SOA Thoughts, EAI Challenges

BizTalk Community series: Introducing Rene Brauwers

2012-01-26T14:18:00.001-08:00

The third story of the BizTalk Community Series that brings active BizTalk community members to the foreground is on Rene Brauwers. He is mainly an active blogger on BizTalk Server. His blog contains highly valuable posts on setting up a BizTalk infrastructure, how to integrate with CRM 2011 and on many other topics. Last year he also acted as technical reviewer for BizTalk Server 2010 Patterns book and for my forthcoming BizTalk Server 2010 Cookbook.

Rene is 34 years old, born in Venlo, the Netherlands, and he moved to The Hague in 1996 to study. Ever since he has stayed in or close to that city. He currently lives together with his girlfriend Miranda in Rijswijk.

Rene is a BizTalk Specialist at Motion10 and is he considers himself as one of those people who is lucky enough to say that he can make a living out of his hobby. His BizTalk expertise ranges from the early stage involvement like pre-sales, proof-of-concepts, requirements gathering, architecting, developing to administration. Besides BizTalk he still finds the opportunity to do some programming as well like C#, SQL, WCF, Entity, WF, Azure and so on.

Rene’s integration background started years ago with WebMethods. The main reason for his involvement with this product back then was that BizTalk according to his employer was not mature enough. His employer choose WebMethods. However Rene has never been a Java kind of guy. He liked Microsoft more, so in the end he was thrilled to get his hands-on experience with BizTalk.

Rene loves the versatility of the BizTalk Server product. Iin fact nowadays it (almost) fits into the complete .Net software stack. He feels that almost every integration challenge can be solved with it.To his opinion there is not another product that offers so much out of the box functionality as BizTalk Server (BRE,BAM, B2B, B2C, ESB, SOA etcetera). All this functionality for such a relative small investment. With this level of versatility Rene believes a developer should be pretty broadly skilled (infra-structure knowledge, security, LOB applications, SQL, .NET, WCF, Cloud, PAAS, SAAS, being able to think in processes, think publish/subscribe, creative, Communicator, Team-player, Documenter etcetera). Besides that as a developer you have to stay on top of the latest developments, which makes it so interesting. He thinks all of this makes us BizTalkers so scarce!!!

In his spare time Rene likes to:

Spends a lot of time together with his girlfriend Miranda on decorating their house and planning/discussing on how to decorate it. Well actually she comes up with the good ideas and he usually agrees.
Loves to spend time together with friends, have a few drinks and some laughs.
Likes to dig into new (Microsoft) Technologies and play around with them.
Big a fan of (summer) music festivals like Pinkpop, Valtifest, LoveLand, Extrema, Parkpop and so on.
Study, well that’s one of the perks when you’re in IT, you always have to keep learning and luckily he doesn’t mind.
Mostly he just chills and relaxes, enjoying live to it’s fullest extent.

Currently Rene doesn’t practice any sports, except for the occasional swim in the morning. Yet he has the intention to start picking up table-tennis again, something he enjoyed when was young. Besides that he loves to watch soccer. He mainly likes to watch 'Oranje' (our National Soccer Team) play. Yet he is still disappointed by the fact that the Dutch lost the World Cup 2010 final from Spain. Rene simply can't wait for the sweet revenge this year with Euro 2012 ;-)

A final quote from Rene:

“Simply treat people as you would like to be treated. Respect each other and be honest. It all sounds so easy, but only if it would be that easy…. “

Rene also has a request for my readers:

If you have a 457 visa for Australia to give away ;-) Feel free to contact him through LinkedIn.

TechNet Wiki: The number of BizTalk articles is growing …

2012-01-25T09:27:00.001-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog post for the Official blog of TechNet Wiki with the topic “Wiki-Ninjas on Technology: BizTalk Server”. In that blog post I wrote a story on contributions of the community and Microsoft employees for the TechNet Wiki. Mid December there were little of 40 BizTalk Wiki Articles and over a month’s time it has grown to little over 70. That is a tremendous growth of articles (around 30). It show increasing popularity of the TechNet Wiki as a channel of information on Microsoft technology and products.

The newly added articles on BizTalk Server have been written by myself, Tord Glad Nordahl, Sandro Pereira, Howard S. Edidin, and Mick Badran. All these articles (existing and new) are being improved every day by people mentioned here and others (Microsoft employees and the community). I expect the number will grow over time to over 100+ articles as more community members will probably join.

With the wealth of information on TechNet Wiki, MSDN and other Microsoft channels combined you can fully leverage the BizTalk Server platform. You can reach all the BizTalk related wiki articles through BizTalk Server Resources on the TechNet Wiki article.

Enjoy reading any of the articles and hopefully you will find them useful.

BizTalk Community series: Introducing Rohit Sharma

2012-01-18T11:46:00.001-08:00

This is the second story in the BizTalk Community Series bringing active BizTalk community members to the foreground. I have received a lot of positive feedback from the first post on Tord Gald Nordahl. The series will continue with the second person from the BizTalk community I like to introduce: Rohit Sharma. He has recently been awarded MVP for BizTalk Server, and is an valuable contributor to BizTalk forums and active blogger.

Rohit is 28 years old and lives in Chandigarh, also known as "The City Beautiful", located in the northern part of India. He works in Mohali as a Senior Software Developer at Ionnor Solutions Pvt. Ltd, which is part of EDB ErgoGroup, Norway.

Rohit loves to design and develop BizTalk solutions, and he likes the challenge of tuning the BizTalk environment for performance optimizations. His journey with BizTalk started early 2007 and working with BizTalk since then gave him the opportunities to explore different tools and technologies during various integrations projects. When he started exploring technologies like Windows Workflow Foundation and Windows Server AppFabric his BizTalk background came in handy.

Rohit loves to spend time with his family and friends, and going through different articles and blog posts on various technologies. He enjoys providing responses to technical issues on the BizTalk forums. Besides contributing to the forums he likes to blog about BizTalk related topics and issues. He likes to play and watch cricket as he is a huge fan of the Indian Cricket Team.

Rohit likes to share the following with the community:

“The difference between a successful person and others is not lack of knowledge, but rather the lack of willingness to share it. Steef-Jan Wiggers is a knowledgeable expert and he has the will to share his knowledge with others through his blogs, speaking engagements and other channels.”

Rohit thinks sharing is the secret to his success.

I would like to thank Rohit for his time and his highly valuable contributions on the BizTalk forums and his blog.

Cheers.

My next ten TechNet Wiki Articles on BizTalk

2012-01-15T12:01:00.001-08:00

Last couple of weeks I written a number of wiki articles for TechNet Wiki. The TechNet Wiki is a place, where content is generated by the community and Microsoft employees about Microsoft technologies and products for the community. I very much like the concept and in November 2011 I completed my first ten articles. I continued to work on some articles and now below you will find a list of my next ten completed wiki articles on BizTalk and one on Windows Azure Service Bus EDI/EAI:

First are a couple of articles on the adapters available through BizTalk Adapter Pack 2010:

Next an article on unit testing for BizTalk Server
An article on BizTalk High Availability
Overview of all the MSDN BizTalk Code Gallery Samples
A survival guide for BizTalk Business Rules Engine
Windows Azure Service Bus EAI and EDI Labs – Introduction article I wrote just after CTP was released. I updated it later with some more resource links to blogs.

I hope you will find these articles useful. Feel free to edit any of them (correct, add, enhance). The complete list of BizTalk wiki articles can be found here. I myself will be working on next couple of articles in the near future, which will contain some in depth ones.

Cheers!

BizTalk Community series: Introducing Tord Glad Nordahl

2012-01-12T06:41:00.001-08:00

Most of you are familiar with the interview series by Richard Seroter. Based on this concept I want to start with a series of blog posts, in which I would like to introduce active BizTalk community members. Contrary to the interview series the focus here will be solely on BizTalk Server. It will bring several active BizTalk community members to the foreground.

The first person from the BizTalk community I like to introduce is Tord Glad Nordahl, an active community personality with a strong BizTalk administrative background. He has been active on forums and TechNet Wiki for the last couple of months. I had a chat with him on his background, what kept him busy in real-life, what sports he enjoys practicing and/or watching and what he would like to say to the BizTalk community.

Tord is 25 years old, has a beautiful wife Alfa, and has a lovely daughter Maribell who is nearly two years old. In June they are expecting their second child. The family lives in the rainy city of Bergen in Norway. He works as a BizTalk Administrator Expert for Bouvet ASA, and is stationed in Stavanger working for Statoil 4 days a week.

He likes to call himself a BizTalk advisor, or as he states a BizTalk Administrator Expert. He doesn’t like developing BizTalk solutions but instead focuses more on the environment itself. In his day to day job he is busy with performance optimizations, health checks, monitoring and reviewing applications and solutions. This to ensure that all the processes run according to Microsoft‘s best practices. His job is to make sure that the customer will get all the benefits of BizTalk as an integration platform.

In his spare time he likes to spend as much time as possible with his family. Besides that, he roams around blogs, writes blog posts and TechNet Wiki articles, and contributes to the BizTalk forums and to the local and international BizTalk community in any way he can. He likes to do research on BizTalk using his infrastructure at home. He has four servers running a BizTalk 2010 environment (2 BizTalk clusters and 2 SQL servers clustered) enabling him to experiment with different scenario’s. He then shares his findings on his blog. Besides being a respected BizTalk professional, he also happens to be very handy, doing all kinds of work around the house, much to his wife’s liking. Jobs like building brick walls, removing doors or do some flooring, are no problem. Tord loves soccer and supports his home team "Brann". Unfortunately, he himself can no longer practice soccer due to a knee injury. Therefore he switched to cycling these days.

Tord would like to thank people for reading his blog posts, and he is grateful for the opportunity to learn more about BizTalk through the community and research. He recommends all of you to go into the TechNet Wiki and to contribute and participate in the Forums. Being active in the community and contributing to the community will make it grow bigger and better. And as he likes to state: “Be proud of who you are, and don't be afraid to speak your mind”.

And in Norwegian he finished of our chat with a "Tusen takk Steef-Jan" (Thank you) for all your contributions to the community and for taking time to chat with me. It’s been a pleasure.

I like to thank Tord for his time and am looking forward to meeting him during the BizTalk innovation event at my company 1st of February.

My year 2011 In retrospective

2012-01-04T11:25:00.001-08:00

In this post I would like to summarize how my year 2011 went. For one it has been a very busy year. I have been writing a BizTalk Server 2010 Cookbook that due March this year. It took me more than nine months to write. I have had great support from Randal van Splunteren, Richard Seroter, Saravana Kumar, Tord Gard Nordahl, Mikael Hakansson, Sandro Perreira, Rene Brauwers and Abdul Rafay. They have supported me by reviewing it, contributions and valuable advice.

That is not all I have been doing more than just writing a book. I have written 47 blog posts on this blog and some on the BizTalk Ordina blog, a lot of wiki articles, code gallery samples, articles for magazines, book reviewing, and public speaking.

I enjoyed my interview with Richard Seroter during the MVP Summit and the interview about me by Ed Price. I loved the opportunity to speak at Ordina, BizTalk User Group Netherlands and Sweden:

During 2011 I had also my debut a technical reviewer for BizTalk book. I reviewed the recently re-awarded BizTalk MVP Dan Rosanova’s book: BizTalk Patterns:

In 2011 I did some research regarding BizTalk and wrote a couple of posts on my findings:

Well and that is not all as I have been active in BizTalk forums and became moderator in February, went to my first MVP summit, got re-awarded in July, and had a great time during Windows Build. All in all it has been a fruitful year and as for 2012, hopefully you’ll see more blog posts, more wiki articles, and more presentations.

Ordina BizTalk Innovation Event: Monitoring and Administration

2012-01-04T05:36:00.001-08:00

I am organizing an event at Ordina on BizTalk Innovation with the topic “Monitoring and Administration”. This is the first event of a series of events under name “Ordina BizTalk Innovation” that will take place at my company Ordina. This and future events are open for customers, the community and Ordina professionals. The event on the 1st of February three speakers will do their presentations on BizTalk Monitoring and administration. During the event I will be the host.

Wouter Crooy, Senior BizTalk Consultant, will have a session on:

Custom Monitoring solutions for BizTalk, ESB Toolkit & WCF

Wouter will during his talk provide a number of custom solutions for monitoring a BizTalk solution and the ESB Toolkit . Using the standard tooling of BizTalk will get you a long way, still with some of the custom monitoring solutions you can have more insight in your own custom BizTalk solutions.

Saravana Kumar, BizTalk MVP, CEO of BizTalk360 will talk on:

Manage your BizTalk Server environment efficiently using BizTalk360

BizTalk 360 is a web based (Silverlight RIA) application primarily designed for supporting and monitoring Microsoft BizTalk Server environments. It addresses some of the common challenges organizations face on running the day to day operations of a BizTalk environment. Some of the key capabilities of BizTalk360 includes:

Fine grained authorization
Governance/Audit
Proactive Monitoring/Notification capabilities
Graphical Message Flow Viewer for Tracking data
Various dashboards (Environment, Application, BizTalk Server, SQL Server, Host etc)
Advanced Event Viewer
Integrated BAM Portal
Dynamic topology diagram
Message Box Viewer (MBV) integration
Knowledge base repository

There are various other features in addition to the above, that makes BizTalk 360 a must have application for any Microsoft BizTalk Server environments.

Lex Hegt, BizTalk Architect, will have a session on:

Lex will talk on BizTalk monitoring in general and provide an overview on existing tooling in context with BizTalk administration. He will also demonstrate the BizTalk Processing Monitor. This is a tool that, among other things, does (near) real-time monitoring of message flows through BizTalk systems enabling the administrator to quickly identifying issues.

You can register for the event here. The talks of Lex and Wouter will be in Dutch and Saravana’s talk in English. Also joining us during this event will be Tord Grad Nordahl BizTalk expert on BizTalk administration from Bouvet ASA (Norway).

Cheers.

Azure Service Bus EAI/EDI December 2011 CTP – EAI Oracle

2011-12-19T13:45:00.001-08:00

In my previous post I blogged about release of Azure Service Bus EAI/EDI December 2011 CTP last Friday and now I like to demonstrate an EAI solution involving Oracle. First I discuss the installation, labs environment, then the solution setup, deployment and test.

Installation

Installation of Azure Service Bus EAI/EDI 2011 CTP requires attention as I found out the hard way and I advice to carefully read and study the installation article on MSDN. Previous installed SDK need to be removed.

If you fail to do so you will receive error like below.

Note: You can run the RelayConfigurationInstaller.exe tool (which shipped with the previous versions of the Windows Azure AppFabric SDK) with the /u option to remove the WCF Extensions from machine.config.

Labs Environment

After you’ve installed the SDK and ServiceConnect both available through here, you can sign in to the labs environment using a Windows Live ID. Once you signed in you need to click AppFabric position left hand corner of dashboard. Then expand Services and click Service Bus.Click on New in upper left corner of dashboard. A new pop-up Window will appear.

Here you will fill in your Namespace and click Check Availability. Currently you cannot choose another Country/Region or Subscription. Click Create Namespace if it is available. You will then see in the Namespace being activated in LabSubscriptions node.

Once the Namespace is activated, you will able to expand the namespace and see that it is active.

When install ServiceBusConnect you want to see this screen in the end.

EAI Solution

To be able to create the same kind of solution you will need an Oracle 11g XE installed on your environment, you can read this post for guidance. In Oracle you have to create a new workspace and once you have logged in into Oracle click object browser and navigate to Demo_Customers table.

Next step after setting up Oracle is to open Visual Studio 2010, and select Create Project. In the list of project templates, select ServiceBus, and Enterprise Application Integration. Give it a descriptive name and click Ok.

Next create an new schema by right clicking the project and then select New item. Choose schema and give it a descriptive name.

When clicking Add the following Windows might pop up.

Choose Trust. Rename the Root node to Customer and add the following elements to schema as depicted below.

Now a LOB Relay and Target for Insert Operation will be created. In Server Explorer, right-click ServiceBus Connect Servers, and then click Add Server. This will prompt for the ServiceBus Connect Server Management URL. Specify the management URL. The ServiceBus Connect Server Management URL is path to the ManagementService.svc WCF service hosted in IIS. Runtime: ServiceBus Connect Service Runtime Components provides more information on the Service Bus Connect components within IIS. The Service Bus Connect Runtime is installed locally with the default settings, enter: http://localhost:8080/SBConnect/ManagementService.svc/ (or what you have defined).

Right-click the Oracle DB LobTarget and click Add Oracle DB Target… Click the Configure button. In the Security tab, configure the following properties:

In the Security Properties tab, configure the following properties:
- UserName provide username and password (i.e. SYSTEM)
In the URI Properties tab, configure the following properties:
- ServerAddress: name of your server
- ServiceName: XE
- ServiceType: Dedicated

Click Connect.In category select SCHEMA and table CUSTOMERS_DEMO, select INSERT operation and click Add.In Target Path, click Configure. The following window displays:

You will have to choose your service namespace (one that you have activated) and provide Issuer Name and Key.

Click Ok. Once the LobRelay is configured, configure the Enter LOB Target Sub-Path property, which can be any name you prefer. Click OK. You will now see the Oracle DB LobTarget in Server Explorer. The new LobTarget can be stopped and started.

If you look into the AFConnect database tabels on your database server you will information back:

Right click the created entity in Server Explorer, and then click Add schemas to OracleEAI.

