So I assume many of those who read my blog are aware of Dallas TechFest and either attended, or thought about attending, last year. We’re starting planning for this coming year, and so its time to find out what you, our patrons, would like to see more of at Dallas TechFest 2009? What went great? What needed more attention? What was a waste of time?
Leave me a comment, and tell me what you would like to see.
I came across a frustrating little problem today. We have a schema for a web service we call and have done for ages. The schema is generated by the WSE adapter wizard.
We have had a couple of issues we have had to troubleshoot and it became apparent it would be useful to track a couple of promoted properties from this schema to help with the diagnosis.
So you would think it’s pretty straightforward. Add a property schema and then apply the promotion to the schema. It all works great until you save the schema.
Normally a BizTalk schema is in Unicode encoding, but the WSE adapter generates one with ANSI encoding. When you try to save the schema you get a warning because Visual Studio changes the encoding during the save.
The knock on to this is that we are unfortunately using the worst source control system in the world (not naming any names) which then wont allow you to check in your change because it can not diff the files due to the encoding change.
Bit of a pain in the bum but you can work around this, id be interested to know if there is a reason the adapter does a different format to everything else.
Just came across this new resource on MSDN, the BAM Training Kit. Looks quite interesting. According to the blurb,
There are several roles involved during a BAM solution development including business analyst, BizTalk developer, and system administrator. This training breaks down the BAM solution development into roles. Each lesson covers the background information, the tools and […]
A view days ago I read a very interesting blogpost from Martin Fowler about an Evolutionary SOA. Which is a very interesting topic.
The main question Martin Fowler asks is whether a SOA can be done on a Agile/XP way.
I think it can be done.
If you want to start with an Service Oriented Architecture, start with baby steps (see also a post about Guerilla SOA.) Quite often I see the that a lot of components are build as a service. But services only have one consumer at development time (And will have much longer.) At the moment an components starts to represent a service delivered as a ‘physique service’, that’s the moment to start adding services. And no SOA isn’t ‘just a bunch of services’. So just adding a xml-something interface doesn’t make it better useable, if you don’t need it.
Can a service evolve an a Agile/XP way?
Yes it can, but changing your Interface contract on a frequent base, doesn’t make the consumer of your service very happy. It can be handy to implement Consumer Driven Contracts.
If you use BizTalk the WCF LOB Adapter SDK can be a help. (And can also be used without BizTalk). Within WCF there’s support for the Extensible object. What happens is that upfront the service is designed with options to extend the interface contract. So consumers who wishes not to upgrade to your newest contract version, can still use the service as of before, but newer consumers can make use of the extension classes.
Those were my 2 cents. Any other ideas please feel free to share them.
We conclude this series of blog posts by demonstrating how to take a set of feeds, and mash them up into a single RSS feed using RSSBus.
If you’ve been following this blog series, you’ll know that I was asked by my leadership to prove that RSSBus could generate a 360%u00b0 view of a “contact” by […]
These last two weeks represent a shift in Endpoint WF/WCF Developer Screencast series. The first four screencasts in the series concentrated on Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) development; we will now focus on Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) for four screencasts. We will then alternate back and forth every four screencasts.
This (and last) week, CSD Matt Milner from PluralSight walks you through how to create your first sequential workflow, and how to create your first state machine workflow. Compared to the WCF screencasts, these may seem to be a lot more to digest up front, but these screencasts provides a good starting overview, that we will drill into as we move through the series.
Last week, Matt covered how to create your WF Sequential Workflow. The screencast takes you on a quick tour of putting together a sequential workflow – creating the workflow, adding the business logic using flow control activities, and using custom activities to do the work. As an example, Matt uses the example of processing an eCommerce order – processing a customer purchasing transaction and working with back-end inventory. As we create the workflow, Matt discusses custom activities, using base activity library activities, and binding activity properties to custom workflow properties.
