BizTalk Blogs

Best Missing BizTalk Blog Contest Winners

Fri, 18 May 2012 01:44:24 GMT

First off, thanks for all the great suggestions of missing blogs from the BizTalkGurus.com Blog Feed!

I will be working on getting those site included into the feed with the next release that should happen in the next week.

Now for the winners!

Grand Prize of a copy of Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010 Patters book by Dan Rosanova goes to Mark Brimble.

Runner up prize of a copy of Pro Business Activity Monitoring in BizTalk 2009 signed by BOTH authors goes to Stuart Brierley.

Thanks again for all the great feedback and look for more books give-a-ways in the next few days.

Erro ao receber dados do WCF-Oracle: COMMIT is not allowed in a subordinate session

Thu, 17 May 2012 17:21:49 GMT

Depois dos artigos anteriores sobre WCF-Oracle, conseguimos configurar corretamente e estamos preparados para receber os dados. Porém ao ligar a porta, a orchestration não sobe e descobrimos esse Warning no Event Viewer: The adapter "WCF-ORACLE" raised an error message. Details "Microsoft.ServiceModel.Channels.Common.TargetSystemException: ORA-02089: COMMIT is not allowed in a subordinate session. ORA-06512: at "Usuário.Package", line 182 Se você sentir...

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BizTalk Innovation Event, Milan, Italy | May 24th

Thu, 17 May 2012 11:11:53 +0100

Overnet Education in collaboration with Microsoft Italy and User Group Italiano Connected System has organaised one of the biggest BizTalk event in Italy.

All thanks goes to Nino Crudele (fellow Italian BizTalk Server MVP) for taking the effort to organise the event. It's not a easy task by no means organising a community activity (FREE) of this magnitude bringing international speakers. Big thanks to Nino for organising this.

If you are somewhere near by (Sweden, Norway, UK or any European destination), it will be a worthy while day to network with some of the great guys in BizTalk community.

The agenda for the event:

BizTalk Host thresholds and automatic throttling
by Tord Glad Nordahl;

BizTalk360
by Saravana Kumar (MVP BizTalk Server)

Adapter Pack Integration Capabilities (BizTalk)
by Steef-Jan Wiggers (MVP BizTalk Server)

Introduction to the Azure Service Bus EAI/EDI features
by Sandro Pereira (MVP BizTalk Server)

BizTalk Innovation Event Wrap up
by Nino Crudele (MVP BizTalk Server)

Click here to ensure your registration or to get more information?s about this event.

Nandri!

Saravana Kumar

Published BizTalk Monitoring best practices white paper

Wed, 16 May 2012 09:05:07 +0100

Today we published a white paper explaining the importance of BizTalk Server monitoring and Top 15 best practices your can follow to get your monitoring story correct.

Read the complete article BizTalk Monitoring - Top 15 Best Practices in our official BizTalk360 blog.

Hope you enjoy it, please feel free to add your views as comments.

Nandri

Saravana Kumar

BizTalk Training – Mapping – How to implement multi-level Muenchian grouping in BizTalk Maps

Tue, 15 May 2012 21:59:15 +0000

I already talked about Muenchian Grouping in BizTalk Maps in the past: BizTalk Training – Mapping – Muenchian Grouping and Sorting in BizTalk Maps without losing Map functionalities Inspired by a question in BizTalk Server Forums: XSLT Mapping Question (Summing Values)… I decided to solved this problem and publish this sample to help this user… [...]

OVERNET BizTalk Innovation Event | May 24, 2012 – Milan, Italy

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:17:00 +0000

Next week there will be BizTalk event in Milan. Overnet Education in collaboration with Microsoft Italy and User Group Italiano Connected System will organize, for the first time an interesting event related to BizTalk Server and integration services with the presence of international speakers. Myself, Sandro, Tord and Saravana will speak at this event.

Event is organized by Nino Crudele in collaboration with me and few others. Nino is the founder of the User Group Italiano Connected System and will be our host. I would like to invite you all to join us next May 24, 2012 in Milan, Italy.