The Schema generation dialog pops up.

Select credential Type as Username, and provide the Oracle credentials that you used install Oracle 11g XE. Click OK. The schemas are now created in the OracleEAI project.

Next steps involve mapping, right click the OracleEAI project, point to Add, and then click New Item and in the Add New Item dialog box, select Map, specify the map name as Customer_Oracle.trfm, and then click OK. The transform window will appear, select the source schema to Customer.xsd and the destination schema to generated schema. This is a new mapper and see Kent his post for more elaboration on it. Drag lines between the fields as depicted below.

You can test the mapping by providing an input instance like below.

Click Test Map and view outcome.

Now that mapping is done the next step is setting up xml request-reply bridge. You can double click on the .bcs file in the OracleEAI project to open the bridge configuration surface. Subsequently right-click anywhere on the bridge configuration surface and click Properties and then for the Service Namespace property, specify the registered service namespace.

Drag and drop an XML Request-Reply Bridge from toolbox to the bridge configuration surface. Open Server Explorer and navigate to created relay (in my case ordinaaim/customer/ordinaaim) and right click it and click Properties. Under Operations tab, copy the value of the first operation and save it to a notepad for later use (see picture below).

Ensure the value for Security is set to ConfiguredUserName. If not, set it now and provide the Oracle credentials that you used to setup Oracle (i.e. SYSTEM account).

Drag and drop the created relay to the bridge configuration surface and click on the connection in toolbox and configure a connection between XML Request-Reply Bridge and created relay through following steps:

Double click the XML Request-Reply Bridge on the bridge configuration surface.
Add the request and response schemas to the Message Type box as depicted below:

Add a transform to the Transform stage. Click the XmlTransform activity under Transform stage. In the Properties window, click the ellipsis (…) button against the Maps property. In the Maps Selection dialog box, select Customer_Oracle.trfm transform and click OK. The selected map will now be reflected in the bridge configuration.
Leave everything else in the bridge configuration to its default value.

Now you need to go back to bridge configuration surface (.bcs file) and click the connection between XML Request-Reply Bridge and the created relay entity (customer_ordinaaim in my case). In the Properties Window, click the ellipsis (…) button for Filter Condition and in the Route Filter Configuration dialog box, set the filter condition to Match All and click Ok.

Final steps is to set the Route action so that the outgoing message to the LOB application has a SOAP action header. Onthe bridge configuration surface, click the connection between XML Request-Reply Bridge and the created entity (i.e. customer_ordinaaim). In the Properties Window, click the ellipsis (…) button for Route Action and under Destination (Write-To) section, set the Type to SOAP and the Identifier to Action. Then under the Property (Read From) section, select Expression (i.e. in my case http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/AZURE/Table/DEMO_CUSTOMERS/Insert) and specify the value that you saved (operation). Click plus to add the property definition to the property definition table. Click OK in the Property Definition dialog box and then click Save to save changes to an Enterprise Application Integration project.

Note: Expression (i.e. soap action) in single quotes.

Last step is to enable the LOB relay by right clicking it and select enable. If you forget then you will this error when testing the solution.

Deploy EAI Solution

Once you have finished developing your solution you can build it and when it successfully builds deploy the solution. Right click the solution and click Deploy. Window below will pop-up

In the deployment window, the Service Namespace is a read only entity, and this value is reflected from the namespace set in the bridge configuration surface. The Service Namespace and Issuer name are present and you have to provide the Shared Secret. Click Deploy.

Test EAI Solution

Now that the solution has been deployed you want to test it.You first need to locate the MessageSender project in \Tools\MessageSender folder under the base directory of samples. Samples can be download from same location as SDK and ServiceBusConnect. You need to open this project and build it. Then you use the resulting MessageSender command line executable to send messages to the deployed bridge end points. This tool accepts command line parameter, and the sequence and usage of those parameters is given below:

MessageSender.exe <ServiceBusNamespace> <IssuerName> <Issuerkey> <RuntimeAddress> <MessageFilepath> <ContentType>

In my case I used the following parameters:

MessageSender.exe OrdinaAIM owner aKSi+p2uiITDK+YUXieOe7iadzC1TauQU6DwW2gsaVo= https://ordinaaim.servicebus.appfabriclabs.com/XmlRequestReplyBridge1 "C:\A Lap Around Windows Azure Service Bus\Projects\OracleEAI\Customer.xml" "application/xml"

note: key above is not real!

This console application sends the message to the deployed end point and prints the success/failure message. In my case a failure!

Upon successful completion, the DEMO_CustomerOrder table in Schema you created in Oracle 11g XE would have a new entry created. Not in my case yet!

I hope you have enjoyed reading this example of using Azure Service Bus EAI/EDI CTP with Oracle. I have followed the guidance provided from Microsoft for their sample using SQL Server. I have leveraged their tutorial for this post and extended it with many screenshots to make it more vivid and clear what is happening. Unfortunately until now I have not got it working as I am experiencing an error:

The server was unable to process the request due to an internal error.
For more information about the error, either turn on IncludeExceptionDetailInFaults
(either from ServiceBehaviorAttribute or from the <serviceDebug> configuration behavior)
on the server in order to send the exception information back to the client,
or turn on tracing as per the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 SDK documentation
and inspect the server trace logs.

This is the first CTP of this very promising technology and there is still a lot work to be done. You will not find any features like errorhandling (bumper could have used it here), rules (i.e. BizTalk BRE), monitoring or dashboards yet, but these might come with many other features in future releases. I have certainly enjoyed exploring this technology as some other MVP’s like Mikael Håkansson with his post on content based routing and Mick Badran with his post on Azure AppFabric Labs–EAI, Service Bus in the Cloud.

Cheers.

Windows Azure Service Bus EAI and EDI Labs

2011-12-16T08:25:00.001-08:00

Microsoft today has put Windows Azure Service Bus EAI and EDI Labs on its Windows Azure Platform. These labs provides integration capabilities for the Windows Azure Platform to extend on-premises applications to the cloud, provides rich messaging endpoints on the cloud to process and transform the messages, and helps organizations integrate with disparate applications, both on cloud and on-premises. In other words, Service Bus EAI and EDI Labs provides common integration capabilities (e.g. bridges, transforms, B2B messaging) on Windows Azure Service Bus.

Below you find list of resources (taken from Windows Azure Service Bus EAI and EDI Labs - December 2011 Release page):

Installing the Windows Azure Service Bus EAI and EDI Labs - December 2011: Supplies details about what is required to properly install and run Service Bus EAI and EDI Labs.

Service Bus EAI and EDI Labs - Tutorials: Start learning the basics of developing Service Bus EAI and EDI Labs solutions using these short tutorials.

Business to Business Messaging: Learn how Service Bus EAI and EDI Labs enables business-to-business messaging on Windows Azure

Rich Messaging Endpoints: Learn about the basic concepts about of rich messaging endpoints and how to use them in Service Bus EAI and EDI Labs.

Transforms: Learn how to use and configure transforms with rich messaging endpoints.

Service Bus Connect: Learn how to use Service Bus Connect in an EAI application to extend the reach of cloud-based applications to on-premises LOB applications.

Samples: Service Bus EAI and EDI Labs: Download the samples available for Service Bus EAI and EDI Labs.

This is great news for us BizTalk professionals and ones that are interested in integration capabilities in the cloud.

I can see the labs through my management portal:

Have fun.

Wiki-Ninja's on Technology: BizTalk Server

2011-12-12T01:19:00.001-08:00

If you like to know what BizTalk resources are available on TechNet Wiki and what community and Microsoft is contributing see latest blog post Wiki-Ninja's on Technology: BizTalk Server.

Cheers!

BizTalk Server 2010 R2: Continuing story….

2011-12-09T03:45:00.001-08:00

Last year communication of BizTalk has been a little cloudy. Will it be discontinued, will it be dead. Richard blogged on the BizTalk future story, and Tony kept discussion very lively with his talk on World Partner Conference this year. In the roadmap on Microsoft BizTalk site a vNext after 2010 was depicted.

A new release has been announced through BizTalk Server Team Blog: BizTalk Server 2010 R2. This is great news as people wondered when next release was due. This release will be delivered six months after Windows Server 8. To me it makes sense as the release will align not only with Server 8, but also VS 2011 and SQL Server 2012. Besides platform alignment other improvements have been announced like alignment with industry standards, adapter improvements, and more tighter integration with Azure. The release does not deviate much as what was shown on existing roadmap.

Exact dates of release of BizTalk Server 2010 R2 are not disclosed yet. I think when it will be release it will probably be renamed BizTalk Server 2012 or BizTalk Server 8. I personally am very happy with the announcement of this release and Microsoft continuing support for this great product and dedication to keep improving it. BizTalk is not dead or going away soon and I think it to stay for a long time.

Cheers.

BizTalk360 Another release more capabilities: Version 3.1

2011-12-01T13:06:00.001-08:00

BizTalk360 evolves to be a more and more mature product. In past I and other BizTalk MVP’s have written stories on this monitoring product (I used to call it a tool, but it has gone that stage it’s a product and a very good one). I have been impressed by it since the first time it almost a year ago.

On Saravana’s blog you find a detailed overview what is new in this 3.1 release. On my VM I have 2.5.790.0 version, which I uninstalled before installing the 3.1.335.0 version i.e. public beta. And I must say this was an easy process lasting only a few minutes. Only thing I needed to do is deleted the BizTalk360 database in my SQL Server database.The msi installer has been improved.

One of the new feature is the graphical end-to-end message flow viewer. I tested this by enabling tracking in one of my orchestrations. I enabled all tracking options in ports and orchestration. I ran a message through orchestration and went to BizTalk360 Tracking Data Queries and click pipeline (XmlReceive) belonging to receive location that picks the messages and sends them into MessageBox to be picked up by orchestration.

This comes very clear when dialog pops up and I click Transmitter on pipeline, then transmitter of orchestration and I get diagram shown below.

I conclude that this is a very handy feature and works easy with guidance given by Saravana blog post on this feature.

Thumbs up.

BizTalk Adapter Pack 2010: Calling a View in SQL Azure

2011-11-30T13:32:00.001-08:00

I have posted a new sample on Code Gallery: BizTalk Server 2010 Adapter Pack: Call SQL Azure View.This is one of samples I have used in my talks on BizTalk Adapter Pack 2010 Integration (A Lap Around BizTalk Adapter Pack 2010) I held in Stockholm for Swedish BizTalk User Group and in Nieuwegein for BizTalk User Group The Netherlands. Hopefully you experiment with it yourself. If you want to work with SQL Azure and want to create a database, see How to Create a SQL Azure Database wiki on TechNet.

Cheers.

BizTalk Server 2010 Patterns Book: Win an eCopy

2011-11-25T06:43:00.001-08:00

Begin of September when I was staying in Toronto I posted a review on Dan Rosanova’s book BizTalk Server 2010 Patterns. Currently this book is on market now and I have the pleasure of giving this book in electronic format to three of my readers. To win eCopy of this book please send me an email (SteefJan@msn.com) with your details and why you want this book. Closing data will be end of the Friday the 9th of December.

Update: Winners are Rajesh Kolla, Cecilia Magnusson,and Jonathan Schellack.

Good luck!

My First Ten TechNet Wiki Articles on BizTalk

2011-11-21T01:55:00.001-08:00

Last couple of week I written a few wiki article for TechNet Wiki a place, where content is generated by community about Microsoft technologies for the community. I very much like the concept and glad I was able to contribute (see my interview on Wiki). Below you will find a list of my ten completed wiki articles on BizTalk:

First the featured article BizTalk Server 2010 and discusses BizTalk and shows all resource on its features.
Second a list on all available BizTalk Server 2010 community tools in BizTalk Server 2010 – Tools.
Third article is on BizTalk Server 2010 Adapter Pack an enhancement of previous adapter pack 2.0.
Fourth article is a short overview on BizTalk Server 2010 and created before I written complete article on BizTalk and its features.
Fifth article on BizTalk databases as a survival type of article listing all relevant resources on how to maintain healthy BizTalk environment with focus on BizTalk databases.
Subsequently I written another article listing resources for recovery of BizTalk itself not its databases, but this article goes hand in hand with the previous fifth article.
Seventh article is a BizTalk beginners guide listing all resources for a beginner and a little outline how he/she should proceed.
Subsequently I also written a preparation guide for 70-595 exam that can be read in conjunction with beginners guide.
Ninth article talks about monitoring tools for BizTalk and lists all alternatives to SCOM.
Final tenth article is a collection of resources for BAM and is again a survival type of article.

I hope you will find these articles useful and feel free to edit them (correct, add, enhance) as that is intention of wiki’s. I will be working on next couple of articles in near future, which will be more in depth BizTalk ones.

Cheers!

BizTalk User Group Meeting 30 November 2011

2011-11-21T00:33:00.001-08:00

My company Ordina will host next Dutch BizTalk User Group Meeting. This event we will have four speakers and agenda will be:

Steef-Jan Wiggers (Ordina) - "BizTalk Server Adapter 2010 Integration"
Jeroen Boiten (GasUnie) – "BizTalk at Gas Unie"
Jasper Defesche (Axon Olympus) - "BizTalk and Dynamics AX"
Jeroen Hendriks (Axon Olympus) – "Robust BizTalk DTAP”

It will be all Dutch talks and if you able to attend you can sign up here.

My Code Gallery BizTalk Samples

2011-11-02T10:52:00.001-07:00

Past few weeks I have contributed the following samples to MSDN Code Gallery:

BizTalk Table Operations - Messaging

This sample will show how to perform simple table operations using WCF-SQL Adapter a part of BizTalk Server Adapter Pack. The Sample provided by Microsoft shows only Select statement operation. This sample will show all the other operations. It is based on the BizTalk Adapter Pack 2010 WCF-Custom with sqlBinding Table Operations through Messaging solution post.

Polling SQL Azure Table - BizTalk Adapter Pack 2010

This sample will show polling a SQL Azure database table. It is based on my Polling SQL Azure Database Table with WCF-SQL Adapter post.

Sample - Table Operations on Oracle 11g XE with OracleDbBinding

This sample will show all the Oracle Table operations (in comparison with SQL, but there a few differences!). It is based on my Table Operation on Oracle 11g XE with OracleDbBinding post.

WCF-SQL Adapter Stored Procedure : SQL Azure

This sample will make use of BizTalk Adapter Pack as well and call Stored-Procedure in Azure. Sample is based on my SQL Azure Stored Procedure blog post.

ExecuteReader, ExecuteNonQuery, ExecuteScalar Operation with BizTalk Messaging

This sample will demonstrate three query operations through messaging in stead of using the WCF Service Model. BizTalk Server 2010 Adapter Pack Samples show only invoke ExecuteReader operation in SQL Server using ,NET. This sample shows all operations through messaging.

Cheers!

BizTalk Server 2010–Tools

2011-10-30T09:18:00.001-07:00

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

2011-10-23T11:53:00.001-07:00

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:

Hopefully you find one of more article that are useful for you to learn about capabilities of BizTalk or new ways to integrate with BizTalk.

Cheers!

BizTalk User Group Sweden : My debut as International Speaker

2011-10-13T06:03:00.001-07:00

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 am looking forward to meet you and present my story on the BizTalk Adapter Pack. Thanks Johan, Mikael and Microsoft Sweden for inviting me and hosting the event.

Cheers!

BizTalk360 new V2.5 release–Message Box Viewer Integration

2011-10-10T13:54:00.001-07:00

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 Viewer first as licensing restrictions prohibit bundling with BizTalk360. On BizTalk360 the steps are explain for configuring MessageBoxViewer. If you do not follow these steps you will see error like below:

and nothing will appear in BizTalk360 Message Box Viewer – Reports!

If you do have accept the EULA, but still see no reports than check if key below exists.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\MBVConsole\EULA]
"EULAAccepted"="YES"

In my x64 environment it set the following key after accepting EULA of MBVConsole (and not the above):

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MBVConsole\EULA]
"EULAAccepted"="YES"

After configuration you set schedule (day(s) and time(s)) and the click Save.

I set schedule on everyday at evening/night on 21:00 – 06:00 (as a test, later I rescheduled to only 21:00). And soon as MBV has run you will see report appear like below.

There is more besides having a report and that is BizTalk360 also allows you to send emails based on MBV report thresholds. For instance if in the last run MBV reports a couple of critical errors (let’s say 5), you can configure BizTalk360 to send a notification!

This is just one of new features of BizTalk360. There is more to explore through Feature Tour.

Cheers!

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

2011-10-06T10:52:00.001-07:00

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 BizTalk Adapter Pack 2010 on x64”). After installation you will need to add adapter manually if you want to use SQL adapter through a WCF-SQL port. The SQL adapter can be also used in BizTalk as a WCF-Custom port. If you want to use the SQL adapter through a WCF-Custom port, you do not need to add the WCF-Custom port to the BizTalk Server Administration console, because the WCF-Custom port is added to the BizTalk Server Administration console by default. When you use Consume Adapter Service Tool in BizTalk Project it will create xml schema’s based on operation contract (inbound or outbound) and WCF-Custom binding file.

To perform operations on SQL Server through messaging by using the WCF-Custom adapter, you must perform a set of design-time and run-time tasks using Visual Studio and BizTalk Server Administration console respectively. The following high level tasks are required to create a message based solution:

Create BizTalk project, and generate schema.
Create messages instances.
Build and deploy the BizTalk project.
Configure the application.
Start the application.

