BizTalk Server 2020 – 20 days, 20 posts – day 10. Following my last blog post here is another component migrate to BizTalk Server 2020 that makes part of my BizTalk Pipeline Components Extensions UtilityPack project: Unzip File Pipeline Component.
Unzip File Pipeline Component
The Unzip File Pipeline Component for BizTalk Server can be used in a Received pipeline (Disassemble stage), and it allows you to receive a compress (zip/gzip) file and extract its contents into different XML messages.
The capabilities are like those available in any compression software such as WinZip or 7-zip:
This component doesn’t require any configurations.
You do not need to add a custom pipeline component to be used by the BizTalk Runtime to the Global Assembly Cache (GAC).
The component doesn’t require any configuration.
What is BizTalk Pipeline Components Extensions Utility Pack?
BizTalk Pipeline Components Extensions Utility Pack is a set of custom pipeline components (libraries) with several custom pipeline components that can be used in received and sent pipelines, which will provide an extension of BizTalk out-of-the-box pipeline capabilities.
BizTalk Server 2020 – 20 days, 20 posts – day 9. This week I decide to start migrating a project that I enjoy and use them in several of my clients: BizTalk Pipeline Components Extensions UtilityPack. And the first component that I choose was: Local Archive Pipeline Component.
Local Archive Pipeline
Component
BizTalk Server Local Archive pipeline component it’s a pipeline component that can be used for archiving incoming/outgoing message from any adapters. It will provide the following capabilities :
It can be used in any stage of a receive pipeline or send pipeline;
It can be used in multiple stages of a receive pipeline or send pipeline;
It provides an option for you to specify the location path for where you want to save the message: local folder, shared folder, network folder.
It can be used from any adapter:
If the adapter provides the ReceivedFileName property promoted like the File adapter or FTP adapter the component will take this value in consideration and save the message with the same name;
Otherwise, it will use the MessageID, saving the file with the MessageID has its name without extension.
The component has two parameters:
PerformBackup: True/False value to enable or disable the archive functionality;
Folder: Local (or shared) folder for where you want to perform the archive of the message;
What is BizTalk Pipeline Components Extensions Utility Pack?
BizTalk Pipeline Components Extensions Utility Pack is a set of custom pipeline components (libraries) with several custom pipeline components that can be used in received and sent pipelines, which will provide an extension of BizTalk out-of-the-box pipeline capabilities.
BizTalk Server 2020 – 20 days, 20 posts – day 8. Microsoft announced a few months ago, the release of Microsoft BizTalk Server 2020 – the 11th major release of BizTalk Server –and, as usual with previous versions, I updated my installation and configuration manual for BizTalk Server 2020. This whitepaper will explain in detail – a step-by-step guideline – how to install and configure Microsoft BizTalk Server 2020 on a standalone environment running Windows Server 2019. This information will help you plan the installation and configuration of BizTalk Server 2020, applications and components on which it depends focused on creating a development environment (you can also follow this tutorial to help you create production environments, however, if this is the case you need to skip some steps).
Assumptions and out of scope
We will be assuming that the operating system: Windows Server 2019 and the latest critical Windows updates from Microsoft already have been installed.
In this scenario, we will be performing a full installation of Microsoft BizTalk Server 2020. The following components will be installed:
Enterprise Single Sign-On (SSO).
BizTalk Group.
BizTalk Runtime.
Business Rule Engine.
BAM Tools and Alerts.
BAM Portal.
BAM Portal it is deprecated, but we still can use it.
BizTalk EDI/AS2 Runtime.
REST APIs (Management data APIs)
Management data APIs are endpoints that let you remotely update, add, and query the status of different artifacts in your BizTalk Server environment. The endpoints are added using REST and come with a swagger definition.
BizTalk TMS.
BizTalk TMS is a service that refreshes authentication tokens used by BizTalk. It is a prerequisite for the Office 365 adapters.
Microsoft BizTalk Adapters for Enterprise Applications.
What’s in store for you?
This whitepaper will give you a detailed understanding of the following:
Preparing the Prerequisites and Installation for BizTalk Server 2020
I would like to take this opportunity also to say thanks to Tom Canter for being a reviewer of this installation guide and Lex for all the work to publish this resource.
