INTEGRATE 2024 was recently announced, and although we still don’t have a list of speakers, I’m super excited about it. The event will occur between 10 & 11 June 2024 at Kings Place, London. You can do an early register and know more about the event here: https://www.serverless360.com/events/integrate-2024.
This is one of my favorite tech conferences, and talking about it is like taking a memory lane full of great memories, and it all started because of a pizza! At a time when there weren’t too many international tech events, a group of 5 tech guys from different countries in Europe – Nino Crudele (Italy), Saravana Kumar (UK), Steef-Jan Wiggers (Netherlands), Tord Glad Nordahl (Norway) and me (Portugal) – decided to gather in Piacenza to eat a pizza and since we were there why not do an event about integration. At least this way, we had an excuse/reason to go. And that, my friends, was the premise and the real reason behind one of the world’s biggest events on integration!
That pizza reunion gave birth to what we call “The BizTalk Crew” and our first event on May 24, 2012, in the OVERNET office in Milan, Italy (check this blog post). Four months later, we were traveling again, this time To Stavanger, Norway, to do our second event, where we had our first guest speaker, Lex Hegt. (see blog post). We call these events BID’s (BizTalk Innovation Day)!
As the UK was a more central and strategic country, Saravana convinced us to do a major event that we would call the BizTalk Summit (now known as INTEGRATE), and on January 16, 2013, we did our first BizTalk Summit at Microsoft Office in London, Victoria where we had 128 attendees, more than 70 different companies across 16 countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, India, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, USA), more than 10 Microsoft Integration MVP’s present (speakers, Q&A members and attendees) and 3 members of Microsoft Product group.
Fact: I was the first speaker to speak about cloud integration technologies at INTEGRATE in a session about BizTalk Azure Service EAI/EDI capabilities
We made this round trip in several countries (Portugal, Italy, the UK, and Norway) for a few years until we dedicated it to this single event: INTEGRATE. Saravana and his team took charge of this event and put it to another level! The rest is the story that most of us already know.
Here is a glimpse of my story on the INTEGRATE conference:
Why should you attend this event?
Learn from the experts in the field.
The #1 reason people should come to this event is to make themselves more valuable to their companies by learning new ideas and techniques from experts in the field. I’m not only talking about the speakers but also the attendees, your peers with real-world implementation experience from around the world, with similar or different approaches and needs. This conference will provide valuable information on integration topics, new trends, and technologies that will benefit your firm and your clients.
As I usually say, this conference has a 360 coverage on enterprise integration topics! There is something for everyone regardless of job role: developers, administrators, architects, decision-makers, and so on, both on brand new topics on the cloud and more legacy components on-premise like BizTalk Server and Host Integration Server.
Last year, over 700 people worldwide joined INTEGRATE, so get insight and answers to your questions from these real-world experts.
The knowledge and experience of all the attendees, speakers, and product group members at these events was unreal!!! You will not find an opportunity like this every day.
At these events, speakers are usually available to chat and answer questions. And if you are bold, remember to pull out your camera and ask if you can take a photo with them.
Take this opportunity to connect face-to-face with experts and peers who will give you valuable insight into industry trends, meet influential colleagues, and generate new solutions to common problems, like increasing profitability and solving staffing challenges.
I love being around great thinkers…it can really get your mind flowing. We always have something new to learn from one another and take back with us.
Interact with Microsoft Product Group and Most Value Professionals.
There is no other Integration conference in the world with 12+ Microsoft Product Group members and 13+ Microsoft Most Value Professionals (MVPs) focused on Integration in a single conference.
DO NOT BE SHY and take this opportunity to have one-on-one inspiring conversations with the product group – they are eager to get your feedback – and with MVPs,
Network, Connect, and Reconnect with Colleagues.
Take this fantastic opportunity to meet the people you have been following on Twitter and blogs and network with others interested in the same things you are. This is another chance for return attendees to hang out with the most intelligent people you know – and I’m not talking about the speakers! – and meet new ones.