BizTalk Project and generate schema (‘s)

First, we need the XML schemas, which represent our data source. By installing the WCF LOB Adapter SDK, you will have a metadata browser built into Visual Studio. NET at your disposal. You can access this from a BizTalk project by right-clicking the project, choosing Add then Generated Items and selecting Consume Adapter Service.

This action opens a new window that provides us the interface to connect to, browse, and select database objects for service interaction. The very first thing we need to do here is choose the sqlBinding as the service binding, and then configure a connection string. The simplest working connection string consists of an Initial Catalog value for the database, and a valid Server name entry. Note that the adapter now uses a connection string in the form of a URI instead of the traditional Data Source=;Initial_Catalog=;User_ Id=;Password= style.

Once a satisfactory connection string is defined, the Connect button can be clicked to establish an active connection to the target database. If the connection is successful, one see the category browser with a set of database object categories.

On the root "/" character a range of un-typed generic functions are displayed, which can be exploited. Click on tables and you will see a number of Tables, select Products.

Click the Delete, Insert, Select and Update statement in available categories and operations. Click the Add button to add the operations. After clicking the Ok button at the bottom, schemas (and a single binding file) is added to our associated BizTalk project in Visual Studio.NET.

The binding is required later on, when solution is deployed and ports have to be configured for SQL Server (i.e. Send Port). This binding has to be edited for each operation (Select, Update, Insert, and Delete), because there is no corresponding logical ports as this a complete message based solution (if you keep original binding file and import in than you will run into error described in this post Why does the Adapter say ‘Action is not understood’ even though I am using the binding file generated by the ‘Consume Adapter Service’ wizard?). I choose to create four new binding files, each a copy of original, but all with a single operation in BtsActionMapping.

Create message instances

Next step is to generate messages from generated schema, which can be routed from Recieve location in Receive Port to a send port with WCF-Custom Adapter. Generating the first message is easy, as you can right click on the TableOperation.dbo.Products.xsd and select Generate Instance and an instance of top element is created (e.g. Select).

You will get a instance of message as depicted below:

By opening up the TableOperation.dbo.Products.xsd in file-editor you can move the next operation to top, so you can then in Visual Studio generate the next instance for an operation or you can use XML-Editor inside Visual Studio (closing schema, right click and select open with… and then select XML Editor) to move elements around. In end you will have four xml instance for TableOperations, save to file as xml (type all files, encoding UTF-8!).

Build and deploy the BizTalk project

Only schemas are required for a messaging only scenario with WCF-SQL Adapter to perform operations on SQL Server. Therefore after assigning a strong name and application name to BizTalk project it can be build and deployed.

Configure the application

After solution has been deployed it is time to configure the ports. FILE ports are easy and focus here will be configuring the WCF-Custom Send Ports. Through BizTalk Management Console one can browse to BTS.SQL.Table.Operations application and right click the application and select Import Bindings … and navigate to file called WcfSendPort_SqlAdapterBinding_Custom_Select.bindinginfo.xml, select and click Open. You will notice that a Send Port will be created automatically. You can repeat the import for binding:

WcfSendPort_SqlAdapterBinding_Custom_Delete.bindinginfo.xml
WcfSendPort_SqlAdapterBinding_Custom_Insert.bindinginfo.xml
WcfSendPort_SqlAdapterBinding_Custom_Update.bindinginfo.xml

Next steps are setting filters on WCF-Send Port and File Send Port. Configuration is as follows:

PortName	Type	Filter
RPTableOperationIn	FILE
SPTableOperationOut	FILE	BTS.MessageType == http://schemas.microsoft.com/Sql/2008/05/TableOp/dbo/Products#UpdateResponse Or BTS.MessageType == http://schemas.microsoft.com/Sql/2008/05/TableOp/dbo/Products#SelectResponse Or BTS.MessageType == http://schemas.microsoft.com/Sql/2008/05/TableOp/dbo/Products#InsertResponse Or BTS.MessageType == http://schemas.microsoft.com/Sql/2008/05/TableOp/dbo/Products#DeleteResponse
WcfSendPort_SqlAdapterBinding_TableOp_dbo_Products_Delete	WCF-Custom	BTS.MessageType == http://schemas.microsoft.com/Sql/2008/05/TableOp/dbo/Products#Delete
WcfSendPort_SqlAdapterBinding_TableOp_dbo_Products_Insert	WCF-Custom	BTS.MessageType == http://schemas.microsoft.com/Sql/2008/05/TableOp/dbo/Products#Insert
WcfSendPort_SqlAdapterBinding_TableOp_dbo_Products_Select	WCF-Custom	BTS.MessageType == http://schemas.microsoft.com/Sql/2008/05/TableOp/dbo/Products#Select
WcfSendPort_SqlAdapterBinding_TableOp_dbo_Products_Update	WCF-Custom	BTS.MessageType == http://schemas.microsoft.com/Sql/2008/05/TableOp/dbo/Products#Update

Start the application

In the end your messaging solutions can be depicted as below. After configuration you can start BizTalk application. Schema below gives an overview what will happen once drop message in folder (e.g. In folder).

I hope with this post I was able to show all operations (CRUD) on table. The sample from MSDN shows only SELECT operation and here I have extended on that, showing all operations and how to setup WCF-Custom Adapter using sqlBinding and steps to do, before you can execute all operations on a SQL Table.

You can find sample for this post through MSDN Code Gallery: BizTalk Table Operations – Messaging (Don't forget to rate or tell me what you think.)

Cheers!

BizTalk Server Unleashed 2010 Kindle version on my iPad

2011-10-05T02:48:00.001-07:00

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 is definitely your moneys worth;
I liked the BizTalk Server Pro books by APRESS, but there is not a 2010 version and this book is next best thing if not better;
There is for first time a book that covers rules engine in detail (those are the next chapters I will read )

It will be a welcome addition to other BizTalk books you have or like Sandro states in his blog post it is one of the five books you should have.

Query Notification SQL Azure BizTalk WCF-SQL: Possible?

2011-10-04T08:29:00.001-07:00

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.

When I click Ok a Notification.xsd is generated together with WcfReceivePort_SqlAdapterBinding_Custom.bindinginfo.xml file. I deployed project after signing and giving appropriate name for BizTalk application.

Important step after deployment of schema’s is importing the custom binding file and setting some properties (i.e. Notification Statement). Importing a binding is a straightforward operation inside BizTalk Administration Console. After the receive port and location is created you can double click receive location and then Configure Type (WCF-Custom). URI is present in General Tab and can be left as is. In next tab you see binding information of sqlBinding. In Notification Statement I have the following statement:

I also changed inboundOperationType to Notification. In the tab called Other I configured the credentials filling in user name and password for the account to access database on SQL Azure. After that you are ready for receive side. As I just wanted to poll data and send it to file, I also created a Send Port that uses FILE Adapter. I configured the adapter to send data to folder with a filter that subscribes to message type http://schemas.microsoft.com/Sql/2008/05/Notification/#Notification.

As you can I basically have simple solution now that will send notifications from SQL Azure database table and routes these notifications as message to a folder on-premise (i.e. my virtual machine). At least that is what I except, but I am getting the following error.

Error gives me no information what exactly is wrong or point me to any directions. I do not think for now that this capability is supported by SQL Azure. I would prefer polling for SQL Azure as implementation was easy without any problem. With notification I spend some time to figure out the problem, which I could not find in timely manner. To be continued ….

[Update] Thanks to Saravana I know now SQL Broker is not supported and so Notification capabilitity is not possible with SQL Azure.

BizTalk Operations Using a Web Console

2011-10-03T11:38:00.001-07:00

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 excellent User Experience (see latest post by Kent BizTalk: Adding BizTalk 360 to your Environment). BizTalk360 can be an alternative to SCOM using BizTalk management packs.

There is another alternative if you desire a Web based UI, but do not or wish to use a product like BizTalk360. That is BizTalk Web Console you can download since this week from Codeplex and it was developed by Abdul Rafay another fellow BizTalk MVP.

As I did not see it in action I was interested to see what it can do. According to description it allows administrators/operators to perform the following operations from the browser:

Stop/Start/Restart Host Instances
View Status of Service Instances by applying queries to the group.
Stop/Start/Unenlist Orchestrations, Send Ports and Send Port Group
Stop/Start Receive Locations

I download the tool and installed it on my VM with BizTalk 2010 according to the release notes. I then opened up the BTS2010WebConsole in my browser and started some operations like Stop/Start/Restart Host Instances. That worked without a problem.

I then tried some others operations and they worked fine too.

These basic operations are available from the browser and the UI is very basic and straight forward. The number of operations is still limited though and resembles a subset of all capabilities the BizTalk Administration Console offers.It is a start and for those who want to have custom web based access to their BizTalk group they can leverage this project to their own needs. If you do have enough budget in your organization and prefer to have an off the shelve product than BizTalk360 is definitely a product you should consider!

Polling SQL Azure Database Table with WCF-SQL Adapter

2011-10-02T12:37:00.001-07:00

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 query windows will appear on the right. Here I executed the following statement:

USE [master]
GO

CREATE DATABASE [CustomerOnlineDb]
GO

In left pane you will see new database in databases tree. Select that database and click New Query again, a new query pane will appear. Here I executed the following statement:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[CustomerAddress](
    [CustomerAddressID] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
    [FirstName] [nvarchar](50) NOT NULL,
    [MiddleName] [nvarchar](50) NOT NULL,
    [LastName] [nvarchar](50) NOT NULL,
    [FullName] [nvarchar](50) NOT NULL,
    [CompanyName] [nvarchar](50) NOT NULL,
    [FullAddress] [nvarchar](50) NOT NULL,
    [PostalCode] [nvarchar](50) NOT NULL,
    [City] [nvarchar](50) NOT NULL,
    [StateProvince] [nvarchar](50) NOT NULL,
    [Country] [nvarchar](50) NOT NULL,
    [Polled] [bit] NOT NULL
CONSTRAINT [PK_CustomerAddress] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED
(
    [CustomerAddressID] ASC
)
)

INSERT INTO dbo.CustomerAddress(FirstName, MiddleName, LastName, FullName, CompanyName, FullAddress, PostalCode, City, StateProvince, Country, Polled)
VALUES('Catherine','R.','Abel','Catherine R. Abel', 'Professional Sales and Service','57251 Serene Blvd','91411','Van Nuys','California','United States',0)
GO

INSERT INTO dbo.CustomerAddress(FirstName, MiddleName, LastName, FullName, CompanyName, FullAddress, PostalCode, City, StateProvince, Country, Polled)
VALUES('Frances','B.','Smith','Frances B. Smith', 'Area Bike Accessories','6900 Sisk Road','95354','Modesto','California','United States',0)
GO

INSERT INTO dbo.CustomerAddress(FirstName, MiddleName, LastName, FullName, CompanyName, FullAddress, PostalCode, City, StateProvince, Country, Polled)
VALUES('Margaret','J.','Adams','Magaret J. Adams', 'Bicycle Accessories and Kits','Lewiston Mall','83501','Lewiston','Idaho','United States',0)
GO

INSERT INTO dbo.CustomerAddress(FirstName, MiddleName, LastName, FullName, CompanyName, FullAddress, PostalCode, City, StateProvince, Country, Polled)
VALUES('Samuel','N.','Agcaoili','Samuel N. Agcaoili', 'Vinyl and Plastic Goods Corporation',' 25800-130 King Street West','M4B 1V5','Toronto','Ontario','Canada',0)
GO

INSERT INTO dbo.CustomerAddress(FirstName, MiddleName, LastName, FullName, CompanyName, FullAddress, PostalCode, City, StateProvince, Country, Polled)
VALUES('Robert','E.','Ahlering','Robert E. Ahlering', 'Fun Toys and Bikes','6500 East Grant Road','85701','Tucson','Arizona','United States',0)
GO

I then executed SELECT * FROM dbo.CustomerAddress TSQL Statement and check if there is data.

I have set up now a database in SQL Azure with one table containing five records. The next step is to create a BizTalk project and having a xml schema and WCF-Custom Receive Port Binding generated for table in my SQL Azure database I wish to poll. I configured the URI to connect to SQL Azure (security, connection string and adapter binding properties), choose inbound operations and from available categories Polling. When I click Ok a DataSetSchema.xsd and Polling.xsd is generated together with WcfReceivePort_SqlAdapterBinding_Custom.bindinginfo.xml file. I deployed project after signing and giving appropriate name for BizTalk application.

Notice that with the Consume Adapter Service Wizard you have ability to choose between three type of inbound operations: Polling, TypedPolling and Notification. This means you can with:

Polling operation a data set as part of the polling message returned.
TypedPolling operation a strongly-typed polling message returned.
Notification operation a notification message returned.

Important step after deployment of schema’s is importing the custom binding file and setting some properties (i.e. pollDataAvailableStatement, pollingStatement). Importing a binding is a straightforward operation inside BizTalk Administation Console. After the receive port and location is created you can double click receive location and then Configure Type (WCF-Custom). URI is present in General Tab and can be left as is. In next tab you see binding information of sqlBinding. In polledDataAvailableStatement I have the following statement: SELECT COUNT(*) FROM dbo.CustomerAddress and for pollingStatement: SELECT * FROM dbo.CustomerAddress WHERE Polled = 0; UPDATE dbo.CustomerAddress SET Polled=1 WHERE Polled=0;

I also changed useAmbientTransaction property to False (for operations where the adapter client does not write any data to the SQL Server database, such as a Select operation, you might not want the additional overhead of performing the operations inside a transaction. In such cases, you can configure the SQL adapter to perform operations without a transactional context by setting the UseAmbientTransaction binding property to false.)

In the tab called Other I configured the credentials filling in user name and password for the account to access database on SQL Azure. After that you are ready for receive side. As I just wanted to poll data and send it to file, I also created a Send Port that uses FILE Adapter. I configured the adapter to send data to folder with a filter that subscribes to message type http://schemas.microsoft.com/Sql/2008/05/Polling/#Polling.

As you can I basically have messaging solution now that polls data from SQL Azure database table and routes the polled data as a single message to a folder on-premise (i.e. my virtual machine). Once I start the application I see after a few seconds a xml file containing data.

If I perform a query inside my SQL Management Studio I noticed the column Polled is 1 for every record.

With WCF-SQL Adapter I am able to poll a SQL Azure table and not just polling, but calling a Stored-Procedure or table operations are also possible using WCF-SQL adapter, available through BizTalk Adapter Pack 2010. I conclude that you can use WCF-SQL adapter for on-premise SQL Server and its cloud variant SQL Azure!

Windows Azure Service Bus Topics and Queues

2011-09-27T05:56:00.001-07:00

A topic that I think BizTalk professional find appealing in Windows Azure is the Service Bus (part of Windows Azure AppFabric). Service Bus provides secure messaging and connectivity capabilities that enable building distributed and disconnected applications in the cloud, as well hybrid application across both on-premises and the cloud.

One of new features is topics and queues. Clemens Vasters did a talk on Windows Azure Service Bus Topics and Queues during Windows Build and an advanced one, which you find on his blog.

You can work with this new feature through Windows Azure AppFabric SDK V1.5 - September 2011. The version 1.5 SDK includes an updated Service Bus assembly that includes support for durable, or “brokered” messaging features, such as queues, topics, and subscriptions. These features require the .NET Framework version 4.0. (Note: If you have a dependency on the .NET Framework version 3.5, you should download or continue to use version 1.0 of the AppFabric SDK.)

If you have virtual machine available or laptop following requirements are applicable:

Account Requirements Before running the samples in the SDK, you must have one or more service namespaces. To create a Windows Azure AppFabric service namespace, you have to register or login Windows Azure Platform Portal.
Runtime Requirements The Windows Azure AppFabric SDK samples are available as Visual Studio 2010 solutions (C# and VB) and require Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 higher to run. The SDK is supported on Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, and Windows XP operating systems. For Windows Server AppFabric integration, IIS7.5 is required.

Documenting BizTalk Environment and BizTalk Solution

2011-09-23T05:18:00.001-07:00

When it comes to documentation with BizTalk it can be challenging task. What do and what do I not document and how do I document it. In my view there are three types of documentation when it comes to BizTalk in my opinion. That is:

BizTalk Environment (Design) document
Functional Design of BizTalk Solution
Technical (Design) of BizTalk Solution

BizTalk Environment (design) documentation you can described the different BizTalk environment Development, UAT and Production. In this type of document you can roughly describe the following:

Purpose;
Design Decisions regarding environments;
Considerations/Issues;
Landscape (how does it fit with in IT-Landscape in Enterprise);
MS BizTalk and SQL Server editions;
SQL Server configuration (sizing disk, clustering e.a.);
ICT Policy (Back up, Anti-virus, Patching, e.a.) applied in Enterprise;
Operating Systems;
Security Settings;
Backup and Restore (procedures e.a.);
BizTalk Group Configuration (clustering, availability e.a.);
Host configuration;

To add you in documenting the environment or take into consideration (i.e. reference material) is MSDN Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010 Operations Guide.

Functional Design you describe how solution will work, which service it will call, what type of message’s it excepts, processes and sends. You can use notation symbols found in EAI Patterns site and create a functional model for your BizTalk solution (see example below).

You can also use UML like state diagram to depict process that is implemented in BizTalk solution (see picture below).