The agenda for the event:

13:45 – 14:00: Registration;

14:00 – 14:15: Welcome;

14:15 – 15:00: BizTalk Host thresholds and automatic throttling
by Tord Glad Nordahl;

15:00 – 15:45: BizTalk360
by Saravana Kumar (MVP BizTalk Server)

15:45 – 16:00: Break;

16:00 – 16:45: Adapter Pack Integration Capabilities (BizTalk)
by Steef-Jan Wiggers (MVP BizTalk Server)

16:45 – 17:30: Introduction to the Azure Service Bus EAI/EDI features
by Sandro Pereira (MVP BizTalk Server)

17:30 – 18:00: BizTalk Innovation Event Wrap up
by Nino Crudele (MVP BizTalk Server)

18:00: Closure

Click here to ensure your registration or to get more information’s about this event.

Como obter um "inventário de software BizTalk" instalado com o PowerShell

Tue, 15 May 2012 08:24:17 GMT

Apenas brincando um pouco com PowerShell e alguns tarefas administrativa ou de manutenção de BizTalk... É sempre bom saber qual o software que está instalado no nosso ambiente. Às vezes precisamos de saber qual a versão do BizTalk que está instalado ou qual versão do Adapter Pack, x86 ou x64? E de preferência, ser capaz de obter esta lista de uma forma fácil e automatizada. Esta é a minha primeira versão deste script e mostra como obter uma lista do inventário de software BizTalk...

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Configurando a Receive Port Polling do WCF-Oracle

Tue, 15 May 2012 00:58:34 GMT

Olá Pessoal. Configurar a Receive Port com os novos Adaptadores WCF é relativamente fácil, certo? Com o WCF-Oracle não é bem assim. Então neste artigo vou explicar o passo-a-passo para que a receive port possa fazer o polling na procedure do Oracle. Nos artigos anteriores, vimos como criar um schema e como criar uma procedure tipada. Assim que puxamos esse schema, foi criado 3 arquivos xsd no projeto. O primeiro deles é o Type dos nodes. O segundo é o schema propriamente dito,...

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How to obtain a list of “BizTalk Software Inventory” installed with PowerShell

Mon, 14 May 2012 15:51:08 +0000

Just play around with PowerShell and some BizTalk administrative and maintenance tasks… It’s always good to know what software is installed in our environment. Sometimes we need to know what version of BizTalk is installed or what version of the Adapter Pack, x86 or x64? And preferably be able to get this list in an [...]

Is AWS or Windows Azure the Right Choice? It’s Not That Easy.

Thu, 10 May 2012 14:16:33 +0000

I was thinking about this topic today, and as someone who built the AWS Developer Fundamentals course for Pluralsight, is a Microsoft MVP who plays with Windows Azure a lot, and has an unnatural affinity for PaaS platforms like Cloud Foundry / Iron Foundry and Force.com, I figured that I had some opinions on this [...]

BizTalk Community series: Introducing Sriram Chidambaram Narayanan

Wed, 09 May 2012 20:31:00 +0000

It has been a few weeks since my last post. Why, well I have been busy promoting my BizTalk Server 2010 Cookbook, which was published last month. I recommend you to buy a copy (eBook and/or printed version) if you haven’t done so already. A few weeks ago, just before the book was published, I had a conversation through email with Sriram, the person who as a BizTalk community member I like to bring to the foreground now. He has recently been awarded Microsoft Community Contributor. Well done and here is his story.

Sriram Chidambaram Narayanan is 27 years old professional from Chennai located in the southern part of India (State: TamilNadu). He works as a Senior Application Architect for Computer Sciences Corporation(CSC) in Bangalore. Sriram was at Unum for 14 months in the United States and returned back to India a couple of months ago.

Sriram has a total of 6 years of BizTalk experience.He started his career with developing and gradually evolved to a role where he is designing and architecting integration solutions. During his career he started with experimenting and creating connections with BizTalk Server to different applications. More recently his interest shifted towards learning the concepts and technology behind the ESB toolkit and Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus (now renamed to Service Bus Connect). These are currently the two areas where he is focusing on.

Sriram loves the BizTalk product because I quoted:

its a fresh approach for designing Business flows and connections through built in shapes and configurations instead of the traditional 20000 lines of code
provides a clear view on everything that flows through the system via various tracking options and monitoring tools
it has and is maturing as a product with various enhancements and accelerators since the time I started working on the 2004 version
it also has many interesting concepts, designs and logics that one has to think on opposed to just configure type products
it never stopped challenging me and I never stopped dissolving them to feel the exhilaration.

