by community-syndication | Jan 12, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
If you’re going to be in San Diego tomorrow evening, you may want to check out the San Diego .NET User Group Connected Systems SIG meeting. See you there!
Microsoft Azure Services Platform
Cloud computing represents the new wave of innovation that will significantly transform many aspects of computing as we know today. During this session, we will discuss Microsoft’s outlook and strategy in moving towards cloud computing, providing the next-generation cloud-based platform for building services in the cloud. We will also discuss what cloud-based applications may look like, and how they need to be architected differently from today’s on-premise enterprise applications in various scenarios. We will then discuss the enterprise-class components of the Microsoft Azure Services platform, with an overview of .NET Services, SQL Services, and Windows Azure.
Speaker: David Chou, Microsoft
David Chou is an architect in the developer & platform evangelism organization at Microsoft, tasked to collaborate with local organizations in the advanced and emerging areas in architecture such as enterprise architecture, SOA, Web 2.0, cloud computing, etc., and to support decision makers on defining technology adoption strategies. Drawing on experiences from his previous jobs at Accenture and Sun Microsystems, David enjoys helping customers create value from using objective and pragmatic approaches to define IT strategies and solution architectures.
Meeting will be at 6:30 (pizza at 6:00) at the Microsoft La Jolla office. Details at http://SanDiegoDotNet.com.
Technorati Tags: Azure,Cloud Computing
by community-syndication | Jan 12, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
My friend Anne Thomas Mane s has posted two interesting reflections about the death of SOA and post-mortem analysis :)…(read more)
by community-syndication | Jan 12, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
[Announced on the SharePoint Team Blog] The SharePoint-year makes a good start with the CTP release of version 1.3 of the extensions with the longest name ever: the Visual Studio 2008 extensions for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (or VSeWSS for short). Here’s a short list of new features, for the details check out the SharePoint Team Blog. The final release is scheduled for “North American Spring of 2009”. Get it here.
Can be installed on x64 Server OS machines running SharePoint x64. Previously only x86 Server OS could be used.
Separate build commands for package, deploy and retract are added
Command line build, package and retract commands are included enabling continuous integration and build servers. Previously command line build of SharePoint projects was very difficult
Refactoring support for renaming of Web Parts. Previously renaming a web part required changes in several files in the project
WSP View improvements for consistency of deleting feature elements, merging features and adding event receivers to features
Solution Generator can now generate solutions from publishing sites. Previously only regular sites could be generated
Allowing partial trust BIN deployments of web parts. CAS configuration must still be provided by the developer.
New project item template for SharePoint RootFiles items
Deployment will now optionally remove conflicting existing features on the development server prior to redeployment. Previously any feature name conflicts would result in an error
Ancillary assemblies such as for business logic can now be added to the SharePoint Solution WSP
Hidden features related to Site Definition projects are now shown in WSP View. They are no longer hidden
For advanced users a fast deploy is included to update only the compiled assembly on the SharePoint development installation
The User Guide is now installed with the extensions instead of being a separate download
by community-syndication | Jan 11, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
So BizTalk 2009 CTP was released, and yet another version of BizTalk without the Solution Designer. NOT saying that this tool is anything like it, -but it's addressing the same issue of getting a graphical overview of port- and orchestration subscriptions of your BizTalk implementation.
It's important to understand (and maybe needless to say) that it's impossible to get a totally accurate view of all subscriptions. This doesn't necessarily mean that the tool isn't useful, but you need to be aware of it's limitations.
This tool only identifies subscriptions of the following types:
BTS.ReceivePortName
If you've set up the send port filter to subscribe to messages from a specific port, the tool will evaluate the BTS.ReceivePortName property and find its correlating port.
BTS.MessageType
This one is a bit more tricky, since the Message Type can be hidden in many places. The tool will try to retrieve the Message Type from the receive port in the following order:
- Mappings – If the receive port has a mapping, its Destination Schemas will be added to the list of Message Types of that port
- Runtime configured pipelines – If you have configured a pipeline at runtime (BizTalk Admin Console), its configuration is stored in the management database. Any Message Type in this configuration will be added to the list of Message Types of the port.
- Design time configured pipelines – If the pipeline has not been configured at runtime, it's configuration is only stored in the assembly, and it's retrieved through .Net Reflection.
- If the Message Type is not found in any of the above, the tool will query the tracking database (DTA) for any Message Types that has been used for that receive port.
Promoted Properties (Content based routing)
If the send port filter is neither the BTS.ReceivePortName or the BTS.MessageType, the tool will treat it as a promoted property, and evaluate the filter expression as if the filter was set to any of schemas associated with that promoted property.