Besides diagrams, you will also document specifications for messages (data types, restrictions, e.a.), security settings, protocols, message patterns, and so on.

Finally Technical (design) documentation of BizTalk solution and its configuration is fairly simple as you use BizTalk documenter for it. This is tool found on codeplex that can automatically generate a document (compiled chm, and even HTML for 2010 version).You can start documenter and following screen will be shown.

Click Next, Select if you want to completely document entire configuration of specific BizTalk application.

Click Next, you can select (this is new with BizTalk 2010 documenter) SSO configuration e.a.

Click Next, choose output options.

Finally you can click Generate Documentation and documentation will generated for you in desired format.

As you can see working with documenter is pretty straight forward and type of documentation can be realized with minimal effort. You can keep this documentation easy up to date when changes are made to BizTalk solution. Versioning your solution and its documentation is very important here! Documentation of BizTalk environment will take more effort and will be done in MS Word with perhaps drawings from Visio (there are BizTalk stencils, see post by Sandro). Functional documentation regarding your BizTalk solution will also require some effort, but vital before implementing your solution. Usually MS Word and Visio are used here as well.

Comments are welcome as I am interested in your view on documenting BizTalk.

Cheers!

BizTalk Server 2010 Patterns by Dan Rosanova

2011-09-06T16:47:00.001-07:00

Currently I am in Toronto staying at friend enjoying some free time before heading to San Francisco, and SoCal for the Windows Build Conference. Still I find some time to write this post, which I wanted to as BizTalk Server 2010 Patterns book is there for pre-order. A new BizTalk book written by Dan Rosanova, two time MVP BizTalk Server, and over a decade over of experience delivering solutions on Microsoft platforms in different branches. It is published by PACKT and reviewed by myself, fellow MVP Randal van Splunteren and Rene Brauwers, basically an all Dutch BizTalk Technical Review team.

I enjoyed reviewing it and found that the author has put in tremendous effort together with a lot of people at PACKT and fellow reviewers to be able to publish such a fine book. I realize it may sound/read like I am shamelessly plugging/promoting this book, but I really mean it. Therefor I am going to tell you why I mean it and why as an professional integration professional, consultant or architect in Microsoft space need to buy this book.

First of all it is a great book, and in first part it extensively details the important parts of BizTalk, how to structure your solution, XLANG, architecture and its components like BAM, artefacts (i.e. orchestrations, pipelines, maps), operation architecture (i.e. scalability, availability), (unit) testing and messaging concepts. The second part the focus shifts from theory to practice and will be very appealing for professionals that develop BizTalk solutions. This part delivers you the skills to error handling, WCF-SQL Adapter capabilities, BRE (i.e. policies, vocabularies and rules), dealing with flat files and bindings, BAM, SQL Broker (Notifications), SharePoint, orchestration patterns (i.e. conveys), handling zombies and some other concepts.

Second reason is that this book neatly fits in with other BizTalk books published by PACKT like :

Third and final reason you will be a better BizTalk professional or architect, when applying the knowledge found in BizTalk Patterns book and others. Who wouldn’t want that!

Book is available through Amazon and PACKT is self, so go to either of one and order it!

Cheers, and now I am off to diner.

What new Training Kit BizTalk 2010

2011-08-26T09:08:00.001-07:00

There is a new training kit for BizTalk 2010. It contains:

Hands On Labs

Creating BizTalk Maps with the new Mapper
Consuming a WCF Service
Publishing Schemas and Orchestrations as WCF Services
Integrating with Microsoft SQL Server
Integrating using the FTP Adapter
Developers - Create a Role and Party-based Integration Solution
Exploring the New Settings Dashboard
Monitoring BizTalk Operations using System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2
Administrators - Create a Role and Party-based Integration Solution

Presentations and Videos

Introduction and New Features Overview
The New and Improved Mapper
Updated Adapter Features
Trading Partner Management
Configuring Performance and Application Settings
Monitoring BizTalk Using Operations Manager

BizTalk 2010 Environment

You will be needing a BizTalk 2010 environment to do the labs and for that you have a couple of options:

a) Create an environment yourself if you have access to resources like MSDN

b) Download the virtual disk contain BizTalk environment. You will need Window 2008 Hyper V for that. Workaround is that after downloading the VHD you convert it to VMDK and mount in VMWare workstation.

c) Download the BizTalk Administration Kit Virtual Hard Disk also containing training for administrators. Apply same workaround if you want it in VMWare workstation.

Success!

BizTalk RFID and StreamInsight Talk

2011-08-23T00:20:00.001-07:00

Coming Monday I will present together with my colleague Wouter on BizTalk RFID and StreamInsight (Complex Event Processing). It is what my company calls a “Innoveer jij mee sessie” and these talks are about innovation. I did similar talk a few months back on BizTalk AppFabric Connect. Talks are in Dutch and hosted at or Headquarters in Nieuwegein. It is open for public and you are free to register here.

If you cannot make it the talk following resources will cover what we will talk about:

TechEd 2010 StreamInsight Session and Demo
Microsoft StreamInsight: Introduction to Complex Event Processing with SQL Server 2008 R2 StreamInsight
The Eco System for RFID in BizTalk (google download PDF)

If you can make it and looking forward seeing you at presentation.

Cheers!

BizTalk 2010 : Line of Business System Integration

2011-08-04T05:57:00.001-07:00

Packt Publishing has released another great BizTalk resource by title of Microsoft BizTalk 2010: Line of Business Integration.

Authors have done an excellent job detailing integration with Dynamics (CRM,AX), SalesForce, SharePoint, and SAP. There was not much documentation on integration with Dynamics for instance and most it was out dated. Currently there a couple of BizTalk books out there and all they focus mainly on out-of-box features and capabilities. None of them really talked about capabilities offered by BizTalk Adapter Pack that has been out there a couple years now. Line-Of-Business adapters in this package enable integration with SAP, Oracle, Oracle eBusiness Suite, Siebel and and SQL Server. This book does deal with integration with a couple of these LOB systems.

Besides that it shows how to integrate with SharePoint, and Dynamics two other Microsoft Products, which may seem that that easy to integrate with. It isn't, as it can be quite complex, but with guidance provided in this book it will make life easier for you. If professionals like yourself are facing issues on current projects with these systems, or need guidance on how prepare yourselves before going to do integration project, or want more background/knowledge than this book will be extremely useful for you.

I myself have bought the book and promoted it during a talk on Sales Force integration I gave to BizTalk Dutch User Group as it was a great resource for preparation and leveraging samples.

The Future of Middleware and the BizTalk Roadmap

2011-07-14T12:59:00.001-07:00

If you interested in future of BizTalk watch the latest talk of Tony Meleg during WPC 2011 Los Angeles: AP03 - The Future of Middleware and the BizTalk Roadmap.

Calling Stored Procedure Oracle 11g Using WCF-Custom OracleDbBinding

2011-07-13T08:47:00.001-07:00

In this post I like to show how to call a stored procedure in Oracle 11g XE performing an insert and an update. To create a stored procedure in Oracle 11g I look for guidance and found at Oracle® Database PL/SQL Packages and Types Reference, and PSOUG Insert and Update. I created the following two procedures:

create or replace procedure "INSERT_CUSTOMER"
(customer_name IN VARCHAR2,
customer_street IN VARCHAR2,
customer_city IN VARCHAR2,
customer_state IN VARCHAR2,
customer_photo IN BLOB)
is
begin
INSERT into customer (name, street, city, state, photo) values (customer_name, customer_street, customer_city, customer_state, customer_photo);
end;

create or replace procedure "UPDATE_CUSTOMER_ADDRESS"
(customer_name IN VARCHAR2,
customer_street IN VARCHAR2,
customer_city IN VARCHAR2,
customer_state IN VARCHAR2,
customer_photo IN BLOB)
is
begin
UPDATE customer SET street=customer_street, city=customer_city, state=customer_state WHERE name=customer_name;
end;

Both are very basic stored procedures. Next step in this little endeavor is creating a BizTalk project and create schemas for both procedures using the Consume Service Adapter Wizard.

After hitting OK a schema and binding file is created. Schema’s are depicted in screenshot below.

I build the solution after signing and providing it with application name. Next step is deploying the schema and configure the send port (by importing the binding file). Created Send Port contain two SOAP Actions and this needs to be one in my scenario (messaging). Two SOAP Action result in an error:

For calling stored-procedure to insert a new customer I have send port with following SOAPAction defined:

With a filter for MessageType:

http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/POLLING/Procedure/INSERT_CUSTOMER#INSERT_CUSTOMER

And I created a new Send Port with SOAPAction:

With a filter for MessageType:

http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/POLLING/Procedure/UPDATE_CUSTOMER_ADDRESS#INSERT_CUSTOMER_ADDRESS

In both Send Port I added credentials and changed useAmbientTransaction setting to False (see also my previous post). Finally I created a Send Port to send both response to file with following filter:

BTS.MessageType == http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/POLLING/Procedure#INSERT_CUSTOMERResponse
Or
BTS.MessageType == http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/POLLING/Procedure#UPDATE_CUSTOMER_ADDRESSResponse

and a receive port for incoming messages. When I test my application with following message:

<ns0:INSERT_CUSTOMER xmlns:ns0="http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/POLLING/Procedure">
<ns0:CUSTOMER_NAME>Sarah Ralls</ns0:CUSTOMER_NAME>
<ns0:CUSTOMER_STREET>8th Street</ns0:CUSTOMER_STREET>
<ns0:CUSTOMER_CITY>Bellevue</ns0:CUSTOMER_CITY>
<ns0:CUSTOMER_STATE>WA</ns0:CUSTOMER_STATE>
<ns0:CUSTOMER_PHOTO></ns0:CUSTOMER_PHOTO>
</ns0:INSERT_CUSTOMER>

I receive this message in my out folder:

<INSERT_CUSTOMERResponse xmlns="http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/POLLING/Procedure" />

And I check the database to see if record with Sarah Ralls has been created:

This works out. I then offered the following message to update the address:

<ns0:UPDATE_CUSTOMER_ADDRESS xmlns:ns0="http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/POLLING/Procedure">
<ns0:CUSTOMER_NAME>Sarah Ralls</ns0:CUSTOMER_NAME>
<ns0:CUSTOMER_STREET>9th Street</ns0:CUSTOMER_STREET>
<ns0:CUSTOMER_CITY>Bellevue</ns0:CUSTOMER_CITY>
<ns0:CUSTOMER_STATE>WA</ns0:CUSTOMER_STATE>
<ns0:CUSTOMER_PHOTO></ns0:CUSTOMER_PHOTO>
</ns0:UPDATE_CUSTOMER_ADDRESS>

And I received this in my out folder:

<UPDATE_CUSTOMER_ADDRESSResponse xmlns="http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/POLLING/Procedure" />

This works too and to be sure I checked database again:

I can tell you that calling a stored-procedure in Oracle 11g XE is straight forward, though I have to say I used pretty standard PL/SQL and did not use a cursor or anything. Something for another post. I hope this detail will show how to call stored procedure with BizTalk using the OracleDbBinding and Consume Adapter Service Wizard.

Technorati: biztalk server 2010

Using BTSHTTPReceive in x64 Environment

2011-07-13T04:18:00.001-07:00

I have a VM with BTS 2010 installed on a Windows Server 2008 R2 x64. In this environment I wanted to find out how to work with HTTP Adapter. Fortunately there two samples found in <install folder>:\Program Files(x86)\BizTalk Server 2010\SDK\Samples\AdapterUsage\HTTPRequestResponse or HTTPSolicitResponse (you will find them if you have selected the SDK feature during BizTalk Installation). Before running the example you will need to follow these steps if working in x64 environment (i.e. my VM):

Open IIS and click Machine Name on left panel, then click "ISAPI and CGI restrictions" on the right panel, then Add the ISAPI or CGI path:

On a 64 bit machine add: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010\HttpReceive64\BTSHTTPReceive.dll

2. Check allowed extension path or execute.

For sample for instance RequestResponse, you will need to click setup in HTTPRequestResponse folder. After refreshing IIS you will see HTTPRequestResponseSample.

Now you will have to perform the following steps:

Click "HTTPRequestResponseSample" on left panel, then click "Handler Mapping" on middle panel, then click "Add script mapping” with the following setting:
Request path:BTSHTTPReceive.dll
Executable:
On 64 bit machine add: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010\HttpReceive64\

Click Request Restriction

Click OK and click YES if ask to add this ISAPI extension.

From sample text on MSDN I understand I had to configure the virtual directory for this sample to run under the context of a user in the BizTalk Isolated Host Users and IIS_IURS user groups, So I had to configure the virtual directory to run in a new IIS application pool by completing the following steps (these differ from original text as I have IIS 7.0):

Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
In the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager, navigate to the Application Pools folder.
Right-click the Application Pools folder and click New, Application Pool...
Enter a name for the Application Pool ID: such as BizTalkSDKSamples, verify that the .NET Framework 4.0.30319 option is selected, and Managed Pipeline Mode Integrated (leave Start the Application pool immediately unchecked) and click OK to create the new application pool.
Click Advanced Settings in Edit Application Pool pane on left.
Click the Identity of Process model and change the identity under which this application pool runs to a user that is a member of the BizTalk Isolated Host Users user group. This user should also be a member of the local IIS_IURS user group.
Configure the virtual directory for this SDK sample to run under the new application pool. The Application pool setting is available on the Advanced Setting in Actions Pane tab of the HTTPRequestResponseSample.
Start application pool.

To test if this is working I browsed to web application belonging to this sample.

I entered 1000 in Estimated Price and clicked Place Order.

I got the above as result. I check in BizTalk Administration Console if any error occurred, but I could find any. So I can conclude from that this sample work in my x64 environment. I hope this little exploration of HTTP Adapter in 64-bits environment will help others when configuring their HTTP configuration.

Technorati: biztalk server 2010

SQLExecute Oracle 11g XE using WCF OracleDbBinding

2011-07-11T07:05:00.001-07:00

In previous post I detailed polling an Oracle 11g XE (Express) database using OracleDbBinding in WCF-Custom Adapter. Now I like to share how I can perform SQL statements through SQLExecute operation. You can run parameterized SQL statement on an Oracle database through WCF-Custom with OracleDbBinding. This binding supports the SQLExecute operation, which acts on an input parameter block comprised of parameter sets that enable execution of the same SQL statement once for each set. The operation will in the end return the results of the SQL statement in a generic record set.

The SQLEXECUTE operation is surfaced under the root node (/) in the Select a category pane in the Consume Adapter Service BizTalk Project Add-in. To be able to use this operation through orchestration or messaging in BizTalk you need to create a schema. The following steps will lead to creation of this specific schema:

Right click project, and then Add –> Add Generated Item –> Consume Adapter Service –> Add.
This action opens a new window that provides us the interface to connect to, browse, and select database objects for service interaction. The very first thing we need to do here is choose the oracleDBBinding as the service binding, and then configure a connection string. The simplest working connection string consists of an Initial Catalog value for the database, and a valid Server name entry. Note that the adapter now uses a connection string in the form of a URI instead of the traditional Data Source=;Initial_Catalog=;User_ Id=;Password= style.
Once a satisfactory connection string is defined, the Connect button can be clicked to establish an active connection to the target database. If the connection is successful, one see the category browser with a set of database object categories.
Select root node of category pane belonging to Client (outbound operations) and you will be able to find SQLExecute in Available categories and operations pane.
Click Add and the OK.

Binding file and schema’s will be generated.

You could opt to build and deploy your schema’s.

I created a BizTalk project, generated the SQLExecute schema’s and then provided the project with a name. I signed the project with strong name and deployed it. I imported the generated binding into the new BizTalk application and reviewed the configuration of Send Port that was created.

It is important that credentials for accessing Oracle 11g XE are present. If not you will be confronted with error depicted below.

You add credentials with sufficient authorization in credentials tab (I have used system).

Last but not least in Binding tab change the useAmbientTransaction property from True to False, otherwise you will run into a exception, see my last post.

I added a filter expression to the send port as I want to SQLExecute Operation in BizTalk completely message based; filter expression is:

BTS.MessageType == http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/SQLEXECUTE#SQLEXECUTE

Next a receive port and location is created. Latter is configured using FILE Adapter to pickup message with SQLEXECUTE statement. Finally a send port is created to sent response of SQLEXECUTE to file. This port has a filter on response message (type); filter expression is:

BTS.MessageType == http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/SQLEXECUTE#SQLEXECUTEResponse

Messaging based SQLExecute application in BizTalk is now configured and will be started. Next I copy message below to in folder, where it will be picked up and routed to send port. Message will arrive at Oracle 11g and SQLStatement will be executed the resulted will be returned to send port and routed to other send port that has subscription on response message. Response message is depicted below also.

SQLEXECSTATEMENT

SQLEXECSTATEMENTResponse

I hope this little detail of my experience with SQLExecute operation using BizTalk 2010 and its 2010 Adapter Pack can be helpful in your exploration of this operation in Oracle 11g. I have based my detail here on sample (Invoking SQL Statements Using SQLEXECUTE) you can download from BizTalk Adapter Pack 2010 samples. I did not use orchestration example provided nor the schema’s.