His enthusiasm for the product shows through his contributions on the BizTalk forums (profile) and other channels. Whenever Sriram gets time outside of his regular work he will spend time on the forums. He enjoys doing this as it introduces him to different issues and solutions, which otherwise would take lots of time for him to personally explore. He also maintains a blog, where he shares his experience and knowledge or some times writes a post on issue resolutions that might help others. He also contributes to Codit's(http://www.codit.eu) technical blogs. To the readers of his personal blog he would like to say:

“Show love, keep learning, be strong and don’t compromise on your goals.Keep a rockin’ attitude!”

Beside blogging Sriram has recently written his first article for the TechNet Wiki.So we have another BizTalk community member as contributor.

In India, cricket is a religion and Sriram is a great fan of Sachin Tendulkar. He support his home team, Chennai Super Kings and enjoys playing tennis once and a while. Besides sports Sriram enjoys listening to music especially to A. R. Rahman. Furthermore he regularly visits his family every weekend and now and then he spends some time with his friends.

Finally Sriram has a word for me and this blog:

“Steef is a great inspiration to all new BizTalk and Integration professionals and his contributions in the forums and TechNet articles are tremendous. I would thank and appreciate Steef for all his contributions and for keeping the ball rolling.Nandri!(Thank you)”

Thanks Sriram for your time and your contributions to forums, your blog and now also the TechNet Wiki.

OVERNET BizTalk Innovation Event | May 24, 2012 – Milan, Italy

Wed, 09 May 2012 16:24:09 +0000

Great news for the BizTalk community, Overnet Education in collaboration with Microsoft and User Group Italiano Connected System (ugics.org) will organize, for the first time, one of the most interesting free events related to BizTalk Server and integration services with the presence of international speakers. With a very intense, half-day sessions with high technical content, [...]

Interview Series: Four Questions With … Dean Robertson

Wed, 09 May 2012 15:00:59 +0000

I took a brief hiatus from my series of interviews with “connected systems” thought leaders, but we’re back with my 39th edition. This month, we’re chatting with Dean Robertson who is a longtime integration architect, BizTalk SME, organizer of the Azure User Group in Brisbane, and both the founder and Technology Director of Australian consulting [...]

Presentation at the 5th SOA & Cloud Symposium, London 9/24

Wed, 09 May 2012 13:30:21 +0000

I’ll be presenting “Federated ESB with Microsoft Azure - Architecture & Patterns” at the 5th International SOA & Cloud Symposium in London on September 24th. The abstract of the presentation is: With the move to mass-market, multi-tenant SaaS solutions, integration will become even more important than it is today. Now companies can start to deliver their value [...]

Video case study: PrivacyCentral uses Ruby on Azure

Tue, 08 May 2012 16:59:04 +0000

I’ve been busy making videos of a few of the ISVs that I’ve had the pleasure of working with. This is the first of those video case studies.

The video is available here. Enjoy!

===============================================================

Most consumers are unaware of the extent of publicly available, online exposures of their information – including phone numbers, current and past addresses, birth dates, home values, income level, religion, and relative names (including mother's maiden name) – all of which can easily be used for identity theft and other cybercrimes.

Like an antivirus for consumer privacy, PrivacyCentral exposes privacy threats to consumers, provides analysis and reports via a risk profile and risk score, and then empowers consumers with the ability to remove detected threats and monitor for future threats.

In this video, Privacy Central's CEO and founder, Zoiner Tejada, speaks with Microsoft Principal Architect Evangelist Brian Loesgen. Tejada discusses the benefits Privacy Central realized from building on the Azure platform, and how they run their Ruby crawlers on Azure. Tejada also goes on to share some lessons learned along the way during their development cycle, and offers up some tips for people new to the platform.

About Privacy Central

Privacy Central is a San Diego CA-based startup and is a member of Microsoft's BizSpark program, it is the first service to allow the consumer to regain full control over their sensitive information.

PrivacyCentral is dedicated to protecting consumer privacy, with powerful tools designed to make protection simple.

About BizSpark

Microsoft BizSpark is a global program that helps software startups succeed by giving them access to Microsoft software development tools, connecting them with key industry players, including investors, and providing marketing visibility to help entrepreneurs starting a business

Windows Azure–being renamed?

Tue, 08 May 2012 12:57:37 GMT

http://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-renames-azure-services – article talks about MS renaming services and essentially dropping the ‘Windows…’ out of it.

My experience has seen this will appeal to the non-MS types that see ‘Windows…’ as something they don’t want to go near.
I personally think it’s a good move as sure it’s Windows but the Azure Platform offers so much more…..

Here’s some of the proposed changes….

