New learning resources for Azure and BizTalk

by | Dec 29, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

A couple of new resources have become available in the past few days that will likely be of interest to you.

 

Azure

The Developer and Platform Evangelism team has just released a new version of the Azure training kit (Dec 23 2008). It’s a great way to learn about Azure. If you’ve not gotten a feel for what’s coming, check out the videos. It’s an easily digestible set of videos that go through the various pieces that make up the Windows Azure platform. Remember folks, this is not science fiction far future stuff, this goes live on Jan 1 2010 (this Friday!), and becomes chargeable on Feb 1.

The training kit includes a series of:

  • hands on labs
  • presentations (PPTX and videos)
  • demos
  • samples and tools

You can get it at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=130354

 

BizTalk

There’s a new issue of the always-informative BizTalk Hotrod available, featuring some really cool articles on how to augment the return on your investment in BizTalk, extending its reach, and benefiting from capabilities you may not have known you had.

Among others, this issue includes articles on:

  • ESB Toolkit
  • BizTalk and SharePoint (including one I contributed)
  • BizTalk management with PowerShell
  • HL7
  • BizTalk Adapter Pack 2.0
  • much much more!

Lots of good stuff in there, I’d encourage you to check it out, and if you’ve not seen them, browse through the back issues also.

You can get it as a PDF at http://biztalkhotrod.com/Documents/Issue8_Q4_2009.pdf

Gravatars in ASP.NET MVC using HtmlHelper

by | Dec 23, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

I’m working on a side-project right now that is using Gravatars and found the wonderful article by Ryan Lanciaux on creating an HtmlHelper extension.  His extension was good, but did not use integrate with the FluentHtml model of MvcContrib, so I refactored his original into the following class, which does the same thing, but allows for fluent building of all the options.  Someone will undoubtedly point out that this could have used a couple of Enumerations, and their right, but I decided the API was static enough that I’d just create the methods. Anyway, I hope someone else gets some use out of this.

using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Security.Cryptography;
using System.Web.Mvc;
using System.Web.Routing;
using MvcContrib.FluentHtml.Elements;
using System;
using System.Web;

public class Gravatar : Element
{
    private string _email;
    private string _default;
    private string _rating;
    private int _size;
    private string _alt;

    public Gravatar(string email) : base("img")
    {
        _email = email;
    }

    public Gravatar DefaultToUrl(string url)
    {
        _default = url;
        return this;
    }

    public Gravatar DefaultToIdenticon()
    {
        _default = "identicon";
        return this;
    }

    public Gravatar DefaultToMonsterId()
    {
        _default = "monsterid";
        return this;
    }

    public Gravatar DefaultToWavatar()
    {
        _default = "wavatar";
        return this;
    }

    public Gravatar DefaultTo404()
    {
        _default = "404";
        return this;
    }

    public Gravatar Size(int size)
    {
        if (size < 1 || size > 512) throw new ArgumentException("Gravatars can only be between 1 and 512 in size.", "size");
        _size = size;
        return this;
    }

    public Gravatar GRated()
    {
        _rating = "g";
        return this;
    }

    public Gravatar PGRated()
    {
        _rating = "pg";
        return this;
    }

    public Gravatar RRated()
    {
        _rating = "r";
        return this;
    }

    public Gravatar XRated()
    {
        _rating = "x";
        return this;
    }

    public Gravatar AlternateText(string alt)
    {
        _alt = alt;
        return this;
    }

    protected override TagRenderMode TagRenderMode
    {
        get
        {
            return TagRenderMode.SelfClosing;
        }
    }

    public override string ToString()
    {
        var src = string.Format("http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/{0}?", EncryptMD5(_email));

        if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(_rating)) src += string.Format("r={0}&", HttpUtility.UrlEncode(_rating));
        if (_size != 0) src += string.Format("s={0}&", _size);
        if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(_default)) src += string.Format("d={0}&", HttpUtility.UrlEncode(_default));

        base.builder.MergeAttribute("src", src);
        base.Attr("alt", _alt ?? "Gravatar");

        return base.ToString();
    }

    private static string EncryptMD5(string Value)
    {
        using(var md5 = new MD5CryptoServiceProvider())
        {
            byte[] valueArray = System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(Value);
            valueArray = md5.ComputeHash(valueArray);
            string encrypted = "";
            for (int i = 0; i < valueArray.Length; i++)
                encrypted += valueArray[i].ToString("x2").ToLower();
            return encrypted;
        }
    }
}

public static class GravatarHtmlHelper
{
    public static Gravatar Gravatar(this HtmlHelper html, string email)
    {
        return new Gravatar(email);
    }
}

Breeze SharePoint 2010 Bootcamp Details

by | Dec 23, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Hi folks, we’ve used our SharePoint expertise and knowledge to distil SharePoint
2010 product feature set, to provide a rich 5 day course
for you.