Polling Oracle 11g XE with OracleDbBinding

2011-07-10T05:14:00.001-07:00

In previous post I detailed how to perform some table operations in Oracle 11g using OracleDbBinding (WCF). I now like to show how to do polling in Oracel 11g XE. You can download a number of BizTalk Server 2010 Adapter Pack samples and I will use the Polling an Oracle Database sample. What sample will do is configuring a polling transaction (query) that targets the <schema name>.ACCOUNT_PKG.ACCOUNTACTIVITY table. For each polling transaction, the following actions are performed:

Executes a polling statement specified for the PollingStatement binding property. The specified polling statement is a query that selects all records from the <schema name>..ACCOUNTACTIVITY table. The response for the select query is copied to a FILE location.
Executes a post poll statement specified for the PostPollStatement binding property. The post poll PL/SQL code block moves the records in the query result set to the <schema name>..ACTIVITYHISTORY table.
Execute the polling statement again after the timeout specified as the PollingInterval binding property.

You will see SCOTT in stead of <schema name> in the readme fill, but reason I am saying <schema name> here is that in Oracle 11g you need to create schema your self as there is no SCOTT. You basically have to do the following:

Oracle Database 11g Expression Edition –> Getting started
Select APEX and login with SYSTEM account
Select a new database user, fill in APEX username and password (I used POLLING)
Create a new workspace
You will then login into the workspace
Select SQL Workshop –> SQL Commands
Here you have to paste the create_account_package commands

You will notice when trying to execute the sql script that you sometimes have to execute them one by one or leave out semicolon. In SQL Workshop Object Browser you will see the following:

As soon as you have executed the commands we will create an application through BizTalk Administration Console and name it PollingQuery. As soon as application is created you can import binding file belonging to solution. You will need to change value inside <ApplicationName> element to PollingQuery. When binding file is imported you can see that a receive port and send port is created. Go to receive location and double click. Go to binding tab and review in the OracleDBBindingConfigurationElement the polledDataAvailabelStatement, pollingStatement and postPollStatement (you can leave them as is).

Now you can open the pollingquery visual studio 2010 solution. You will notice in solution a BizTalk project with Orchestration and Schema, both can be deleted as we will create polling schema ourselves. Then following steps will lead to creation of polling schema:

Right click project, and then Add –> Add Generated Item –> Consume Adapter Service –> Add
This action opens a new window that provides us the interface to connect to, browse, and select database objects for service interaction. The very first thing we need to do here is choose the oracleDBBinding as the service binding, and then configure a connection string. The simplest working connection string consists of an Initial Catalog value for the database, and a valid Server name entry. Note that the adapter now uses a connection string in the form of a URI instead of the traditional Data Source=;Initial_Catalog=;User_ Id=;Password= style.

Last thing to do is go to Binding Properties and fill in polledDataAvailabelStatement, pollingStatement and postPollStatement. This will depend on which schema name you use, so SELECT * FROM <Schema name>.ACCOUNTACTIVITY FOR UPDATE

Once a satisfactory connection string is defined, the Connect button can be clicked to establish an active connection to the target database. If the connection is successful, one see the category browser with a set of database object categories. If you select (in my case POLLING) category than you will see in Package the ACCOUNT_PKG.

For creating polling schema we will have to change contract type to Server(Inbound Operations).
Select POLLINGSTMT from Available categories and operations and click Add

Click OK and schema and binding file will be created.
Create a strong-name key file required to build and deploy the solution.

The newly created binding is what we will use, and therefor the receive port in PollingQuery application will be deleted. Import the created binding in the PollingQuery application and review binding

As you can see the polling statement and post poll statement are based on <Schema name>.Table name or Package name (in my case schema name was Polling). In the Other tab you need to set the user account.

Another thing to do is adjust the Send Port (FILE Adapter require correct file location for the response) and filter expression for message it will subscribe to; in this scenario filter expression is: BTS.MessageType == http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/POLLINGSTMT#POLLINGSTMT.

Final step is starting the application and monitor the folder. For a couple minutes I saw nothing, so I checked the eventlog and found the following Error:

I changed useAmbientTransaction property in binding from True to False. Next I noticed a xml file in folder I was monitoring.

There you go polling data from Oracle 11g database using OracleDbBinding (WCF-Custom). I hope this little detail of my experience with polling data from Oracle 11g database using BizTalk 2010 and its 2010 Adapter Pack will be useful if you yourself are exploring it. If you have to work with packages in Oracle 11g using BizTalk 2010 I suggest to read this excellent post by TenaliNaga!

See Code Gallery sample for solution described in this post.

Technorati: biztalk server 2010

Passed BizTalk 2010 exam (70-595)

2011-07-04T02:47:00.001-07:00

Today I passed the BizTalk 2010 exam and I am certified technology specialist again. In the past I passed the BizTalk 2006 (70-235) and BizTalk 2006 R2 (70-241), but both of them where retired just recently (30th of June 2011). I prepared my self using resources you will find in one of my previous posts. Having a virtual machine with BizTalk 2010 with a lot samples is a great help in preparing. It was a challenging exam with some though questions I had to think about, but also a lot I could answer easily through experience. Any one that will take the exam in near future I would like to wish them good luck and success. It is definitely worth the effort!

Technorati: biztalk server 2010

BizTalk Server MVP 2011

2011-07-01T07:23:00.001-07:00

Just now I have received an e-mail from Microsoft with exciting news that I’ve been re-awarded the MVP title.

For me this is the second time to receive this award. The first year has been an tremendous experience, which gave me the opportunity to do great things and meet inspiring and very skilled people.

I would like to thank:
- my MVP leads William Jansen
- Ed Hickey and all other Microsoft employees involved
- people at Ordina Netherlands and Bert van de Belt in particular for all his support
- fellow MVP's Randal, Saravana, Richard, Kent, Stephen, Alan, Mikael, Johan, Oliver, Thiago, Ben, Jon, Jeffrey and Sandro, who I got learn better and supported and helped me out in this program
- and finally my wife and children Stan, Ellis and Cato for their support

I’m looking forward to another year in the program.

BTUG: BizTalk integration with SalesForce

2011-06-22T04:25:00.001-07:00

At the upcoming BizTalk User Group (BTUG) meeting in Almere on June, 29th I will do a talk on integration between SalesForce and BizTalk. In past I have been involved in an integration project with SalesForce using BizTalk 2009 and have blogged about it:

Also recently in Dutch .NET magazine an article has been published called “Force.com werkt met BizTalk Server 2010”. Besides this talk Saravana Kumar will talk about and demo BizTalk 360. Jeroen Boiten will kick off with a presentation on integration project at GasUnie.

You will have a chance to hear and meet (Dutch, UK) BizTalk community members and can register here.

Technorati: biztalk server 2010

Second Visit to Stockholm : BizTalk User Group Sweden

2011-05-27T01:37:00.001-07:00

Next month I will attend the BizTalk User Group Sweden event: Top 10 Things to Know When Integrating with Line of Business Systems. Kent Weare and Richard Seroter will be coming to talk about Integrating with Line of Business Systems. They have written a book together with Thiago Almeida, Sergei Moukhnitski and Carl Darski called: Microsoft BizTalk 2010: Integrating with Line of Business Systems. In session packed with demoes they will walk through numerous key principles to follow when doing system integration like integrating BizTalk Server 2010 with SharePoint, Windows Azure, SAP and software-as-a-service providers (e.g. SalesForce). I am looking forward to these sessions and to see speakers, Johan Hedberg, Mikael Sand, Mikael Håkansson, Alan Smith and Saravana Kumar. I recommend the book if you integrating with previous named products and technologies and session if you can attend.

Monitoring BizTalk Solutions – The Tools Part 5

2011-05-24T04:22:00.001-07:00

It has been a while ago I did a series of posts on monitoring tools for BizTalk solutions. Back then I discussed the following tools:

BizMon now named Integration Platform Monitor (IPM);
Minotaur currently it’s second release;
Frends Helium.

And now there is a new tool made by Saravana Kumar, who I met last MVP summit in person, called BizTalk360. During bus ride from summit back to hotel he demoed me this monitoring tool and I was impressed by functionality and look and feel. Finally there is way for administrators to have a tool similar to administration console, but now web based. The other tools also have a web interface and I still cannot understand why Microsoft hasn’t thought of bringing administration console also in web version (like SCOM 2007 R2!). BizTalk360 is feature rich and I suggest to look at it.

I am impressed by work Saravana has put into it and provided the tool with such a nice UI. User experience in my view is an important factor for a tool to be adopted.I definitely recommend developers and administrators to have a look at this tool and see if it fit for purpose in their environments.It can be download easily from the site after registering. Installation and configuration is easy and straight forward.

Above you have a screenshot of BizTalk360 in my VM, a single box installation of BizTalk Server 2010. In near future I hope a do a new comparison between current offerings for monitoring BizTalk solutions.

Technorati: biztalk server 2010

Table Operation on Oracle 11g XE with OracleDbBinding

2011-04-18T02:39:00.001-07:00

Last year I did a post on table operations on SQL Server Table with WCF-SQL Adapter from BizTalk on SQL. Now I like to do similar thing on table in Oracle 11g Express database using the Oracle Binding from BizTalk Adapter Pack 2010. Oracle 11g Express Edition is available through OTN. For downloading software you will need to have an account!

It is important that when accessing Oracle you have appropriate client installed. This can sometimes be a hassle if you do not know, which client you need. When you trying to connect to Oracle you will get error messages like:

Connecting to the LOB system has failed.

Could not load file or assembly 'Oracle.DataAccess, Version=2.111.7.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89b483f429c47342' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified..

This can be pretty annoying, but there is documentation that can help you going the right direction. In installation documentation I read that supported versions are:

Oracle database version 11.1,
Oracle database version 10.2,
Oracle database version 10.1,
Oracle database version 9.2

And supported client versions:

Oracle Data Access Components for Oracle Client 11.1.0.6 with Patch Set 11.1.0.7,
Oracle Data Access Components for Oracle Client 11.1.0.7

Installing Oracle 11g Client Release 2

I basically need the Oracle 11g client and I downloaded the latest release 2 version. I installed the Oracle 11g XE and installed the 11g client release 2. The following steps describe the process of installation. First click setup in client folder after having unzipped the win32_11gR2_client.rar file.

Select InstantClient and click Next.

Select location to install the client and click next.

You’ll be presented a summary of selected options. You can click finish.

Installation of Oracle client will start.

When installation is finished you can click close. To verify if the Oracle.Database Assembly is present view the assembly cache.

As you can see I installed the x86 client and have the appropriate assemblies version 2.112.2.0.

BizTalk Project and generate schema (‘s)

First, we need the XML schemas, which represent our data source. With proper installation of BizTalk Server 2010 Adapter Pack (see my post on its installation), you will have a metadata browser built into Visual Studio. NET at your disposal. Create a visual studio BizTalk project. Then you can access the metadata browser from a BizTalk project by right-clicking the project, choosing Add then Generated Items and selecting Consume Adapter Service.

Click Add. This action opens a new window that provides us the interface to connect to, browse, and select database objects for service interaction. The very first thing we need to do here is choose the oracleDBBinding as the service binding, and then configure a connection string. The simplest working connection string consists of an Initial Catalog value for the database, and a valid Server name entry. Note that the adapter now uses a connection string in the form of a URI instead of the traditional Data Source=;Initial_Catalog=;User_ Id=;Password= style.

On the root "/" character a range of un-typed generic functions are displayed, which can be exploited. Click on tables and you will see a number of Tables, select Employee.

Click the Delete, Insert, Select and Update statement in available categories and operations. Click the Add button to add the operations.After clicking the Ok button at the bottom, schema (and a single binding file) is added to our associated BizTalk project in Visual Studio.NET.

The binding can be used later, when solution is deployed and ports have to be configured for Oracle 11g Express (i.e. Send Port).

Create message instances

Next step is to generate messages from generated schema, which can be routed from Recieve location in Receive Port to a send port with WCF-OracleDb Adapter (messaging based solution). Generating the messages is easy, by opening first OracleDBBindingHR.Table.EMPLOYEES.xsd in file-editor you can move the desired operation to top, so you can then in Visual Studio generate the next instance for an operation or you can use XML-Editor inside Visual Studio (closing schema, right click and select open with… and then select XML Editor) to move elements around. In end you will have four xml instance for TableOperations, save to file as xml (type all files, encoding UTF-8!).

Select

<ns0:Select xmlns:ns0="http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/HR/Table/EMPLOYEES">
<ns0:COLUMN_NAMES>COLUMN_NAMES_0</ns0:COLUMN_NAMES>
<ns0:FILTER>FILTER_0</ns0:FILTER>
</ns0:Select>

Update

<ns0:Update xmlns:ns0="http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/HR/Table/EMPLOYEES">
<ns0:RECORDSET>
<ns0:EMPLOYEE_ID>70</ns0:EMPLOYEE_ID>
<ns0:FIRST_NAME>FIRST_NAMEFIRST_NAME</ns0:FIRST_NAME>
<ns0:LAST_NAME>LAST_NAMELAST_NAMELAST_NA</ns0:LAST_NAME>
<ns0:EMAIL>EMAILEMAILEMAILEMAILEMAIL</ns0:EMAIL>
<ns0:PHONE_NUMBER>PHONE_NUMBERPHONE_NU</ns0:PHONE_NUMBER>
<ns0:HIRE_DATE>1999-05-31T13:20:00.000-05:00</ns0:HIRE_DATE>
<ns0:JOB_ID>JOB_IDJOB_</ns0:JOB_ID>
<ns0:SALARY>4</ns0:SALARY>
<ns0:COMMISSION_PCT>32</ns0:COMMISSION_PCT>
<ns0:MANAGER_ID>2</ns0:MANAGER_ID>
<ns0:DEPARTMENT_ID>81</ns0:DEPARTMENT_ID>
</ns0:RECORDSET>
<ns0:FILTER>FILTER_0</ns0:FILTER>
</ns0:Update>

Insert

<ns0:Insert xmlns:ns0="http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/HR/Table/EMPLOYEES">
<ns0:RECORDSET>
<ns0:EMPLOYEESRECORDINSERT>
<ns0:EMPLOYEE_ID InlineValue="InlineValue_0">10.4</ns0:EMPLOYEE_ID>
<ns0:FIRST_NAME InlineValue="InlineValue_0">FIRST_NAME_0</ns0:FIRST_NAME>
<ns0:LAST_NAME InlineValue="InlineValue_0">LAST_NAME_0</ns0:LAST_NAME>
<ns0:EMAIL InlineValue="InlineValue_0">EMAIL_0</ns0:EMAIL>
<ns0:PHONE_NUMBER InlineValue="InlineValue_0">PHONE_NUMBER_0</ns0:PHONE_NUMBER>
<ns0:HIRE_DATE InlineValue="InlineValue_0">1999-05-31T13:20:00.000-05:00</ns0:HIRE_DATE>
<ns0:JOB_ID InlineValue="InlineValue_0">JOB_ID_0</ns0:JOB_ID>
<ns0:SALARY InlineValue="InlineValue_0">10.4</ns0:SALARY>
<ns0:COMMISSION_PCT InlineValue="InlineValue_0">10.4</ns0:COMMISSION_PCT>
<ns0:MANAGER_ID InlineValue="InlineValue_0">10.4</ns0:MANAGER_ID>
<ns0:DEPARTMENT_ID InlineValue="InlineValue_0">10.4</ns0:DEPARTMENT_ID>
</ns0:EMPLOYEESRECORDINSERT>
</ns0:RECORDSET>
<ns0:COLUMN_NAMES>COLUMN_NAMES_0</ns0:COLUMN_NAMES>
<ns0:QUERY>QUERY_0</ns0:QUERY>
</ns0:Insert>

Delete

<ns0:Delete xmlns:ns0="http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/HR/Table/EMPLOYEES">
<ns0:FILTER>FILTER_0</ns0:FILTER>
</ns0:Delete>

Build and deploy the BizTalk project

Only schemas are required for a messaging only scenario with WCF-Oracle Adapter to perform operations on Oracle 11g XE database. Therefore after assigning a strong name and application name to BizTalk project it can be build and deployed.

Configure the application

After solution has been deployed it is time to configure the ports. FILE ports are easy and focus here will be configuring the WCF-Oracle Send Port. Through BizTalk Management Console one can browse to OracleTableOperations application and right click the application and select Import Bindings … and navigate to file called WcfSendPort_OracleDBBinding_Custom.bindinginfo.xml, select and click Open. You will notice that a Send Port will be created automatically.

