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Showing posts from October, 2011

BizTalk Server 2010–Tools

I have created an article for TechNet Wiki called BizTalk Server 2010 – Tools and it is a compilation of all tooling available through Codeplex or Microsoft Download Center. These tools are not provided out of box with BizTalk Server 2010, but can be of tremendous help in debugging, logging, testing, troubleshooting, documenting solution, and performing health checks and benchmarking of your BizTalk environment. The number of tools listed and of codeplex projects pretty much covered in the article. Thanks to Colin Meade the Orchestration Profiler can be of used with BizTalk 2010. If you feel there is a tool that I have missed, which can be beneficial in any way, please feel free to add comment to the article. Cheers !

BizTalk Server 2010 TechNet Wiki Articles

The TechNet Wiki is a library of information about Microsoft technologies written by the community for the community. Through TechNet Wiki you will find the following BizTalk Server 2010 articles: Working with BizTalk AppFabric Connect Installing the BizTalk Server 2010 AppFabric Connect feature BizTalk + WF/WCF, Better Together BizTalk Server 2010 AppFabric Connect feature Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Exposing LOB Services on the Cloud Using AppFabric Connect for Services Exposing BizTalk Applications on the Cloud using AppFabric Connect for Services Load Testing BizTalk Server Solutions with Visual Studio 2010 Create a Load Test to Perform Multiple Unit Tests Simultaneously Install and Configure BAM (Business Activity Monitoring) in a Multi-Computer Environment Invoking ReSTful Web Services with BizTalk Server 2010 How to use NServiceBus to do Broadcast Message Distribution with BizTalk Server RFID Querying and Creating Records in Dynamics CRM 2011 from B

BizTalk User Group Sweden : My debut as International Speaker

Next week a new BizTalk User Group Meeting in Sweden is scheduled with two sessions: A Lap Around BizTalk Adapter Pack A Lap Around BizTalk360 The first session will be done by me and it will be first time I will do a session in English in another country. The other session is done by Saravana on BizTalk360 . It will be second time both me and Saravana will share the same stage. Last time was June this year for the Dutch BizTalk User Group. There are still seats left for this event , so if you want you can attend; it is in Stockholm and I expect many if it not all from Sweden. My session will be talk about BizTalk Adapter Pack, its evolution how it became the pack that is shipped along with BizTalk 2010, its origin, alignment with Microsoft Platform, Cloud and an integration scenario with Oracle. Saravana will take you through his BizTalk360 product showing a lot of its capabilities and how you can leverage them in a BizTalk production environment. For those who will attend I

BizTalk360 new V2.5 release–Message Box Viewer Integration

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Saravana has released new version of BizTalk 360, a version 2.5 release with following important features/enhancements: Role Based Security Knowledge Base Repository Message Box Viewer Integration Message Detail (Content/Context) Alert/Notification Enhancements It shows that BizTalk360 has more monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities. In this blog post I will focus on troubleshooting capability: MessageBox Viewer Integration . Many of you have heard of the BizTalk MsgBoxViewer tool that has been around for some time. It has been created by Jean-Pierre Auconie . The tool runs a set of tests and queries against the MessageBox database of your BizTalk Server. The results are displayed in the tool and can also be exported as HTML reports including links. I wondered how this integration works with BizTalk360.After installing BizTalk360 V2.5 I looked for the feature. I clicked Settings –> Configure MBV Integration . You will see that you need to install the MessageBox V

BizTalk Adapter Pack 2010 WCF-Custom with sqlBinding Table Operations through Messaging solution