This week, Matt walks you through how to create your first WF state machine workflow. The screencast takes you on a quick tour of putting together a state machine workflow – creating the workflow, adding the states, and using custom activities to do the work. As an example, Matt uses the example of processing an eCommerce shopping cart – and lifecycle/events that go along with it. As we create the workflow, Matt discusses custom activities, using states, and handling multiple state events (both listening for an event to happen and timing out).
As mentioned above, the WF screencasts are a weekly series of Channel9 videos done in conjunction with the folks at PluralSight to help developers new to WF/WCF see how the technology is used. It’s worth noting that Aaron and the PluralSight folks are now offering online training courses (in a format similar to these screencasts) as a compliment to their catalog of instructor-led training courses covering Microsoft connected systems technologies. Their training topics range from .NET v3.5 (including an excellent WF/WCF Double Feature course) to WSS to BizTalk server.
Pluralsight's weekly WF/WCF screencast series is now part of a new Channel9 show dedicated to these technologies — it's called the "Endpoint" show and you can find it at http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/Endpoint/. The show alternates between WCF and WF topics every four episodes, and is posted weekly on Weds mornings (8am Pacific) – so check it out regularly if you're interested in these technologies.
In this week's screencast, I demonstrate how to host WCF services in your own application processes such as a Windows service, a Windows UI application, or even something like a console application. This is a more advanced topic that you'll need to understand when including a WCF service in any code running outside of IIS/ASP.NET. For more info on hosting WCF services within ASP.NET/IIS, check out last week's screencast. Enjoy.
Previous Screencasts (RSS for all posts in the series)
If you have any responsibility for planning or maintaining BizTalk Server databases, I highly encourage you to check out the brand new Microsoft Knowledge Base article entitled How to maintain and troubleshoot BizTalk Server databases.
The article contains details on SQL Server instance settings, the SQL Server Agent jobs, handling deadlocks, how to delete data […]
Canada’s Connected Systems Road show: Can’t make it to PDC but would like to hear more about BizTalk and how it relates to broader connected systems and SOA initiatives? Please join us at one of these locations for a day. We’ll be putting out a registration link & agenda soon but for now please note these locations/dates:
a. Vancouver – 30 October 2008
b. Toronto – 4th November 2008
c. Montr%u00e9al – 6th November 2008
Overview
In a service-oriented world, effective business processes unite people and systems. Find out how BizTalk%u00ae Server builds on the Business Process Management and SOA capabilities in prior releases to help your organization extend core process management technologies even further.
We will share the latest on Microsoft’s SOA offering – as well as details of the strategies and technologies that Microsoft is delivering today, over the next year, and into the future. At this event, you will learn:
%u00b7 BizTalk today and through FY’09
%u00b7 Microsoft’s Roadmap for the future
%u00b7 Microsoft’s “Real world” SOA vision,
positioning and messaging
%u00b7 Service Virtualization & ESB guidance 2.0
%u00b7 RFID & mobility of BizTalk
These events will provide further insight for customers and technology partners into best practices for building SOA and BPM solutions, guidance for advancing SOA, and using the latest Microsoft-based technologies for connecting people, processes and information.
Agenda
8:00 | Breakfast |
8:30 | Connected Systems Overview |
9:00 | BizTalk today, over the next year & Roadmap for the future |
10:00 | Adapter Pack |
11:00 | Break |
11:15 | Self Service SOA |
12:30 | Lunch |
1:30 | Service Virtualization & ESB 2.0 |
2:30 | RFID stack & Mobility |
3:30 | Break |
3:45 | Connected Systems Assessment |
5:00 | Reception |
6:00 | End |
Target Audience
This event will be of value to Technical Decision Makers, Developers and Architects interested in BizTalk, enterprise integration, and SOA solutions.
To Register
Space is limited so register today to ensure your attendance at this event. Click the city name below to register:
Vancouver: October 30, 2008 (Thurs)
Toronto: November4, 2008 (Tues)
Montreal: November 6, 2008 (Thursday)