If you look at created send port and configuration you will notice that everything is there. Although having all operations in one action mapping is not going to work. If you try to send message with select statement to BizTalk you will get following error:

Reason that this error appears is that an action header consisting of four actions is not clear to system. It cannot determine which one the appropriate one was. So taking it down to a one line/action declaration corrected the problem.I had to create three similar send ports based on first generated send port. Other step is setting filters on WCF-Send Port and File Send Port. Configuration is as follows:

Port Name	Type	Filter
RecvPortOracleOpsIn	FILE	None
SendPortOracleOpsOut	FILE	BTS.MessageType == http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/HR/Table/EMPLOYEES#SelectResponse Or BTS.MessageType == http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/HR/Table/EMPLOYEES#InsertResponse Or BTS.MessageType == http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/HR/Table/EMPLOYEES#UpdateResponse Or BTS.MessageType == http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/HR/Table/EMPLOYEES#DeleteResponse
WcfSendPort_OracleDBBinding_HR_Table_EMPLOYEES_Custom	WCF-Custom	BTS.MessageType == http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/HR/Table/EMPLOYEES#Select
WCFSndPort_OracleDBBinding_HR_TABLE_INSERT	WCF-Custom	BTS.MessageType == http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/HR/Table/EMPLOYEES#Insert
WCFSndPort_OracleDBBinding_HR_TABLE_UPDATE	WCF-Custom	BTS.MessageType == http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/HR/Table/EMPLOYEES#Update
WCFSndPort_OracleDBBinding_HR_TABLE_DELETE	WCF-Custom	BTS.MessageType == http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/HR/Table/EMPLOYEES#Delete

Next error I ran into was the following, when I tried testing with SelectStatement message:

The adapter failed to transmit message going to send port "WcfSendPort_OracleDBBinding_HR_Table_EMPLOYEES_Custom" with URL "oracledb://win-8bpntqktj5m:1521/XE/Dedicated". It will be retransmitted after the retry interval specified for this Send Port. Details:"Microsoft.ServiceModel.Channels.Common.MetadataException: Metadata resolution failed for OperationId: "http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/HR/Table/EMPLOYEES/Select". ---> Microsoft.ServiceModel.Channels.Common.ConnectionException: Due to an Oracle Client limitation, the adapter failed to open a connection. This is because either (a) ambient transaction is present and the TNS alias is longer than 39 characters, or (b) ambient transaction is present and a non-TNS based URI was used. To resolve this, use a TNS alias to connect to Oracle and make sure it is not more than 39 characters.

To resolve this error I had to change the following properties in the oracleDBbinding:

"enableBizTalkCompatibilityMode" = True (for some reasons this i set to false per default)
"useAmbientTransaction" = False

I also like to note that format of filter for instance in select statement has to be correct or you will run into this error:

My first message looked like:

<Select xmlns="http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/HR/Table/EMPLOYEES">
<COLUMN_NAMES>*</COLUMN_NAMES>
<FILTER>where LAST_NAME='King'</FILTER>
</Select>

As I assumed the syntax would be similar to WCF-SQL, but that was not the case. It should be:

Outcome of this message the following:

And in Oracle there are two employees with last name King.

Next thing I tried was an update using following statement:

<Update xmlns="http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/HR/Table/EMPLOYEES">
<RECORDSET>
<EMAIL>JAKING</EMAIL>
</RECORDSET>
<FILTER>EMPLOYEE_ID=156</FILTER>
</Update>

Which resulted in following response:

To insert new employee I used the following message:

<Insert xmlns="http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/HR/Table/EMPLOYEES">
<RECORDSET>
<EMPLOYEESRECORDINSERT>
<EMPLOYEE_ID>207</EMPLOYEE_ID>
<FIRST_NAME>Steef-Jan</FIRST_NAME>
<LAST_NAME>Wiggers</LAST_NAME>
<EMAIL>SWIGGERS</EMAIL>
<PHONE_NUMBER>0123456789</PHONE_NUMBER>
<HIRE_DATE>1999-05-31</HIRE_DATE>
<JOB_ID>IT_PROG</JOB_ID>
<SALARY>100000</SALARY>
<COMMISSION_PCT>0.35</COMMISSION_PCT>
<MANAGER_ID>100</MANAGER_ID>
<DEPARTMENT_ID>60</DEPARTMENT_ID>
</EMPLOYEESRECORDINSERT>
</RECORDSET>
</Insert>

And response message is similar to update.

Finally I deleted the previous inserted employee with delete statement:

<Delete xmlns="http://Microsoft.LobServices.OracleDB/2007/03/HR/Table/EMPLOYEES">
<FILTER>EMPLOYEE_ID=207</FILTER>
</Delete>

The response was:

As result no data was found. As you can see it looks pretty straight forward, but takes some effort to setup things. You can find other Oracle sample for BizTalk 2010 Adapter pack here.

Technorati: biztalk server 2010

DevDays 2011

2011-04-05T05:35:00.001-07:00

This year 14th edition of Dutch DevDays will be organized. I have been attending these conference since I started in IT business since 2000. Thousands of professionals will gather this year again for two days to become fully informed of all current developments in their field. Azure, cloud, desktop / client, SQL Server, Visual Studio,. Net, Windows 7 Phone, Web, SharePoint and user experience are the major themes of this year. As BizTalk MVP you can find me in community lounge as representative of BizTalk community.

BizTalk Server 2010 Exam : How to prepare?

2011-03-31T08:52:00.001-07:00

In previous post I yesterday I wrote that new BizTalk 2010 exam is out. And you may figure how to prepare as in preparation material nothing is mentioned.Let’s look at what skills are measured. In a nutshell these topics are:

Configuring messaging architecture (setup, manage ports, configure adapters, implement messaging solutions);
Developing BizTalk Artefacts (building orchestrations, create schema’s, maps and pipelines);
Debugging and Exception Handling (debug orchestrations, validate and test artefacts like schema’s, maps, pipelines);
Integrating Web Services and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Services (WCF Adapters);
Implementing Extended Capabilities (this is the BAM, BRE, RFID and EDI part);
Deploying, Tracking, and Supporting a BizTalk Solution (Installation in different kinds of scenario’s, deployment of applications, bindings).

You can find a lot of resources that can help in preparation through BizTalk Development Center like the BizTalk tutorials for EAI and EDI. These tutorials can beneficial for preparing on topics Messaging architecture and extended capabilities. There are more video’s and webcasts found here. Another great set of materials to use of preparation are BizTalk Server 2010 Training Kit you can download.To be able to use these materials you will need a BizTalk environment, developer edition can be downloaded for free using documentation to be able to set up an environment. You might have to get OS, database and so on (dependencies for BizTalk) either through MSDN or by downloading evaluation editions. If you need training you could go to local training center to follow a course or go for online training through quicklearn (with possible of sample/demo training for BizTalk Server 2010). For BizTalk 2010 RFID there are also tutorials available. Finally you could browse internet and find recent posts on BizTalk Server 2010, WCF, EDI, etcetera. You will need some time depending on your skill and experience to prepare for this exam. If you do I wish you success and perhaps these links can be useful in your preparation.

Cheers!

Technorati: biztalk server 2010

BizTalk 2010 Exam is available

2011-03-30T08:54:00.001-07:00

Short blog post this time. As of now the BizTalk 2010 exam is now available. You can find details on the webpage for this exam 70-595 TS: Developing Business Process and Integration Solutions by Using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010. One of interesting skills measured are Implementing Extended Capabilities. This deals with RFID, EDI, BAM and BRE. I quoted from the overview:

“Candidates should have a solid understanding of fundamental BizTalk concepts around the core messaging engine and building business processes using orchestrations. Candidates will have some exposure to larger-scale multi-server solutions and deployment/management familiarity. This core knowledge is required for BizTalk 2006 R2, 2009, and 2010. In addition, core knowledge of Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is also required.

Candidates should also have at least two years’ experience developing, deploying, testing, troubleshooting, and debugging BizTalk Server 2006 and later solutions across multiple projects and have experience using the Microsoft .NET Framework, XML, Microsoft Visual Studio, Microsoft SQL Server, Web services, and WCF while developing BizTalk integration solutions”

Notice also EDI being mentioned here, so extra attention to this is necessary so studying the Trading Partner Manager (one of the new BizTalk 2010 features) for one is mandatory I think.

Technorati: biztalk server 2010

BizTalk AppFabric Connect: WCF-Adapter Service Stored Procedure

2011-03-24T10:20:00.001-07:00

In a post yesterday I should a way to invoke a stored procedure in SQL Azure using WCF-SQL Adapter. There is another to invoke a stored procedure using AppFabric Connect for Services functionality in BizTalk Server 2010. This new feature feature brings together the capabilities of BizTalk Server and Windows Azure AppFabric thereby enabling enterprises to extend the reach of their on-premise Line of Business (LOB) systems and BizTalk applications to cloud. To be able to bridge the capabilities of BizTalk Server and Windows Azure AppFabric you will need Biztalk Server 2010 Feature Pack.

In this post I will show how to leverage BizTalk WCF-SQL Adapter to extend reach of stored procedure to the cloud. First I will create a service that will expose the stored-procedure. I create a VS Studio project and select WCF Adapter Service. Steps that follow are also described in an article called Exposing LOB Services on the Cloud Using AppFabric Connect for Services. I skip first page concerning and go to choose the operations to generate a service contract page.

I choose local database, stored procedure ADD_EMP_DETAILS (same as in previous posts) and click Next. In AppFabric Connect page, select the Extend the reach of the service on the cloud checkbox. In the Service Namespace text box, enter the service namespace that you must have already registered with the Service Bus.

Next step is configure the service behavior. You will have to configure the service behavior (for both on-premises and cloud-based services) and the endpoint behavior (for only endpoints on the Service Bus).

I enabled the EnableMetadatExchange to True, so the service metadata is available using standardized protocols, such as WS-Metadata Exchange (MEX). I not using security features as in certificates so the UseServiceCertificate is set to False. I enabled EndpointDiscovery, which makes the endpoints publicly discoverable. Next page is around configuring endpoints.

I accepted the the defaults for the on-premises endpoint and focus on configuring the Service Bus endpoints. I select netTcpRelayBinding for which the URL scheme is sb and set EnableMexEndPoint to True. Rest I accepted default values. After configuration you will have to click Apply. Then click and final screen will appear.

Finish and the wizard creates both on-premise and Service Bus endpoints for the WCF service.

Next steps involve publishing the service. In the Visual Studio project for the service, right-click the project in Solution Explorer and click Properties. On the Properties page, in the Web tab, under Servers category, select the Use Local IIS Web Server option.The Project URL text box is automatically populated and then click Create Virtual Directory.In Solution Explorer, right-click the project again and then click Build. When service is build you will have to configure it in IIS for auto-start. By right clicking the service, Manage WCF and WF Service and then configure you might run into this error (which you can ignore a this element is not present in intellisense).

In Auto-Start you can set it to enable. Next step is to verify if the Service Bus endpoints for the WCF service are published. You will have to view all the available endpoints in the Service Bus ATOM feed page for the specified service namespace:

https://<namespace>.servicebus.windows.net

I typed this URL in a Web browser and saw a list of the all the endpoints available under the specified service bus namespace. To be able to consume the WCF service to able to invoke the procedure you will need to build a client. I create a Windows Application to consume WCF Service, so inside my project I created a new project a Windows Forms Application and added a service reference using the URL for the relay metadata exchange endpoint.

In ServiceBus Endpoint the RelayClientAuthentication was set to RelayAccessToken, which means that the client will need to pass the authentication token to authenticate itself to the Service Bus. Therefore you will have to add following section in app.config.

<behaviors>
<endpointBehaviors>
    <behavior name="secureService">
      <transportClientEndpointBehavior credentialType="SharedSecret">
        <clientCredentials>
          <sharedSecret issuerName="<name>" issuerSecret="<value>" />
        </clientCredentials>
      </transportClientEndpointBehavior>
    </behavior>
</endpointBehaviors>
</behaviors>

You must get the values for issuerName and issuerSecret from the organization (e.g. your Azure account) that hosts the service. The endpoint configuration in app.config has to be changed to this:

Code for making this work (implementation of invoke button).

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using ExposeSPCloudTestClient.ServiceReferenceSP;

namespace ExposeSPCloudTestClient
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void btnInvoke_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            int returnValue = -1;

            Procedures_dboClient client = new Procedures_dboClient("Procedures_dboRelayEndpoint");
            client.ClientCredentials.UserName.UserName = "sa";
            client.ClientCredentials.UserName.Password = "B@rRy#06";

            try
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Opening client...");
                Console.WriteLine();
                client.Open();
                client.ADD_EMP_DETAILS("Steef-Jan Wiggers", "Architect", 20000, out returnValue);
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                MessageBox.Show("Exception: " + ex.Message);
            }
            finally
            {
                client.Close();
            }

            txtResult.Text = returnValue.ToString();

}
}
}

Query employee table before execution of code above results as depicted below:

After invoking stored-procedure through consuming the service the new record is added.

As you can see I am added to employees table through adapter service called by the client.As you can see there is another way of invoking a stored-procedure making use of BizTalk AppFabric Connect Feature.

WCF-SQL Adapter Stored Procedure : SQL Azure

2011-03-23T14:24:00.001-07:00

In previous post I explained how call stored procedure using WCF-SQL Adapter from BizTalk. I now want to do same thing, but instead of calling a stored-procedure in SQL Server I will call a stored procedure in SQL-Azure. If you want to do you will need a Windows Azure Account. If you do than you can sign in through Azure Management Portal and if you do not have SQL Azure database you can go database in portal and click Create a new SQL Database.

You will then go through set of steps (e.g. wizard), where you will have to select subscription and server, region (my case North Europe), credentials, firewall rules (I did not apply any), database name, edition (web), and size (1 Gb).

So I now have a database in the cloud and I can access it through SQL management studio 2008 R2 on my machine. That’s what I thought, but I got the message below stating I need a firewall rule.

This meant I had to go back to the portal and create a firewall rule for IP address of my laptop. I dropped the database and started over again. And tried again and yes I could access the database instantly.

Now I needed to create a database with same tables and stored procedure as on-premise version. In SQL Azure you can create a new database by right clicking database and click new database. A script will appear that looks like below that needs to be executed.

CREATE DATABASE ADAPTER_SAMPLES;

This may take a few seconds, but then you have a database. Next step was to execute the script for creating table (just Employee) and stored procedure. I right clicked tables and then new table a new query screen appears where I execute following statements:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Employee](
[Employee_ID] [int] IDENTITY(10001,1) NOT NULL,
[Name] [varchar](50) NOT NULL,
[DOJ] [datetime] NULL,
[Designation] [varchar](50) NOT NULL,
[Job_Description] [varchar](max) NULL,
[Photo] [image] NULL,
[Salary] [decimal](18, 2) NOT NULL,
[Last_Modified] [timestamp] NULL,
[Status] [int] NULL CONSTRAINT [DF_Employee_Status] DEFAULT ((0)),
[Address] [xml] NULL,
CONSTRAINT [PK_Employee] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED
(
[Employee_ID] ASC
))
GO

Now of course I needed to have some data in there.

INSERT INTO [Employee]([Name],[Designation],[Salary])VALUES('Jeff Price','Manager',500000)
INSERT INTO [Employee]([Name],[Designation],[Salary])VALUES('Don Hall','Accountant',40000)
INSERT INTO [Employee]([Name],[Designation],[Salary])VALUES('Keith Harris','Supervisor',300000)
INSERT INTO [Employee]([Name],[Designation],[Salary])VALUES('Jim Hance','Admin',200000)
INSERT INTO [Employee]([Name],[Designation],[Salary])VALUES('Andy Jacobs','Accountant',400000)

And the stored procedure by navigate to stored-procedure and right click new new stored procedure. I deleted the preformatted stuff en pasted the code below:

CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[ADD_EMP_DETAILS]
-- Add the parameters for the stored procedure here
@emp_name varchar(50),
@emp_desig varchar(50),
@salary decimal(18,2)

AS
BEGIN
-- SET NOCOUNT ON added to prevent extra result sets from
-- interfering with SELECT statements.
SET NOCOUNT ON;

-- Insert statements for procedure here
INSERT INTO [ADAPTER_SAMPLES].[dbo].[Employee]
([Name]
,[Designation]
,[Salary])
VALUES
(@emp_name
,@emp_desig
,@salary)
SELECT [Employee_ID] FROM Employee where [Employee_ID] = (select IDENT_CURRENT('Employee'))

END

I am fairly new to SQL Azure so some of steps or things can be done differently. You can find many information online, like this MSDN article Getting Started with SQL Azure Development. Now that I have got things set up I now go through same steps to invoke the stored-procedure in SQL Azure using WCF-SQL Adapter.First I fire up VS2010 and create a new BizTalk project and then through add generated items I choose Consume Adapter Service.

I configured the URI accordingly,click Configure in security tab name of database administrator and then password, URI Properties the InitialCatalog Name and Server and you will get URI like:

mssql://kwtn4rghlk.database.windows.net//ADAPTER_SAMPLES?

Connect and category will appear. You will then select Procedure and add procedure and click OK.

Once that is done then binding and schema’s are generated.

After deploying I imported the binding file accompanied with this sample called WcfSendPort_SqlAdapterBinding_Custom.bindinginfo.xml. Send port will be created and only thing I had to do is adding filter to this send ports. If you go to generated send port and click configure for custom-adapter you will see in general tab and others the details.

One important things to be noted here is that in binding the useAmbientTransaction has to be set to false! If not you will error message below:

You will need to fill in credentials in credential tab! Next step is to add a filter for message type.

When this is done I created a receive location for incoming message that will look like this:

<ns0:ADD_EMP_DETAILS xmlns:ns0="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Sql/2008/05/Procedures/dbo">
<ns0:emp_name></ns0:emp_name>
<ns0:emp_desig></ns0:emp_desig>
<ns0:salary></ns0:salary>
</ns0:ADD_EMP_DETAILS>

And a send port that will send response message to a folder. Message that will placed in receive folder is:

As a result to follow message is returned:

When I run the follow T-SQL command in SQL Azure I get the following result:

So as you can see I am in there now.I have showed you a way to invoke a stored procedure in SQL Azure using BizTalk Server with a messaging solution. Cool stuff.