Please don’t be afraid or shy, don’t wait for them and take your chances. Engage the people you want to meet by easily saying, “Hi, my name is… “. This experience can be a great morale booster for you. Lifelong friendships and connections have evolved from such conferences – I’m speaking from personal experience!
The next big thing…
What we can expect for the future… Connect directly with the Microsoft Product Team to gain exclusive insights into Microsoft’s upcoming plans. Engage in conversation and ask your burning questions. Discover how Microsoft is shaping the future.
Refresh and recharge… and have some fun.
This will be two days off busy work schedules to learn, refresh, and recharge. And most importantly, have some fun!
Once you’ve soaked in all the knowledge from the speakers and breakout sessions, your day will be far from over. Use the evenings to connect with colleagues and experts in a relaxed, fun environment like a Bar, speaker dinner, or restaurant. Sometimes, the most interesting conversations happen at the end of each day in the Lobby Bar.
And then return to work reinvigorated.
This is one conference you can’t afford to miss! What are you waiting for? Go ahead and book it!
I will be there… and don’t hesitate to reach me and say hi! It doesn’t matter that it is to say hi to get to know each other, to ask a question, or a business opportunity.
See you there!
Hope you find this helpful! So, if you liked the content or found it useful and want to help me write more, you can help us buy a Star Wars Lego for Sandro’s son!
Author: Sandro Pereira
Sandro Pereira lives in Portugal and works as a consultant at DevScope. In the past years, he has been working on implementing Integration scenarios both on-premises and cloud for various clients, each with different scenarios from a technical point of view, size, and criticality, using Microsoft Azure, Microsoft BizTalk Server and different technologies like AS2, EDI, RosettaNet, SAP, TIBCO etc.
He is a regular blogger, international speaker, and technical reviewer of several BizTalk books all focused on Integration. He is also the author of the book “BizTalk Mapping Patterns & Best Practices”. He has been awarded MVP since 2011 for his contributions to the integration community.
View all posts by Sandro Pereira
This will probably be one of the most polemic Friday Facts, but this topic brings miss feelings depending on who you are. On the other hand, I work in both worlds, enjoy this mix of capabilities, and always try to tell the real picture to my clients. But I will never say something untrue simply because it is neither polite nor correct. We already live in a work of too much fake news! Let’s try to avoid a new “old” one.
No, BizTalk Server is not dead!
While there has been a shift towards cloud-based integration solutions, such as Azure Logic Apps and Azure Service Bus, BizTalk Server continues to be actively used and maintained by organizations worldwide.
BizTalk Server remains a reliable and mature integration platform that offers a wide range of capabilities for connecting systems, orchestrating business processes, and managing enterprise-level integrations. Many organizations still rely on BizTalk Server for complex integration requirements, especially in industries with prevalent legacy systems and on-premises integrations.
As with everything in life, at some point, everything will have an end, but don’t try to bury something that is still very much alive!
This rumor that the BizTalk Server is dead is made mainly by:
Other Microsoft competitors. Those who want to increase their business and gain opportunities with customers who are unduly influenced not to use BizTalk Server or migrate BizTalk Server to other middleware products.
Consultant companies that don’t have, never had, or have minimal technical expertise in BizTalk Server and take this opportunity to use Azure Service instead or other technologies.
All this is combined with Microsoft’s marketing strategy, which clearly has Azure as its primary target, which is OK. All vendors these days are cloud-driven.
The first time I heard BizTalk Server was dead was approximately in 2006! Since then, many new products/services have been the future of integration and BizTalk Server replacements. Where are they?
I can give some samples:
Project OSLO, status: dead.
Windows Workflow foundation, status: dead.
Azure BizTalk Services (aka Windows Azure Service Bus EAI and EDI Labs), status: dead.
Integration Service Environment (ISE) in Azure Logic Apps, status: in-life support – On August 31, 2024, the ISE resource will retire due to its dependency on Azure Cloud Services (classic), which retires at the same time.
Ok, but it is the latest product version, and Microsoft is not investing in it!
