Microsoft StreamInsight: The $5 Tour at BaltoMSDN on 11/18

by | Nov 12, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

I’ll be speaking at the Baltimore user group, BaltoMSDN, on Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 6:30 p.m. on Microsoft StreamInsight.

The presentation, Microsoft StreamInsight: The $5 Tour, is an extended version of my talk from CMAP Code Camp, and includes additional demos, as well as a longer discussion on building adapters and developing applications based on CTP2.

With (American) Thanksgiving only two weeks away, StreamInsight makes for a great conversational topic after a big meal.

New feature in SP1 for BizTalk 2006 R2: Override group certificate to sign outgoing messages

by | Nov 12, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Service Pack 1 for BizTalk 2006 R2 is now released as beta, and includes a number of hotfixes.


(See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/974563 )


 


SP1 also includes a new feature, namely the ability to configure different certificates for signing outgoing AS2 messages for different  parties.


Prior to SP1 for R2, we could only set one certificate for signing outgoing AS2 messages per BizTalk  group.


 


After installation of SP1, you will see in the AS2 party properties a new tab, where you can override the group certificate.


If you do not choose to override the group certificate, the group certificate will be used by default.


 


We are already describing how to use this in R2 with SP1. See the topic ” To configure a certificate for signing outgoing AS2 messages for a specific party” in the R2 documentation.


http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb728096(BTS.20).aspx


 


We are currently working on porting this feature to BizTalk 2009.


 


 


Manuel Stern

Validating Incoming Data Using the BizTalk Business Rules Engine

Validating Incoming Data Using the BizTalk Business Rules Engine

by | Nov 11, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

A project team recently asked me if they could use the BizTalk BRE to validate incoming data. I asked what sort of validation we were talking about, and it came down to four areas:

Setting default values when the incoming fields were empty
Doing look-ups based on existing data and populating related fields
Doing concatenation of fields
Catching any […]

Recent and upcoming BizTalk User Group Sweden events

by | Nov 11, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Some time ago, back on the 20th of November, Richard Seroter visited BizTalk User Group Sweden and talked about BizTalk, SOA and leveraging the cloud. His talks are now live on channel9, part 1 and part 2. A short blogpost explaining the talk is here.

It was great fun to have Richard visit, although some (most) of the laughter and clapping that your hear on the videos is really due to me making a pantomime Richard imitation outside of the frame of the video and should not be credited to him 😉

Getting the videos published wasn’t lightning fast due to some unfortunate circumstances and personnel changes. Hopefully that will be all ironed out by November 26th when Charles Young swings by us again, this time to talk about the Business Rules Framework. I’m sure it’ll be a classic. Take the chance to say “I was there”. There are still slots left. Sign up here.

Should you happen to pass by Sweden and have an interesting Connected Systems topic that you would like to talk about feel free to drop us a line.

Or as Richard commented his visit on his blog through this sentence taken totally out of it’s context 😉 “If you get the chance to visit this user group as an attendee or speaker, don’t hesitate to do so.”

Privacy in the Cloud Computing Era

by | Nov 11, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

The big seven factors that often come about when negotiating an SLA with a cloud provider are:

Privileged User Access
– Know as much as you can about those who touch your data
Regulatory Compliance
– Ensure the provider is willing to undergo an audit
Data Location
– Ensure legal privacy standards are upheld by location
Data Segregation
– Identify the need for encryption, or providing some separation of your data from the data of others in the cloud
Recovery
– Ascertain what will happen when the service or data is unavailable, and how long a complete restore will take
Investigative Support
– What capabilities and support does the provider offer to investigate illegal activities
Long-term viability
– What happens if the provider is acquired

In the instance of multiple datacenters, however, it’s oftentimes unclear as to exactly where your data resides, and the privacy standards set forth by the cloud provider.

Microsoft has just released a whitepaper titled Privacy in the Cloud Computing Era. In it Microsoft sets forth ten guiding privacy principles by which policies surrounding privacy in the cloud are directed. The whitepaper also addresses legal and regulatory issues as part of Microsoft’s foray into Cloud Computing.

The whitepaper may be found here.