For example, imagine there is a property schema with a CUSTOMERTYPE property, and there is an Order schema with a field promoted to the CUSTOMERTYPE property. Now, if there is send port with a filter that states CUSTOMERTYPE == "VIP", the tool will search for any schema associated the property schema, and in this case find the Order schema. The tool will then treat this filter as if it said BTS.MessageType == [namespace].Order#[Root] (the Order schema).
Orchestration Bindings
If a selected receive port is bound to an orchestration, the tool will present all send ports associated with the same orchestration. The tool will not evaluate the timeline within the orchestration. For example: Say we have an orchestration with four logical ports; ReceiveOrder, SendOrderForValidation, ReceiveOrderFromValidation and SendOrderToSAP. Selecting any of the receive ports will give you the same result (SendOrderForValidation and SendOrderToSAP). The same goes for selecting a send port, where both receive ports would be shown.
All Blogical tools that has been published on this site and CodePlex, has originally been developed for some customer. However, this one has not. It's just a pet project I've been working on to get a feeling for Entity Framework and WPF. It is not in finished state by any means. You are free to download it and try it. If you do, – Please give me feedback.
Download (I'll post the source code in a couple of weeks…)
Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 (if you haven't got it installed)
Enjoy…
by community-syndication | Jan 11, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
Last year TimRayburn.net LLC was formed to take on the project of putting on Dallas TechFest 2008, with the full intention of putting then on for years to come. My original plans had been to put on the next Dallas TechFest during March of this year, but given several things, some avoidable some not, that is not going to be workable. The harshest reality is that with the current economy, finding sponsors willing to support the event is much harder. I have high hopes that a 2009 event may still be doable, but it will not be doable in March.
by community-syndication | Jan 9, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
You’ve probably seen the chatter as a result of Anne’s recent post. So, the question on all SOA minds now turns to the fate of SOA: have we seen SOA’s last act or will there be an encore? With the economic downturn and companies increasing their focus on near term results, we’re a bit surprised over the fervor. A perfectly logical response might have been “Yeah, and?”
This debate will continue, that’s for certain. There are folks on either side of the fence who are passionate about this topic, and more than a few vendors have tied their revenue to it in a material way. Read some of the responses thru that lens – opinions on SOA being dead, or alive and well, seem to reflect economic passion more than anything else.
The ’SO’ of SOA has been around for over a decade. It started in the form of Web Services back in the late 90s; companies were looking to find efficiencies between systems within companies to do things like employee on-boarding all in one process. Soon after, the light bulb went on, and companies started extending this federation beyond internal systems to foster better integration with trading partners, customer and more. This extension of federation will continue as customers turn smart decisions into technical reality through service orientation in a blended world of computing on premises and in the cloud-Something we’ve been discussing and investing in for quite some time now
If SOA fostered all the fantastic innovation above, why are companies struggling with it and abandoning their SOA projects? Let’s be clear: many SOA projects have been successful and will continue, specifically the ones born from a middle out, project approach and based on business value. Customers like M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Vail Resorts are great examples. However, oftentimes there has been too much focus on the “A” in SOA instead of the “SO.” The bottom line: projects that have been monolithic undertakings are the ones that never made it out of the lab, and are probably being discontinued today.
We’ve been out on the road talking to customers as part of the SOA Roadshows discussing this topic, and we have a lot more to say on this topic, so look for more soon from the Microsoft SOA & Business Process Conference happening later this month. In the mean time, enjoy the show
by community-syndication | Jan 9, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
Every now and then a simple thing comes along that really makes me stand up and say, that was a good idea. Microsoft Research has taken the fact that almost everyone has a phone with a camera on it these days and turned that into something MUCH more useful than taking pictures of your friends and family doing stupid things.
Check this out:
And one more for fun:
I think this will really take off. What do you think?
by community-syndication | Jan 8, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
I was currently developing the Bulk XML import adapter and I had developed the adapter and tested it on my development box. I then proceeded to create the MSI.
So you go and create the code for the adapter, and test the functionality of the logic.
After you are done, you have to create the Adapter Registry File. The easiest way to do this is to use the Adapter Registry Wizard, which will create a registry file.
