WCF Interoperability Highlighted at PDC and ApacheCon

by | Nov 20, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

At PDC this week we had a booth to showcase the interoperability that WCF gives you through its support for the WS-* protocols.  In particular, we highlighted an Apache incubator project called  Stonehenge. 

At Stonehenge we work together with a growing list of WS-* vendors (WSO2, Sun, SpringSource, and soon Progress) to build samples and prove out interoperability between the stacks. 

At the PDC booth we had a demo of the soon to be released ’M2’ version of the StockTrader Sample application.  Check out the Channel 9 video here.

We also talked about Stonehenge at the ApachecCon conference in Oakland a couple of weeks ago where Apache celebrated their 10 year anniversary.  If you are in the mood for some geek entertainment you might want to see this from the Lightening Talks.

If you are doing cross-platform interop with WCF, I would encourage you to get involved in Stonehenge.  You can contribute by suggesting important test scenarios and/or helping build and test one of the samples.  To get started go to the project wiki: Apache Stonehenge and subscribe to the dev email list.

To learn about other interop activities at PDC check out the Interoperability Team Blog.

Claims-based security with Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) and WCF

by | Nov 20, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

There is a great article in MSDN Magazine this month by Michele Bustamante on using WIF to implement claims-based security in WCF Services: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ee335707.aspx.

It’s gets to the right level of detail to make it crystal clear.  Spend all weekend reading the docs, or spend an hour with Michele’s article? Hmmm easy choice!

BizTalk Server Strong Roadmap and Innovations Preview presented at PDC

by | Nov 20, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Tuesday 11/17/09 was a very exciting day for the BizTalk Server product team as well as for BizTalk developers attending the PDC 2009 conference in LA.

We have announced the release of BizTalk Server 2009 R2 in 2010 and we have laid out the roadmap for BizTalk Server future. (You can watch the PDC session here.)

The roadmap includes details around the following future releases:

  • BizTalk Server 2006 R2 SP1 – scheduled for 2010 with immediate availability of the Beta release
  • BizTalk Server 2009 R2
  • BizTalk Server vNext

Here are the highlights of each version:

BizTalk Server 2009 R2:

Latest Application Platform Support for:

  • Visual Studio 2010
  • SQL Server 2008 R2
  • Windows Server 2008 R2

BizTalk Server 2009 R2 will also provide new tools to increase the productivity of developers and IT professionals in particularly but not exclusively for B2B scenarios here are some examples:

Business to Business Scenarios

  • Enhanced designer tool: the BizTalk map design tool will be dramatically enhanced to include make the creation and maintenance of maps easier and faster, especially of complex document transformation maps which are common in B2B scenarios.
  • FPTS adapter: a secure and standards-based adapter that allows exchanging documents between trading partners using the FTP protocol.

Productivity Enhancements

  • Performance tuning dashboard: a single dashboard allowing a BizTalk administrator to apply and manage a set of performance settings. This dashboard would enable easy tuning for performance of a BizTalk Server infrastructure.
  • Improved support for event processing: the BizTalk RFID platform will include more built-in components to handle event filtering and delivery from event sources such as RFID and sensor devices. The easier assembly of pre-built components will reduce the time it takes to implement event handling solutions.
  • Management automation options with PowerShell: new PowerShell scripts to programmatically control BizTalk management tasks would allow administrators to manage BizTalk Server more efficiently.
  • New System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) Pack: a new object model in this pack that better reflects BizTalk artifacts would provide administrators with an enhanced visibility and monitoring capabilities of the BizTalk infrastructure availability and health.

At PDC we have demonstrated an early prototype of the new BizTalk Mapper hosted in Visual Studio 2010 (beta) .

BizTalk Server vNext (beyond 2009 R2)

This release will focus on the following main themes:

  • Deep Microsoft Application Platform Alignment
    Leveraging innovations in the platform including in .NET and in the Windows Server AppFabric to further enhance BizTalk Server’s enterprise-readiness by simplifying development, scalability, deployment and management capabilities.
  • Enterprise Connectivity for AppFabric
    Making it easier for .NET application built on the AppFabric to integrate seamlessly with existing enterprise applications such as LOB systems and with existing Business-to-Business connectivity infrastructure
  • On-Premises Server and Cloud Service Symmetry
    Facilitating the connection from on-promises applications to cloud services on Windows Azure platform and from cloud services to on-premises applications. Providing the option to deploy some integration services as cloud services on the Windows Azure platform.

