That some spammer thought my wiki pages where hit enough to warrant modifying them
on a daily basis with links to various “odd” sites 😉
Thanks to Craig I’ve
upgraded to FlexWiki 2.0 and now those pages
are locked down – I apologize if you’ve visited them and they haven’t been right,
should be ok from now on.
Check out my BizTalk
R2 Training.
When we make changes to our BizTalk environments, we always ensure that the changes are scripted so the Ops Team don’t really need worry about messing things up – as a result, we use Binding files everywhere. Normally, we do large scale solution deployments, but earlier this week we needed to update the subscription filter […]
On my previous MSDN WebCast I showed a demo of how to use a custom WCF protocol channel to combine Workflow Services and durable messaging transports channels like MSMQ. If you watch the recording of the WebCast you can see the entire demo, but there…(read more)
Thanks to everybody who attended to my MSDN WebCast about WCF-WF integration in depth . You can watch the recording here and the samples are available for download here ….(read more)
For those of you who attended my webcast today on workflow communications, the demo code is attached to this post. It includes the base activities used for communication activities (more on these in a later post) and it provides simple example of local communications and web services. The two-way communication activity and sample is also included.
If you are interested in the webcast check here in the next day to two for the OnDemand link.
Enjoy!
During my preparation for my Tech Ed talk on BizTalk Server port binding options, I wanted to write a PowerShell script to help me manage the transitions from one demo to another. For the most part, I was looking for a way to quickly enable / disable receive locations and start / unenlist send ports and orchestrations. All of this is available in WMI, but I wanted to make some reusable functions in PowerShell so I didn't have to drop into WMI each time I wanted to do it. I wanted a simple function I could call like so:
EnableReceiveLocation("MYRL")
It turns out that creating these functions in a script file is relatively easy. One issue I ran into, however, is that transitions for send ports and orchestrations are not as straight forward as they are in the UI. In the UI if a port is unenlisted, I can simply start it. Under the covers, however, the admin tool is actually enlisting and then starting. So, in code, I have to call the operations to both enlist and start. Or, if the port is already enlisted, but not started, then in a function called StartSendPort, I have to just start it. So there is some checking of the current status rather than just blindly wrapping WMI calls. You'll need to check the docs in some situations to get the enum values. I used the hard coded values in my case.
function StartSendPort{
param([string]$portName)
$sp = Get-WmiObject MSBTS_SendPort -n root\MicrosoftBizTalkServer -filter "Name='$portName'"
if($sp -ne $null)
{
if($sp.Status -eq 1 -or $sp.Status -eq 2)
{
if($sp.Status -eq 1)
{
$null = $sp.Enlist()
}
$null = $sp.Start()
Write-Host "Started send port: " + $portName -fore Green
}
else
{
Write-Host "Send port " + $portName + " is already started." -fore Yellow
}
}
else
{
Write-Host "Send port not found" -fore Red
}
}
Where things got a little more challenging was when I wanted to start working with applications. Applications provide a nice way to manage a group of ports by allowing start/stop functionality; unfortunately, the application is not surfaced through WMI. Never fear however, b/c PowerShell is built on top of .NET. All I needed to do was create an instance of the BtsCatalogExplorer class and then I was on my way to managing the applications. But first, I had to load the assembly that included that class. I chose to do that using the path, but strong names works very well too. Then I used the New-Object cmdlet to create an instance and navigate to the application.
[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadFrom("C:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006\Developer Tools\Microsoft.BizTalk.ExplorerOM.dll")
function StopBTSApplication
{
param([string]$appName)
$exp = New-Object Microsoft.BizTalk.ExplorerOM.BtsCatalogExplorer
$exp.ConnectionString = Get-BTSConnectionString
$app = $exp.Applications[$appName]
if($app -eq $null)
{
Write-Host "Application " $appName " not found" -fore Red
}
else
{
if($app.Status -ne 2)
{
#full stop of application
$null = $app.Stop(63)
$null = $exp.SaveChanges()
Write-Host "Stopped application: " $appName
}
}
}
And, because I was trying not to hard code too much, I create the connection string using WMI to get the group settings.
function Get-BTSConnectionString
{
$group = Get-WmiObject MSBTS_GroupSetting -n root\MicrosoftBizTalkServer
$dbName = $group.MgmtDBName
$server = $group.MgmtDBServerName
[System.String]::Concat("server=", $server, ";database=", $dbName, ";Integrated Security=SSPI")
}
Notice that I simply execute the Concat to get the connection string, and because this results in a new string, that value is returned to the pipeline and available to be set in a variable or used in a cmdlet.