I believe with SharePoint in particular that as a developer you *need*
to know details about the SharePoint environment that is running your code, and as
an Admin, you need to know what and how the developer provides the additions/customisations
that they do.

Check out
the details and you can register with Microsoft
here.

We’re really excited about the offering and have a great Christmas break.

See you soon ho ho ho

BizTalk 2009: Ho Ho Ho…. BizTalk 2009 R2 TAP program announced

BizTalk 2009: Ho Ho Ho…. BizTalk 2009 R2 TAP program announced

by | Dec 21, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Folks Christmas and the holiday season has started with the BizTalk Team been busy and are opening up the BTS 2009 R2 TAP program on connect.

If you’re a customer (or have customers) that would/could benefit in working with
some of the newer BizTalk features – with the prospect of MS being able to have some
visibility into the solution, then go for it.

https://connect.microsoft.com/biztalk

I’m looking fwd to the BizTalk Dashboard and a whole bunch of other enhancements.

Here’s a snip for you….

—————————————

 

 BizTalk Server V6 Image

Welcome
to the Microsoft BizTalk Server Connect website

 

We encourage you
to visit this site where we will keep you informed of Technology Adoption Programs
(TAP) and other customer pre-release programs for Microsoft BizTalk Server.

 

We have a number
of programs currently underway as well as several that will be starting up in the
near future.  If you are interested to participate in any of the programs below,
please register for the program by selecting the associated link, and return the completed
nomination form to [email protected] .

 

Current Programs

  •  BizTalk
    Server 2009 R2
  • BizTalk
    Server 2006 R2 SP1 beta     

 

 BizTalk Server 2009 R2

 

What’s planned
for the next BizTalk release?

 

VS
2010 Support

  • Use
    of Visual Studio 2010 to develop application for BizTalk Server 2009 R2
  • Projects
    developed in VS 2008 can be seamlessly migrated to Visual Studio 2010

 

 

Intelligent
Mapper

  • Enhanced
    user interface for better visualization of maps and to support complex mappings
  • Background
    noise reduction using highlight propagation, auto scrolling  and sibling coalescing
  • Support
    for search
  • Reusable
    parts for improved user productivity
  • Enhancements
    to the current functoids

 

Enhanced
Trading Partner Management (TPM)

 

BizTalk
Administration Console – Performance Enhancements

This
feature aims to improve BizTalk Administration Console performance across the board
by more than 60%. Key Scenarios like refresh, addition, deletion of port, enlistment
of an orchestration will be optimized. Post Enhancements, the BizTalk Administration
Console would be more responsive and address one of the key customer pain-points of
Console performance in BizTalk 2009.

 

BizTalk
Settings Dashboard

The
BizTalk Settings Dashboard will serve as a one-stop shop for BizTalk Engine settings
visualization and modification. This feature will enable BizTalk Administrators to
centrally manage BizTalk Settings as admins will be able to export and import settings
from one environment to another (for e.g. staging to production). The BizTalk Settings
Dashboard is a step forward in consolidating all BizTalk Settings and will incorporate
design extensibility to accommodate future addition of settings.

 

Improved
Management Pack

The
Improved System Center Management Pack will address key customer pain-points (e.g.
high-CPU usage, duplication of discovered artifacts etc.) in the existing Management
Pack. The new and improved design will also incorporate enhancement like better visualization
of BizTalk Application and Platform Artifacts, Improved monitoring and diagnostics
of artifacts like Orchestrations, Grouping of Alerts etc.

 

RFID
OOB Event Filtering and Delivery

The
scope for this feature covers providing a set of OOB components for Duplicate Elimination
filter, EPC based filter, DWELL filter, posting events from BizTalk RFID to BizTalk
Server, Posting events from BizTalk RFID to an EPCIS service and an Event Delivery
framework for applications to subscribe and receive asynchronous events. These Out
Of Box components address common RFID scenarios and will enable partners to focus
solely on business logic hence helping accelerate BizTalk RFID solutions.

 

FTP/FTPS
Adapter

The
FTP Adapter in BizTalk is one of the most popular transport adapter in BizTalk server,
used in different scenarios.  In BizTalk Server 2009 R2, we provide additional
features in the FTP adapter that includes the following:

–         
Support for FTPS, FTP over SSL – Enables to connect to FTPS servers for transferring
files securely.  Both Implicit and Explicit FTPS are supported.

–         
Support for read-only FTP servers – Enables configuration to pick up files from a
partner FTP server which may provide only read-only permission.  The adapter
will ensure that each file is submitted only once to BizTalk Server.

–         
Support for atomic file writing – Can be used to ensure that files are read only after
they are transmitted fully to the FTP server.

%u00b7         Enhanced
performance – Re-designed to increase the performance, both while sending files to
as well as receiving files from FTP servers.  The adapter will be more resilient
to server going down.