BIA - The BizTalk Intelligence Agency

BizTalk Message Based Routing: why is my file not transfered to the location of the Send Port

2012-05-17T08:46:00.000+02:00

Inspired by some tweets I had with Sam Vanhoutte (@SamVanhoutte), Mikael Sand (@MikaelSand) and Dean Robertson (@DeanRobertson), I decided to write down a number of our experiences of what can go wrong, or what you could forget, in case of a simple message based routing scenario.

So basically this article contains a checklist, which can be used as a reminder in case your message based routing scenario does not work, like you expected.

Scenario
Imagine you have a message based routing solution in its most simple form.
Your Receive Location listens to a local folder and your Send Port is subscribed to the Receive Port from the Receive Location. The URI of the Send Port is another local folder.
Although this is a very simple solution, still there is enough that can prevent the messages from flowing from A to B.

1. The Receive Location listens to the wrong folder or contains a typo
To be absolutely sure you have configured the correct folder, copy the path from the address bar in Windows Explorer and paste it at the URI field in the Receive Location.

2. The Receive Location is not enabled
If the Receive Location is not enabled, it won't poll the configured folder, so you must enable the Receive Location.

3. BizTalk is not authorized to access the file location of the Receive Location
Make sure that the identity which is configured at the Host which runs the Receive Location, has enough permissions (read/write) on the folder of the Receive Location. Failing to do so, results in the Receive Location disabling itself (after some retries).

4. The Host Instance which runs the Receive Location is not started
Host Instances take care of the actual processing of your Receive Locations, Send Ports and Orchestrations. So if the Host Instance from the Receive Location is not started, no files will be picked up, although your Receive Location is enabled, so start the designated Host Instance.

5. The filter on the Send Port contains the wrong Receive Port or contains a typo
Correct this by copying the name from the Receive Port and paste it in the filter of the Send Port.

6. The name of the Receive Port in the filter of the Send Port is surrounded with quotes
Quotes are not needed, so remove them.

7. The Send Port is not enlisted and started
If the Send Port is not enlisted, there is no active subscription for the Send Port. Further the Send Port must be started to send any files, coming from the Receive Port to the outgoing folder. So Enlist and Start the Send Port.

8. The Host Instance which runs the Send Port is not started
Host Instances take care of the actual processing of your Receive Locations, Send Ports and Orchestrations. So if the Host Instance from the Send Port is not started, the file will be picked up by the Receive Location, stay in the MessageBox, but won't be delivered to the outgoing folder, so start the designated Host Instance.

9. BizTalk is not authorized to access the file location from the Send Port
Make sure that the identity which is configured at the Host which runs the Send Port, has enough permissions (read/write) on the folder of the Send Port. Failing to do so, will result in suspended messages.

10. Mismatch of the file mask on the Receive Location
The file that you drop on the folder of the Receive Location does not match the file mask from the Receive Location. If you are dropping a .XML file while the Receive Location expects only *.TXT files, your .XML file won't be picked up by the Receive Location.

11. Tricked by Windows Explorer
You think you are dropping a .XML file, and the file mask expects .XML files, but still the file is not picked up. Perhaps you are tricked by Windows Explorer. Windows Explorer has an option to hide familiar extensions of files. So if you have a file called order.xml.txt, Windows Explorer hides the .txt extension, perhaps giving you the idea that you are dealing with a .XML file, while in fact you are dealing with a .TXT file. In Windows Explorer turn off the option to hide familiar extensions, making sure that you will always deal with the full file name.

New website: biztalkevents.com

2012-05-01T22:43:00.001+02:00

Because there are so many BizTalk (and integration) related events, I thought it would be nice, to dedicate a website for them. So I created www.biztalkevents.com, added a calendar, an entry form and added a couple of upcoming BizTalk related events.

If you have an event, which other BizTalkers must know about, just fill out the entry form and I will take care that the event will be shown in the calendar.

International BizTalk Events 2012: May is Integration month!

