blog.paul.somers.com

What’s New in BizTalk 2009 R2…

paul — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:22:22 +0000

We have had BizTalk 2006 R2, and now we will soon have BizTalk 2009 R2, so don’t get confused… and BizTalk is far from being replaced it only gets better. I’ve been looking at 2009 R2 recently, and I can tell you a few things about what’s coming, within reason, as most of this is still under wraps I can’t spill all of the beans.

BizTalk vNext features or WF/WCF vnext features?

paul — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 06:30:45 +0000

Look at the next version of BizTalk 2009 R2, coming soon, and then think what else would I like to ...

Where does Dublin, WF and WCF fit with BizTak going forward?

paul — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:22:29 +0000

I previously spoke about where BizTalk and Dublin (Insert Name), WF and WCF all fit…. Well here is my view....

WS-* Standards Supported by WCF

paul — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:05:06 +0000

I was working on an RFI recently, and WS-* standards are all important these days, and it wanted to know what ws-* standards WCF supported. Well it took some reading and digging, but here they are: BasicHttpBinding WS-I All Basic Profile 1.0 standards WsHttpBinding WS-Reliability WS-Reliable WS-Security WS-SecureConversation WS-Trust WS-Federation WS-Addressing WS-Policy WS-MetadataExchange WS-Coordination WS-Atomic

SharePoint, workflow, human workflow where does it go?

paul — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:32:34 +0100

We got together recently at teched, and spoke about the concept of workflow, and SharePoint being a great host for human based workflow. No I have not changed my spots to become a SharePoint person, I have enhanced my spots my looking above and beyond what just BizTalk can offer. There is a lot more to life these days, for those who have been living in the dark, there is the whole world of connected systems, and workflow foundation. The opportunities to use the technology that BizTalk started have expanded. This is one example of thinking out side of the box, and taking full advantage of this technology. It may even go as far as explain where BizTalk is positioned in light of Dublin, and the new WF 4.0. SharePoint is a good user interface, it can provide workflow capabilities, but more importantly it can draw users in and get them to fill in forms and answer the questions that a human based workflow might require, such as approvals, or provide this invoice, and the like, these can all be handled in a document library in SharePoint. They are placed there perhaps as part of a workflow, or part of a business process.

BIG FIRE

paul — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 23:51:02 +0100

I was sitting at a local drinking establishment, and I saw this massive fire in the distance, we were about 20 klms away, yet we could clearly see the flames... I cam home a little later, and checked the news channels, there was no mention of this, did I get a scoop or something??? Well no, it is more perhaps an example of how poor the news service is in this country... shame shame.... Have a look at the picture here http://blog.paul.somers.com/bigfire.pg

Microsoft TAG IT

paul — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:57:51 +0100

HI,

Get into Microsoft Tag it, at the recent Teched here, all MVPs had a Tag assoicated with our names, ...

WCF / WF 4 Training Kit

paul — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 11:57:21 +0100

Microsoft .NET 4.0, and WCF 4 and WF 4 are all comming..... VS 2010 is availbe for beta 1 download..... Now you need to get up to speed.... have a look at the training... WCF / WF 4 Training Kit: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/wcfwf4/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=2698

BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0 Released

paul — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 07:12:50 +0100

The BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0, formerly known as the ESB Guidance 2.0 - was released on the June 9th to the web on the new ESB page in the BizTalk Developer Center on MSDN. This toolkit is a collection of tools and libraries that extends BizTalk Server 2009 capabilities of supporting a loosely coupled and dynamic messaging architecture. It functions as middleware that provides tools for rapid mediation between services and their consumers. Enabling maximum flexibility at run time, the BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0 simplifies loosely coupled composition of service endpoints and management of service interactions.

What Is an Enterprise Service Bus?

paul — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 21:32:37 +0100

An Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) is an architectural pattern and a key enabler in implementing the infrastructure for a service-oriented architecture (SOA). Real-world experience has demonstrated that an ESB is only one of many components required to build a comprehensive service-oriented infrastructure (SOI). The term "ESB" has various interpretations in the market, which have evolved over time; however, the basic challenge it addresses is the same.

