joined BizTalkAdminsBlogging.com

by community-syndication | May 22, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

My personal blog only exists for a year and a half now, but already has quite some visitors. Yesterday I was even asked to join another Biztalk blogging team on Biztalk administrator related topics. I already knew the blog and was a frequent visitor of the website. Of course I was glad to join the Biztalk blog team.

So, as of  today I joined several other biztalk experts on the BizTalk admin blog BizTalkAdminsBlogging.com.
This blog is dedicated to provide BizTalk admins with useful information, tips, example scripts and everything else that is interesting for a BizTalk admin.

I will still publish posts to this blog, but I will also write an occasional blog post for the BizTalkAdminsBlogging.com website… My first post on the site still has to be written, and any suggestions are always welcome :).

My profile on BizTalkAdminsblogging.com: http://www.biztalkadminsblogging.com/index.php/component/k2/itemlist/user/59-mitchvanhelden

BizTalk 2010: Creating TPM Partners through Code

by community-syndication | May 21, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Hi folks, recently I’ve been asked by several students on how to create Parties, Agreements, Profiles etc. via code in BizTalk 2010.

I played with this along time ago while at Redmond as BizTalk 2010 was in the process
of being released.

So I’ve just rolled up my sleeves and provided a quick demo for you – the demo shows:

1. How to enumerate and get at each of your TPM Partners.
2. How to create Partners + Profiles within BizTalk 2010.

Note: I’ve only tried this on BizTalk 2010 (& needless to say I’m claiming
‘works on my machine’ :))

What we’re talking about in BizTalk
This section here….

Show me the code….

Well the magic is found in this DLL –

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010\Developer Tools\Microsoft.BizTalk.B2B.PartnerManagement.dll


– create a VS.NET 2010 app (for this demo I created a console app)
– we make a reference to the above DLL (we also need to reference system.data.entity)
– set a connectionstring to our BizTalk Management DB, mine is BizTalkDB (as
I rolled all the BizTalk DBs into one – for dev)
– start enumerating.

C# Looks like this–

static void Main(string[]
args) { //enumerate
all the TPM Profiles in BizTalk var builder = new SqlConnectionStringBuilder("DATA
SOURCE=localhost;Initial Catalog=BizTalkDB;" + "Integrated
Security=SSPI;MultipleActiveResultSets=True"); var tmpCtx = TpmContext.Create(builder);
Console.WriteLine("Connected
to BizTalk Global Parties"); var partners = tmpCtx.Partners;
Console.WriteLine("Number
of Parters:{0}", partners.Count()); Console.WriteLine("------------"); foreach (var
ptr in partners)
{ var profiles = ptr.GetBusinessProfiles();
Console.WriteLine("{0}
Business Profiles:{1}", ptr.Name, profiles.Count); foreach (var
profile in profiles)
{ Console.WriteLine("\tProfile:{0}",
profile.Name); } } tmpCtx.Dispose(); if (bCreateProfile)
{ createProfile("Breeze
Partner #"); } Console.WriteLine("Finished");
Console.ReadLine(); }

Point to Note: in the connection string I set ‘MARS=true’ just so we can enumerate
several collections at once through the one context. When updating or saving new,
partners and/or profiles I get errors and can’t save through a MARs enabled connection.
(love to hear if you have different luck)

Creating a Partner + Profile

//
need to do this through a single threaded connection - no MARS private static void createProfile(string partnerName)
{ partnerName += DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyyMMdd-hhmmss") + (new Random().Next(0,
65535)); Console.WriteLine("Writing
a new Profile for {0}", partnerName); var builder = new SqlConnectionStringBuilder("DATA
SOURCE=localhost;Initial Catalog=BizTalkDB;Integrated Security=SSPI"); var
tmpCtx = TpmContext.Create(builder);
var ptr = tmpCtx.CreatePartner(partnerName);
var pname = "Breeze
Profile-#" + DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyyMMdd-hhmmss") + (new Random().Next(0,
65535)); var bp = ptr.CreateBusinessProfile(pname);
bp.Description = "Created
from Code"; var pcol = new AS2ProtocolSettings("BreezeProtocolSettings");
bp.AddProtocolSettings(pcol); tmpCtx.SaveChanges(); tmpCtx.Dispose(); }

And
that’s pretty much all there is to it folks, have a play around with the APIs for
yourself – all undocumented of course.