2012-04-29T22:55:00.000+02:00

In February 2012 Ordina (by means of Steef-Jan Wiggers) organised the Ordina BizTalk Innovation Event. We had the honour to receive 2 international guests, namely BizTalk MVP Saravana Kumar and Tord Glad Nordahl. Since that event multiple international BizTalk/Integration events are being organised. I'll mention a couple that I know off:

10 May: UK Connected Systems User Group
Location: London, United Kingdom
Speakers: Saravana Kumar, Tord Glad Nordahl
More information can be found here

22-24 May: Integration Masterclass
Location: Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Australia
Speaker: Richard Seroter
More information can be found here

24 May: Overnet BizTalk Innovation Event
Event Location: Milan, Italy
Speakers: Steef-Jan Wiggers, Sandro Pereira, Saravana Kumar, Tord Glad Nordahl
More information can be found here

26-27 September: Bouvet BizTalk Innovation Event
Location: Stavanger, Norway
Speakers are not yet confirmed, but probably: Steef-Jan Wiggers, Saravana Kumar, Tord Glad Nordahl, Lex Hegt
More information: not yet available

So if you are into BizTalk (or integration) and in the neighbourhood of one of those events, join the party!
My pick? Milan and Stavanger! Hope to see you there!

My contributions to TechNet Gallery

2012-04-17T17:42:00.000+02:00

As I like to research how BizTalk's interiors work, I often find myself writing queries against BizTalk's databases. Until now I've put literally a handfull of those queries at TechNet Gallery.

Here follows a description of those queries:

View Hosts and Host Instances Information from a SQL Query
This query shows information about the configured Hosts and the Host Instances within your BizTalk Group(s). The query becomes run against the BizTalkMgmtDb database.

It shows the following information:
• The name of the BizTalk Group
• The name of the Host
• Host Type (In-process or Isolated)
• 32-bits only (Yes or No)
• Tracking Host (Yes or No)
• The name of the Server where the Instance exists
• Name of the Host Instance
• Disabled from starting (Yes or No)

The result is sorted on:
• BizTalk Group
• Host Name
• Server Name

Show BizTalk Applications, Orchestrations, Ports and Pipelines with a SQL query
This query queries the BizTalk Management database. In one view it shows the following information:
• The BizTalk Applications from the BizTalk Group at hand
• The Assemblies which are deployed to the Applications
• The Orchestrations which are in the Applications
• The Status of the Orchestrations:

= Unenlisted
= Stopped
= Started

• The Ports as defined in the Orchestrations
• The Port Types
• The Port Type Operations
• The Receive Ports as they are bound to the Orchestrations
• The Receive Locations as they belong to the Receive Ports
• The Receive Pipelines as they are configured at the Receive Locations
• The Send Ports as they are bound to the Orchestrations
• The Send Pipelines as they are configured at the Send Ports
• The Send Port Groups as they are bound to the Orchestrations

The output is sorted on:
• Application
• Assembly
• Orchestration

Number of records in the MarkLog table
This query returns the number of records found in the MarkLog table of your BizTalk databases. This table is filled by the Backup BizTalk Server job, but is not cleaned up, unless you use the Terminator tool. Read this article to purge the records in the MarkLog table.

If you have more than 150.000 records in any of your MarkLog tables, you should use Terminator to purge these records.

The query can be easily extendedwith any custom databases which are also backed up by the Backup BizTalk Server job.

Show BizTalk Subscriptions
This download contains a .SQL query, which can be executed against your BizTalk Message Box. The results you get are the current subscriptions in the Message Box. Only the 'Equals Predicates' subscriptions are shown.

The following fields are returned:
• Application - Name of the BizTalk Application which contains the orchestration for this subscription
• Orchestration - Name of the orchestration which has the subscription
• Created On - The timestamp when the subscription was created
• Equals Predicate - The Equals Predicate (mostly the promoted property on a schema)
• Value - The value part from the predicate

Get Orchestration Instances, Counts and States
When this script is being run against a MessageBox it gives you the following information:

• Name of orchestration instances
• Number of orchestration instances
• State of the orchestration instances

The view is grouped by the first 2 columns and sorted on all 3 columns. To make it safe to execute this query against the MessageBoxDb, the WITH(NOLOCK) hint is used.

Number of Messages per MessageType in the TrackingDb
This query gives you insight in what information is stored in the BizTalk TrackingDb. When being run against it, the query shows the following columns:

• Schema
• Number of Messages

The result is grouped by and sorted on the field Schema. To make it safe to execute this query against the MessageBoxDb, the WITH(NOLOCK) hint is used. If you query the BizTalk databases yourself, never forget to add the WITH(NOLOCK) hint.

Hope these queries are helpfull for you. I'll certainly add more queries to TechNet Gallery.

