syndication | Apr 23, 2008 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Registering Null Adapter on 64-Bit Machines

by community-syndication | Apr 23, 2008 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Shashikant Raina was kind
enough to share with me an issue he ran into while trying my /dev/null
Adapter for BizTalk Server on a 64-bit machine:

After creating the adapter registry keys using the included .reg file, he noticed
that the adapter would not appear listed in the BizTalk Administration Console when
trying to add the adapter to BizTalk.

Here’s how Sashikant fixed it:

On 64 bit machine, when you simply click on a registry key file (i.e NullAdapter.reg)
it creates entries in default registry editor on that machine. When you then go to
Biztalk admin and try to add Null adapter, you can’t see it is an option from list
of available adapters to add.

Reason, bring that the entries were created in the wrong registry editor (64 bit).
To get the correct registry entries, run this registry file

using regedit.exe located in \Windows\SysWOW64 on the 64 bit machine.

This will create Null adapter entries in 32 bit editor. You can then go to Biztalk
admin and add the null adapter.

So if this happens to you, just make sure the registry entries are imported into the
right place!

Thanks Shashikant!

Did Microsoft make an Announcement about a new Product Release?

by community-syndication | Apr 23, 2008 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

I think a new product was announced today, had some ‘R3′ designation or something – don’t have a clue what it was…

SharePoint – Sample Service Level Agreement (SLA)

by community-syndication | Apr 23, 2008 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

This is a very basic sample of a service level agreement for SharePoint.  This would be more typical of providing an SLA to an internal department of an organization. Providing an SLA to an external party would probably include an additional set of items around penalties, charges, terms of use etc.

SharePoint – Governance (Part 1)

by community-syndication | Apr 23, 2008 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Call to action – What parts of governance for SharePoint do you want to hear about?  I’ll post new topics based on user requests. Just create requests by posting comments at the bottom of this blog. (request it again, even if others have already asked for it. Its kind of like voting and the most votes gets a post first)

This is the first of many rants on Governance.  I’m definitely trying to socialize many facets of Governance with Customers and Partners.  It is essential to success and (evidently) easily overlooked.

What is Governance?
Structured Control.

What if you don’t have any Governance?
You don’t have control.

Do you need Governance for a successful SharePoint installation?
YES!

What should be in a Governance Plan? (minimal list)

1. Hosting model – Central IT or delegated to business units?


2. Service model – Central service owners or delegated to business units?


3. Taxonomy – What is the structure of the systems that SharePoint will implement? (formal division sites, mysites, collaboration spaces?)


4. Architecture- Sizing, Capacity, Growth Strategy, Logical Architecture


5. Operations – Who runs the infrastructure and what tools/processes to they have? What standards to they have to meet?


6. Availability, DR, and Business Continuity –


7. Service Management – SLA’s, monitoring, uptime, service tiers (commodity vs. customized applications)


8. Provisioning – Central vs. Self Service. What can users do on their own? How can you create big picture policies while still allowing freedom and removing strain on IT departments and help desks?


9. Information management policies – Retention, Disposal, Labeling, Bar coding, Auditing, Records Management, Rights Management


10. Security Policies – Authentication providers, Remote users, External Users, etc.


11. Finance Policies – Do you have a chargeback model? How is cost distributed


12. Users – How do you support them? How do your garner adoption?


13. Communication plan – What do you tell the organization? and when?

What if you don’t Govern?

1. Site sprawl – sites proliferate like wildfire and you will be without ways to reign them in without upsetting users (who thought they had unlimited storage forever)


2. Technology proliferation – Users don’t know where to put content so it ends up replicated all over file shares, public folders, etc.


3. Server Proliferation – Groups are unwilling to consume centralized service so they install their own SharePoint (and probably do it poorly due to lack of budget/mandate/experience)


4. Waste – Content and systems overlap and are needlessly redundant or repetitious wasting tons of money on hardware and software.


5. Inconsistent – Everybody does things differently so everything from backups to site branding is all over the map. Creating a poor and ill managed user experience.


6. Damage – “Home grown” SharePoint installations often lack the rigor of setting up data recovery or other essential items.  This often leads to data loss or compromise


7. Poor user adoption – If you don’t articulate how they should use it and how you will support them, user adoption will suffer.

What are the Goals of Governance? (no particular order)

1. Drive Consistency


2. Assigning responsibility to qualified parties (IT, Service Owner, etc.)


3. Operational Excellence


4. Mitigate conflict and provide a framework for Decision making


5. Manage hardware and software assets strategically


6. Set clear expectations of service with users


7. Lower costs


8. Reduce Risk


9. Provide “Roadmap” for approach to intentionally and deliberately plan rollouts

Some Resources

• Governance TechNet Landing Page –
  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/sharepointserver/bb507202.aspx
  
  
  
  • See this site for links to tools, third parties, community resources etc.


• Governance Tools – http://www.codeplex.com/governance

Consolas Font: Old Age & Tired Eyes!

by community-syndication | Apr 23, 2008 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

There is a great little post on this morning's IEBlog that talks about the (relatively) new Consolas font and how to enable it for use in a command prompt!

Here's an excerpt from the post…

Being an old fart, I've really come to appreciate the little things in life, like a 22" wide-screen monitor and the new Consolas font in Visual Studio 2008.

Thanks to the IE team for explaining how to enable this in a command prompt!

Jeff

BizTalk 2006 R3…

by community-syndication | Apr 23, 2008 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

BizTalk 2006 R3 was announced today!  This answers the frequently recurring question
of “When will BizTalk live inside of Visual Studio 2008?”

Well, this release will make that happen…In addition, R3 will provide support
for Windows Server 2008 and Sql Server 2008.  You can expect a release after
general availability of Sql Server 2008…

Like R2, this is a pretty incremental release.  Steven
Martin indicates that releasing fresh bits is a better user experience than a
“large Service Pack”…well, at any rate, it always seems like a
good idea to avoid delivering new features in a service pack.  Expected to see
some new (and updated) LOB, legacy, and database adapters – in addition to a
mobile RFID piece…