Prior Service Name	New Service Name
Windows Azure Compute	Cloud Services
Windows Azure Platform - All Services	All Services
Windows Azure CDN	CDN
Windows Azure Storage	Storage
Windows Azure Traffic Manager	Traffic Manager
Windows Azure Virtual Network	Virtual Network
AppFabric Cache	Cache
AppFabric Service Bus	Service Bus
AppFabric Access Control	Access Control
SQL Azure	SQL Database
SQL Azure Reporting Service	SQL Reporting

BizTalk Backup-Disaster Recovery - Log shipping is the only official option, why?

Tue, 08 May 2012 12:18:50 +0100

When it comes to BizTalk environment "Backup and Disaster recovery", the only official supported option is Log shipping.

This applies to all the versions of BizTalk Servers listed below

BizTalk Server 2004 SP1, 2006, 2006 R2, 2009 and 2010

Log shipping was originally introduced in BizTalk 2006 and back ported to 2004 via SP1. MSDN article contains very good resources, explaining the steps involved in setting up and restoring BizTalk databases.

Microsoft story on BizTalk Server backup/restore has never changed for the past 6 years. When it comes to disaster recovery there are 2 standard industry terms people refer to

Recovery Point Objective (RPO), and
Recovery Time Objective (RTO)

RPO is the amount of data loss acceptable for business, and RTO is the amount of time it?s acceptable for business without a live environment. With BizTalk Server log shipping default settings, these values will be RPO value of 15 minutes (transaction log back up interval, which can be altered), and RTO will be approximately 1 hour.

Depending on your system volume and amount of background noise it can tackle, you can experiment with reducing the transaction log back up time from default 15 minutes.

Why Log shipping, not any other methods?

BizTalk Server uses multiple databases as part of its runtime requirement. These databases need to be transactionally consistent (including DTC transactions) at any given point of time to ensure integrity of the server.

As part of this solution, BizTalk uses Marked Transactions (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa577848(v=bts.20).aspx) that guaranties the transactional consistency for all of the databases included in the backup. As part of the installation/configuration, BizTalk creates a SQL Agent Job that uses SQL log shipping for providing backup/recovery of its databases. The backup/restore solution is implemented as an external SQL artifact and is not a native functionality/feature of BizTalk server. The server runtime only expects availability of its databases in a consistent state and does not make any assumptions about the backup/restore mechanism. The task of securing a backup and restoring the database in a transactionally consistent state is assumed to be an external activity.

What's Microsoft stand on alternate solutions?

If you use BizTalk Server with any 3rd party database solutions other than Microsoft SQL Server Log shipping for backup/restore, your primary support contact is the third-party solution provider for any support issues that are related to this. BizTalk Server was developed and tested by using Microsoft SQL Server Log shipping. The Third-party solution provider should be your primary contact for any installation issues, performance issues, or backup\restoration issues. CSS provides commercially reasonable support for BizTalk server related issues as long as it is not related to the back\restore functionality provided by the 3rd party solution.

Generally, support for any SQL specific 3rd party solutions are within the scope of support as outlined here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/913945

What does the above mean?

Microsoft as a software vendor provides an out of the box solution for BizTalk backup and restore. If you are choosing a third party vendor or custom crafting something for your own benefit (ex: avoiding the extra SQL server instances required for Log shipping). Then the risk is either with you or with the third party vendor to restore the data/environment back. If in case you can?t restore your DR site using a third party solution, then simply don?t call Microsoft support.

If you look at the SQL server case, there are dozen third party vendors who supply backup/restore tools for SQL server. If you use any of them and you can?t recover the data, then logically you call the third party vendor helpline or sue them, rather than calling Microsoft.

Unfortunately for BizTalk server there are not any third party solutions available that can certify and take the risk. So you are left with Log shipping.

Nandri!

Saravana Kumar
Founder - BizTalk360
Subscribe to BizTalk360 updates

Criando Procedure Tipada no Oracle–WCF-OracleDB

Mon, 07 May 2012 23:49:12 GMT

Olá Pessoal, trabalhar com o adaptador do Oracle é bem diferente do que trabalhar com os outros adaptadores. No post anterior falei sobre como conectar no banco com o Consume Adapter Service e puxar um schema. Mas notamos que veio um xsd esquisito com uns campos genéricos. Porque isso acontece? Bem, para retornar registros dentro de uma procedure, esta deve estar dentro de um package do Oracle, e o select deve estar dentro de um Cursor. Para que retorne os campos como estamos...