Here is the sample file I created:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{16e07168-8136-4804-8a6f-33053ad09d62}]
@="SQLBulkXML Adapter"
"AppID"="{14E0EF65-3B1B-4e29-9923-C13CDE2998B0}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{16e07168-8136-4804-8a6f-33053ad09d62}\BizTalk]
@="BizTalk"
"TransPortType"="SQLBulkXML"
"Constraints"=dword:00002502
"OutboundProtocol_PageProv"="{2DE93EE6-CB01-4007-93E9-C3D71689A283}"
"TransmitLocation_PageProv"="{2DE93EE6-CB01-4007-93E9-C3D71689A282}"
"OutboundEngineCLSID"="{d70b9447-641d-4af7-8324-9996d124a66a}"
"OutboundTypeName"="StottIS.BizTalk.Adapters.Runtime.SQLBulkXMLTransmitter.SQLBulkXMLTransmitAdapter"
"OutboundAssemblyPath"="C:\\WINDOWS\\assembly\\GAC_MSIL\\SQLBulkXMLTransmitAdapter\\1.0.0.0__92f4f19322c3f9ee\\SQLBulkXMLTransmitAdapter.dll"
"AdapterMgmtTypeName"="StottIS.BizTalk.Adapters.SQLBulkXMLDesignTime.AdapterManagement"
"AdapterMgmtAssemblyPath"="C:\\WINDOWS\\assembly\\GAC_MSIL\\SQLBulkXMLAdapterManagement\\1.0.0.0__92f4f19322c3f9ee\\SQLBulkXMLAdapterManagement.dll"
"AliasesXML"="<AdapterAliasList><AdapterAlias>sqlbulkxml://</AdapterAlias></AdapterAliasList>"
"PropertyNameSpace"="http://schemas.microsoft.com/SQLBulkXML"
"SendHandlerPropertiesXML"="<CustomProps><AdapterConfig vt=\"8\"/></CustomProps>"
"SendLocationPropertiesXML"="<CustomProps><AdapterConfig vt=\"8\"/></CustomProps>"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{16e07168-8136-4804-8a6f-33053ad09d62}\Implemented Categories]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{16e07168-8136-4804-8a6f-33053ad09d62}\Implemented Categories\{7F46FC3E-3C2C-405B-A47F-8D17942BA8F9}]
Which created the following entry in the registry:
I created the adapter, registered the adapter in the registry and then imported the adapter into the adapter list and configured it.
Things worked great, and I was ready to create the install package so I could use the code in other environments.
I installed the code and started running, however, I started getting errors that the connection string was not property formatted.
This did not make sense, so I put the code on the installed box and started debugging the code.
When I got to the loading of the configuration, I was getting a null string for the AdapterConfig in this method:
public SQLBulkXMLTransmitProperties(IBaseMessage message, string propertyNamespace)
{
XmlDocument locationConfigDom = null;
string config = (string) message.Context.Read("AdapterConfig", propertyNamespace);
this.isTwoWay = (bool) message.Context.Read(isSolicitResponseProp.Name.Name, isSolicitResponseProp.Name.Namespace);
if (null != config)
{
locationConfigDom = new XmlDocument();
locationConfigDom.LoadXml(config);
this.LocationConfiguration(locationConfigDom);
}
}
So when it got to the resolution of the AdapterConfig:
public string ConnectionString { get { return this.connectionString; } }
It would resolve to null.
The issue ended being in the install project, I put http://stottis.com/bulkxml instead of http://schemas.microsoft.com/SQLBulkXML
Once that was changed (I actually changed it in the registry and in the adm_Adapter table, it started working as expected:
So, it makes sense, what happens is that the BizTalk port, after the pipeline is complete, it then reads the configuration, and attaches the particular send port configuration to the message and sends the message to the appropriate dll that is defined in the adm_Adapter table, that adapter dll, then extracts the configuration and sends it off as is is programmed.
This is probably common knowledge, but I have been too busy making every flavor of mistakes that can be made, to look at the core functionality of how BizTalk actually works.
Hope that this explains what is going on a little bit.
by community-syndication | Jan 8, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
I discovered a must install KB for Hyper-V BizTalk installations if you are using NLB today.
I’m setting up the lab for our BizTalk 2009 performance boot camp next week. We’re comparing the performance of common Orchestration scenarios and optimizations that we’ve discovered on the R2 platform on 2009 physical and 2009 running in a Hyper-V environment. The results of this will be published in the BizTalk 2009 Performance Optimization Guide and the BizTalk 2009 Hyper-V Guide (see the previous versions http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc558617.aspx and http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc768518.aspx.
Because we’re using WCF receive locations I set up NLB on the Hyper-V boxes. Everytime I logged onto the boxes and try and install BizTalk 2009 the boxes would Blue Screen of Death.
After much troubleshooting that KB953828 resolves the issue.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953828/en-us
by community-syndication | Jan 8, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
Microsoft’s SOA and Business Process conference is closing in fast, it will be the 28th and 29th of this month. I don’t believe it’s sold out yet (I think it usually does), so you haven’t missed your chance to go!
Allan Naim (Microsoft) and I will be presenting a session on “Demystifying Microsoft’s SOA Offerings”, because we have reason to believe there are some folks out there that need it demystified 🙂 This is a new presentation, and will cover the entire stack, including BizTalk, ESB Guidance, WCF/WF, Dublin, Azure, MSE. We’re having fun putting it together, should be a good presentation by the time we’re done, and who knows, could well lead to some blog posts or articles.
You can find out more info about the conference, and register, at http://www.microsoft.com/soa/conference/
Technorati Tags: BizTalk,SOA,Dublin,WCF,WF