First, the current version of BizTalk Server has Mainstream support for more than 4 years! Maybe more than many products that you know!
Second, there has yet to be an official announcement from Microsoft that this is the last version of the product! Which there isn’t!
Third, I don’t see any investment from Microsoft in Logic App Consumption these last years; does it mean Logic App Consumption is dead? Hell, NO! It implies they heavily invest in Logic App Standard to close the missing feature gaps.
The time of products having a long roadmap that companies could rely on is over; get used to it. But that doesn’t mean that products are dead or deprecated.
The future is the cloud, and the cloud is where Microsoft is investing, with new features released almost daily. Microsoft has provided a clear path for this migration to customers who want to take this approach or if it makes sense to move. But Microsoft is not forcing them to shift away from BizTalk Server. The effort required to make this migration journey will be reduced as the capabilities of Microsoft Azure increases.
And as I wrote in my book, maybe, or maybe not, the core issue is that BizTalk Server has already survived a decade longer than people intended or expected. In 2010, the word was clearly shared that the “End of BizTalk Server” was nigh, and the community should prepare for this event. Here we stand in 2024 with no clear guidance defining the end of BizTalk Server and still being a very valuable product… get used to it!
BizTalk Server boasts nearly 24 years of resilience. Despite numerous attempts to bring it down, it has proven to be an unstoppable force. The secret lies in the fact that BizTalk Server is nothing short of a powerhouse! In the spirit of T-800, also known as The Terminator, it echoes the iconic words:
I’ll be back
To lazy to read? We’ve got you covered! Check out our video version of this content!
Hope you find this helpful! So, if you liked the content or found it useful and want to help me write more, you can help us buy a Star Wars Lego for Sandro’s son!
Author: Sandro Pereira
Sandro Pereira lives in Portugal and works as a consultant at DevScope. In the past years, he has been working on implementing Integration scenarios both on-premises and cloud for various clients, each with different scenarios from a technical point of view, size, and criticality, using Microsoft Azure, Microsoft BizTalk Server and different technologies like AS2, EDI, RosettaNet, SAP, TIBCO etc.
He is a regular blogger, international speaker, and technical reviewer of several BizTalk books all focused on Integration. He is also the author of the book “BizTalk Mapping Patterns & Best Practices”. He has been awarded MVP since 2011 for his contributions to the integration community.
View all posts by Sandro Pereira
A client called me this week to help with their BizTalk Server production environment. BizTalk was not running, and they needed to know the reason why. Quickly, while we investigated the issue, we saw on the BizTalk Server administration console the following error:
BizTalk Server cannot access SQL Server. This could be due to one of the following reasons:
Access permissions have been denied to the current user. Either log on as a user that has been granted permissions to SQL and try again, or grant the current user permission to access SQL Server.
The SQL Server does not exist, or an invalid database name has been specified. Check the name entered for the SQL Server and database to make sure they are correct as provided during SQL Server installation.
The SQL Server exists, but is not currently running. Use the Windows Service Control Manager or SQL Enterprise Manager to start SQL Server, and try again.
A SQL database file with the same name as the specified database already exists in the Microsoft SQL Server data folder.
Internal error from OLEDB provider: “A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not found or was not accessible. Verify that the instance name is correct and that SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections. (provider: Named Pipes Provider, error: 40 – Could not open a connection to SQL Server)” (WinMgmt)
Cause
In this case, the error message clearly specifies perfect paths to troubleshoot and fix the issue. We knew that the first two and the last one didn’t fit our issue because SQL Server exists, and now one has changed access permission.
So, we immediately focus on point number three: The SQL Server exists, but is not currently running. We had the SQL Server Management Console open, and it appeared to be running, but when we checked the services, we realized that the SQL Server (BIZTALK) was not running but Starting.
But any attempt on our part to quickly try to get the service running was futile. Even restarting the machine was unsuccessful.
This SQL Server behavior surprised me – to be clear, at this point, we knew that this was not a BizTalk Server issue but a SQL Server issue that was affecting BizTalk Server – and that forced me to investigate one of the obvious reasons that everyone says they monitor, but… the free space on the hard drive! And guess what? We had 0 free space on C drive.