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Criando schemas com o WCF-OracleDB

Mon, 07 May 2012 23:44:55 GMT

Pra quem está acostumado ao mundo Microsoft, banco de dados é SQL Server. E quem acha que banco de dados é tudo igual, especificamente, que Oracle é igual ao SQL Server, pode cair do cavalo. Sempre acostumada a Connection String do SQL, foi uma grande dificuldade conectar no banco com o WCF-Oracle e puxar um simples schema. Isso porque o Oracle funciona de uma forma diferente: para se conectar devemos criar um alias do servidor no arquivo tnsnames.ora. Esse arquivo fica na pasta de...

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Instalando o WCF-Oracle Adapter no Biztalk 2006 e 2009

Mon, 07 May 2012 23:36:29 GMT

Instalar o Adaptador WCF no Biztalk 2010 é bem intuitivo, pois o Biztalk Adapter Pack 2010 já vem no DVD de Instalação. Agora instalar o Adaptador no Biztalk 2006 R2 e no Biztalk 2009, fica um pouco confuso. Confesso que apanhei muito, agradeço a paciência do Sandro em me ajudar. rs Então, vou fazer um passo-a-passo de instalação. Neste artigo, vou me focar na utilização do WCF-Oracle. Para funcionar corretamente devemos instalar os pacotes: 1 – WCF LOB Adapter SDK SP2 – É o core dos...

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Identificando a Versão do Biztalk Server Instalado

Mon, 07 May 2012 23:25:48 GMT

Saber qual a versão do Biztalk Server que está instalada, as vezes pode ser uma dor de cabeça. Mas podemos verificar indo direto no regedit. É só seguir os passos: 1 – Clicar em Iniciar –> Executar e digitar regedit. 2 – Abrir a seguinte chave: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\BizTalk Server\3.0 E irá aparecer qual a Versão e Edição do Biztalk. Segue tabela que nos mostra as outras versões do Biztalk. O Post Original do meu amigo...

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Erro enviando email em porta dinamica SMTP: Unknown Error Description

Mon, 07 May 2012 23:20:27 GMT

Olá pessoal! Já falei sobre como enviar email com anexo aqui, mas ao configurar o SMTP e testar o envio pode ocorrer o seguinte erro: “Unknown Error Description” Realmente muito descritivo e podemos saber de cara do que se trata né? #not Causa: Bem, no meu caso faltou especificar a propriedade SMTP.EmailBodyTextCharset. Solução: Adicionar a seguinte linha na configuração da mensagem: msg_NotificationOutput(SMTP.EmailBodyTextCharset) = "UTF-8"; Então é isso,...

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BizTalk360 first anniversary

Mon, 07 May 2012 11:03:31 +0100

In UK we got a policy of shifting the bank holidays that comes in the middle of the week to following Monday, so people can have an extended weekend. Last year's 1st May bank holiday was shifted to 2nd May, on that day we released our very first version of BizTalk360 CTP to public. Today is 7th May, alternative to 2012's 1st May holiday.

We introduced BizTalk360 with a very powerful tag line "Worlds first BizTalk production support and monitoring tool". We clearly understood, being first doesn't mean anything (Google is not the first search engine, iPOD is not the first MP3 player and Windows is not the first GUI OS to give few examples). It's all about innovation and constant improvement that either makes or breaks the product.

In the following chart we summarize our improvement over the last 1 year. We release 4 major versions in the past 1 year. We simply didn't increase the version number for every simple updates, each version came with substantial functionality that ease the life of BizTalk administrators and support people in a day to day activity.

	v1.0	v2.1	v2.5	v3.2	v4.0 BETA
Release Date	May-11	Aug-11	Oct-11	Feb-12	May-12
Features
1	Web based console
2	Application management
3	Advanced Authorization
4	Governance/Auditing
5	Topology
6	BAM Portal
7	Query Instances
8	Advanced Event Viewer
9	Dashboards
10	Platform Settings
11	SQL Instance view
12		Monitoring/Notification
13		Clustered Host Instances Handling
14			Knowledgebase
15			Role based Security
16			Message Box Viewer Integration
17			Monitoring/Notification Improvements
18				Graphical Message Flow
19				Throttling Analyser
20				SMS Alerting
21				Tracking Manager
22				Advanced Event View Improvements
23					Custom SQL Queries
24					Monitoring plugin architecture
25					Monitoring Enhancements

In the past 1 year we got customers over 10 countries, covering various industry sectors. Most of the customers are large scale enterprise customers, some of them are well known retail brands. Never thought the shirts I wear and the world famous trainers I use for my tennis (companies) will become my customers one day!!.