I hope you enjoy reading this paper and any comments or suggestions are welcome.
You can also find, download and enjoy several other free whitepapers of my own here:
BizTalk Server 2020 – 20 days, 20 posts – day 7. And for this post, I choose a crucial piece for BizTalk developers: How to install BizTalk Server Visual Studio Project Template.
On previous versions of BizTalk Server and Visual Studio, when we were installing BizTalk Server, it would detect that we had Visual Studio present and the BizTalk Server installation process will also install on our machines all the Visual Studio Templates necessary for us to build our BizTalk Server solutions.
BizTalk Server development tools are an integrated development
environment for BizTalk Server application development and testing, which
contains:
BizTalk project template, templates, and tools for schema, orchestration, pipeline, map development, and test.
BizTalk server application project template for automatic deployment and application lifecycle management (ALM) experience.
WCF LOB Adapter SDK for developers who need to integrate dynamic and complex line-of-business systems as part of an enterprise application integration effort.
Search for BizTalk Server and download the BizTalk Server development tools provided by Microsoft.
Or directly thru Visual Studio:
Open Visual Studio and use the Manage
Extensions dialog box to install and manage Visual Studio extensions.
To open the Manage
Extensions dialog, choose Extensions à Manage Extensions. Or, type Extensions in the search box and choose Manage
Extensions.
On the Search, type BizTalk
Server and chose to download the BizTalk Server development tools
provided by Microsoft.
It will automatically download
and install these components.
To finalize you need to close
all Microsoft Visual Studio windows that are open. And next time you will open
Visual Studio, the BizTalk Server project template will be available for you to
start developing your solutions.
BizTalk Server 2020 – 20 days, 20 posts – day 6. In the last post, I published the BizTalk MapperExtensions Functoid Wizard to be compatible with BizTalk Server 2020 and Visual Studio 2019 but I reference that Visual Studio 2019 has a completely different look and fill and you will not be able to see this project under “BizTalk” projects in your Visual Studio 2019, instead, you need to search for it or scroll down to find it. So I decided to develop an alternative approach: BizTalk MapperExtensions Functoid Project Template.
BizTalk MapperExtensions Functoid Project Template is a Custom Functoid Project Template for Visual Studio 2019. It allows you to create new Functoids project for BizTalk Server 2020 without having to create manually the project, in other words, having to manually create:
A new class library project in Visual Studio;
Add a reference to the Microsoft.BizTalk.BaseFunctoids assembly;
Add New Class and having to code the entire class;
This Template will automatically create a project sample reference for you to create your custom Functoid. You them need to make the necessary changes and implement the required logic.
The difference between this resource (BizTalk MapperExtensions Functoid Project Template) and the BizTalk MapperExtensions Functoid Wizard are:
You don’t required to install nothing, you just need to copy this resouce to a specific folder (explain bellow);
There is no Wizard involved to customize the project, instead a sample project will be created and you need to implememet all the required changes;
You can filter on the Visual Studio menu for BizTalk project and this template will appear, that doesn’t happen with the wizard;
Installation
To use this project template just download the BizTalk MapperExtensions Functoid Template.zip file (without unzip) and copy to the following location:
C:Users<your-account>DocumentsVisual Studio 2019TemplatesProjectTemplates
BizTalk Server 2020 – 20 days, 20 posts – day 5. I will finish my challenge regardless of all these constraints we are facing, and that limits our free time. So, while my wife was sleeping our cute little monster yesterday, I was able to migrate this tool and test it to be compatible with BizTalk Server 2020. Today while she is doing the same, I’m publishing this productivity tool for those that love BizTalk Mapper as I do: BizTalk MapperExtensions Functoid Wizard. Once again, I hope you enjoy and find this tool useful.
BizTalk MapperExtensions Functoid Wizard
BizTalk MapperExtensions Functoid Wizard is a Custom Functoid Project Wizard for Visual Studio 2019. It allows you to create new Functoids project for BizTalk Server 2020 without having to create manually the project, in other words, having to manually create:
A new class library project in Visual Studio;
Add a reference to the Microsoft.BizTalk.BaseFunctoids assembly;
Add New Class and having to code the entire class;
This Wizard will do this process automatically, and used in conjunction with Item Template for Visual Studio: Custom BizTalk Functoid will facilitate and significantly expedite the development process of our projects.
