May CTP of ‘Oslo’ – Initial experiments

by | May 27, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Microsoft yesterday released a new ’May 2009’ CTP for their ‘Oslo’ toolset. This can be downloaded from Microsoft’s web site at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=827122a5-3ca0-4389-a79e-87af37cbf60d&displaylang=en.
The release is notable for a couple of reasons. First, it provides insight into the move away from the ‘three-in-one’ language approach (MGraph, MSchema and MGrammar) towards a single unified, ‘M’ language. Second, it contains an early version of ‘Quadrant’ which, to date, has only been visible outside the company as part of limited CTP releases (e.g., the PDC release).
Other highlights include an early version of UML domain models, together with an XMI repository loader. Microsoft is publically committed to providing strong UML and XMI support in ‘Oslo’ and this is our first glimpse of what they intend. There is also a CLR domain model and a corresponding .NET assembly loader.
The version of ‘Quadrant’ will raise a few eyebrows. It containsfunctionality for browsing the repository, inspecting types and listing database sessions.However, those of us who played with earlier versions will be surprised to find that model creation facilities are missing. You can drag itemsout into workpads onto the canvas as before, and use different views,but there are no tools for creating new models or amending existing models. This does not, however, indicate some reversal of Microsoft’s intentions.The Oslo team explain that they simply want to focus on model browsing in this CTP release, and to get feedback on that one aspect of the tooling. Expect to see the ’missing’ functionality re-emerge in future CTPs.
In a similar fashion, only a limited number of domain models are installed in the repository in this release. In earlier releases we saw a whole lot more stuff that Microsoft is working on. The absence of model domains in this release does not imply in any way that Microsoft has ceased working on those domains. This is a constrained release only.
Update: I just discovered that one new feature of Quadrant is the ability to point it off at any SQL Server database. This represents a further change in emphasis away fromthe purely respository-centric approach that was originally touted a year and half ago when MS first started talking about their plans. It’s very welcome. So much metadata, and so many existing models are currently scattered to the four winds, and allowing Quadrant to explore and expolitthose models in a unified fashion is a very good idea. Let’s have support for other stores, and not just SQL Server.
My initial experiments with LoadUML suggest that the tool is not yet fully functional. For example, it fell over the use of the xmi:type attribute on the uml:Model element. It failed to handle a type element of an ownedAttribute, and it didn’t recognise the packageImport element.The error messages were not always very helpful and the tool is slow. This is very early preview (’alpha’) code, so we must make allowances for these sorts of problems. With a little messing around, I managed to successfully import a simple XMI file into the repository.
Update:The Oslo team plans to do a lot more work in this area to ensure that their XMI tooling works well with a spectrum of more widely-used modelling tools. This, apparently, will mean building support for a number of XMI variants.
Initial experiments with LoadAssembly went a little more smoothly. Again, the tool is very slow, and can take several minutes to complete imports. The basic problem is that the tool imports a full closure of all assembly dependencies. This means that every time you import an assembly, you are likely to suck in large amounts of additional metadata for.NET framework assemblies and anything else you are dependent on! Nevertheless, the tool managed to cope with the assemblies I threw at it without any errors.
This early version of Quadrant has big problems with big models. It could, in some cases, take several minutes of 100% CPU usage to display the contents of a folder. Memory usage can also grow to monumental proportions. Do not import assemblies with large numbers of dependencies! Another problem is that the ’Refresh’ facility in Quadrant doesn’t appear to work properly yet. After re-importing a model, you will need to close the Repository Explorer and re-open it to see the changes. Worse than that, when importing for the first time, I found I generally needed to close and re-open Quadrant itself to see new folders. All in all, don’t expect Quadrant or the new loaders to behave very well. This is very early preview code.
I haven’t yet played with the new version of IntelliPad or M. I’m looking forward to seeing where these technologies have got to.

BizUnitExtensions_v3.0 Beta-1

BizUnitExtensions_v3.0 Beta-1

by | May 25, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Finally made some progress on BizUnitExtensionsand have released Beta-1 for the new version which now complies with BizUnit 3.0’s object model. This release specifically centres around the main Extensions and the Extensions.BizTalk libraries.
Main changes

The Altova library has now been deprecated as there is much better xml validation support in the .NET Framework so the altova […]

US Southwest: BizTalk Server 2009 “First Look” tour

by | May 25, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Folks,

Last week in Salt Lake City, we kicked off a 6-city tour of the US Southwest featuring BizTalk Server 2009 and ESB Toolkit 2.0. This week I’ll be in L.A. and Phoenix. Remaining dates are as listed below. This is a free event, but you need to register. If you’re in one of the listed cities c’mon by, it’s a really interesting event.

Salt Lake City

(you missed it!)

May 20, 2009

8:30 am – 11:30 am

Click here to register

Invitation Key: 6F671A

Microsoft Salt Lake City Office

123 Wright Brothers Dr.

Suite 100
Salt Lake City, UT 84116

Phone: (801) 257-6400

Los Angeles

May 26, 2009

8:30 am – 11:30 am

Click here to register

Invitation Key: 2206BE

or call 877.673.8368 with

Event ID: 1032414717

Microsoft Los Angeles Office

333 South Grand Avenue

Suite 3300

Los Angeles, CA 90071

(213) 806-7300

Phoenix

May 28, 2009

8:30 am – 11:30 am

Click here to register

Invitation Key: B899AD

or call 877.673.8368 with Event ID 1032414811

Microsoft Phoenix Office

2929 N. Central Ave., Suite 1400
Phoenix, AZ 85012

Phone: (602) 280-8600

Irvine

June 4, 2009

8:30 am – 11:30 am

Click here to register

Invitation Key: C11DF2

or call 877.673.8368 with

Event ID: 1032414721

Microsoft Irvine Office
3 Park Plaza
Suite 1600

Irvine, California 92614

Phone: (949) 263-3000

San Diego

June 16, 2009

8:30 am – 11:30 am

Click here to register

Invitation Key: 4E9A14

or call 877.673.8368 with

Event ID: 1032414722

Microsoft San Diego Office

9255 Towne Center Drive

4th Floor
San Diego, California 92121

Phone: (858) 909-3800

Denver

June 23, 2009

8:30 am – 11:30 am

Click here to register

Invitation Key: B185E8

or call 877.673.8368 with Event ID 1032414999

Microsoft Denver Office

7595 Technology Way, Suite 400
Denver, CO 80237

Phone: (720) 528-1700

Please join us for a “First Look” at BizTalk Server 2009!

Enterprises across the world need to build applications that span their network and bring together services, systems, and people. The new BizTalk Server 2009 enables this connectivity while eliminating many of the cost and complexity challenges enterprises currently face.

Microsoft product specialists and experts from gold-certified partner Neudesic will give you a “first look” at BizTalk Sever 2009 and how they can help streamline and integrate business processes while reducing cost and complexity.

AGENDA:

8:30 – 9:30 What’s new with BizTalk Server 2009

9:30 – 10:30 Using Microsoft ESB Toolkit 2.0 to reduce cost and complexity

10:30 – 11:30 Interactive Q&A discussion about SOA and ESB and emerging technologies

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

Application Development Directors/Managers and Architects, Supply Chain Directors, Process Analysts, and Developers who are interested in learning more about the features available in BizTalk Server 2009 and their impact on SOA and BPM solutions.
Technorati Tags: BizTalk,SOA,ESB