Technorati: biztalk server 2010

Interview by Richard Seroter: MVP Summit

2011-03-03T18:43:00.000-08:00

During MVP summit I was interviewed by my fellow MVP Richard Seroter. MVP summit was great and it was nice to be elected/nominated for diner with Soma. Thanks Richard for including me in the monthly interviews and the entertaining "Soma" diner together with Stephen. I enjoyed the conversations and laughs.

WCF-SQL Adapter Stored Procedure

2011-02-22T10:22:00.001-08:00

In this post I would like to show a different way to insert a record inside a SQL Table using a stored-procedure with WCF-SQL Adapter. Last year I wrote a post on WCF-SQL Table Operations, which was/is very useful for a lot BizTalk pro’s. For BizTalk 2010 you can find Adapter Pack Samples through BizTalk Server Development Center. On that page you can find a sample called SQL Adapter –> Using the adapter with BizTalk Server –> Invoking Stored Procedures. If you download this sample you have to run executable and unzip content in a folder. Then in that folder read the Readme.

Following through the readme file you will come to a point that you have to open the solution with Visual Studio and you will see the orchestration displayed below:

This is very basic (not really useful using an orchestration) and through messaging one can accomplished just the same. I did deploy this sample, but without the orchestration (I deleted it). I only needed the schema’s. I named the application StoredProcedure. Schema used to call stored procedure is displayed below:

After deploying the sample I imported the binding file accompanied with this sample called BINDINGS.xml. Receive and send ports will be created and only thing I had to do is adding filters to send ports, change database name and credentials.

Filter added for message type: “http://schemas.microsoft.com/Sql/2008/05/Procedures#ADD_EMP_DETAILS”

Change Address (URI) with appropriate server- and database name.

Filter added for message type: “http://schemas.microsoft.com/Sql/2008/05/Procedures#ADD_EMP_DETAILSResponse”

Next step is to enable the receive location and start sendports. Copy message to folder, message looks like this:

With response:

In database you will see newly added record.

As you can see through messaging one can call stored procedure with WCF-SQL Adapter. With maps inside port one can map incoming message and response message to desired format. I will delve into this next time, with some alternative ways.

Cheers.

Technorati: biztalk server 2010

Masterclass BizTalk and AppFabric

2011-02-14T08:34:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I will be giving a master class around BizTalk and AppFabric at my company. It will be a Dutch presentation on BizTalk Server 2010, AppFabric Connect and Windows Azure/Server AppFabric. With AppFabric connect one can extend reach of BizTalk orchestrations and LoB applications to the cloud. Most of information I will be sharing is similar to what can be found in:

TechEd Session BizTalk What’s it…?, What’s New..? and What’s next..?;

BizTalk Server 2010 Training kit;

BizTalk Server 2010 AppFabric Connect For Services;

Windows Server AppFabric Samples;

AppFabric Connect;

BizTalk AppFabric Connect: An Introduction;

Working with AppFabric Connect;

Exposing LOB Services on the Cloud Using AppFabric Connect for Services;

Exposing BizTalk Applications on the Cloud using AppFabric Connect for Services.

Session is open for all professionals inside and outside our company, partners and customers. With AppFabric integration will get a new meaning as capabilities with Microsoft technology and products grow on-premises and in the cloud.

Technorati: biztalk server 2010 appfabric

BizTalk Server 2010 Adapters

2011-01-23T13:24:00.001-08:00

If you wonder where all adapters for BizTalk are or which ones are available when you have install DVD in virtually in your hand. There are two directories on DVD (after you mount it with something like ISO mount). One called BizTalk accelerators and one named BizTalk Server. Both folders contain a setup and when you run it a splash screen will appear.

In accelerators splash screen you find links to install:

Accelerators for HL7
Accelerators for RosettaNet
Accelerators for SWIFT
FileAct and Interact Adapters for SWIFT

Other splash screen that appears after running setup in BizTalk folder you will find links for:

Installing BizTalk Server
Installation UDDI
Installation RFID
Installation RFID Mobile
BizTalk Adapters (LOB Adapters)
AppFabric Connect

It can be annoying that you will have to find out what to install when looking for particular adapter. When installing BizTalk Server you will get the out-of-box adapters (HTTP, WCF-Adapters, SQL, FILE, FTP, ect), Adapter Pack contain ERP adapters (SAP, Siebel, Oracle, Oracle EBS), and other adapters like for instance MLLP (HL7) are found in appropriate accelerator. When installing Adapter Pack the necessary prerequisites are handed to you during installation (see my post Installing BizTalk Adapter Pack 2010 on x64). Still there are adapters that you have to download separately like one for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.

Documentation however is a different story. By clicking installation guide html page in accelerator folder you get access to installation guides by links.

Other documentation if found at Microsoft:

Finally for BizTalk Server itself there is documentation available for installation (divers Operating Systems), and the product.

Technorati: biztalk server 2010

BIA - The BizTalk Intelligence Agency

2011-01-11T02:37:00.001-08:00

Lex Hegt has been owner of blog called BIA – The BizTalk Intelligence Agency and it has been around since 2005. In past Randal was contributor in the past of this blog, now I and Charles are new contributors. It is sponsored by integration team of Ordina my current employer. I encourage you to visit this site as well as it contains valuable information. It can have some overlap with this blog or one by Charles. I regularly will post here and on that blog.

Cheers!

Technorati: biztalk server 2010

BizTalk Hotrod 11

2011-01-10T00:54:00.001-08:00

Rather short post this time. First of all a happy new year to everyone. BizTalk Hotrod 11 is out and can be obtained here. Go read…

Technorati: biztalk server 2010

Installing Windows SharePoint Services Web Service Adapter BizTalk Server 2010/SharePoint Foundation 2010

2010-12-20T07:34:00.001-08:00

I think a lot of you have read the excellent series ShareTalk Integration (SharePoint/BizTalk) by Kent Weare. Focus was on BizTalk 2009 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007. Now with BizTalk 2010 you are able to configure SharePoint adapter to Windows SharePoint Services like previous 2009 version.BizTalk Server 2010 supports two versions of WSS:

SharePoint Foundation 2010
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 with SP2

Latter is explained in detail by Sandro Pereira, BizTalk 2010 Installation and Configuration – Install and Configure Windows SharePoint Services. In this post I like to share how to configure BizTalk SharePoint Adapter with SharePoint Foundation 2010.

Installing and configuring Windows SharePoint Services consists of the following procedures:

Install Windows SharePoint Services
Configure Windows SharePoint Services
Extend the Default Web Site as a virtual server

Install Windows SharePoint Foundation 2010

First step of installation is to install prerequisites. In my situation I am installing SharePoint Foundation on virtual machine (Windows Server 2008R2 x64, 4 core’s 4 Gb memory) following the installation manual for BizTalk Server 2010 called: Installing BizTalk Server 2010 on Windows Server 2008 R2 and 2008 (see BizTalk Server 2010 documentation).

When installing software prerequisites you just have to click Next a few times (it is pretty straight forward).

After this it installing SharePoint Foundation itself.

This involves also a couple of steps, where you have to make some choices.

Installation depends on if you want to do a standalone or server farm.

A Stand-alone installation configures a single computer with all the necessary files and settings to create a fully functioning SharePoint implementation, including Web server, application server, and database. SQL Server Express 2008 is installed and configured to provide data storage capability. SQL Server Express is based on the Microsoft SQL Server architecture, but it has the following limitations:

lack of enterprise features support;
limited to one CPU;
one gigabyte (GB) memory limit for the buffer pool;
databases have a 4 GB maximum size;
SQL Server Express will not support a server farm configuration or a multi-processor computer.

In addition to the SQL Server Express limitations, the inherit SharePoint Foundation Standalone configuration limitation is that you cannot add servers to create a SharePoint farm. If you need to add another SharePoint 2010 Web Front End later than you won’t be able to. If you anticipate the need to scale up to a larger or more robust installation, choose the Server Farm option.

SharePoint Foundation 2010 Server Farm will install all components. You can add additional servers to form a SharePoint farm, including load balanced SharePoint 2010 Web Front End servers. The Complete option installs a Web server and configures the computer to provide application server functionality. The SharePoint Foundation 2010 Complete install option does not provide database functionality. If you continue with this option and your server does not belong to a domain, for instance just a workgroup you will see error if you proceed with steps below.

For development purposes, proof-of-concepts or demo it is better to choose Standalone. If you opted for this then the SharePoint 2010 Products Configuration Wizard will immediately begin the ten step configuration process.

After you have let the wizard run through, you should automatically be directed to a default SharePoint Foundation 2010 site that looks a lot like the screen below.

Install Windows SharePoint Services Adapter

As soon as this has been done you can proceed with next steps installation manual. It then comes down to installing BizTalk. When you select components you will see that you can install Windows SharePoint Services Adapter.

As you can see it is a simple process of installing the Windows SharePoint Services Web Service Adapter when SharePoint Foundation 2010 is installed. Do bear in mind that SharePoint Foundation only install on x64!

Technorati: biztalk server 2010

Windows Azure – BidNow Sample

2010-12-02T01:52:00.001-08:00

If you want to dive more into Windows Azure you can have a look at BidNow. BidNow is an online auction site designed to demonstrate how you can build highly scalable consumer applications running in the Windows Azure Platform.

When BidNow was originally released, it was a sample built using Windows Azure and Windows Azure Storage, along with authentication provided via Live Id. Since the original release, a number of additional services and capabilities have been released. Consequently, BidNow now utilizes the following pieces of the platform:

These updates not only provide important and useful capabilities, but also highlight the ways in which to build applications in the Windows Azure Platform. If you like to learn more you can read Wade Wegner’s latest post. It will show how setup a platform (what you need to install, OS, Visual Studio, SDK, Identity Framework) to make this sample run.

My environment is as follows on a 8740w HP Elitebook, 8Gb RAM, Intel Core i7 machine:

Windows 7, Professional x64
Windows PowerShell 2.0 (already installed on Windows 7)
Windows Azure Software Development Kit 1.3
Windows Azure AppFabric SDK 2.0
Internet Information Services 7.5
Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0
Microsoft SQL Express 2008 R2
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate
Windows Identity Foundation Runtime
Windows Identity Foundation SDK 4.0

When downloading the sample you will get a zipped file and need to unpack (run it). After that you need to start ‘StartHere’ (Windows Command Script). It will then show the screen below:

Click next will run scan to check if all required software is installed.

Click Next.

Configuration of BidNow Demo starts and will setup AppFabric Labs ACS and Cache, Database (SQL Azure, SQL Express or both), blobs and certificates. During the setup you will see a couple of screens like below, where you will have to type in namespace, secret keys and so on.

Steps to undertake and actions to perform are described in a wiki.

After configuration is completed code can be opened through visual studio and then it simply build and run.

If you that familiar yet with Windows Azure you can start by going to Windows Azure Platform Portal, where you find lots of resources like whitepapers and so on. Other important resources to look at are:

Have fun and there are more samples to be found for Azure on code gallery.

Technorati:microsoft azure

BTUG The Netherlands – BizTalk 2010

2010-12-01T04:02:00.001-08:00

Tomorrow BizTalk User Group will get together for some interesting sessions at BTUG Meeting. One can still sign up for it. The BTUG meetings are for architects, engineers and project managers, who are interested in and have experience working with Microsoft BizTalk Server.

BizTalk User Group (BTUG) aims to create a network of companies, which inspire each other and share knowledge. The purpose of the BTUG is to accelerate the learning effect on the application of new technology and the consequences for the organization.

The BTUG provides a platform for knowledge and experience exchange between users and the ability to make informal contacts.

Tomorrow the BTUG meeting will extensively dive into BizTalk 2010 and all Dutch BizTalk MVP’s will do a session:

• BizTalk 2010, what's new? (Randal van Splunteren and myself)
• Extended and scalable integration through the cloud (Leveraging the Microsoft Application Platform and Windows Azure AppFabric to the max) (Gijsbert in 't Veld)

It will start at 16:00 at Sogeti (see below).

See you there!

Technorati: biztalk server 2010 appfabric

New Azure SDK version 1.3 released

2010-11-30T02:06:00.001-08:00

A new big release of Windows Azure SDK V1.3 is available. If you haven’t installed it before follow instructions at bottom of download link. One of features I am interest in is Virtual Machine (VM) Role still in Beta, which allows you to create a custom VHD image using Windows Server 2008 R2 and host it in the cloud. If you think you could host VHD with BizTalk, you could bit please review these considerations recently posted by Sam Vanhoutte.

Technorati:microsoft azure

Moving to cloud a bit more

2010-11-25T13:06:00.001-08:00

Since it announcement Windows Azure is getting more and more attention also by us BizTalk guys lije myself in Holland. I witnessed the announcement of Windows Azure by Ray Ozzie during the keynote at PDC 2008 and I was amazed by it in fact that is a was brand new wave that is heading us: Cloud Computing. Currently it is at is at highpoint of hype-cycle and it has everybody’s attention. Coming year Microsoft in The Netherlands will fully focus on Azure, it’s coming issue of .NET Magazine in March will have Windows Azure as its theme and also Developer Days will have a very strong focus on Windows Azure.

I myself in future will expand my scope and will add some of my experiences from this platform here on my blog. I have joined the Dutch Windows Azure User Group and hopefully I can gain and share knowledge with other members the same way as in the BizTalk User Group.You can expect some stories coming in the near future. I did some post on the subject in the past, but I will try to do so more frequently. I would encourage you if you have not do so already to start investing time in this new technology. A good starting point is the Windows Azure Portal and reading Azure In Action, which is definitely an great resource for learning and understanding Azure.

Cheers!

Technorati:microsoft azure

Dutch Technet Magazine – Windows Azure AppFabric

2010-11-20T06:27:00.001-08:00

My article on Windows Azure AppFabric has been published last month in Dutch TechNet Magazine. The October edition was a special around Cloud Computing. It is online now and can be read digitally (in Dutch).

Installing BizTalk Adapter Pack 2010 on x64

2010-11-19T12:33:00.001-08:00

The BizTalk Adapter Pack 2010 provides connectivity to SAP, Oracle E-Business Suite, Siebel and SQL and Oracle Databases. The BizTalk Adapter Pack can be installed in conjunction with, or separately from, BizTalk Server.

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.

It is included in both the Enterprise and Standard Editions of BizTalk. When you install the adapter pack on x64 environment you have to perform a few steps. These steps were described in earlier versions through installation guides, although for some it was not always clear (i.e. I saw couple of questions on forum about how to install or problems people had). There is documentation to install adapters pack, but now during installation one is guided through the necessary steps.

This is a definite improvement towards installing Adapter Pack on for instance x64 environment as shown on the screenshot above. So first step is installing WCF LOB Adapter SDK and by clicking on the first step an installer of SDK is launched.

By clicking next and selecting one of installation options the SDK is installed. After installation you will see that first step is completed in the overall process. Second step is installation of the Adapter Pack (x86). By clicking Microsoft BizTalk Adapter Pack needs to be installed an installer is launched again.

After installation of this pack the screen is updated again stating second step is completed successfully.

You will sometime see windows update screen or screen with question if you want to join the improvement program. Next step is installing the Microsoft BizTalk Adapter Pack(x64). Before installing this pack you have to install x86 first, which is overlooked a lot of times in past by people. Can’t happen having guidance.

Having installed the x64 Adapter Pack the final step can be performed.

By clicking on Install Microsoft BizTalk Adapters for Enterprise Applications an installer is launched.

As this installation has been successfully completed the process of installing the LOB Adapters is complete.

I recommend to always choose complete installation of SDK, Adapter Packs and Microsoft BizTalk Adapters for Enterprise Applications.You the have documentation at you disposal. Going through this process you now have full set of adapters ranging from new WCF Adapters to old (non-WCF) Adapters. Next step is adding the appropriate adapters in BizTalk Administration Console.

You have to go navigate to Platform Settings –> Adapters and then right click New –> Adapter.

Note: When installing the adapter pack you do not see a new adapter show up under the Adapters folder or in the drop down for Add new Adapter. The adapter pack installs new custom bindings.The BizTalk "adapter" for instance for the Oracle database shows up in BizTalk as the OracleDBBinding. The standard bindings are wsHttpBinding, netTcpBinding, etc. OracleDbBinding and SqlBinding are themselves custom bindings. (Ben Cline explained this on forum few weeks ago).

You can also download the interactive or normal poster of BizTalk Adapter 2010. The BizTalk Adapter Pack is included with BizTalk Server 2010 and you can download the BizTalk Server 2010 Evaluation if you want to try it out.

When completing this process you also have installed all the prerequisites for AppFabric Connect. When starting a WCF Workflow Service you will see BizTalk Mapper.

On AppFabric connect see also Thiago post: Microsoft AppFabric Connect in BizTalk 2010 – licensing and installation, what’s the deal?

Technorati: biztalk biztalk server 2010 biztalk server adapter pack 2010

TechEd Europe 2010 Berlin–What did I learn, do, see and eat?

2010-11-18T11:25:00.001-08:00

I have never been in Berlin before and this was the city TechEd 2010 in Europe was hosted. I arrived Saturday and was able to look around area near Brandenburger Tor. Next day some more sightseeing going to some museums (Pergamon with beautiful islamic art, National Historic Museum where I visited the Hitler and the Germans. Nation and Crime exhibition ) and walking around Unter den Linden.