I whole heartedly thank every one who helped us to achieve this milestone. All my MVP and community friends, my close family and friends. We haven't paused yet, we already started planning for what's coming after 4.0 (keep tuned).

NOTE: BizTalk360 got it's own blog now, so if you want to keep up to date with product improvements, please subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/biztalk360

Nandri!

Saravana Kumar

Weekly Cloud Newsround 2012-18

Mon, 07 May 2012 06:21:11 GMT

Filtering the informative, insightful and quirky from the fire hose of cloud-based hype.

Mike Pearl from PWC Looks At Cloud Strategy Through The Lens Of Value in a guest post for Forbes, Michelle Boisvert discusses the Real and perceived security threats of cloud computing, abd Greenpeace is still mad about ‘dirty cloudy computing’.

CTV News shares its opinions on Which cloud storage solution is best for your data?, whilst V3 discusses the security and performance issues that may slow the adoption of cloud storage. Addressing the security issues, the Washington Post looks at ways to keep the cloud secure.

On the Azure front, there is a nice story about how MediaValet are Thriving on Microsoft's Cloud Platform, and Mary-Jo writes about How Twilio went from handshake to Microsoft Azure partner in a month-plus.

BizTalk Anti-Pattern: Chuck it in the config file because its an easy place to put it

Fri, 04 May 2012 22:33:41 GMT

*Name:*	Don't automatically shove your config in BTSNTSVC.exe.config because its easy?
*Description:*	I wrote a blog post a few years ago around the options for where you could put configuration settings in BizTalk (Click here). As I mention in the blog post its very common that people just fill the BizTalk config file with lots of settings because its the easiest option. I often work on big projects where you have many BizTalk projects running at the same time with different delivery deadlines. One of the problems is that the BizTalk configuration file is one of the few resources that is shared across your applications no matter what. When you have settings that are in the BizTalk config file then your BizTalk application now has additional dependancies so if you want to produce a new version of the file you have to be careful to consider how changes to the file may affect other BizTalk applications.
*Symptoms:*	You have a big project with many BizTalk projects running at the same time You have large development teams You have different applications running on the same group You have poor dependancy management between your projects You dont have much governance around changes to the BizTalk config file
*Pain:*	A change for one application may break anothers functionality
*Cure:*	Dont take the quick and easy option just because its quick and easy

Im not saying its bad to use the BizTalk config file, far from it. What I do think is a good idea though is to have a development process and governance around changes to the BizTalk configuration file to ensure a quick and easy change doesnt bite you in the future. If you want to put something in the file for custom application configuration make sure you talk it through with your technical lead or others on the team to ensure everyone agrees that the BizTalk configuration file is the right place to put it. Also have some guidelines and standards for your team to determine what types of configuration should go where.

Windows Azure Service Bus EAI Doesn’t Support Multicast Messaging. Should It?

Fri, 04 May 2012 13:56:09 +0000

Lately, I’ve been playing around a lot with the Windows Azure Service Bus EAI components (currently in CTP). During my upcoming Australia trip (register now!) I’m going to be walking through a series of use cases for this technology. There are plenty of cool things about this software, and one of them is that you [...]

BizTalk360 BETA 4.0, with most anticipated features released

Fri, 04 May 2012 07:29:57 +0100

Yesterday we announced the immediate availability of BizTalk360 V4.0, you can download it and start using it straight away from here http://www.biztalk360.com/Content/beta

Now BizTalk360 got it's own blog, please subscribe http://feeds.feedburner.com/biztalk360 to get regular updates on our progress.

One of the major improvements we have made for BizTalk360 v4.0 is extending our monitoring capabilities.