And that was the main reason for this issue in our case.
Solution
So, to solve this issue, we had to:
First, of course, the quick win approach was to free some space on the hard drive – we were able to clean 5GB.
Then, start the SQL Server (BIZTALK) service and dependencies again. After freeing up disk space, we didn’t find any issues in getting this started.
And, of course, we asked the IT team to increase the C drive with extra disc space.
Hope you find this helpful! So, if you liked the content or found it useful and want to help me write more, you can buy (or help me buy) my son a Star Wars Lego!
Author: Sandro Pereira
Sandro Pereira lives in Portugal and works as a consultant at DevScope. In the past years, he has been working on implementing Integration scenarios both on-premises and cloud for various clients, each with different scenarios from a technical point of view, size, and criticality, using Microsoft Azure, Microsoft BizTalk Server and different technologies like AS2, EDI, RosettaNet, SAP, TIBCO etc.
He is a regular blogger, international speaker, and technical reviewer of several BizTalk books all focused on Integration. He is also the author of the book “BizTalk Mapping Patterns & Best Practices”. He has been awarded MVP since 2011 for his contributions to the integration community.
View all posts by Sandro Pereira
After the release of our Azure Function to Apply XSLT Transformations, it is now time for another Azure Function under the same context: an Azure Function to Apply Liquid Transformations.
As in the previous transformation function, you can ask the same questions: Can we accomplish the same with default capabilities inside Logic Apps or Azure API Management?
Using Azure Integration Services, we can easily apply liquid transformations:
If we are using Logic App Consumption we can use in conjugation with an Integration Account the following actions associated with the Liquid connector:
Transform JSON to JSON
Transform JSON to TEXT
Transform XML to JSON
Transform XML to TEXT
If we are using Logic App Standard it already provides out-of-the-box support for applying Liquid transformations (using the same Liquid connector) without the Integration Account need.
Or, if you are using API Management, we can make use of the set-body policy to apply a Liquid transformation (any input format to any input format) in the request or response body.
new body value as text
Once again, our main objective in creating this function was to use it inside Logic Apps Consumption to avoid needing an Integration Account. But that we will address later on in another blog post.
What does this Azure Function do?
The ApplyLiquidTransformation function allows you to execute Liquid transformations using DotLiquid to dynamically convert a payload into another payload format. To use this function, you must set up an Azure Storage Account and a container to store the liquid files. The following transformation types are supported:
Apply the following transformations on JSON payloads
JSON to JSON
JSON to XML
JSON to CSV
JSON to plain text
and so on
Apply the following transformations on XML payloads
XML to JSON
XML to XML
XML to CSV
XML to plain text
and so on
Apply the following transformations on CSV messages
CSV to JSON
CSV to XML
CSV to CSV
CSV to plain text
and so on
To trigger this function, you need to:
In the Body, send one of the following payloads: JSON, XML, or CSV.
You should specify the following mandatory headers:
Content-Type as text/xml (or application/xml), application/json or text/csv.
LiquidFileName with the name of the liquid file present in the storage account.
Optionally, you can set the following header:
Output-Content-Type: this will specify the outcome (response) content-type. The default value is application/json.
CSVDelimiterChar: If you specify the Content-Type header as text/csv, then you need to specify the delimiter char of the CSV file. For example: ;
Once again, our main objective in creating this function was to use it inside Logic Apps Consumption to avoid needing an Integration Account. But that we will address later on in another blog post. However, it can be used in other scenarios.
Where can I download it?
You can download the complete Azure Functions source code here:
Hope you find this helpful! So, if you liked the content or found it useful and want to help me write more, you can buy (or help me buy) my son a Star Wars Lego!
Thanks to my team member Luís Rigueira for helping me realize and implement this idea.
