If you are in Minneapolis on Thursday March 17th please join us for the Twin Cities Connected Systems User Group Meeting.
The meeting takes place at 6:00 p.m. at the Microsoft offices at 8300 Norman Center Drive, Bloomington, MN 55437.
Andy Morrison will be presenting on a Lap Around BizTalk 2010 and the ESB Toolkit 2.1
Blog Post by: skaufman
Just a quick one this, but useful for mature BizTalk solutions, where over time the configuration settings can get confused, meaning Debug configurations building in Release mode, or Deployment configurations building in Development mode. That can cause issues in the build which aren’t obvious, so it’s good to fix up the configurations.
It’s time-consuming in VS or in a text editor, so this bit of PowerShell may come in useful – just substitute your own solution path in the $path variable:
$path = ‘C:\x\y\z\x.y.z.Integration.sln’
$backupPath = [System.String]::Format(‘{0}.bak’, $path)
[System.IO.File]::Copy($path, $backupPath, $True)
$sln = [System.IO.File]::ReadAllText($path)
$sln = $sln.Replace(‘.Debug|.NET.Build.0 = Deployment|.NET’, ‘.Debug|.NET.Build.0 = Development|.NET’)
$sln = $sln.Replace(‘.Debug|.NET.Deploy.0 = Deployment|.NET’, ‘.Debug|.NET.Deploy.0 = Development|.NET’)
$sln = $sln.Replace(‘.Debug|Any CPU.ActiveCfg = Deployment|.NET’, ‘.Debug|Any CPU.ActiveCfg = Development|.NET’)
$sln = $sln.Replace(‘.Deployment|.NET.ActiveCfg = Debug|Any CPU’, ‘.Deployment|.NET.ActiveCfg = Release|Any CPU’)
$sln = $sln.Replace(‘.Deployment|Any CPU.ActiveCfg = Debug|Any CPU’, ‘.Deployment|Any CPU.ActiveCfg = Release|Any CPU’)
$sln = $sln.Replace(‘.Deployment|Any CPU.Build.0 = Debug|Any CPU’, ‘.Deployment|Any CPU.Build.0 = Release|Any CPU’)
$sln = $sln.Replace(‘.Deployment|Mixed Platforms.ActiveCfg = Debug|Any CPU’, ‘.Deployment|Mixed Platforms.ActiveCfg = Release|Any CPU’)
$sln = $sln.Replace(‘.Deployment|Mixed Platforms.Build.0 = Debug|Any CPU’, ‘.Deployment|Mixed Platforms.Build.0 = Release|Any CPU’)
$sln = $sln.Replace(‘.Deployment|.NET.ActiveCfg = Debug|Any CPU’, ‘.Deployment|.NET.ActiveCfg = Release|Any CPU’)
$sln = $sln.Replace(‘.Debug|.NET.ActiveCfg = Deployment|.NET’, ‘.Debug|.NET.ActiveCfg = Development|.NET’)
[System.IO.File]::WriteAllText($path, $sln)
The script creates a backup of the solution file first, and then fixes up all the configs to use the correct builds. It’s a simple search and replace list, so if there are any patterns that need to be added let me know and I’ll update the script.
A RegEx replace would be neater, but when it comes to hacking solution files, I prefer the conservative approach of knowing exactly what you’re changing.
I’m excited to announce that my first novel, a cyber thriller entitled Zero Day , is now available at all major book retailers! Zero Day is a book in the style of Crichton and Clancy, weaving technical fact into the story. If you like the Sysinternals…(read more)
Blog Post by: Mark Russinovich
When working on real world WCF solutions, we become pretty aware of the performance implications of the binding and behavior configuration of WCF services. However, whether it’s a known fact the different binding and behavior configurations have direct…(read more)
Blog Post by: gsusx
This post continues in the malware hunting theme of the last couple of posts as Zero Day availability draws near (it’s available tomorrow!). It began when a friend of mine at Microsoft told me that a neighbor of hers had a laptop that malware had rendered…(read more)
Blog Post by: Mark Russinovich
“Good People talk plans.Great people talk logistics” 🙂
Thanks Rahul – had to write that one down.