Review of Steef-Jan's BizTalk Server 2010 Cookbook

2012-04-06T08:59:00.000+02:00

At BizTalkAdminsBlogging I've written a review about Steef-Jan's first book.

You can find it here.

A flying start for BizTalkAdminsblogging.com

2012-02-05T15:00:00.001+01:00

BizTalkadminsblogging has had a tremendous start. Within a week and a half 13 posts already and this will be number 14. An average almost two blog posts a day. This reflects the high demand for BizTalk administration related information, the need for sharing it and desire to create more exposure for this aspect of BizTalk Server. Jeroen and Joris have done an excellent job setting up this blog site, running and maintaining it. The recent posts have touched topics like PowerShell, Microsoft Operation Framework, and so on.

There is also a TechNet Wiki, where some of the bloggers and others have written articles on BizTalk Administration. I, Tord G. Nordahl, Sandro Pereira, Howard S. Edidin and Microsoft have written the following articles that are related to BizTalk administration:

As you can see that is quite an extensive list (20+ articles).

In the near future Jeroen and I want to organize an event with the Dutch BizTalk User Group that is focused on BizTalk administration. A similar event has already taken place last week. The Ordina BizTalk Innovation Event with topic Administration and Monitoring has been a great success. More than 40 attendees were present at the event. This shows the growing commitment of the community towards BizTalk administration.

TechNet Wiki: The number of BizTalk articles is growing …

2012-01-25T18:27:00.001+01:00

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 Processing Monitor in Public Beta

2012-01-21T12:35:00.000+01:00

Since this week BizTalk Processing Monitor is available as a Public Beta. It can be obtained here.

Why use BizTalk Processing Monitor
Depending on how you setup BizTalk Processing Monitor, it helps you, amongst others, with the following needs:

Monitoring and notification of any message flow interruptions
Get insight in how the BizTalk solution is setup
Adds value when doing stress or load tests
Informs you when your BizTalk system is throttling and why
Informs you in how many messages (in number and in KB, MB or GB) are processed
Informs you what kind of messages (Message types) are processed
Informs you about transmission failures

Features
The most important features of BizTalk Processing Monitor are:

Message flow monitoring with notifications
Throttling monitoring with notifications
Singleton Backlog monitoring
Support for multiple environments
Integration with other monitoring tools

Documentation
The following documentation is available:

Getting started with BizTalk Processing Monitor (download)
How to use the Traffic Light Monitoring (download)
Overview Keyboard Shortcuts (download)
Exporting and importing Diagrams (download)

Ordina BizTalk Innovation Event: Monitoring and Administration

2012-01-04T14:37:00.001+01:00

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.

Windows Azure Service Bus EAI and EDI Labs

2011-12-16T17:13:00.001+01:00

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.

Ordina behaalt zilver in Microsoft Applicatie integratie

2011-12-12T17:05:00.000+01:00

Afgelopen week heeft Ordina AIM binnen het Microsoft Partner Model de mooie zilveren status behaald binnen de competentie “Applicatie Integration”. Onder deze competentie vallen onder andere de bekende producten zoals BizTalk en WCF. Mede dankzij effort van Steef-Jan Wiggers en Sjoerd van Lochem is deze eerste mooie stap gemaakt. Steef-Jan ligt de prestatie verder toe:

Het Partner Model bij Microsoft is volledig op de schop gegaan, omdat in feite in heel de wereld en dus ook in Nederland teveel partners de status van “Gold” Partner hadden. Het onderscheid tussen de partners was in zijn geheel niet meer duidelijk. En “Gold” Partner waarin? Je bent Microsoft “Gold” Partner, maar wat betekent dit nu in feite voor mij als klant en waar onderscheid jij als leverancier van Microsoft diensten nu van de rest.

Als je voldoende opbrengsten levert als partner op Microsoft producten en diensten en voldoende gecertificeerde mensen in dienst hebt, dan was je “Gold” partner. Het nieuwe Partner Model van Microsoft is georganiseerd op basis van competentie, waarbij criteria gelden voor:

• Referenties
• Certificering
• Omzet

Op basis van je status op competentie kun je je onderscheiden van andere partners. Er zijn diverse competenties voor virtualisatie, communicatie, desktop, web development, applicatie integratie enzovoort. Op de competentie kun je een “Silver” of “Gold” status behalen.