At PDC we presented a demo that highlighted the first themes: Platform Alignment & Enterprise Connectivity.

This demo using a preview of an early prototype for WF (.NET 4.0) integration within BizTalk included the following scenarios:

  • The hosting of WF instances inside a BizTalk Server host to implement system workflows.
  • Flexible deployment options for WF inside BizTalk allowing WF instances to use the BizTalk messaging subsystems for persistence and reliability or bypass it to enable lower latency scenarios
  • The new BizTalk Mapper designing transformation between WF data contracts (not just XML documents)
  • Instrumentation of WF workflows to BizTalk Business Activity Monitoring (BAM), providing business process metrics and operational insight into WF based processes.

Expect more details, screenshots and videos of the demos to be available soon

Technorati Tags: PDC,BizTalk,Roadmap,AppFabric

BizTalk Server 2009 – Rule deployment issue

by | Nov 20, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

There is a small configuration issue with the Microsoft Business Rules Composer in BizTalk Server 2009. This will only affect you if you deploy the rules engine by itself without the rest of BizTalk Server. In a full installation of BizTalk Server, BTS provides a set of BTS-specific Rule Framework components in as assembly called Microsoft.BizTalk.RuleEngineExtensions.This includes a RuleSetDeploymentDriver component that manages deployment of rules via the SQL Server repository.
The BTS-specific RuleSetDeploymentDriver has a dependency on WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation).In a full BTS installation, BTS creates an instance of a CIM class called MSBTS_GroupSetting and populates various property values from the BizTalk management database. This includes the assembly and class name of a RuleSetDeploymentDriver. If you install only the rule processing components, there is no BizTalk management database, and no instance of this class is created.Unfortunately, this means that, whenever you try to deploy a rule set from the Rules Composer, you get a rude message saying:
The database “<server>:<database>” associated with the deployment driver does not match the database “:” specified during product configuration
The message is entirely correct.Microsoft’s BTS-specific RuleSetDeploymentDriver component performs this check presumably to ensure that registry settings for the rule repository database name and server name are identical to those configured in the BizTalk management database. This ensures that the Rule Engine Update Service is using the same BTS-specific RuleSetDeploymentDriver component.
When you install only the rule processing components, the registry is unfortunately configured as if a full BizTalk installation had been done.The Rule Composer tries to use the BTS-specific RuleSetDeploymentDriver component to deploy rule sets and fails because no instance of MSBTS_GroupSetting has been created in the CIM store.
Fortunately, this is a simple problem to fix. Microsoft provides a non BTS-specific RuleSetDeploymentDriver component for the rule repository database. All you need to do is change the registry settings to use this instead.
Open the Registry Editor (regedit) and locate the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\BusinessRules\3.0
If you have installed the rule processing components on a 64-bit version of Windows, they key will be at:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\BusinessRules\3.0
You should find the DeploymentDriverAssembly and DeploymentDriverClass values under the key. These should be changed to the following values, respectively:
  • Microsoft.RuleEngine, Version=3.0.1.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35
  • Microsoft.RuleEngine.RuleSetDeploymentDriver
That’s it.The Rule Composer should now be able to deploy rule sets.

SERIES: It’s Christmas and SharePoint 2010 is coming to town

by | Nov 20, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Hi guys, I’ve been busy over the recent months always working and planning new ways
to train, deliver and impart knowledge to *you* in a variety of different ways.

Truth be told our Region with respect to SharePoint Adoption and Knowledge, has been
ahead of the curve worlwide – that you guys “SharePoint-ies”.
With the release of SharePoint 2010 soon-ish, we’ve been busy – to bring you the best
value and the most effective training for your time.

For the release of SharePoint 2007 some numbers:

  1. We trained over 1400 students on our Breeze SharePoint Bootcamp (we cover technical
    in-depth approx 80-85% of major SharePoint features in a week. Not for the faint hearted)

  2. You guys demanded excellence and we gave you that.

  3. We train 50% of the time and consult 50% – we bring real world knowledge into the
    classroom, what works, what doesn’t from a business perspective.