To use this project template download the executable files available on the Installation Files folder and run the setup file.
Once you run the setup file follow these steps:
On the Welcome to the BizTalk MapperExtensions Functoid Template Setup Wizard screen, click Next.
On the Select Installation Folder screen, select the folder where you want to install the Wizard and select the option Everyone. Click Next to continue.
On the Confirm Installation screen, confirm your intent to install by clicking Next.
On the Installation Complete screen, click close and the installation is complete.
Now you can see a new BizTalk project Wizard on Visual Studio 2019. Unfortunately, Visual Studio 2019 has a completely different look and fill and you will not be able to see this project under “BizTalk” projects in your Visual Studio 2019, instead, you need to search for it or scroll down to find it.
I still need to find a way to solve this limitation or release a different approach to solve this issue and have a more friendly approach.
Create New Functoid Project
To create a new functoid using this project template choose the option BizTalk Server Functoid Project in Visual Studio 2019 and a Wizard will pop-up. Follow the requirements of this wizard to create the Functoid.
In the Start screen, click Next to continue.
In the General Project Properties screen, fill the Functoid class name, namespace and create or select a new Strong Key (you can use an existing one). Click Next to continue.
In the Functoid Properties screen, define the Functoid ID (must be greater than 10000), the functoid name, the tooltip (short description) and description (full description). Click Next to continue.
In the second Functoid Properties screen, choose the functoid category and the implementation language (the language in which you want to implement your functoid behavior code): C# or VB.NET. Click Next to continue.
In the Functoid Parameters and Connection Type” screen, define the functoid function name, function inputs and types and output and types. Click Next to continue.
On the final screen, click Finish to create the Visual Studio project.
Visual Studio will create a new Project based on your implementation language and definitions provided in the Wizard.
Open the generated class and implement your code
Other versions
This tool is also available for the following BizTalk Server versions:
BizTalk Server 2020 – 20 days, 20 posts – day 4. Again a bit behind on this post, I need to recover the missing days but I will get there. Today I have chosen to migrate another productivity tool that I use often especially when I’m working with pure pub-sub solutions: BizTalk Filter Finder Tool to be compatible with BizTalk Server 2020. I hope you enjoy and find this tool useful.
BizTalk Filter Finder Tool
BizTalk Filter Finder Tool is a simple tool that aims to simplify the process for better understand and maintain solutions based on pub-sub and content-based routing. By allowing you to have a quick overview of all the artifacts, send ports or orchestrations that have filters associated.
This tool will extend default BizTalk Server capabilities transforming this tedious and sometimes complicate analyze a little simple, easy and fast.
This tool will extend default BizTalk Server capabilities transforming this tedious and sometimes complicate analysis a little simple, easy and fast. You can read more details about this tool in the original post here: BizTalk Filter Finder Tool.
Other versions
This tool is also available for the following BizTalk Server versions:
BizTalk Server 2020 – 20 days, 20 posts – day 3. Sorry for the delay but with this COVID-19 situation and with 3 small kids at home, sometimes it can be a challenge to find time to do community work and to write. Nevertheless, for today I have chosen to migrate another crucial and productivity tool that I really enjoy using it: BizTalk Bindings Exporter Tool to be compatible with BizTalk Server 2020. Once again, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
BizTalk Bindings Exporter Tool
BizTalk Binding Exporter Tool is a simple tool that will suppress the absence of advanced binding file generation capabilities in the BizTalk Server Administration Console allowing you to generate and export a binding file from BizTalk Applications in an intuitive and easy way.
Exporting a BizTalk Server Application binding is, at first sight, a simple and quick task that can be done using the BizTalk Server Administration Console. But even in simple tasks, we may encounter challenges that require us to perform some monotonous and boring manual operations that consume some of our precious time and are always subject to failures.
Normally the binding exportation starts in development, but we also will need to generate the same bindings for other environments like production and for that we normally need to open the binding file and replace/fix the differences for each different environment… which is normally a tedious operation. What we need to replace is mainly:
the URI’s: it should be fixed, but it is not mandatory. If you know what you are doing, you can fix them directly on the environment after you import the Binding.
the host instances: not mandatory, if you have the same host and host instances names across all your different environments (as best practices will tell you to do).
the NT Group Name associated in the Services (Orchestrations): according to securities best practices you shouldn’t use the same BizTalk Groups in different environments, so in this case, if you follow these best practices, you need to change these parameters in your binding file.