Als Ordina AIM zijn we trots dat we de “Silver” status hebben kunnen behalen voor “Applicatie Integration”. De “Silver” status betekent dat we als Ordina AIM aan onze klanten kunnen laten zien, dat we voldoende referenties hebben opgebouwd op het gebied van applicatie integratie, voldoende gecertificeerde mensen aan boord hebben en omzet maken door het leveren van diverse diensten. We behoren met deze status op “Applicatie Integratie” tot 5% van alle bedrijven wereldwijd, die dergelijke status hebben op deze competentie.

De “Silver” status is een mooie mijlpaal, die we hebben bereikt. We willen uiteindelijk natuurlijk de status “Gold”. Deze status geeft ons nog meer onderscheidend vermogen ten opzichte van onze concurrenten. Met deze status kunnen we namelijk aantonen dat we wereldwijd tot de beste behoren op het gebied van “Applicatie Integration”. De status toont onze commitment tot Microsoft technologie, die bij deze competentie hoort. Technologie als BizTalk Server, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) en SQL integratie technologie als Integration Services en SQL Broker. Als Ordina AIM zijn we in staat specifieke, hoogwaardige oplossingen te leveren en de “Gold” status zal uiteindelijk het bewijs richting onze klanten zijn.

Contest at Sandro's blog: Win an e-copy of Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010 Patterns book

2011-12-12T11:03:00.001+01:00

Sandro Pereira has a contest in which you can win an e-copy of Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010 Patterns from Packt Publishing.

Since I love the book as well (got the printed version), I thought I'd try to give the contest some extra attention.

If you would like to win an e-copy, be fast: the contest closes Friday December 16th.

BizTalk Server 2010 R2: Continuing story….

2011-12-09T12:46:00.001+01:00

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.

New kid on the block: My BizTalk Processing Monitor

2011-12-08T10:57:00.001+01:00

Since quite some time I am developing a BizTalk monitoring tool, called BizTalk Processing Monitor (or BPM). This tool is different from most other BizTalk monitoring tools in that it does not monitor end points, but it gives (near) realtime insight if messages flow through your BizTalk Group. If there are any interruptions, you get warned. To retrieve this kind of information, BPM uses the Tracking database.

Diagram View - here you can add a picture from your system and define which information you want to see

Wednesday December 7 I had the pleasure to demonstrate BizTalk Processing Monitor to Saravana Kumar, known from amongst others BizTalk247 and BizTalk360. During a one hour Skype session we discussed BizTalk monitoring in general and BizTalk 360, but most of the time was reserved for a demonstration of my BizTalk Processing Monitor.

For January my collegue Steef-Jan Wiggers, Saravana and me are planning a talk at Ordina, Nieuwegein in the Netherlands about BizTalk monitoring and the available tools. This talk will be part of Ordina's 'Innoveer jij mee' series (Innovate wih us). For now I'll just show you a couple of screen dumps from BPM, but for a live demonstration I hope to meet you in January! Details will follow when available.

In the mean time: if you are interested in the capabilities of this tool or just want to know how it works, please don't hesitate to drop me a line!

Warning Levels legend - When, for example, it took longer
than 60 minutes to receive a certain messagetype, the
so-called Tracker in the Diagram View will turn red

Throttling View - Your Hosts and their instances are auto discovered. In case BizTalk is throttling, you get a warning.

Performance Counters by Throttling State - this screen shows more information about the
throttling related performance counters

BizTalk360 Another release more capabilities: Version 3.1

2011-12-01T22:11:00.001+01:00

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

2011-11-30T22:33:00.001+01:00

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.

My First Ten TechNet Wiki Articles on BizTalk

2011-11-21T10:56:00.001+01:00

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

2011-11-21T09:35:00.001+01:00

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.

Code Gallery BizTalk Samples : Steef-Jan Wiggers

2011-11-02T18:54:00.001+01:00

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 Polling SQL Azure Database Table with WCF-SQL Adapter blog 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 Table Operation on Oracle 11g XE with OracleDbBinding blog 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 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

2011-10-30T17:19:00.001+01:00

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 TechNet Wiki Articles

2011-10-23T21:38:00.001+02:00

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

2011-10-13T15:25:00.001+02:00

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.

Cheers!

BizTalk360 new V2.5 release–Message Box Viewer Integration

2011-10-10T23:04:00.001+02:00

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

2011-10-06T20:20:00.001+02:00

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:

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

Cheers!

BizTalk Operations Using a Web Console

2011-10-03T21:06:00.001+02:00

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!