  4. We’ve rolled out over 1000 different SharePoint 2007 sites (and are currently working
    on migrations to SP2010)

  5. The buck stops with me – which can be good thingso I’m told 🙂

    The big congrats goes to you! For being driven, demanding better,
    demanding more detail and better knowledge, you demand that the bar is raised and
    meet and excel that challenge.

Breeze has partnered with Microsoft & Excom, allowing us to each focus on our
strengths, delivering to you the best possible offering in this space.

I’m pretty excited to announce our SharePoint 2010 Series running in Melb
+ Sydney initially (+ others soon)
(running at Microsoft Offices)

A Special Blog Reader offer: Would you like me to Webcast
these sessions for those whom can’t make it?
Add a comment on this Post to let me know – I’ll get back to you with details.
(we are giving away goodies and offers but I
can’t tell you too much)

Here’s the formal blurb: —— snip ——

                    


 

Microsoft Australia, is pleased to invite you to a FREE Seminar on SharePoint
2010.


Melbourne – December 2, 2009

Sydney – December 11, 2009

Delivered by Breeze & EXCOM Education, this seminar is the first
in a series that are designed to get you across the new functionality of SharePoint
2010 and importantly how your business can benefit.

SharePoint 2010 is the business collaboration platform that enables you to connect
and empower people through formal and informal business communities, within the enterprise
and beyond, and to manage content throughout the information lifecycle.

This next release of SharePoint has some exciting new enhancements for IT Professionals
and Developers we think you will want to see for yourself!

This seminar is for all SharePoint enthusiasts from IT Professionals, Developers to
Business Decision Makers and Information Workers. Bring along your questions to the
unveiling of SharePoint 2010!

Seats are limited. Register NOW !!!!

For more information and to register, click HERE

Hyper-V-less What a Result

by | Nov 19, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

As part of a ‘dev’ machine setup, I run on my latop Win2008R2 x64 Hyper-V…why? to simply run x64 hosts.
Virtual PC, Virtual Server – will run on x64, but not host x64 O/Ss. So really the
only option is Hyper-V in the MS land.

I present, demo + and draw all over my tablet screen on a regular basis as well as
cut code in Server O/S.

The main problems I faced:
– was my display was dog slow, especially running VS2010, ppt or generally
anything else that an average user might do.
– I remove the Hyper-V role off my machine and low and behold it’s back to normal.

A student pointed me to a TechNet article – http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961661 in
which the resolution is to install a VGA Display driver.

This is kinda not an option for me presenting etc.

Still I needed to run those x64 bit guests.
I was contemplating getting a monster laptop (the other day I was training with laptops
that had 8GB of RAM, 6GB allocated to the VM!) or setting up various ‘Demo RDP Connections’
back into the office, so when I’m onsite and I need to demo then (somehow) I can get
internet connectivity and RDP back to a server based VM – lot’s of potential issues
with this approach)

So the MS Story in this space at the moment is:

– 1) you want to run 32-bit hosts, VirtualPC or Virtual Server running on x64 or x86.
Only x86 guests!
– 2) you want 64-bit hosts -> Hyper-V (therefore you’re looking at running
Win2K8/R2). At work we have 15+ VMs running on Hyper-V machines really well, so no
complaints there when running on Servers. It’s just running it on my laptop where’s
it’s not special.

Problem is – going fwd, the latest wave of Server Products, SharePoint 2010,
Exchange 2010, CRM 5 etc….only run on x64

So onto to my unbelievable experience….

Last night I caught up with a couple of buddies Andrew Mee and Guy Riddle, where Guy
mentioned all the pain he’d had in trying to get a x64 but guest up and running on
his laptop.

Guy mentioned his setup:
1) Win7x64
2) VirtualBox – for VM emulation – WITH USB
SUPPORT!!!! wow! In the land of BizTalk RFID, I had major issues with USB devices
trying to be picked up inside the VM – 3rd party solutions etc. crazy.