Credits also to these two projects and authors:
Author: Sandro Pereira
Sandro Pereira lives in Portugal and works as a consultant at DevScope. In the past years, he has been working on implementing Integration scenarios both on-premises and cloud for various clients, each with different scenarios from a technical point of view, size, and criticality, using Microsoft Azure, Microsoft BizTalk Server and different technologies like AS2, EDI, RosettaNet, SAP, TIBCO etc.
He is a regular blogger, international speaker, and technical reviewer of several BizTalk books all focused on Integration. He is also the author of the book “BizTalk Mapping Patterns & Best Practices”. He has been awarded MVP since 2011 for his contributions to the integration community.
View all posts by Sandro Pereira
Last week, I was helping a client start their footprint on Azure by deploying our very first services: an Azure Function and a few Logic Apps Consumption. Because this was the first introduction to Azure to this client, we decided for a start small and get bigger approach. So, they have created a pay-per-use subscription and gave me access to it.
If we didn’t find any issue deploying our Azure Function, the same cannot be said for the Logic Apps. And when we were trying to deploy it from Visual Studio, the same solution that we had deployed without issue in other subscriptions, we were surprised to encounter the following error:
The subscription is not registered to use namespace ‘Microsoft.Logic’. See https://aka.ms./rps-not-found for how to register subscriptions.
Causes
Basically, this error means that the service you are trying to use is not currently registered in your Azure subscription.
You can change this at any point by allowing or prohibiting using specific namespace (services) in our Azure Subscription. Of course, as with everything in Azure, you need permissions on the subscription to execute these actions.
Solutions
The solution to this problem is quite simple to accomplish. You just need to:
From the list of subscriptions page, select the subscription you want to use for registering the resource provider.
On the Subscription page, from the left menu, select the Resource providers option under the Settings section.
On the Resource providers page, on the search type Logic.
Click on the Microsft.Logic row, and that will enable the Register button. Click on the Register button.
After you click register, the provider will be registered, and you should be able to use the Logic App Service.
After these steps, we were able to deploy our Logic Apps from Visual Studio.
Hope you find this helpful! So, if you liked the content or found it helpful and want to help me write more content, you can buy (or help buy) my son a Star Wars Lego!
Author: Sandro Pereira
Sandro Pereira lives in Portugal and works as a consultant at DevScope. In the past years, he has been working on implementing Integration scenarios both on-premises and cloud for various clients, each with different scenarios from a technical point of view, size, and criticality, using Microsoft Azure, Microsoft BizTalk Server and different technologies like AS2, EDI, RosettaNet, SAP, TIBCO etc.
He is a regular blogger, international speaker, and technical reviewer of several BizTalk books all focused on Integration. He is also the author of the book “BizTalk Mapping Patterns & Best Practices”. He has been awarded MVP since 2011 for his contributions to the integration community.
View all posts by Sandro Pereira
When creating an Azure Function, it’s crucial for security reasons to avoid directly embedding connection strings and other sensitive information in the code.
In our development environment, a common best practice is to store such important information in the local.settings.json file:
Of course, we can improve even more by also binding Key Vault. If your local tests go as expected and the code is correct, the next step you will have is to deploy it into your Azure Subscription. This brings us to today’s Friday Fact!
However, once you upload the Azure Function to the Function App in the Azure Portal and attempt to use it, for example, in a Logic App, you may notice a discrepancy between the local test and the Logic App environment. The challenge doesn’t lie in integrating the Azure Function into a Logic App but rather in the loss of configurations.
Here’s the catch: the local.settings.json file doesn’t get deployed directly with Visual Studio (manual deployment) in a way that carries along your connection strings and other critical information. As a result, you’ll need to configure these details after deployment in the Function App, ensuring they match the key-value pairs from your local.settings.json file. – Of course, if you implement CI/CD, this can easily be accomplished inside DevOps pipelines!
Once this configuration step is complete, your Azure Function and the flow within the Logic App should run smoothly. It’s essential to be mindful of this potential loss of configuration, as overlooking it can lead to issues like attempting to troubleshoot the Azure Function locally and deploying without success.