Normally, everyone changes the URI’s but neglecting the other parameters may be causing problems during the Binding import.
This tool will extend default BizTalk Server capabilities transforming the tedious and sometimes complicate binding generation a little simple and easy.
You just need to specify the connection string to the BizTalk Management database (BizTalkMgmtDb)
And this tool allows you to generate and export binding files with the following capabilities:
Export binding(s) file(s) for an entire Application or a list of Applications;
Export binding(s) file(s) from a specify Assembly or list of Assemblies;
Export binding(s) file(s) from a Receive Port or list of Receive Ports;
Export binding(s) file(s) from a Send Port or list of Send Ports;
Or Generate different binding files for each environment if you create an Excel File with the mapping for each environment ;
Other versions
This tool is also available for the following BizTalk Server versions:
BizTalk Server 2020 – 20 days, 20 posts – day 2. And for today I have chosen to migrate another crucial and productivity tool: BizTalk Server SSO to be compatible with BizTalk Server 2020. Application Configuration Tool. Some of you had already asked me if I would release a new version of this tool for this new version of the product. Well, here it is!
BizTalk Server SSO Application Configuration Tool
BizTalk ServerSSO Application Configuration tool provides the ability to add and manage applications, add and manage key-value pairs in the SSO database, as well as import and export configuration applications so that they can be deployed to different environments.
Fully compatible with BizTalk Server 2020
Fully resizable windows (you will understand if you are a BizTalk Developer);
You can securely export and import Application configurations and it is compatible with MSFT SSO snap-in;
You can duplicate Applications (copy and paste);
You can rename Applications;
You can easily add new key-values without the need to always perform a right-click and select a new key option;
You can easily add edit key-values without the need to always perform a double-click to open a new window;
You can refresh the Applications tree view
You can search!
Other versions
This tool is also available for the following BizTalk Server versions:
You can download BizTalk Server SSO Application Configuration Tool for BizTalk Server 2020 from: BizTalk Server SSO Application Configuration Tool for BizTalk Server 2020 (45 KB) Microsoft | TechNet Gallery
You probably wonder why I haven’t written anything significant yet about this new version of the product. And I could come up with several real reasons but that is not the point here. However, to compensate for this “delay” I will start a crazy personal challenge, which I don’t know where I will find the time, to write 20 posts focus on BizTalk Server 2020 in the next 20 days: BizTalk Server 2020 – 20 days, 20 posts.
This series of posts could be about how to do certain things, what’s new in the product, step by steps guides, tools, components, tips and so on. And to start this series of posts I have chosen to migrate the BizTalk Port Multiplier Tool to be compatible with BizTalk Server 2020.
BizTalk Port Multiplier Tool
BizTalk Port Multiplier Tool is a simple tool that aims to simplify the port “cloning” process by allowing you to quickly “clone or duplicate” any existing port: Receive Port or Send Port.
Send Ports are quite easy to archive, you only need to give a different name to the port, and you can clone it;
Receive Ports are tricky because they may contain several Receive Locations and each URI needs to be unique;
This tool will extend default BizTalk Server capabilities transforming the tedious and sometimes complicate port creation based on an existing one a little simple and easy allowing you to:
Create a new Receive Port based on an existing one;
It will also export the binding file from that new Receive Port;
Create a new Send Port based on an existing one;
It will also export the binding file from that new Send Port;
Generate different binding files for each environment
Why do I need to “clone” a Receive Port?
Sometimes you also need to create a receive port with similar configurations of an existing one, also changing only a few settings or simple the URI, and instead of manually recreating, you can have 90% of the process done automatically.
Sometimes it is practical, occasionally, or in some scenarios, it may not work, but in most cases, it will. So it is a best-effort operation and not an exact clone because they may have several Receive Locations, and each Address/URI needs to be unique. So, you then need to go to each receive location and reconfigure them.
Other versions
This tool is also available for the following BizTalk Server versions:
BizTalk Pipeline Components Extensions Utility Pack