Teched 10 Is open for registration...

paul — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 11:01:52 +0100

TechEd is in its 10th year and is positioned to be the best yet! Teched is starting to sound like the super bowl in the USA. However.... be sure to take advantage of the Super Early Bird offer

BizTalk Server Dev Center

paul — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:48:31 +0100

Are you aware there is a BizTalk Server Dev Center?? There is some very Nice Biztalk 2009 documentation here which is well worth the effort, as the 2009 release is out, you should now know that you need to do BizTalk the right way.

Videos: TechTalk Recordings from TechED 2009 US

paul — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:39:49 +0100

Come and get some of the cool BizTalk Related videos from this years USA Tech-ED

RELEASE: Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009 Hyper-V Guide

paul — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 22:31:14 +0100

The BizTalk Customer Advisory Team and the BizTalk UA Team are pleased to announce the Release To Web of the “Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009 Hyper-V Guide”. The guide provides relevant information to IT professionals to enable them to make educated decisions about the advantages and tradeoffs of using Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V to virtualize BizTalk Server environments. This guidance is a result of 6 months of effort including a 6-week performance lab conducted by the BizTalk Customer Advisory Team.

An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine

paul — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 10:38:28 +0000

I came across a little nasty, when trying to send email from the smtp adapter. If you look down deep ...

Call .net Method from Orchestration

paul — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 13:48:33 +0100

If you wish to call a .net method from an orchestration.

Usage of System.XML.XmlDocument in BizTalk

paul — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 15:15:46 +0100

Try not to use the System.XML.XmlDocument object inside an orchestration, or receive messages of this type

Upgrading to 2006 R2, moving to new server at the same time? Upgrading SQL at the same time?

paul — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:10:45 +0100

Wishing to upgrade to BizTalk r2, from previous BizTalk versions, 2004 or 2006, and then upgdrade heir servers at the same time, or move to new servers, and then upgrade their sql servers.... Not exactly standard installs for BizTalk...

Add Adapter Wizard Error

paul — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 14:46:28 +0100

If you ever get the error Unable to display adapter user interface. Value cannot be null.Parameter name: s when trying to add a generated schema, from SQL/SAP/Dynamics...

Configuring Dynamics 2009 AIF for BizTalk 2006

paul — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 09:39:49 +0100

There has been little documentation, if any, either on MSDN or CustomerSource regarding the implementation of AIF Services with the BizTalk Adapter. I have been working with this for Dynamics 2009, which is even worse, as all of the documentation is for dynamics 4. I managed to figure out, with the help of some others how to configure dynamics to enable BizTalk to at least send a document to it. It's all about end points, and services. See below for the step by step.

BizTalk Support for Visual Studio 2008 (VS 2008)

paul — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 14:10:05 +0000

The offical word on this topic is as follows:

With the launch of Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 ...

BizTalk Error Messages in Detail

paul — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 07:32:21 +0000

long time ago I asked if MS could document the error messages that come out of the various parts of BizTalk. My wishes were granted today, and I have a detailed list of error code/message for all of these below:

BizTalk RFID: Phigits driver

paul — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 10:16:34 +0100

I have been working with RFID of late and a great aid to showing and demos of RFID is the ...

MSDTC Hell… how to fix it.

paul — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 09:30:20 +0100

I was getting errors when installing BizTalk 2006, around MS DTC.

TITLE: Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 Configuration Wizard

------------------------------

Failed to deploy BizTalk system assembly "D:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006\Microsoft.BizTalk.GlobalPropertySchemas.dll".

A transport-level error has occurred when sending the request to the server. (provider: TCP Provider, error: 0 - An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host.)

Deployment cannot initialize the connection to the database "BizTalkMgmtDb" on server "biztalkqa02". Verify that you have the required security permissions and that communication between Distributed Transaction Coordinator services on the machines involved is not prevented by current DTC security, firewall or authentication settings.

I have seen this countless times, and the mstdc config and a reboot fixes it, I then looked further and saw this in the event log however….

The local MS DTC detected that the MS DTC on BIZTALKQA02 has the same unique identity as the local MS DTC. This means that the two MS DTC will not be able to communicate with each other. This problem typically occurs if one of the systems were cloned using unsupported cloning tools. MS DTC requires that the systems be cloned using supported cloning tools such as SYSPREP. Running 'msdtc -uninstall' and then 'msdtc -install' from the command prompt will fix the problem. Note: Running 'msdtc -uninstall' will result in the system losing all MS DTC configuration information.

