BizTalk Server 2010 Patterns by Dan Rosanova

by community-syndication | Sep 6, 2011 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Currently I am in Toronto staying at friend enjoying some free time before heading to San Francisco, and SoCal for the Windows Build Conference. Still I find some time to write this post, which I wanted to as BizTalk Server 2010 Patterns book is there for pre-order. A new BizTalk book written by Dan Rosanova, two time MVP BizTalk Server, and over a decade over of experience delivering solutions on Microsoft platforms in different branches. It is published by PACKT and reviewed by myself, fellow MVP Randal van Splunteren and Rene Brauwers, basically an all Dutch BizTalk Technical Review team.

I enjoyed reviewing it and found that the author has put in tremendous effort together with a lot of people at PACKT and fellow reviewers to be able to publish such a fine book. I realize it may sound/read like I am shamelessly plugging/promoting this book, but I really mean it. Therefor I am going to tell you why I mean it and why as an professional integration professional, consultant or architect in Microsoft space need to buy this book.

First of all it is a great book, and in first part it extensively details the important parts of BizTalk, how to structure your solution, XLANG, architecture and its components like BAM, artefacts (i.e. orchestrations, pipelines, maps), operation architecture (i.e. scalability, availability), (unit) testing and messaging concepts. The second part the focus shifts from theory to practice and will be very appealing for professionals that develop BizTalk solutions. This part delivers you the skills to error handling, WCF-SQL Adapter capabilities, BRE (i.e. policies, vocabularies and rules), dealing with flat files and bindings, BAM, SQL Broker (Notifications), SharePoint, orchestration patterns (i.e. conveys), handling zombies and some other concepts.

Second reason is that this book neatly fits in with other BizTalk books published by PACKT like :

• Microsoft BizTalk 2010: Line of Business Systems Integration
• SOA Patterns with BizTalk Server 2009

Third and final reason you will be a better BizTalk professional or architect, when applying the knowledge found in BizTalk Patterns book and others. Who wouldn’t want that!

Book is available through Amazon and PACKT is self, so go to either of one and order it!

Cheers, and now I am off to diner.

BizTalk Orchestration Port Bindings

by community-syndication | Sep 6, 2011 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

There are a lot of conflicting ideas out there regarding orchestration/logical port binding options for BizTalk server. In this post I want to provide a short description of each option and some best practices for use.

· Specify Now/Specify Later

These two are commonly referred to as Static bound ports. Both of these options will require that the orchestration port is associated with a physical port before the orchestration can be enlisted or started. The difference between the two lay in the creation of the physical port.

Specify Now requires that you specify the configuration of the physical port inside Visual Studio before the orchestration assembly is compiled. The physical port configuration is baked-into the assembly and will be created in the run-time environment automatically when the assembly is deployed. This is considered the worst port binding option as the created physical port will have the same configuration each time the assembly is deployed. Also, the name of the automatically created port is pretty ugly.

Specify Later is essentially the same in function, but the definition for the physical port is done exclusively in the BizTalk Server Administration Console. This provides more flexibility for port configuration, such as having multiple logical ports connected to the same send port or binding the logical send port to a send port group. This is the more acceptable form of static binding, but shouldn’t be overused especially in cases where subscribers are likely to change over time.

· Direct (Partner Orchestration)

This enables two different orchestration models to communicate with one another. The two orchestration ports must use the same port type. A send port in orchestration A will publish the message to the MessageBox and a receive port in orchestration B will subscribe to the message. The logical ports used for this type of communication will not be displayed in the orchestration configuration options in the BizTalk Server Administration Console. The biggest concern when using this form of binding is that the connection between the two orchestrations is static and can only be changed through modifications to each orchestration and then recompiling.

· Direct (MessageBox database)

This option provides the purest use of the publish/subscribe architecture. A logical receive port that uses this binding will have a subscription that includes only the MessageType used by the logical port operation and the conditions defined in the Filter Expression of an Activating Receive shape. This means that potentially ANY process can feed that orchestration.

A logical send port that uses this binding will publish the message and assume that there is at least one subscriber for it, but there could be many subscribers (i.e. orchestrations, send ports, or send port groups). Assuming that the right subscriptions exist; this type of send port could feed any other process.

Things to beware of: (1) Invisible Subscriptions – there’s no reliable way to see which processes will feed your orchestration or which processes your orchestration will feed; even across application boundaries. (2) “Infinite” loops –the orchestration publishes a message that creates a new instance of the same model, which will publish a message that creates a new instance of the same model…

Upsides of Direct bound to the MessageBox: (1) Very loosely-coupled design – there are no direct dependencies or static relationships between publisher and subscriber. (2) Rip and replace-ability – with appropriate project partitioning, an orchestration could be replaced without affecting upstream or downstream processes.