Here’s the Console App Solution I use (built for very demo purposes)

TPM API
Demo.zip (32 KB)

Enjoy Mick!

Blog Post by: Mick Badran

Guideline to Solve Performance issues of Biztalk

by community-syndication | May 21, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Typically a performance problem can be narrowed down to one of the following components of a BizTalk Server environment:

Use the following guidelines to help identify the components of the BizTalk Server environment that are performing poorly:

Once the poorly performing component has been identified, follow the appropriate guidelines to help resolve the issue:
Guidelines for resolving performance problems related to send and receive adapters

Guidelines for resolving performance problems related to orchestrations

Guidelines for resolving performance problems related to SQL Server

Sweden Windows Azure Group Meeting – Migrating Applications to Windows Azure & Sharding And Scaling with RavenDB, with Shay Friedman & Oren Eini

by community-syndication | May 21, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Wednesday, May 23, 6:00 PM, Stockholm

Migrating Applications to Windows Azure – Shay Friedman

Windows Azure is the next big thing for server-side applications and one of its major use cases is hosting existing .NET applications. However, Window Azure is not your regular playground and some preparations are necessary. In this session, Shay Friedman will take you through different ways to make sure your application is ready to move to the cloud. In addition, Friedman will explain how you can estimate the cost of running your web application in the cloud.

Sharding And Scaling with RavenDB – Oren Eini

From the get go, RavenDB was designed with sharding in mind. But sharding was always a complex topic, and it scared people off. Following the same principles that guides us with the rest of RavenDB design, we have taken sharding to the next level, made it easier to work with, performant and self optimizing.

Come to this talk with Ayende Rahien to discover RavenDB sharding, discuss scaling scenarios and see how we can use RavenDB in a high traffic scenarios.

Shay Friedman

Shay Friedman is a Visual C#/IronRuby MVP and the author of IronRuby Unleashed. With more than 10 years of experience in the software industry, Friedman now works in CodeValue, a company he has co-founded, where he creates products for developers, consults and conducts courses around the world about web development and dynamic languages. You can visit his blog at http://IronShay.com.

Oren Eini (Ayende Rahien)

Oren Eini has over 15 years of experience in the development world with a strong focus on the Microsoft and .NET ecosystem and has been awarded the Microsoft’s Most Valuable Professional since 2007. An internationally known presenter, Oren has spoken at conferences such as DevTeach, JAOO, QCon, Oredev, NDC,…

Are you using schedules/service windows in Receive Locations/Send Ports

by community-syndication | May 21, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

There are some challenges in using BizTalk administration console if you are taking advantage of schedule/service window capabilities in BizTalk receive locations and Send ports.

If you are one of those customers with lots of scheduled receive locations and send ports, then you need to take a look at this blog post "BizTalk Receive Locations/Send Ports with service window – BizTalk360 can make your life easy"

Please add BizTalk360 RSS feed http://feeds.feedburner.com/biztalk360 to your reader to get product updates.

Nandri!

Saravana Kumar

BizTalk Host setup for your First BizTalk Projects

by community-syndication | May 18, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Ive been speaking to a few people starting their organisations first BizTalk projects recently and talking about Host setup and what is a good intial setup and how it may change over time.

Normally you see companies go one of two ways to begin with:

1. They just have one BizTalk host with an instance on each server and use it for everything

2. They have many instances for everything and use way more than they need to.

Im a big believer that a little thought about this and how your company plans to use BizTalk over time can help ensure you dont end up messing around with your host setup constantly.

I was saying to the team that probably the best way to start is create the following hosts to begin with.

