At Remix09 there’s been news at the station.
Silverlight v3.0 is hitting the sceneI wonder whether the Adobe Flash support made
it in will dig through the details.
http://silverlight.net/getstarted/silverlight3/default.aspx#whatsnew
I noticed an interesting quirk last night while trying to format a Guid into a string representation – by default, Guid.ToString() does not return an accurate representation of a GUID with curly braces. Hmmmmmm…..
Consider the following simple test, here we are instantiating a new Guid and before outputting the value to the debugger, we capture […]
I attended a session the other day at TechDays here in Sweden with Microsoft Escalation Engineer Niklas Engfelt. The session was about troubleshooting BizTalk and Niklas of course showed the wonderful MsgBoxViewer (MBV) tool by Jean-Pierre Auconie. If you haven’t tested and looked deeper into this tool you need to do so. It’s great!
I worked with the tool before but now I wanted to schedule the tool and to have MBV-reports e-mailed to relevant persons within the company on a weekly basis. This is quite easy to accomplish as MBV comes in two version. One GUI-based (shown below) version and one command-line based.
The command-line version is of course perfect for scheduling using the Windows Task Scheduler.
If you feel uncomfortable running all the queries (there is a lot of them) on a schedule you can pick some you find important and configure the tool to only run those. Jean-Pierre has a post on how to do just that here.
After MBV has completed all its queries and done its magic it will produce a html-report in the working folder (that’s the folder in the “Start in” field in the scheduled task example above).
We then use a tool called AutoMailer NT (cost €20 – there is a 30 days trial) to:
Poll the working folder for a *.html report file.
Compress the file (using zip).
Send the report to a configured list of recipients.
Delete the report file.
The AutoMailer NT installation is a bit rough (don’t miss to the ****separate download (!) of the trial certificate). But once you have everything working it’s great to have a fresh MBV report in you inbox every Monday telling you how your BizTalk environment is doing and possible issues to attend to.
I attended a session the other day at TechDays here in Sweden with Microsoft Escalation Engineer Niklas Enfelt. The session was about troubleshooting BizTalk and Niklas of course showed the wonderful MsgBoxViewer (MBV) tool by Jean-Pierre Auconie. If you haven’t tested and looked deeper into this tool you need to do so. It’s great!
I […]
Well look at that. I just happen to check my publisher’s website today and noticed that they put my book description online and made it available for pre-order.
The book, entitled SOA Patterns with BizTalk Server 2009, is due out by May 2009 (hopefully sooner). I’m still in the process of editing the book and responding […]
We recently announced several new instructor-led training courses focused on the Azure Services Platform and cloud computing. We already have a few scheduled for May and June and we'll be scheduling more at various locations around the world over the next several months – check out our course schedule grid for more details. All of these courses will also become part of our Pluralsight On-Demand! library by mid-year.
Azure Services Fundamentals
A new platform is emerging that promises to usher in a wave of new opportunities by dramatically changing the way companies deal with IT and the software built on it. This platform ultimately makes it easier for the little guy to take innovative ideas to market through a "pay as you go" business model, avoiding many of the upfront costs and complexities of typical IT investments. This platform is what we commonly referred to as "the cloud" today.
This intense three-day course introduces you to the new world of cloud computing and how to build on the Azure Services Platform. We'll cover Windows Azure, .NET Services, SQL Services, and Live Services and you'll learn how to start building applications using each one through a series of hands-on labs. Along the way we'll discuss cloud computing tradeoffs and help you understand the constraints and limitations imposed by the cloud computing model offered by the Azure Services Platform today. [more…]
Azure Services Workshop (1-day)
This fast-paced workshop introduces you to the new world of cloud computing and how to build on the Azure Services Platform in a single day. We'll cover Windows Azure, .NET Services, SQL Services, and Live Services. During this workshop, you'll learn about the overall platform architecture, the purpose of each service offering, and most importantly, how to begin building Azure-based applications today. [more…]
SOA and Cloud Computing Fundamentals
Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a set of principles and methodologies for building distributed systems. Cloud Computing is an emerging trend wherein processing power, data storage, and other resources are accessed as utilities over the Internet. This course provides an introduction to SOA and Cloud Computing for technology decision makers who want to learn what these symbiotic notions are, what they can do for their technology and business solutions, and how to successfully implement them. If you are currently employing or considering employing SOA or Cloud Computing in your solutions, this course is for you. [more…]
RESTful .NET Fundamentals
Representational State Transfer (REST) is an architectural style for building services on the tried and true architecture of the World Wide Web. REST defines a set of useful constraints that if followed lead to loosely-coupled, extensible, and scalable services callable from the widest set of service clients. You'll learn how to build services that embrace HTTP, URIs, and standard formats like XML, RSS/ATOM, and JSON. This course will quickly immerse you in RESTful thinking and teach you how to apply it using several Microsoft technologies including WCF, ASP.NET MVC, and ADO.NET Data Services. [more…]
Azure Services Fundamentals is for developers & architects who want a deep-dive into the Azure Services Platform. It covers each area of the platform in detail and provides a series of hands-on labs to cement your understanding. The Azure Services Workshop is the condensed version of the same course, making it possible to get fast-paced exposure to the Azure Services Platform in a single day.
