PDC2009 BizTalk Sever Sessions

Last BTUG question was asked who will be going to PDC 09 this year. No one raised his hand compared to a lot of hands last year even though no BizTalk session was given. It will be the other way around this year; hence almost no one unfortunately is going there are BizTalk sessions planned this year. I am still secretly hoping I can go, but chances are slim. What session about BizTalk are planned this year at PDC09

Queuing and Publish/Subscribe in a Heterogeneous Environment by David Ingham, John O’Hara

Queuing and publish/subscribe are common patterns for building loosely-coupled, distributed applications. Learn how to use Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) the new Microsoft ASP.NET 4.0 routing service, the Microsoft .NET Service Bus, and Microsoft BizTalk Server to easily connect heterogeneous systems. We’ll then introduce AMQP (the Advanced Message Queuing Protocol), an important new open standard for interoperable message-oriented middleware, which will reduce the friction in connecting heterogeneous clients. A real-world scenario will show AMQP in action, connecting WCF, Microsoft Excel, and Java-based clients.

    Microsoft BizTalk Server Futures and Roadmap by Balasubramanian Sriram

Learn how BizTalk Server 2009 lets you focus on writing the code to do the hardcore business logic and let BizTalk take care of moving the data. Hear how your development skills with Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), and Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) work seamlessly with the powerful integration platform of BizTalk. Find out how BizTalk aligns with the Microsoft application server in the longer term.

Connecting Applications with the Microsoft BizTalk Enterprise Service Bus by Syed Rasheed, Ron Jacobs

See how the BizTalk Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) enables you to build services that can be quickly located and connected, whether they live behind the firewall or in the cloud, without creating a brittle point-to-point link. Learn how to dramatically improve the service lifecycle of development, testing, and deployment by using the powerful messaging, routing, and transformation capabilities of the BizTalk ESB in your solution today, and get a glimpse of future plans for BizTalk service bus/pub-sub pattern.

Maybe I will go, otherwise I will be at home following it on channel 9. If you do go there is a prep guide for you.

Technorati:BizTalkBizTalk 2006 R2BizTalk Server 2009PDC09

BTUG Fall Session

Yesterday the last BTUG gathering took place at Unisys in Amsterdam. We had two sessions from Brain Loesgen who was over in Holland for SOA symposium and one from Gerben. Brain sessions:

· ESB Toolkit

· BizTalk Development Best Practices

Gerben session:

· HL7 Accelerator

A lot of people form BTUG community attended session and show that from its inception until today is in fact a strong one. Our little country is a big BizTalk country having a lot of customers using the product in their application landscape with many BTUG members as its implementers.

First session of Brain was around ESB Toolkit and few people still wondered what ESB actually is. I can explain in three sentences, because that all is takes:

ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) is an architectural style. It enables enterprises to obtain flexibility (or one can use buzz word agility) towards other systems by hosting services in the bus. Bus can be implemented with a variety of products like BizTalk in combination with the toolkit, open source ESB products/solutions, Oracle SOA Suite, IBM WebSphere and so on.

An enterprise can implement an ESB using BizTalk and ESB Toolkit. Even if an enterprise does not want to implement ESB, BizTalk can be used or play essential role in B2B, EAI, Rfid and still use parts of the toolkit like exception management portal. This offers customers more added value as they can be very flexible in a way how to use BizTalk and use it extra capabilities like ESB Toolkit or for instance the BizTalk Adapter Pack. This gives BizTalk a strong position in the market for application servers (see for instance my previous post on DTAP).

Second session by Brain was the best of three sessions regarding best practices for development in BizTalk. You can find similar session on channel 9, where Brian gives session to Swedish user group.

Next session will be next year in January. Some interesting latest posts I discovered today are:

· PDF download regarding series by Kent Weare about integration BizTalk and Sharepoint

· WCF Extensibility Guidance on MSDN

Technorati BizTalkBizTalk 2006 R2BizTalk Server 2009

My colleagues in motion

Previous post I mentioned the release of SP1 Beta for BizTalk Server 2006 R2. One of my colleagues at motion10 Rene has tried it out on one of his VPC’s, so if you are interested definitely check out his post, it’s very detailed. Another great blog post has been put out by another colleague Sander who explains in detail BizTalk AIF Adapter for Microsoft Dynamics 2009 AX. This post with the latest article in BizTalk Hotrod Magazine can give you a head start if you need to integrate with Microsoft Dynamics 2009 AX.

Technorati: BizTalkBizTalk 2006 R2BizTalk Server 2009

BizTalk Server 2006 R2 SP1 Beta

If you working with BizTalk Server 2006 R2 and there are a lot of installation (instances) globally a new SP1 is coming out soon. Beta SP1 for BizTalk Server 2006 R2 has been released today. This service pack is an update for BizTalk Server 2006 R2.  It includes fixes to issues that have been reported through customer feedback platforms towards Microsoft, as well as within Microsoft discovered issues. To get hold of the beta you need to go here. A guide for this service pack is also available on the download page. 