Blog Post by: Mick Badran
I received this message in BizTalk 2006 R2 when transmitting an AS2 message. The fix was to disable the “Enable chunked encoding” on the HTTP send port configuration.
“BizTalk Light & Easy” series is back with 9 new webcasts: BizTalk 2010 and Windows Azure – Paul Somers BizTalk and AppFabric Cache Part 1 – Mike Stephenson BizTalk and AppFabric Cache Part 2 – Mike Stephenson Integration to SharePoint 2010 Part 1 – Mick Badran Integration to SharePoint 2010 Part 2 – Mick Badran […]
Photos from Summit
Mighty Canada
Oh, Canada!
Microsoft is hearing you, guys.
New Zealand is here.
Portugal and Brazil are here…
France is here…
Netherlands is here…
all BizTalkiens
and the whole world is here…
[See more MVP-s]
Vsem privet!
In the recent edition of The BizTalker Newsletter I featured the below article about BizTalk Adapters. Read the article below or join the newsletter to have it delivered directly to your email. I welcome any comments. feedback, or thoughts on this subject.
BizTalk contains many built-in adapters for communication with external systems. When those built-in adapters do not meet the needs of your project, some hard decisions need to be made such as whether to buy an adapter, build an adapter using the framework, or use an adapter from CodePlex (i.e. open source). This article will take a look at the pros and cons of each approach.
Buy an Adapter: While this option would require an outlay of cash up front, it can be advantageous in terms of support and speed of implementation.
Pros:
Support is provided by the adapter vendor which can be rapid and 24×7.
Adapter vendor provides a simple, legal licensing model.
Purchased adapters are usually buy now, install tomorrow so there is no lag time to get up and running.
Cons:
Purchased adapters have an upfront cost to the project.
You may not be able to customize the adapter if it does not meet your needs.
Build an Adapter: While this can seem like the obvious answer for a software or consulting company, usually this is a large undertaking. I talked with the writers of the famous SFTP Adapter on CodePlex. They said it took 300 to 400 hours of effort to build that adapter. Out of this time, it took about 200 hours just to learn the adapter framework and the rest to implement the protocol-specific logic. Even at a conservative rate of $100 per hour, this is between $30,000 and $40,000.
Pros:
There could potentially be additional services revenue for the company and they may maintain Intellectual Property (IP) rights.
You have the complete flexibility to build what you want and how you want it.
Cons:
The company that builds the adapter will have to do the maintenance and support.
The building company may not be a subject matter expert in either the BizTalk Adapters Framework or the implementation protocol.
It could take a significant amount of time to complete, test, and deploy.
Use a CodePlex Adapter: CodePlex is a large open source software community. It hosts many different BizTalk Adapters. Some of the most popular are the SFTP Adapter and the Scheduled Task Adapter. Sometimes 3rd party support is available, but in general support is through community forums.
Pros:
Adapter is provided at no cost.
You have access to the source code to customize as needed.
Cons:
There is no support for things that do not work as expected.
There are gray areas in terms of licensing and the impact of customizations.
When a new release is available, customizations need to be reapplied.
Company legal policies might restrict or prohibit the use of open source code.
In my experience we have both bought an adapter and used CodePlex – both times with the SFTP Adapter. I have never built a custom adapter.
Lets take a deeper look at the decisions that impacted my situations.
Case 1 – Bought /n software SFTP Adapter. This was for a large Fortune 500 client. It was simple; the service contract with the client did not allow the use of any open source software due to license and support concerns. I am unsure of the cost of the SFTP Adapter, but using it was simple and we had no issues.
Case 2 – Used CodePlex SFTP Adapter. This was also for a large Fortune 500 client. While the adapter was free, it took about 40 hours over 3 weeks for legal to review the license and approve the use of the adapter. Also, we ran into a few situations that required customization of the adapter. This resulted in an additional 80 hours of development and testing effort. Total costs to us for the free adapter was at least 120 hours and this consulting firm charges much more than $100 per hour.
In conclusion, it is important to remember the trade-offs with each adapter choice. Remember that free does not always mean free and that even the best custom adapter could end up resulting in months (if not years) of support calls down the road.