I'm loving the stuff I can do with PowerShell and feel like I'm just scratching the surface. Hope this helps someone else get a jumpstart as well. I've attached the PowerShell file with my functions included.
Attachment: BizTalk_PowerShell.ps1.txt
Mostly this post is here to motivate me to actually get this book done ASAP –
Yes – I am writing a book on WCF and REST. Not a big suprise 😉
Check out my BizTalk
R2 Training.
still going on
Check out my BizTalk
R2 Training.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then these two diagrams (courtesy & copyright Microsoft) are worth millions! At least they are to anyone desperate to understand how the BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet (BTARN 3.5) really works.
Don’t let the complexity of this diagram scare you. The message flow for an outbound RNIF (or PIDX) message consists of four key areas.
Note: If you’re not sending attachments you may elect not to use SQL for this and can substitute FILE receive locations. The SDK contains sample code and a pretty good explanation of how this may work.
Just a side note. If you’re really interested in how this all works, you can look at the source code for this web application using Lutz Roeder’s Reflector. I think you’ll be amazed at how much Regex is used to “craft” these RNIF messages.
The message flow for an inbound RNIF message (whether it’s a new message or an asynchronous response to a message you’ve already sent) consists of three key areas.
There are a few other details involved in the message flow (signals) depending upon whether your transmission is synchronous or asynchronous, but the basics are fairly straight-forward. The best thing is that this workflow is almost entirely “configured” using the BTARN Management Console and is “message agnostic”, meaning that you can use any standard RNIF, CIDX or PIDX “PIP” (Partner Interface Process) that you and your trading partner both support.
Best of all, it’s included in the price of BizTalk Server 2006 R2!
Currently listening to Carrie Underwood’s Carnival Ride
Here’s a sample PowerShell script/functions to start/stop BizTalk orchestrations.
This is an extended version of the Stop-Orchestration VBScript included in the BizTalk
2006 SDK, which I hope someone finds useful .
The script can be used to start or stop either a specific orchestration or a group
of orchestrations defined in a BizTalk assembly. For example, to stop and unenlist
all orchestrations in a given assembly, you could use this:
stop-orch -assembly 'MyProject.BizTalk,
Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=50b7b2906e3f8aa5' -unenlist
Here’s the code for the script:
$script:bound = 2
$script:started = 4
$script:controlRecvLoc = 2
$script:controlInst = 2
function script:get-assemblyfilter([string]$assembly)
{
# The BizTalk WMI provider uses separate properties
for each
# part of the assembly name, so break it up to
make it easier to handle
$parts = $assembly.Split((',', '='))
$filter = "AssemblyName='$($parts[0])'"
if ( $parts.Count
-gt 1 ) {
for ( $i=1; $i -lt $parts.Count; $i += 2 )
{
$filter = "$filter
and Assembly$($parts[$i].trim())='$($parts[$i+1])'"
}
}
return $filter
}
function script:find-orch([string]$name, [string]$assembly)
{
# We want to be able to find orchestrations by
# name and/or assembly. That way we can control
# all orchestrations in a single assembly in one
call
$filter = ""
if ( ![String]::IsNullOrEmpty($name)
) {
$filter = "Name='$name'"
if ( ![String]::IsNullOrEmpty($assembly)
) {
$filter = "$filter
and $(get-assemblyfilter $assembly)"
}
} else {
$filter = $(get-assemblyfilter $assembly)
}
get-wmiobject MSBTS_Orchestration `
-namespace 'root\MicrosoftBizTalkServer' `
-filter $filter
}
function start-orch([string]$name, [string]$assembly)
{
$orch = (find-orch $name $assembly)
$orch | ?{ $_.OrchestrationStatus
-eq $bound } |
%{
write-host "Enlisting
$($_.Name)..."
[void]$_.Enlist()
}
$orch | ?{ $_.OrchestrationStatus
-ne $started }
| %{
write-host "Starting
$($_.Name)..."
[void]$_.Start($controlRecvLoc, $controlInst)
}
}
function stop-orch([string]$name, [string]$assembly, [switch]$unenlist = $false)
{
$orch = (find-orch $name $assembly)
$orch | ?{ $_.OrchestrationStatus
-eq $started }
| %{
write-host "Stopping
$($_.Name)..."
[void]$_.Stop($controlRecvLoc, $controlInst)
if ( $unenlist )
{
[void]$_.Unenlist()
}
}
}
BizTalk