· Direct (Self-Correlating)

This option exists to enable “callbacks” to the parent orchestration from a child orchestration when the Start Orchestration shape is used. The parent passes an instance of the logical port as a parameter to the child orchestration during invocation; therefore providing the callback channel used by the child to send a message back to the parent later on in the process.

· Dynamic

This option only exists for send ports. Dynamic ports enable you to assign the address used for transmission of the message on an instance-by-instance basis. Typically an orchestration will include a resolution mechanism that determines the address used for that instance and assigns it to the message being published by the logical dynamic port. Logical dynamic ports are bound to physical dynamic ports which look at the previously set address information to know which adapter and address to use for transmission.

This seems like the coolest of the send options but I’ve seen a lot of overuse around the dynamic send ports (especially in the ESB toolkit). The line in the sand I use for deciding whether to use it or not is this: “Do I know the address before I get the message?” If yes, use static physical send ports and role links. If no, ask “Does the message tell me where to send?” If yes, uses dynamic send port. If no, sounds like a big problem.

The perfect example for using a dynamic send port is this: I have a form on the internet; people fill out the form and click Submit. The submitted message is received into BizTalk where some processing is done. At some point during that processing I need to create an email that is sent back to the person that submitted the original message. I can create an orchestration that looks at the email inside the submitted message and assigns it as the address used by that later send.

I hate to see addresses statically stored in custom databases or configuration files and then assigned as the address of a dynamic send port. It really just creates an extra layer of management.

I hope this helped you out on your future BizTalk endeavors, and always remember it doesn’t matter the binding option you use logical ports are only used for communication between orchestrations and the MessageBox database.

BizTalk 2010 – List of Known Issues and solutions with Setup and Configuration (Part 2)

by community-syndication | Sep 6, 2011 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

The following are the known issues in BizTalk Server 2010: Known Issues with Setup and Configuration Issue: BizTalk Server installation may not launch automatically after a system restart Cause: If .NET Framework 4 is not installed, the BizTalk Server setup installs .NET Framework 4 and then restarts the computer. After rebooting, the BizTalk Server setup […]
Blog Post by: Sandro Pereira

Creating a Bootable VHD That Can Also Be Run from a Virtual Machine

by community-syndication | Sep 6, 2011 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Background
I was preparing for a convention where Tallan was going to demonstrate two web-based systems in an exhibit hall. To do this, I needed to setup Virtual Hard Disks (VHDs) running Windows Server 2008 R2. I wanted to be able to run the VHDs in a Virtual Machine (VM) so that I could setup the […]
Blog Post by: jgiessner

Fixed Field Settings on Map

by community-syndication | Sep 6, 2011 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

On a map, you can set the value of a destination node to a fixed value, from within the mapper, simply by setting the value property when clicking the destination node on the right hand side schema. I’ve see people use the string functiods to pre-set a value, however you do not need to do this.

There is a catch I found in BizTalk 2009. If you set the fixed value on a map page other than the first page, it does not set, worse yet, if that field on the destination schema happens to be a promoted property, it does not promote the value, and will fail when you try and use the value inside your orchestration as desired.

You will not know why, the shape will just fail, with some weird exception.

Always use the first page.

Proef Ordina! Aangenaam kennis te maken

by community-syndication | Sep 6, 2011 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Proef Ordina! Zomer editie geeft je donderdagavond 22 september een kijkje in de keuken van Ordina.
Je bent bij Ordina thuis uitgenodigd! In een ongedwongen sfeer kun je kennismaken met Ordina als werkgever en ontdekken wat ’jouw toekomst bij Ordina’ is.

Want bij Ordina is de zomer nog niet voorbij! Samen maken we deze avond tot een groot succes: barbecue, inhoud en een spetterend optreden van talenten van de Voice of Holland Pearl, Rafaella en Bart.

Tijdens de avond krijg je onder andere een kijkje in de keuken van de Excellence Centers van Ordina. Zowel professionals als leden van het management zijn aanwezig om je te informeren over de diensten en producten die wij aan onze klanten leveren. Via demo’s, presentaties en gesprekken hoor en zie je wat voor moois er allemaal gebakken wordt in de keuken van Ordina.

Kijk voor meer info op http://www.proefordina.nl/

BizTalk 2010 – List of Known Issues and Solutions (Part 1)

by community-syndication | Sep 5, 2011 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

The following are the known issues in BizTalk Server 2010: Known Issues with Orchestration Issue: When redeploying an existing Orchestration solution, you do not receive a warning message when referring to an older assembly from GAC; also, there is no way to figure out if you are getting an old assembly instead of a new […]
Blog Post by: Sandro Pereira

Missing inetmgr (Internet Information Service (IIS) manager)

by community-syndication | Sep 5, 2011 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

I experienced this issues this morning and a quick search shows lot of people faced the same issue. IIS manager is not installed by default on Windows 7/2008 machines, you need to explicitly turn it on as shown below

Turning just WWW services will install all the IIS related stuff, but it won’t install the IIS manager.

Nandri!

Saravana