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Last year I did a post on table operations using WCF-SQL Adapter as part of Adapter Pack 2.0. This post was targeted for BizTalk 2009 and I now like to do an update targeting BizTalk Server 2010. With BizTalk Server 2010 ( DVD/ISO ) comes the adapter pack that bundles old (non-WCF based) Enterprise Adapter for BizTalk with new (WCF-based) adapters to support compatibility with different versions of Line Of Business systems (SAP, Siebel, Oracle, Oracle eBusiness Suite). The BizTalk Adapter Pack 2010 includes support for new versions of the following line-of-business applications and databases: SAP 7, Oracle EBS 12.1 and SQL Server 2008 R2. The Adapter Pack also provides support for Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4. For documentation see MSDN BizTalk Server Adapter Pack 2010 Documentation and interactive poster . Installation is straight forward and made simpler through following steps in a wizard and adjusted to installing on x64 (you can read that in post “ Installing BizTal

BizTalk Server Unleashed 2010 Kindle version on my iPad

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Yesterday I have bought the BizTalk Server Unleashed 2010 Kindle Version for my iPad. Why? Well book contains a wealth of information on BizTalk Server 2010 and has 864 pages, which means is a heavy book to be carrying around. My iPad is a light device and I can have multiple books on it, so I can carry around a complete library of BizTalk and other related books (e.g. WCF) with me. The book contains some interesting chapters like ESB, RFID, Windows Azure AppFabric and so on. Now I agree with Saravana that is not likely that you will read this book from cover to cover. I certainly have not had time yet to do so, but I have read two chapters so far. One on deployment concepts, which unfortunately does not discuss BizTalk Deployment Framework . And the chapter on ESB that gives you more background and understanding of ESB Toolkit. Should you BUY this book? Yes you should and I will give you three reasons why: It is not an expensive book and it contains tons of information, so it

Query Notification SQL Azure BizTalk WCF-SQL: Possible?

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In a previous post I discussed polling a SQL Azure Table using WCF-SQL Adapter. I got one comment back from Mikael Sand with question: Does SQL Azure support notifications? Well there is one way to find out and that is give it a try to find out if it is possible. As inspiration I looked at a post by Richard Seroter Query Notification Capability in WCF SQL Adapter and see if I can try a similar scenario using SQL Azure. This time I created the database through Azure Management Portal and I then selected the created database and choose manage. You will see that a new browser tab will appear and you be prompted to fill credentials to connect. Next inside online database you can create a new table and add columns, data type e.a. Click Save after you are done. If you click table you see newly created table. Next step is to have data table. Click New Query and paste your insert data query. Click Execute. If you perform a select statement you will get following result. I have

BizTalk Operations Using a Web Console

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One of features that BizTalk lacks is a Web UI for operating BizTalk. There is a BizTalk Administration Console that enables BizTalk operators and Administrators to deploy and manage BizTalk Server applications and group(s). The console is basically a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) you can start from Server where BizTalk is installed or remotely on a different machine, but it is not web based. To be able to manage BizTalk from a Web UI has been a desired by BizTalk professionals for quite a while (as in years!). I think many of you by now have heard or seen BizTalk360 , a web based (RIA) BizTalk monitoring/support tool for Microsoft BizTalk Server. BizTalk360 is product created by Saravana Kumar a fellow BizTalk MVP and it is a commercial tool that gives you remote access to BizTalk Group, and gives a nice web based (Silverlight) UI! I have seen this tool in early stages during MVP summit in Redmond last February and it has evolved into great tool, feature rich with an excellen

Polling SQL Azure Database Table with WCF-SQL Adapter

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I have seen polling related questions sometimes on the BizTalk forums and I myself occasionally have come across a scenario’s where I had to use polling. In past I have read a couple of posts on polling like the one from Richard ( TypedPolling ) and Armen ( Polling ). Now with SQL Azure I wondered if it is possible to poll a SQL Azure Table. If you have an account with Windows Azure Portal than you can create 1 Gb database online. You can go for a free trail (90 days), or through MSDN account (you receive quite a lot of benefits   with Windows Azure), or commercially (see pricing ). In a previous post I showed some steps how to create a new SQL Azure database. You can create a database through Windows Azure Portal or SQL Management Studio. If you connect to SQL Azure through Management Studio you need to use SQL Server Authentication, fill in the server name, and credentials. Once connected you will in the left pane see Azure database you connect to. When you click New Query a