• A host called GenericRecevice which would be a host that your in process receive adapters can use
• A host called GenericApplication which is a host for all of your orchestrations
• A host called GenericSend which is a host for all of your send ports
• A host called Tracking which is used for nothing but tracking.

I recommended they left the BizTalkApplication host because it can be the default incase anyone doesnt follow the above rules but do not have any instances of this host on any servers so your team are forced to fix configuration mistakes and to follow your host rules.

When you setup your host instances this obviously varies where you put each host instance based on the topology of your BizTalk group but having already splitt out your artefacts like suggested abovemakes it easier to move your hosts around in a consistent manner.

At this point you not have a clear well understood host setup and some simple rules around when you would use each one, however the key thing is that there will often be potential exceptions to these rules and you should ensure that if you want to create a new host for one or more artefacts you are able to explain clearly the reason for this new host and not just have a new host because the developer used a different name like Ive seen happen before.

Lastly a thought on the isolated host. We often tend to just have the one BizTalk Server Isolated Host which comes out of the box and run different adapter typeson seperate app pools in IIS as an example. This will cover the majority of cases but of course again there will be occasions where you have a need to do something different which is fine so long as its clearly explained.

I would say that generally good reasons for new hosts out side of this patten will be:

• Performance reasons
• Security Isolation
• Adapter specific scenarios

Just a final note that this is intended as some advice when you start your companies first BizTalk projects. If you set of with this configuration it should cover you nicelyfor most of your cases.

Windows Azure tables: partitioning guid row keys | Windows Azure tables: partionnement de clefs de type GUID

by community-syndication | May 18, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

internal class AuthSessionDataSource
{
//...
        public const int nbPartitions = 15;
// ...

public static class AuthSessionState
{
//...
    private static string PartitionKeyForGuid(Guid guid)
    {
        int sumOfBytes = 0;
        foreach (var x in guid.ToByteArray())
        {
            sumOfBytes += x;
        }
        int partitionNumber = sumOfBytes % AuthSessionDataSource.nbPartitions;
        return partitionNumber.ToString();
    }
//...

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

namespace ConsoleApplication2
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            for (int i = 0; i < 36; i++)
            {
                Guid g = Guid.NewGuid();
                Console.WriteLine("{0}, {1}", g, PartitionKeyForGuid(g));
            }
            Console.ReadLine();


        }


        private static string PartitionKeyForGuid(Guid guid)
        {
            const int nbPartitions = 12;

            int sumOfBytes = 0;
            foreach (var x in guid.ToByteArray())
            {
                sumOfBytes += x;
            }
            int partitionNumber = sumOfBytes % nbPartitions;
            return partitionNumber.ToString();
        }

    }
}

public const int nbDaysForOldSessions = 3;
//...
internal void RemoveOldValues()
{
    DateTime oldDate = DateTime.UtcNow.AddDays(-1 * nbDaysForOldSessions);

    for(int p=0; p<nbPartitions; p++)
    {
        string partitionKey = p.ToString();
        var query = (from c in context.AuthSessionStateTable
                     where c.PartitionKey == partitionKey
                     && c.Timestamp <= oldDate
                     select c)
                    .AsTableServiceQuery<AuthSessionStateEntity>();
        var result = query.Execute();
        int i = 0;
        foreach (var x in result)
        {
            i++;
            this.context.DeleteObject(x);
            if (i >= 100)
            {
                this.context.SaveChangesWithRetries();
                i = 0;
            }
        }
        this.context.SaveChangesWithRetries();
    }
}

Benjamin

Blog Post by: Benjamin GUINEBERTIERE

BizTalk Server 2010 Cookbook by Steef-Jan Wiggers

by community-syndication | May 18, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

  In my previous post I promised that my next blog post would be a follow up on the CRM2011 integration example. Covering a rewrite of the CRM Workflow Component such that it incorporates functionality which uses the Windows Azure… Read more ›
Blog Post by: Ren%u00e9 Brauwers