The Brandenburg Gate (German: Brandenburger Tor) is a former city gate and one of the main symbols of Berlin and Germany. It is located west of the city center at the junction of Unter den Linden and Ebertstraße, immediately west of the Pariser Platz. It is the only remaining gate of a series through which Berlin was once entered. One block to the north stands the Reichstag building. The gate is the monumental entry to Unter den Linden, the renowned boulevard of linden trees which formerly led directly to the city palace of the Prussian monarchs (more on wikipedia).

We as in myself and my colleagues stayed at Scandic Hotel near Potsdamer Platz. Within walking distance of earlier mentioned Brandenburger Tor, Reichstag, and Unter den Linden. It is a brand new hotel with lots of facilities with reasonable pricing. Good hotel if you spend a few days in Berlin.

Monday

The preconference's started together with workshops and hands-on-labs ending with the key-note at 16:00. There were some BizTalk labs available and I did the Monitoring BizTalk Operations using System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2. This lab I was able to do the following: import the BizTalk 2010 Management Pack, observe the status of various items in the OpsMgr console at different health levels, create a custom alert, and monitor BizTalk performance.

In the evening we went to nice restaurant/bar near Arkaden called Mommseneck (House of 100 beers!). Nice beers and food.

Tuesday

I first had opportunity to speak to my MVP lead William Jansen and had a good long conversation with him before I went to my first breakout session of the day: BizTalk Server Performance with Mikael Håkansson and Paolo Salvatori.It was great session and Mikael Sand has written an interesting post on it. Through Microsoft Tech.Ed Online you can watch sessions online for free. Watch this session here. What I have learned from that session is that you will have to prevent that BizTalk will become hotspot. This can be prevented by follow best practices for configuring BizTalk Server environment (see optimization guide for BizTalk).Followed up by using BizTalk Best practices analyser and base lining your environment using Benchmark Wizard found on codeplex.

A went for a couple of other sessions like:

Introduction to Complex Event Processing with SQL Server 2008 R2 StreamInsight
Introduction to Next Generation of System Center Operation Manager
Windows Server AppFabric Caching: What is it and when should you use it by Jon Flanders. In this session I finally met Mikael Sand (see his post on this session) and had talk with another BizTalk pro from the Netherlands Wouter Crooy.

Last session of that day was a really good one called IASA’s Five Pillars of IT Architecture by Jim Wilt. I was accompanied by Mikael (see post) and we enjoyed this session, because one he was a great speaker and two he pointed out BizTalk pro’s know it all.

After day of sessions I went with a couple of colleagues to Tony Roma’s Berlin near Potsdamer Platz where we had an awesome meal.

Wednesday

It was another busy day with a lot of breakout sessions. I kicked off with session by Ron Jacobs called: Using Workflow and Windows Server AppFabric in your Applications. Again Mikael was there (see his post). And he accompanied me during Lunch with also Mikael Håkansson, Johan Hedberg.Food was not so great, but conversation was. Other sessions I attended that day were:

WCF and Windows Server AppFabric – Services Made Easy by Jon Flanders (yes I am lazy, but there is another post by Mikael about this session and is saves me time!)
Integrating Applications on Windows Azure with the Enterprise
High Availability SQL Futures
What’s New in Microsoft SQL Azure
Architecting Applications for High Scalability – Leveraging the Windows Azure Platform

After day of sessions I again went with a couple of colleagues to another fine restaurant near Postdamer Platz called MidTown Grill. This one had excellent food and if you ever have the chance you should eat here.

Thursday

Yet another day with interesting sessions and meeting some interesting people like Oliver Hauth I know from BizTalk forums. We contacted each other months before TechEd started and finally we met. He is a BizTalk professional from Germany, very skilled and with a lot of knowledge in integration with SAP using BizTalk. We hooked up during the session BizTalk Server – What is it, What is new, What is Next? First 20 minutes were a bit boring if you have been running around in BizTalk space for years, but then it got more interesting and in the end astonishing to see that some functionality is going into the cloud (i.e. Azure). Oliver has made nice post (yes I am lazy) on this session. Other sessions I attended that day were:

WCF: The Unified Services Programming for SOAP, REST, Data and RIA Communication by Ron Jacobs and it was great session!
Advanced SQL Server 2008 R2 Streaminsight Query Design Techniques.
Building High Performance Web Applications by Wade Wegner. I know Wade for sometime, when he was still in BizTalk space. I was happy to finally meet him in person. We talked for 15 minutes before he started his session. He also did a session on Azure AppFabric.

In the evening I went with my colleagues for our last diner in Berlin to Lindenbräu.The „Lindenbräu“ is a Brewery in Berlin in the Sony Center, that started Berlins high art of beer brewing under supervision of the Bavarian brewery „Hofbräuhaus Traunstein“ in February 2000. We had great meal there together with some nice beers.

Friday

It was last day of the event with three sessions combined with lunch. Between session I had another conversation with Wade at Azure stand. While talking Brain Prince also joined in and we talked about BizTalk old days, Azure and AppFabric.Sessions I attended were:

Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus – A Deep Dive: Code, Patterns, Code by Clemens Vasters. I briefly spoke with him earlier and he showed me the new Azure portal. If you are new to Azure this is the place to start.
WCF Data Services – A Practical Deep-Dive! by Mario Szpuszta.

Yes, a lot code the last day before I drove back with a colleague home. I enjoyed Berlin, and had great TechEd.There is a ton of material out there like TechEd Online, and so on (see links in this post). If you ever go to Berlin I can recommend the places I have eaten and stayed.

Cheers!

TechEd 2010: Berlin

2010-10-11T04:17:00.000-07:00

It has been a couple of years ago since I last attended a TechEd. It was 2005 in Amsterdam and I am fortunate to go this year to venue in Berlin. I know there will be a couple of BizTalk sessions like one from Mikael Håkansson called:

BizTalk Server Performance: Configuring BizTalk Server for performance

Description
Optimizing and verifying your BizTalk Server installation is not an easy thing to do. The documentation is good but very extensive. This presentation aims to guide you through the most important operations you need to do in order to boost the performance of BizTalk. The session includes a live demo where these settings are applied and how it significantly improves the performance.

This session will cover BizTalk 2010 and MS SQL Server 20008 R2.

Or one by Paolo Salvatori and Tony Meleg:

BizTalk Biztalk Server - What is it, What's new, What's next

Description

BizTalk is a key part of Microsoft's Integration platform, if you don't know about its powerful and rich set of capabilities, come and hear about them, learn what they can do for you. Already familiar with BizTalk and want to know what is new in BizTalk Server 2010? - then we will cover the main investment areas and show these. Finally, we will tell you where this is all going, what's the strategy for the integration workload at Microsoft and how does BizTalk Server fit into this strategy.

There will be many more session not just BizTalk. Hope to meet some of you there.

Cheers.

BizTalk 2010: Notification Services

2010-10-06T06:26:00.001-07:00

It is best practice in my opinion when installing BizTalk to follow BizTalk installation manuals. Microsoft provides manuals for each supported operating system or multi-server installation. BizTalk 2010 is supported on:

▪ Windows Server 2008 R2
▪ Windows Server 2008 with Service Pack 2
▪ Windows 7
▪ Windows Vista with Service Pack 2
▪ Windows XP with Service Pack 3

Other requirements are:

▪ Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0 or 7.5
▪ Microsoft Office Excel 2010 or 2007
▪ Microsoft .NET Framework 4 and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1
▪ Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 with Visual C# .NET. Required for BizTalk Server applications development and debugging; not required for production-only systems
▪ SQL Server 2008 R2 or SQL Server 2008 SP1
▪ SQL Server 2005 Notification Services with Service Pack 2
▪ The Windows SharePoint Services adapter Web service requires SharePoint Server 2010, SharePoint Foundation 2010, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 with Service Pack 1, or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

What interesting is SQL Server 2005 Notification Services with Service Pack 2 in combination with SQL Server 2008 R2. If you follow the manual and proceed step by step you eventually are going to configure BizTalk 2010. When you reach step to configure BizTalk BAM Tools and Alerts you can stumble on this kind of error:

Microsoft.BizTalk.Bam.Management.BamManagerException: Failed to set up BAM database(s). ---> Microsoft.BizTalk.Bam.Management.BamManagerException: There was a failure while executing nscontrol.exe. Error:"Microsoft Notification Services Control Utility 9.0.242.0 c Microsoft Corp. All rights reserved. An error was encountered when running this command. Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.SqlServer.Smo, Version=9.0.242.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified. " at Microsoft.BizTalk.Bam.Management.AlertModule.ExecNSControlCommand(String commandArg) at Microsoft.BizTalk.Bam.Management.AlertModule.SetupAlertInfrastructure() at Microsoft.BizTalk.Bam.Management.BamManager.SetupDatabases() --- End of inner exception stack trace --- at Microsoft.BizTalk.Bam.Management.BamManager.SetupDatabases() at Microsoft.BizTalk.Bam.Management.BamManagementUtility.BamManagementUtility.HandleSetupDatabases() at Microsoft.BizTalk.Bam.Management.BamManagementUtility.BamManagementUtility.DispatchCommand() at Microsoft.BizTalk.Bam.Management.BamManagementUtility.BamManagementUtility.Run() at Microsoft.BizTalk.Bam.Management.BamManagementUtility.BamManagementUtility.Main(String[] args)

I stumbled on it and so did other people I noticed on BizTalk General Forum (see this thread). Solution to this problem is by installing SP3 for SQL Server 2005. I installed BizTalk 2010 on different environments and what I did when following manual instructions is to install SQL Server 2005 Notifications Services through one of SQL Server 2005 ISO’s and then applied first SP2 and later SP3. When you install SQL Server 2008 R2 later on you will see this screen.

When you reach this screen you will first see it has Named instance selected, but I changed it to Default instance and proceeded further with my installation. During configuration of BizTalk 2010 BAM Tools and Alerts everything went smoothly. I guess is that requirement should be SQL Server 2005 Notification Services with Service Pack 3. At least in the case when you want to use SQL Server 2008 R2. The suggested feature pack mentioned in installation document is not going to work, because you will get an error as displayed above.

Cheers!

Technorati: biztalk biztalk server 2010

BizTalk 2010 Developer is available

2010-09-23T11:14:00.001-07:00

During European BizTalk Conference we were told BizTalk 2010 was going to be released before end of September and moment has come. It offers a developer edition, which can be downloaded. BizTalk Server 2010 Developer is a free edition of BizTalk Server that enables developers to build and test applications that run on BizTalk Server on both 32-bit and 64-bit platforms. BizTalk Server 2010 Developer includes all of the functionality of Enterprise Edition, but is licensed only for development, test, and demo use. Solutions from BizTalk Server 2010 Developer Edition can easily be packaged and deployed to a production environment that is configured with any other edition of BizTalk Server 2010.

Besides that BizTalk Server 2010 introduces a new feature “AppFabric Connect”, which combines rich proven features of BizTalk Server and the flexible development experience of .NET to allow users to easily develop simple integration applications (See Installing the BizTalk Server 2010 AppFabric Connect feature). AppFabric Connect uses Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) activities to programmatically access BizTalk’s LOB connectivity and data transformation capabilities. This enables users to easily create new composite applications using the WF model, which can be deployed, hosted, managed in Windows Server AppFabric.

You as developer can setup an environment using virtualization (VM-ware, VPC, Hyper-V or Virtual Box), Visual Studio 2010, BizTalk Server 2010 Developer, SQL Server 2008 Developer and Windows Server AppFabric. Not just that cause you could add Windows Azure SDK to it and you can start building all kinds of state of the art applications.

Cheers!

Technorati: biztalk server 2010 appfabric

BizTalk Server 2010 Documentation – Beta and Posters

2010-09-22T23:57:00.001-07:00

BizTalk Server 2010 Documentation – Beta is available through Microsoft Download Center. Here you will find documents like:

BizTalkServer2010.exe
BizTalkServer2010HXS.exe
Installing BizTalk Server 2010 and BAM in a Multi-Computer Environment.docx
Installing BizTalk Server 2010 on Windows 7 and Windows Vista.docx
Installing BizTalk Server 2010 on Windows Server 2008 R2 and 2008.docx
KWUserGuide.exe
PartyMigrationTool.exe
Troubleshooting BizTalk Server 2010 Setup.docx
Upgrading to BizTalk Server 2010 from BizTalk Server 2009 or 2006 R2.docx

Besides the documentation a new set of posters is available:

BizTalk Server 2010 BAM Poster
This poster describes BizTalk Server 2010 BAM concepts, processes, and management for both new and experienced users.
BizTalk Server 2010 Runtime Architecture Poster
The poster depicts message flow, data flow, and references that occur at runtime in BizTalk Server 2010.
BizTalk Server 2010 Capabilities Poster
The poster provides a high-level and detailed view of BizTalk Server 2010 features and capabilities.
BizTalk Server 2010 Scale-out Configurations Poster
This poster describes typical scale-out configurations and options for BizTalk Server 2010.
BizTalk Server 2010 ESB Toolkit Architecture Poster
This interactive poster, created in Silverlight, depicts the architecture of the BizTalk Server 2010 ESB Toolkit. It shows the toolkit's core components, and how these integrate with BizTalk Server.
BizTalk Server 2010 Database Infrastructure Poster
This poster describes BizTalk Server 2010 databases and associated components, jobs, services, UI, and events.

Cheers.

Technorati: biztalk biztalk server 2010

SOA Thoughts, EAI Challenges

BizTalk Community series: Introducing Rene Brauwers

TechNet Wiki: The number of BizTalk articles is growing …

BizTalk Community series: Introducing Rohit Sharma

My next ten TechNet Wiki Articles on BizTalk

BizTalk Community series: Introducing Tord Glad Nordahl

My year 2011 In retrospective

Ordina BizTalk Innovation Event: Monitoring and Administration

Azure Service Bus EAI/EDI December 2011 CTP – EAI Oracle

Installation

Windows Azure Service Bus EAI and EDI Labs

Wiki-Ninja's on Technology: BizTalk Server

BizTalk Server 2010 R2: Continuing story….

BizTalk360 Another release more capabilities: Version 3.1

BizTalk Adapter Pack 2010: Calling a View in SQL Azure

BizTalk Server 2010 Patterns Book: Win an eCopy

My First Ten TechNet Wiki Articles on BizTalk

BizTalk User Group Meeting 30 November 2011

My Code Gallery BizTalk Samples

BizTalk Server 2010–Tools

BizTalk Server 2010 TechNet Wiki Articles

BizTalk User Group Sweden : My debut as International Speaker

BizTalk360 new V2.5 release–Message Box Viewer Integration

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

BizTalk Project and generate schema (‘s)

Create message instances

Build and deploy the BizTalk project

Configure the application

Start the application

BizTalk Server Unleashed 2010 Kindle version on my iPad

Query Notification SQL Azure BizTalk WCF-SQL: Possible?

BizTalk Operations Using a Web Console

Polling SQL Azure Database Table with WCF-SQL Adapter

Windows Azure Service Bus Topics and Queues

Documenting BizTalk Environment and BizTalk Solution

BizTalk Server 2010 Patterns by Dan Rosanova

What new Training Kit BizTalk 2010

BizTalk RFID and StreamInsight Talk

BizTalk 2010 : Line of Business System Integration

The Future of Middleware and the BizTalk Roadmap

Calling Stored Procedure Oracle 11g Using WCF-Custom OracleDbBinding

Using BTSHTTPReceive in x64 Environment

SQLExecute Oracle 11g XE using WCF OracleDbBinding

Polling Oracle 11g XE with OracleDbBinding

Passed BizTalk 2010 exam (70-595)

BizTalk Server MVP 2011

BTUG: BizTalk integration with SalesForce

BizTalk, SalesForce and MSMQ – Part I

BizTalk, SalesForce and MSMQ – Part II

Also recently in Dutch .NET magazine an article has been published called “Force.com werkt met BizTalk Server 2010”. Besides this talk Saravana Kumar will talk about and demo BizTalk 360. Jeroen Boiten will kick off with a presentation on integration project at GasUnie.

Second Visit to Stockholm : BizTalk User Group Sweden

Monitoring BizTalk Solutions – The Tools Part 5

Table Operation on Oracle 11g XE with OracleDbBinding

DevDays 2011

BizTalk Server 2010 Exam : How to prepare?

BizTalk 2010 Exam is available

BizTalk AppFabric Connect: WCF-Adapter Service Stored Procedure

WCF-SQL Adapter Stored Procedure : SQL Azure

Interview by Richard Seroter: MVP Summit

WCF-SQL Adapter Stored Procedure

Masterclass BizTalk and AppFabric

BizTalk Server 2010 Adapters

BIA - The BizTalk Intelligence Agency

BizTalk Hotrod 11

Installing Windows SharePoint Services Web Service Adapter BizTalk Server 2010/SharePoint Foundation 2010

Install Windows SharePoint Foundation 2010

Install Windows SharePoint Services Adapter

Windows Azure – BidNow Sample

BTUG The Netherlands – BizTalk 2010

New Azure SDK version 1.3 released

Moving to cloud a bit more

Dutch Technet Magazine – Windows Azure AppFabric

Installing BizTalk Adapter Pack 2010 on x64

TechEd Europe 2010 Berlin–What did I learn, do, see and eat?

TechEd 2010: Berlin

BizTalk 2010: Notification Services

BizTalk 2010 Developer is available

BizTalk Server 2010 Documentation – Beta and Posters