In previous version, customers were able to monitor all the artifacts related to BizTalk Applications (send ports, receive locations, orchestrations, and host instances status) + they can set alerts based on Message box viewer report (when critical or non-critical errors above certain level). But with BizTalk360 v4.0, customers can monitor and get alerted in various areas as listed below

1. BizTalk Applications (simple)
2. BizTalk Applications (Advanced)

Send Ports
Receive Locations
Orchestrations

3. BizTalk Servers

NT Services
Disks
Event Logs
System Resources (CPU, Memory)

4. SQL Instances

SQL Jobs

5. BizTalk Environment

Host Instances
Web Endpoints (WCF/SOAP services, HTTP endpoints)

6. Message Box Viewer

We have written a detailed blog post with lots of pictures showing various functionalities in detail in our new official BizTalk360 blog

http://blog.biztalk360.com/post/2012/05/04/BizTalk360-v40-Beta-Extended-Monitoring-Capabilities.aspx

Now BizTalk360 got it's own blog (http://blog.biztalk360.com/), please subscribe http://feeds.feedburner.com/biztalk360 to get regular updates on our progress.

Nandri!

Saravana Kumar

2012 Canadian Leadership Summit–Day 2

Fri, 04 May 2012 05:04:00 +0000

On day 2, the Summit contained breakout sessions that allowed us to dig into some of the topics that were introduced on the first day. More specifically we were able to dive into topics such as Windows 8 and the Consumerization of IT, Dynamics AX 2012 and CRM “R8”.

Consumerization of IT

With worker demographics changing, employees are now placing new demands on organizations to use more modern technology or let them use their own. For many recent College graduates, they don’t remember a time when there wasn’t an internet. For many employees, they have more computing power and modern equipment at home than they have in the office. These situations are creating headaches for Infrastructure managers, IT Directors and CIOs.

Windows 8 provides some tools that address some of the needs of this emerging demographic.

Windows 8 for the Enterprise

No compromise business tablet

The flexibility of a tablet with the productivity of a desktop
Picture Password - No longer are you forced to remember some password with ridiculous password requirements.
Touch first experience – introducing touch into Microsoft’s latest Operating System is not an afterthought. This Operating System was built with touch in mind.
“Always” Connected applications through live tiles. No longer do end users have to open applications to determine whether they have received a new purchase order or be glued to their inbox for new alerts. This information can be presented in form of a Live Tile much like you have on your Windows Phone 7.
When in “Windows 7 mode” applications behave the same way as in Windows 7. Not all applications will be “Metro” ready at launch or any time soon after that. If you have an application that will run on Windows 7, it will run on Windows 8.
You can dock “’Windows 8” applications beside “Windows 7” applications. You know that feature in Windows 7 that allows you to dock applications side by side? You can still do this in Windows 8 and can even doc a Windows 7 application with a Windows 8 application.
Tablets can be managed by existing infrastructure tools like SCCM

Innovative Devices

Touch
Long battery life
Thinner, lighter, faster footprints
Convertibles – want the traditional experience of a keyboard and mouse but the ability to detach your screen and use it as a tablet? If so this functionality will available
Workers who require more durable footprints will have the ability to use ruggedized laptops.

Booting from a USB device

They showed a demonstration where they had a Windows 7 computer and they inserted a USB key that contained a Windows 8 corporate image. They rebooted the computer and they were able to boot Windows 8 off of the USB drive. They then showed a demo where they were playing a video from the Windows 8 computer. They pulled the USB drive out from the physical computer. The video freezed. The presenter then plugged the USB drive back in and the video resumed. If you plug the USB key in within 60 seconds life is good. If you take longer than 60 seconds then the machine will be shut down.
This feature provides a lot of potential for people who want to bring their own device to work or where you have contractors who bring their own laptop but you want them to run your corporate Windows 8 image.

Enhanced Bitlocker support

Windows 7 introduced the ability to encrypt a USB key. The problem was that you had to encrypt the entire volume of the drive. If you had a larger USB key, like 32 GB or 64 GB, this operation took a long time. New in Windows 8 is the ability to just encrypt the data instead of the entire volume. This is a great balance between performance and security.

New Security features

New boot loader features will detect when OS files have been tampered with upon boot up. If the boot loader detects malware, it will make a connection to obtain Anti malware drivers, load them and remove the malware.

Virtualization and management

VDI is a technology that allows organizations to operate a farm of virtualized windows clients. Much like organizations can run virtualized server farms, they can also run virtual desktop farms. Windows 8 offers a superior experience over Windows 7 VDI experience.

Scrolling over VDI is very fluid even when using Touch. This is rather remarkable considering that the Server hosting the Windows 8 image has no hardware support for touch.
End users can pinch , zoom out and zoom in
Full fidelity – watching video is flawless over LAN and WAN configurations
USB re-direction allows you to plug in a USB device on local machine. A signal then gets sent to the Host Server and is then rendered in the VDI session
Storage Pools allow administrators to manage a pool of disk instead of have hard quota set for each client

Windows 8 Market

With 525 million Windows 7 users, Microsoft has high expectations for Windows 8 adoption and plans to offer a Windows Marketplace that supports 200 locales

Consumerization of IT an Opportunity or Risk?