He mentioned there were a few things to do around the disks etc…but he could run
x64 guests on his Win7 machine AND the VMs FLEW!

So I thought there was a touch of the amber fluid talking and maybe he was indeed
onto something. When I got home later that night I decided tonight was the night to
refresh the laptop (fujitsu lifebook t4215/4GB/T7400) and Install Win7x64.

My potential issue with Virtual Box:
– I have a huge library of VHDs (parents, diffs etc) that for portability suites
me down to the ground. I walk into a training room and can transfer my VHDs to the
student machines and run them no hassles.
– If there’s a VirtualBox specific format (VDI) then it yet another step in my export
chain.

Alas – VirtualBox reads/writes VHDs automatically, unbelievable.

So I setup Win7x64 on my latop and got back to 9 sec bootup and shutdown times 🙂
– gee that was refreshing after so long without.

I installed VirtualBox – it installed like a treat, and does ‘snapshots’ and has a
great user interface. I didn’t need to visit the cmd line once.

So now for the test – I was going to fire up my SP2010 Beta2 (Win2K8 R2 x64) VHDs,
40GB in size, differencing and Parent, straight from Hyper-V with Hyper-V extensions (in
the past when I’ve done something like this, there’s usually a blue screen invovled
saying ‘boot device not found’)

Let’s give it a crack I thought – all from the UI.
1) Within VirtualBox, I created a machine, added 2 CPUs, 1 NIC and 1400MB of RAM.
2) Attached the Child VHD from my SP2010.
3) I even had 3D graphic acceleration options for my VM, along with amd-v and ‘nested
tables’ for some sort of faster memory access. Turn them all on I thought! We’ll put
it through its paces.

Started the machine……

  1. upon first boot my hyper-v enabled VM booted straight up to the Login screen! Unbelievable I
    thought.
  2. logged in and it found my NIC within 10 secs and was on the network within 20 secs
    (through NAT). If you’ve ever experienced a Hyper-V update where your Guests don’t
    talk to the network anymore, until you put the new hyper-v additions on – you’ll know
    the pain.
  3. mouse/keyboard recognised.
  4. I then thought – let me install the VirtualBox additions – can’t hurt.
  5. RDP support etc etc …it’s like shopping @ christmas – how good is this! yes I’ll
    have that…and this…

    So back to Guy’s immortal words – “it runs fast. Snappy, responsive
    etc”



    My SP2010B2 in 1.4GB RAM x64 VM runs fanstastic!     – Fastest I’ve seen a VM run
    on my laptop for a long long time (unless it’s WFW 3.11)

It’s just so refreshing to have a responsive VM running in reasonable memory. I found
that if I allocated 2.5GB to a VM under hyper-v I wouldn’t notice a marked improvement.
It’s not like it flew, and then I had to tweak it back to find that ‘optimum sweet
spot’

What an experience! What I’m seeing is that certainly for the desktop machine, VirtualBox
can be a serious contender for x64 guests.

Thanks Guy for planting the seed!!!

Dublin finally gets a name "Windows Server AppFabric"

by | Nov 19, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

We’re moving into a public beta of Dublin “Windows Server AppFabric”
which you can grab from HERE.

What does it mean – here’s a blurb from the site.

So Velocity (distributed caching mechanism) is rolled up into this Beta (previously
a MS Partner did some benchmarking on Velocity which you can find a great white paper HERE)

Previously myself and Scotty wrote a
hefty technical Dublin Course which the folks at TechEd loved – we did this on some
early bits of ‘Dublin’. Realtime monitoring + tracking as well as recoverability were
some highlights of our 3D Realtime maze process we built up in the labs.

Here’s a blurb from the AppFabric server (it’s a shame that SP2010 didn’t use this
framework for it’s WF hosting…but that would have impacted delivery)

Enjoy

——– Snippet ———-

Windows Server AppFabric has these core capabilities:

  • For Web applications, AppFabric provides caching capabilities to
    provide high-speed access, scale, and high availability to application data. This
    feature was previously codenamed “Velocity”
  • For composite applications, AppFabric makes it easier to build and manage
    services     built using Windows
    Workflow Foundation     and Windows
    Communication Foundation    . This feature was previously codenamed “Dublin.”