I had a separate biztalk machine and separate sql server machine. These machines were created from a standard 2003 server image, they were renamed and made good for network connection, they were fine in all aspects. All except for MSDTC.

It seems that when you install MSDTC it assigns a unique id to your instance to know who is who, however if you clone the machine then they get the same instance id.

I tried the msdtc –uninstall and –install, it did not fix the problem… It seems there is a sequence to this to ensure that no one gets the same id.

To fix this do the following: (The SQL server must be turned on and connected to the network.)

1. On the BizTalk server:

a. msdtc –uninstall.

b. Reboot

c. msdtc –install

d. Reboot

e. Check MSDTC is installed and working.

2. On the SQL Server.:

a. msdtc –uninstall

b. Reboot

c. msdtc –install

d. Reboot

3. On both of them:

a. Configure msdtc for network transactions, go to the security tab and turn every checkbox on, and then reboot.

Your machines should now be able to communicate via msdtc, you can try msdtc ping, however install and configure BizTalk 2006, and it will work now.

Use Alternative Operations Monitoring & Management tools other than MOM?

paul — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 22:05:34 +0100

I have had several clients wanting to monitor BizTalk in a production environment; they have their own management tools (similar to ...

DB2 SQL Syntax: Select top 10 * from [TABLE]

paul — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 14:31:36 +0000

After playing around with the DB2 Adapter, I discovered that DB2, as expected, has its own unique syntax for SQL statements. Not so great if you come from the SQL server background.

SQL Syntax: Select top 10 * from [TABLE]

What is this in db2 SQL?

Select * from [TABLE] FETCH FIRST 10 ROWS ONLY

Many thanks to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Select_(SQL)

BizTalk Fix Lesson 2: DB2 Adapter

paul — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 13:52:07 +0000

Have you ever received the following error Message When using the db2 Adapter for BizTalk? The adapter "DB2 Adapter" raised an error message. Details "UPDATE or DELETE is not allowed against the specified cursor. SQLSTATE: 42828, SQLCODE: -510"

The following error occurred when executing your SQL Query on the Tracking Database: Timeout Expired

paul — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 08:46:27 +0000

I know this is an old one, but i recently searched for the answer to this in my archive, so I decided to place it here as a reminder.

Do you get the problem: every time I run HAT Query/Messages sent in pass day OR Query/Messages Received in pass day - I get the following error: The following error occurred when executing your SQL Query on the Tracking Database: Timeout Expired

Well do this:

There is a registry setting:
HKEY_CURRRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\BizTalkServer\3.0\Tracking\ConnectionTimeout

ConnectionTimeout is a dword, set it to 0 and it will never time out, you
can also set it to 100 or 500 to increase the time out so it will time out,
but after a longer period. Restart hat to have it effected.

However, there could be a larger issue here, check the size of your DTA
database. If its massive you should purge it, and trim it. It is a potential
performance issue waiting to happen. Post SP1 there was a hotfix to allow
you to do this.

UK SDC BizTalk 2006 Documenter RELEASED

paul — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 13:04:49 +0100

Creates compiled help files for a given BTS 2006 installation. This tool can be run on an ad-hoc basis using the UI or from the command line as a post build/deploy task to create a compiled help file describing a BTS 2006 installation.

How to clean up all of the backup files created with the BizTalk Backup Job

paul — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 09:04:25 +0100

How to clean up all of the backupfiles created with the BizTalk Backup Job As anyone who has fully implemented BizTalk will know, if you do not backup your databases you will have problems. I can not stress more highly, please back up your BiTalk databases. The next thing you will notice is that its not that simple, there is a Backup Job that ships with the product, that creates backups, you NEED to use this job to create your backups or you will not be supported. The job will create a full backup daily, and a transactional log backup every 15 minutes. (This is configurable) At the end of the day, you end up with quite a lot of files, that take up quite a lot of disk space depending on how active your solution has been. In reality you should be archiving these backups daily, and cleaning up the backup directory. But what if your backup directory is on the SAN and its backuped up, but there are several days worth of backup still lying around… This happens more often than you would think, so we have 100’s of these backup files filling up the disk, which gets critical when the disk fills up. So how do I clean up these files automatically.......

