Reallocating partition space in Virtual Machine

by | Mar 23, 2011 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

If you expand a VM and the Windows OS recognizes the new space as unallocated space, there is a quick fix:

Download a freeware program called Easeus Partition Master – http://download.cnet.com/Easeus-Partition-Master-Home-Edition/3000-2248_4-10863346.html?tag=mncol%3bpop&cdlPid=10982635. Run this on the Windows VM and it should show 2 drives. Highlight the one you want to expand, click on (expand/resize), drag divider out to full size of HD and then “apply”. Reboot and it should be fine.

Blog Post by: Eric Stott

Introduction to Azure Storage Webcast

by | Mar 23, 2011 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Whilst enjoying my enforced 8-months Swedish paternity leave I have fund a bit of time to continue looking at Windows Azure and AppFabric (both Server and Azure), and have started another series of Azure webcasts with the first one on Azure Storage (please excuse my daughter having a tantrum half-way through recording). I plan to look at the existing functionality present in Windows Azure, and then look at the emerging technologies in Windows Azure AppFabric.
The first in the series is “An Introduction to Azure Storage”, more will follow.

SharePoint 2010: Client OM Redistributable Download

by | Mar 23, 2011 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=b4579045-b183-4ed4-bf61-dc2f0deabe47

The core client DLLs are now available as a separate download.

The strange thing is that when you install these on your machine it still puts them
under the c:\program files\common files\.\Web Server Extensions etc.

The main dlls are:

1: Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.dll

2: Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime.dll

& the Sliverlight client dlls.

Given the directory paths, it maybe worth just grabbing the dlls you need for you
solution and deploy them as part of the package.

Blog Post by: Mick Badran

BizTalk 2010 on Windows 2008 64bit watch out for default installation Challenges

by | Mar 21, 2011 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

We are in the process of migrating some of our existing stuff from BizTalk 2006 to BizTalk 2010. As part of the process I was prototyping a web service call with some complex data models using WCF-basicHttp adapter.

I was consistently getting the following error message despite my various attempts like restarting host instances, redeploying the whole solution, uninstalling and installing assembly into GAC, etc

xlang/s engine event log entry: Uncaught exception (see the ‘inner exception’ below) has suspended an instance of service

……

Exception type: TargetInvocationException

Source: mscorlib

Target Site: System.Object _InvokeMethodFast(System.IRuntimeMethodInfo, System.Object, System.Object[], System.SignatureStruct ByRef, System.Reflection.MethodAttributes, System.RuntimeType)

The following is a stack trace that identifies the location where the exception occured

……

Exception type: TypeInitializationException

Source: EA.BizTalk.Framework.WCF.Orchestrations

Target Site: Microsoft.XLANGs.BaseTypes.SchemaBase get_PartSchema()

The following is a stack trace that identifies the location where the exception occured

……

Loading this assembly would produce a different grant set from other instances. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131401)

……

Exception type: FileLoadException

Source: EA.BizTalk.Framework.WCF.Orchestrations

Target Site: Void .cctor()

Doing some research taken me to this article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2282372 where it explains about the error Loading this assembly would produce a different grant set from other instances. Even though the KB article is not related to BizTalk issue directly, it just gave me the clue its something do with 64bit process and version of .NET framework.

I checked the settings of the default BizTalk host configuration and to my surprise its configured as 32 bit as shown in the below picture.

Surprisingly, when I tried to create a new BizTalk host, by default the “32-bit only” option is checked by default.

Solution:

So, the solution is to create a new 64 bit host (simply, uncheck the 32bit only option) and create required host instances, then configure your orchestration to run inside the newly created 64 bit host as shown below.

Once the orchestration issue is sorted, you’ll experience something similar on the WCF-basicHttp adapter send port as shown in the below figure.

There was a failure executing the response(receive) pipeline: “Microsoft.BizTalk.DefaultPipelines.XMLReceive, Microsoft.BizTalk.DefaultPipelines, Version=3.0.1.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35” Source: “XML disassembler” Send Port: “WcfSendPort_CustomerService_BasicHttpBinding_ICustomerService” URI: “http://localhost:7684/CustomerService.svc” Reason: Loading this assembly would produce a different grant set from other instances. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131401)

The solution to the problem is same, this time you need to create new Send handlers for the WCF adapter you are using and reconfigure your send port to use the new send handler as shown in below pictures

To the Cloud……

by | Mar 20, 2011 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

I have just returned from the MVP summit held in Redmond each year, there were some highlights and some low lights, as with each summit. The highlights are always all the cool new stuff, most of which I’m not allowed to talk about publicly, which is great (NOT), it does mean I can’t say much on the blog. I can only say what has already been announced publicly at PDC, Microsoft is doing the cloud thing, the next off the conveyer belt is composite apps, what’s in the box, wait and see, I will say it’s interesting, and then more interesting when you add in the comments of the MVP’s present when they told us how interesting it was.

We are talking about the cloud here, and of course I want to run apps on it, I want to run workflow in the cloud, I’ve wanted this since they had it a few years back, and then took it away because it was so limited. It makes sense, in the right scenario.

I also want to access my applications inside the organisation (on premise), provide a rich integration layer to them, to enable my cloud apps to communicate with my on premise systems.

This kind of application is called a hybrid model, and it is/will become very common. I would like to use the same technology I use in the cloud to do the whole integration and workflow as I do to access my on premise applications. Currently I use BizTalk for my on Premise applications and then have to write something different to enable my cloud applications to do this, hence the use of the term “Hybrid” it’s using a bit of both. This is currently possible by various means of the service bus in windows Azure and the new bits to enable BizTalk to expose a port or Orchestration on the service bus to accept connections. I can then establish a communications pattern into my organisation’s “legacy” on premise applications.

My problem with this approach is detailed in my recent webcast at http://www.cloudcasts.net/Default.aspx?category=BizTalk+Light+and+Easy my on premise middleware still needs to exist, and it needs to scale in line with my cloud system, it’s not 1:1 more like 2-3(cloud instances):1(on Premise) but it needs to scale, hence I need to still invest in on premise hardware, however I don’t want to have to scale it I want to leverage the cloud to scale on demand, and scale back when I don’t need it. It’s one of the key selling factors for using the cloud.

Whilst I cannot put everything in the cloud, it’s never going to happen, I want to have the option of scaling to the cloud and then scaling back to on premise when I have low load levels, hence justifying my on premise costs.

I do have this for websites in the cloud; this is a little more difficult for an integration platform that needs to access legacy systems and is written in a non-cloud friendly way.

I would love to provide this on the cloud, but this is one ask that is some time away which ever provider you look at. My view is whoever cracks this will dominate the cloud market.

The rest of the detail will come. I don’t know when and I can’t say how but it’ll come wait and see, with more announcements coming. It’s how you leverage the cloud to work for you that will make the real difference in adopting a cloud/hybrid model or not.

Integration is a hard sell enough, to add cloud to the mix makes it even harder, I’m not the only one out there trying this on, customers are not buying yet, and the amount of convincing, assurances and explaining needed is staggering.