It can be both
Consumerization Device Scenarios

On your own (low control)
Bring your own (medium control)
Choose your own (Enterprise full control)
Here is your own (Enterprise Full Control

Microsoft has different policies depending upon the scenario

Classify devices and then provide the appropriate enforcements

Access Strategy

User Based: who are you (e.g.. No Access, read write, full control)
Device Based: How much to I trust the device (e.g. managed vs. unmanaged)
Location Based: Where are you? (e.g. intranet vs. Internet)

Dynamics 2012 AX

Prior to this event, I have not had a lot of exposure to Dynamics AX. What became extremely evident is that Microsoft is very aggressive and committed to the ERP segment. They are also not only interested in establishing a platform but are also interested in providing industry specific solutions.

Proactive Applications

Knowing where we have been is no longer enough, we now need to know what is going to happen next
End users need a UI based upon their role (Role Tailoring). The CFO needs different info than the shipping clerk and the information better be populated on the front screen.
Workflow Inside

Can’t be a bolt on. Needs to be inherent in the application

Visualization

Use external data and make it apart of how you use internal data for forecasting. For instance the weather having an impact on inventory positions. We can use this data to compare patterns. This will allow for additional insights from both internal and external data that has been collected.

Out of the Box integration with Dynamics CRM so that you have 1 view of the customer

Microsoft’s Approach

Simplicity and Agility

Business Processes are subject to change so quickly that your ERP needs to have more agility than it has had in the past

Cloud

CRM online or on-premise
This time next year you will be able to run AX in Microsoft’s cloud

Microsoft Technology

Dynamics is leveraging existing investments in other Microsoft technologies like:

Kinect
Office 365
Bing
Windows
SQL Azure
SharePoint
Windows Phone
Microsoft Lync

What is Dynamics 2012?

Core ERP
BI
Industry solutions

Cloud on your terms

Embrace Hybrid
Pay as you go and Grow
deliver choice

Other

Microsoft is working on a Metro screens of Dynamics 2012
Lines between AX and CRM are starting to blur
Around 2000 people actively work in the AX organization

CRM – What’s coming down the pipeline?

Big trends in CRM

Big Data
Social
Cloud
Mobile
Core CRM

CRM “R8”

More Mobility options

CRM on an IPAD will be released within the next few days
IPAD version has synchronization capabilities you can go online-offline.

Browser flexibility (support for other browsers like Firefox, Chrome, Safari)
Social

Partnerships with LinkedIn
Both at the company level but also at the contact level
News aggregation about your customers gets sucked in from external sources.
CRM users also have the ability to share information from CRM to LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Email or the CRM Activity Feed Wall which is a internal “posting board”

Industry templates

Repetitive Intellectual Property that has been acquired from ISVs and Partners
Capital Markets/Wealth Management
HealthCare/Health Plans
Processed based Manufacturing
Certifications

Microsoft continues to be certify their offerings with industry standards

CRM Growth

CRM is one of the fastest growing business within Microsoft
Extensive Customer list across industries:

Financial Services

ING
Barclay

Professional Services

Volt
PointBridge
Hitachi Consultin

Manufacturing

Volvo
STAT Oil
Niko

Public Sector

City of London
Kent Fire and Rescu

Retail

Cold Stone
BestBuy

Health and life sciences

Pfizer
Novozyme

Travel and entertainment

Phoenix Suns
Portland Trailblazers
Toledo Mudhens
Arizona Diamondbacks

So this concludes the 2012 Canadian Leadership Summit. Overall, there was some good sessions. I really enjoyed seeing what is coming down the pipeline in areas of Windows 8, Dynamics AX and CRM.

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Thu, 03 May 2012 13:59:11 GMT

Podemos fazer debug a partir do Visual Studio por exemplo a: DLL’s externas, que são invocadas por processos de BizTalk; ou componentes das pipelines em run-time. E à semelhança do que outras linguagens, no Visual Studio teremos de colocar breakpoints no nosso código. Para fazer debug deveremos associar o código. Net. que queremos analisar ao processo de BizTalk que o mesmo será executado. No entanto, se tivermos mais de uma Host Instance configurada, quando abrimos a janela...

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