The SOA and Cloud Computing Fundamentals course is primarily designed for architects focused on designing distributed systems using SOA architectures and cloud computing technologies. And finally, RESTful .NET Fundamentals is for developers who need to solidify their understanding of REST principles and programming techniques — a prerequisite for anyone moving towards the Azure Services Platform.
I have recently blogged about some queries I wrote that report on the message body tracking counts that are currently on a system’s BizTalk Server Tracking database (BizTalkDTADb usually).
The tracking service (TDDS) monitors the message box database(s) for message details and message bodies that have been marked to be tracked, and moves them to the […]
The Web Services Resource Access Working Group published five First Public Working Drafts: Web Services Enumeration (WS-Enumeration) , Web Services Eventing (WS-Eventing) , Web Services Resource Transfer (WS-RT) , Web Services Transfer (WS-Transfer) …(read more)
I will be speaking at TechEd 2009 in Los Angeles.
I will be presenting two sessions.
My first presentation will be on ‘Application Lifecycle Management Experience for BizTalk Server 2009 Developers’.
My second presentation will be a ‘Deep Dive with Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009 Development Platform’.
If you are going to be there stop by and say hello.
Posting from The Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas where I’m taking part in Microsoft’s 4th annual MIX event, where the crowd is a sea of red red shirts that is, in honor of Scott Guthrie’s style.
Looking around I see a diverse group of web designers and developers eager to learn how businesses can achieve a ’return on experience’ by using a new generation of development tools, web platform technologies and software plus services to better engage their customers. Web 2.0 technologies have become a business norm and an essential customer interaction point for most businesses.
So what does this have to do with MIX? Well, MIX provides a forum for developers to learn about Microsoft’s newest technologies and developer tools — whether they be on the web or in the cloud, so that they can engage their customers and forge deeper connections through rich online experiences that deliver a better experience.
From the Web to the Cloud
Developers using the web as a key access point to build rich content, social media applications and innovative business application isn’t new. In fact, Microsoft has, and continues to provide the tools and technologies to enable web developers to build these rich applications, including Web App Gallery, Silverlight 3 Beta, Expression, etc.
With changing economics and technical innovations, we are taking this opportunity to extend the web workload into the cloud helping developers harness the power that they want and need, at scale without having to manage the complexities of hardware. Moving beyond hardware, Microsoft’s Azure Services Platform helps developers focus on their applications and user experiences.
When Microsoft began thinking about its software plus services vision over three years ago, we knew that in order to help our customers solve their business problems, they would need a balance between on-premise and cloud solutions, and the choice to determine which workloads they moved in and out of the cloud. We’ve created a dynamic internet-scale cloud services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers, which provides an operating system and a broad set of developer services that can be used individually or together. Today, I’m happy to announce the roadmap updates with the SDS relational database capabilities, Windows Azure updates (including FactCGI, .NET FullTrust & Geolocation), and the .NET Services interop enhancements.
For those who weren’t able to attend MIX in person – here are few things to consider.
Get Involved
%u00b7 Visit the MIX 09 website and check out the latest innovations on the web and cloud, or stream the keynotes from your desk.
%u00b7 Begin leveraging Microsoft’s cloud, visit the Azure website and register for the Community Tech Preview.
%u00b7 Download the Silverlight 3 beta and take advantage of the newest tools outlined above.
%u00b7 Check out the WebPI and the App Gallery.
For those of you who made the trip to MIX, I’ll see you at tonight’s party at TAO!