BizTalk Configuration Manager

Michael Stephenson has released a new version of configuration manager for BizTalk. I myself was not familiar yet with this tool. I downloaded it from CodePlex and tried it out on one of virtual machines. To use the tool there is a video out that explains the tool. Tool itself is used to help you manage the different settings needed for binding and configuration files across different environments and allows you to connect this with your build process.

Once you have downloaded the tool in zip file, you need to unzip it. There is a compiled help file that will tell you about the tool, how to set it up and install it, walkthroughs and utilities. I did a quick and simple install, setting up the database and application. In VPC I used was BizTalk 2006 R2 environment with VS2005 and SQL2005. Setting up database will result in following database schema

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Application will need its connection string set to database (ConfigurationManagement) on your server. I added the test data and started the application (ConfigurationManagement.Administration.exe).

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Setup is easy and straight forward. This kind of tool will come very handy in DTAP environment and will something to introduce this week at customer I work for now to use it in DTAP. We have a deployment framework now in place using Excel sheet for keeping configuration settings.


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