Within the Function App, you can smoothly configure sensitive information by navigating to the Environment Variables section under Settings in the left menu.
This is the key spot where you can input the necessary details, ensuring a seamless operation for your Azure Function. By managing these environment variables effectively, you’ll have your Azure Function up and running.
Hope you have enjoyed this Friday Fact, and we will see you in the next one!
To lazy to read? We’ve got you covered! Check out our video version of this content!
Hope you find this helpful! So, if you liked the content or found it useful and want to help me write more, you can help us buy a Star Wars Lego for Sandro’s son!
It is always fun to return to one of my favorite topics: Errors and warnings, causes and solutions, this time on Azure. It was not a fun night yesterday! And all of that because of the nightmare that sometimes I needed to prepare our developer tools to be fit to develop Azure Services.
Some time ago, November 14, 2023, to be exact, Microsoft announced the global availability of Azure Functions supports .NET 8 in the isolated worker model. Support is available for Windows and Linux on the Consumption, Elastic Premium, and App Service plan hosting options.
So, last night, I decided to create an Azure Function using .NET 8, and to my surprise, the .NET 8 Isolated (Long Term Support) Function worker was missing from the Azure Function project in Visual Studio 2022.
Of course, the first assumption I made was I didn’t have the .NET 8 installed. And, in fact, it wasn’t! So I went to the Download .NET SDKs for Visual Studio page and installed the .NET 8.0.
However, after installing and restarting everything, including the laptop, the .NET 8 Function worker was still missing from the Azure Function project in Visual Studio 2022.
Causes
The cause of this problem or behavior is related to having currently installed obsolete Azure Function tools and/or Visual Studio version on your machine.
Solutions
The solution to this problem is not quite as intuitive as we like it but nevertheless simple to accomplish once you know what to do.
To resolve this issue/behavior, you need to perform several steps.
Step 1: As I mentioned above, make sure you have installed in your machine the .NET 8.0 SDK.
Step 2: Visual Studio version matters! You need to upgrade your Visual Studio 2020 to version 17.8 or above. (I am not sure if the first version to support this Function Worker is 17.8, but I believe so). To upgrade Visual Studio you need to:
Open Visual Studio 2022 and access the following menu option: Help > Check for Updates.
In my case, I had an old version, 17.6.3, that does not support .NET 8.0 Function worker. Click Update.
Once the update is complete, click OK.
Step3: Install the latest Azure Functions toolsets and templates. After upgrading the Visual Studio, we also need to make sure that we have the latest Azure Functions toolsets and templates. To do that, we need to:
Open Visual Studio 2022 and access the following menu option: Tools> Options...
In the Options window, on the left menu three, select the option Projects and Solutions > Azure Functions. And then click Check for updates.
If it exists updates, click on Download & Install.
Once the version is installed or if there isn’t any update, a message will appear saying Azure Functions toolsets and templates are up to date. Click OK.
Close Visual Studio.
Step4: (optional but recommended) Remove AzureFunctionsTools folder from LocalAppData
Maybe this step is not required, but after all the failed attempts, this “recipe” worked, at least for me. That being said, I also recommend carrying out all the optional steps.
To accomplish this, you need to:
On the file system, access to: %LocalAppData%
And delete the AzureFunctionTools folder.
Step5: Restart the machine
I try to access Visual Studio before restarting the machine without success. Once I restarted everything, including the machine, I once again tried to access Visual Studio to create an Azure Function project, and the .NET 8 Isolated (Long Term Support) Function worker was finally available for me to use:
Hope you find this helpful! So, if you liked the content or found it helpful and want to help me write more content, you can buy (or help buy) my son a Star Wars Lego!
Author: Sandro Pereira
Sandro Pereira lives in Portugal and works as a consultant at DevScope. In the past years, he has been working on implementing Integration scenarios both on-premises and cloud for various clients, each with different scenarios from a technical point of view, size, and criticality, using Microsoft Azure, Microsoft BizTalk Server and different technologies like AS2, EDI, RosettaNet, SAP, TIBCO etc.