Technorati:BizTalk 2006 R2BizTalk Server 2006 R2

Monitoring BizTalk Solutions in an Enterprise

There are certain aspects (governance, support groups) that need to be understood when monitoring BizTalk solutions starts become necessary. One aspect is support groups with roles and responsibilities. I summarize here what in my opinion and experience these groups should be and which roles are mandatory:

• Technical supports needs to monitor Operating System and SQL Server:
  • System administrator (support, monitor health of system);
  • Database administrator (support, monitor health of database).
• Functional support to monitor messaging, orchestrations, ports:
  • BizTalk Support (Interface Specialist, Process Specialist);
  • BizTalk Operator (support deployment BizTalk applications, configuration);
  • BizTalk Developer (BizTalk Application Specialist).
• Business level support to monitor activity, throughput:
  • Business Analyst (monitor activity/processes, analyze trends);
  • Business Support Manager (monitor activity, report to business).

Note here that you can have a different view/opinion on which support groups there should be and/or which roles should be involved/mandatory.

Monitoring BizTalk solutions in an enterprise the above mentioned support groups are vital to achieve manageability and sustainability. Defining roles and responsibilities is one thing and using the right tooling for each is another. This can be a challenging, complex and hard task to accomplish to have the right people using the right tools to provide correct and swift support towards a BizTalk issue/call that is being raised. Regarding roles and responsibilities I will list a couple of resources here I found together with a list of tools that can be used.

Category	Technical Support	Functional Support	Business Level Support
Vendor	Microsoft	Microsoft	Microsoft
Roles & Responsibilities	MSDN	MSDN
Roles & Responsibilities	Operation Guide	Operation Guide
Tools			BAM (BizTalk)
Tools	BizMon	BizMon
Tools	SCOM (Mgmt Pack Catalog)
Tools	Avicode	Avicode
Tools	FRENDS Helium	FRENDS Helium
Resource	Tech-FAQ
Resource	Monitoring BizTalk Server	Monitoring BizTalk Server	Monitoring BizTalk Server

Also check following blog site for monitoring BizTalk and maintain a healthy BizTalk environment. I hope this post will give you a feeling about supporting BizTalk solutions and what Microsoft can offer and what alternatives there are.

TechnoratiBizTalkBizTalk 2006 R2BizTalk Server 2009

BizTalk and SharePoint Services a good couple

About two years ago a walkthrough article was written by Arnulfo Wing about using BizTalk Server 2006 with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. And more were written from that time on and maybe even before. It shows that integration with SharePoint is very feasible and natural, being both Microsoft products with .NET technology. Some examples you can use as background or material to experiment with WSS 3.0 and BizTalk are:

• Collaborating with the BizTalk 2006 R2 SharePoint Adapter;
• Windows SharePoint Services Support in BizTalk Server;
• Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Tools: Visual Studio 2005 Extensions User Guide, Version 1.1;
• Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Tools: Visual Studio 2008 Extensions, Version 1.2;
• Visual Studio 2008 extensions for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, v1.3 - Mar 2009 CTP;
• BizTalk 2009 + SharePoint/WSS 3.0 integration first look;
• BizTalk + SharePoint: 1+1=3;

Last one a whitepaper was written by my colleagues Wesley and Gijsbert of Motion10. There are many scenarios thinkable where you might to integrate SharePoint with BizTalk. For instance monitoring of BizTalk solution(s) with a dashboard inside SharePoint is possible scenario. From technical viewpoint BizTalk can be monitored through SCOM, but functional perspective SharePoint Services is a good candidate. Whitepaper will give you the answers if you wonder why. Exception Management Portal (how to configure by Saravan Kumar) provided through ESB Toolkit 2.0 is an example of monitoring exceptions, portal itself though is asp.net and not WSS unfortunately (thanks Thiago for the remark). It is not inconceivable that SharePoint and BizTalk will go through life as a couple in a lot of Enterprise architectures today and tomorrow. I myself have not yet experimented with WSS 3.0 and BizTalk, but given the momentum both are having right now I will soon. What I've found on sources, I would like to share with you.

Technorati: BizTalkBizTalk 2006 R2BizTalk Server 2009Sharepoint Services 3.0

Some More BizTalk Resources

From time to time I keep looking around the internet, blogs, articles and so to find new or more BizTalk Resources. There are some interesting videos for BizTalk Server available through BizTalk Server Development Center. Definitely something you can check out if you have not stumbled on it already. Other thing I found very use full is the BizTalk Posters. At my office at Motion10 there are loads of them on the wall. One l really like is BizTalk Adapter Pack 2.0 Interactive Poster (in Silverlight). Another thing I found today was a post by Thiago who posted or at least gives you pointer to BizTalk Visio icons, very handy indeed. So there you go more resources to add on the every growing heap of information.

Technorati:BizTalk Server 2009