BizTalk: Fix the Error Lesson 1

paul — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 16:44:29 +0100

I have decided that, as I come across errors in what I do related to BizTalk, I will document how I overcame these errors. So in fix the error lesson 1, we had a problem running config frame work on BizTalk 2006. The error was very vague: ERROR: 0x80070002 : The system cannot find the file specified.

BizTalk Envelope Processing with the Oracle Adapter in BizTalk 2006

paul — Thu, 11 May 2006 16:34:57 +0100

The envelope processor is fantastic, it will allow you to receive a document is several records in it, and split it out automatically, into several little messages. All you need to do is define your envelope, and then your child message schema. Lets get it to work with the Oracle adapter that comes with BizTalk 2006...

BizTalk 2006 Released to Manufacturing in London

paul — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 21:35:43 +0100

It appears that Microsoft released BizTalk 2006, check it out: HERE

I am pleased, and surprised at the same time, I have been pushing to find out when this would occur, and there it happens right under our noses.

I have been having some major problems with the RC release, however I am keen to check the RTM out, and see how it fly’s, hopefully these bugs have been ironed out.....

All in all I must say it is an impressive upgrade to BizTalk 2004, and I can say that the new things in there WILL make life easier, and hopefully increase the use of Best Practice.

POST BizTalk 2006, look out for an enhancement release for all the cool bits that didn't make the release, as they are very cool indeed.

Internal SOAP Processing Failure when calling a BizTalk Orchestration Exposed as a Web Service

paul — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 16:24:28 +0000

I was having numerous issues getting my orchestration to work, that I had published as a web service. The problem was calling it from my .net assembly. My problem was the debug processes stopped here: Internal SOAP Processing Failure

I Passed my BizTalk Exam 074-135

paul — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 14:28:12 +0000

074-135 Developing E-Business solutions using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004.

I'd like to reflect on this exam, it was actually a vary fair exam, the questions asked were reflective to what a person would have to know in the field, I smiled and laughed at some of the questions, and had to think for some of them to get the scenario correct. The only negative comments were, as always with these exams, they were very Microsoft centric, within the tool set. Example: Not everyone uses the BizTalk deployment wizard.... I have very very rarely used it. Anyone with any sense would script their deployment.

That said, I know the exam has been out for ages now, but I received a free voucher for any exam as part of my MVP, so I decided to take this exam, as it was the obvious choice. I booked it on the Tuesday, took it on the Thursday, was on client site dealing with issues, realized it was on when my outlook calendar reminded me, dashed from the client site to the exam center, took the exam, with plenty of time to spare.

I am pleased to pass this one purely based on my current knowledge alone, anyone fancy taking my harder version of this exam, the one I do when I interview people.

There is just so much more to using BizTalk than is on the exam, I am seriously considering writing my own training course to teach this stuff, its very cool and very very deep dive, anyone interested?

How to deploy a bam profile with out needing analysis services.

paul — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 12:22:21 +0000

What if you selected not to deploy analysis services parts of BizTalk when you installed, it is optional. Well after some digging around I discovered that I could make it work. So how can I do it then?

New Tutorials for BizTalk 2004

paul — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 10:46:56 +0000

Two tutorials, EAI, & B2B which are much easier to follow, due to the inclusion of additional screen shots.

Hot fixes for BizTalk 2004 Post SP1

paul — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 15:56:42 +0100

I thought this list I have could be of use, it lists all of the hot fixes, POST SP1 that I know about, ...

MVP Sumit 2005

paul — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 14:17:32 +0100

Pictures from this years MVP Sumit.

DTA database was empty? nothing was being tracked?

paul — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 02:08:00 +0100

We had an issue, the DTA database was empty, nothing was being tracked, and we were seeing a weird error message that pointed at something else in the event log: Either another TDDS is processing the same data or there is an orphaned session in SQL server holding TDDS lock. Either another TDDS is processing the same data or there is an orphaned session in SQL Server holding TDDS lock. SQL Server: \. Database: BizTalkDTADb