He is a regular blogger, international speaker, and technical reviewer of several BizTalk books all focused on Integration. He is also the author of the book “BizTalk Mapping Patterns & Best Practices”. He has been awarded MVP since 2011 for his contributions to the integration community.
View all posts by Sandro Pereira
For 2024, I have challenged my team to every Friday to publish a fact about the technologies we work on every day. The base rules will be:
This has to be an easy-to-read post.
The fact can be virtually everything: a tip, a best practice, a workaround, an opinion, a fact, a tool, and so on.
And this will be the first one! But before we start I feel I need to explain the featured image of this series of posts! For fun, I asked ChatGPT to generate a 16:9 picture with the following context:
Three male friends on a Friday night at a pub:
The first man with a beard is drinking beer (Luis Rigueira).
The second man is bald and has no beard. He is drinking wine. (me)
And the third man has glasses, he doesn’t have a beard, and he is drinking Coke soda. (Diogo Formosinho)
This was the end result:
Now, the fun part: by mistake, I misspelled beer and wrote bear – that is the reason for the bear in the picture if you are wondering :)… but we decided to call him “the traitor” (he knows who he is!!)
Now, to start this series of blog posts, I have selected this fact: if you need to perform an XML Schema validation using the Integration Account, please remember that the Integration Account doesn’t support nested schemas, at least yet! The beauty of Azure is that everything changes at a fast pace, and new features arrive almost every day.
The import element inside XML Schemas is used to add multiple schemas with different target namespaces to a document. This allows us, for example, to create common objects that are reused inside several schemas.
For example, this XML payload:
Sandro
Pereira
1978-04-04
Porto
1
It has two objects: the Person and the Address. If we open the Person Schema, we realize that there is an importation for the Address Schema inside:
If you have this scenario in your hands, unfortunately, I have to tell you that the Integration Account doesn’t support it. And you will end up with the following error:
The provided schema content is not valid. If the schema has any references, please upload the referenced schemas to the Integration Account first. The compilation of schema failed with error: ‘The ‘http://POC.ValidateInboundXMLMessages.Address:Address’ element is not declared.’.
How can we fix this? Well, this is a subject for another blog post and not for a Friday Fact!
Hope you find this helpful! So, if you liked the content or found it useful and want to help me write more, you can buy (or help me buy) my son a Star Wars Lego!
Author: Sandro Pereira
Sandro Pereira lives in Portugal and works as a consultant at DevScope. In the past years, he has been working on implementing Integration scenarios both on-premises and cloud for various clients, each with different scenarios from a technical point of view, size, and criticality, using Microsoft Azure, Microsoft BizTalk Server and different technologies like AS2, EDI, RosettaNet, SAP, TIBCO etc.
He is a regular blogger, international speaker, and technical reviewer of several BizTalk books all focused on Integration. He is also the author of the book “BizTalk Mapping Patterns & Best Practices”. He has been awarded MVP since 2011 for his contributions to the integration community.
View all posts by Sandro Pereira
I usually like to see the positive side of things, even in adverse situations, so despite 2023, it has been a strange year, neither good nor bad, just weird. Perhaps the constant inflation of the cost of living and the continuous loss of civility in society have influenced this definition. I still find myself remembering the good and most important moments, both professional and personal.
Personal highlights…
5 years in a row with home renovations. The path to our dream house is not a fast run but a marathon instead :). This year, we have decided to renew all the bedroom wardrobes in our house and improve our pergola with lights to have family dinners on summer nights. Also, do some renovations on our AIRBNB house in Porto:
We made one of our dream trips: Walter Disney Paris!
And I was able to bring my wife on a “business trip” with a personal weekend as a bonus for her to know a different city and country: Gothenburg, Sweden.
Professional highlights…
Each year, I change, or I try to, how I contribute to the different communities so that it does not become tiring or monotonous. If 2021 and 2022 were years that I dedicated myself to speaking engagements at conferences and User Groups worldwide on topics like BizTalk Server, Logic Apps, and Power Automate, delivering a combined total of 31 sessions. Or in 2022, a year that I also focused on creating whitepapers, ending up publishing ten whitepapers that year.
This year, I decided to return to my roots and dedicate myself to writing more blog posts on my blog (117 new posts) – a personal record!:
2022: 77 new posts
2021: 77 new posts
2020: 92 new posts
2019: 43 new posts
2018: 70 new posts
2017: 63 new posts (migrate to a new blog)
2016: 50 new posts
2015: 79 new posts
2014: 52 new posts
2013: 79 new posts
2012: 102 new posts
2011: 61 new posts
As in BizTalk360 (13 new posts) and Serveless360 (42 new posts). Making an astonishing total of 172 blog posts, which means an average of 14.33 blog posts per month.
I also contribute to GitHub with samples, tools, and other types of resources.
But don’t get me wrong, I was still able to deliver 8 sessions (on-prem and remote) in several conferences and User Groups worldwide on topics like BizTalk Server, Logic Apps, and Power Automate:
Microsoft Integration Trends 2023 Webinar | March 2,9 and 16, 2023 | Online | Enterprise case studies on migrating BizTalk Server to Azure
INTEGRATE 2023 London | JUNE 5-7, 2023 | London, UK | BizTalk Server to Azure Integration Services migration
Azure Logic Apps Community Day 2023 | June 22, 2023 | Online | A walk in the park with the new Logic App Data Mapper
Integration Down Under | June 29, 2023 | Online | A walk in the park with the new Logic App Data Mapper
BizTalk to Azure – The Migration Journey event | September 28, 2023 | Gothenburg, Sweden | Elevating Integration – The Roadmap from BizTalk Server to Azure
BizTalk to Azure – The Migration Journey event | September 28, 2023 | Gothenburg, Sweden | Azure Integration in Action – BizTalk to Azure Transition Case Studies
CONNECTED Conference 2023 | November 15, 2023 | Online | API Management: Best practices, tips and tricks
Porto.DATA #90 Christmas edition – Lightning talks | December 19, 2023 | Online | A walk in the park with the new Logic App Data Mapper
Another thing that I started doing more often was publishing videos on my YouTube channel alongside my coworker, Luis Rigueira. We ended up publishing 14 new videos I especially like:
Finally, this was a year full of training. I was able to deliver 10 training courses (in person and online) focused on BizTalk Server and Azure Integration Services to several partners and organizations on topics like:
Logic App Training Course
Azure Integration Services Training Course
BizTalk Server Developing Training Course
BizTalk Server Administration Training Course
BizTalk Server Dev and Admin Training Course
Star Wars…
Finally, I couldn’t endup without speaking this. If you saw some of my speaking engagements, you notice that at the end I finish the session with this slide:
Well, my son (and me) is a Star Wars fan, and every time I go to the computer at night to write articles and blogs, prepare sessions, or travel to lectures, I tell him I will earn money for our LEGO! So, I decided to create this buy-me-a-coffee thing for those who like my community work and want to contribute.
We were not even close to raising the amount for the Millennium Falcon (not the biggest one, nor the small one :)), but I decided to tell him that we did it! And here he is, saying thank you to all the people who helped us achieve our goal!
The 2024 goal will be once again the LEGO Star Wars Millennium Falcon (75192) or Chewbacca (75371)!
For all of you…
Once again, thanks for following me, and for reading my blog, and I promise that I will continue to share my knowledge during 2024.
Author: Sandro Pereira
Sandro Pereira lives in Portugal and works as a consultant at DevScope. In the past years, he has been working on implementing Integration scenarios both on-premises and cloud for various clients, each with different scenarios from a technical point of view, size, and criticality, using Microsoft Azure, Microsoft BizTalk Server and different technologies like AS2, EDI, RosettaNet, SAP, TIBCO etc.
He is a regular blogger, international speaker, and technical reviewer of several BizTalk books all focused on Integration. He is also the author of the book “BizTalk Mapping Patterns & Best Practices”. He has been awarded MVP since 2011 for his contributions to the integration community.
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