BizTalkIn

Moving to Wordpress

2014-09-18T12:47:00.001-05:00

I am moving this blog over to WordPress. The new blog is called Azure DocumentDB Blog.

I have already migrated all the articles from this blog over.

Issues with upgrading BizTalk 2013 to R2

2014-06-29T10:08:00.003-05:00

I just upgraded 2013 to 2013 R2.

These are the steps.

I installed VS 2013 first which is required.
I upgraded the HL7 Accelerator.
Both upgrades went smoothly.

This are the issues I found.

When creating a new project or opening an existing project in VS 2013, I tried to add a two new schemas and a map.

As you can see in the following figures, the artifacts are missing. The only artifacts available are for HL7.

BizTalk Project Items

Schema Files

BTAHL7 Schemas

I tired this on two Azure VMs. First I upgrade 2013 Standard, Next I upgraded R2 Standard to Enterprise. I created a new Azure BizTalk 2013 Developer VM and upgraded it to R2 after installing VS 2013.

Same issue.

Other Issues

.
The ESB Toolkit is now Version 2.3. You cannot upgrade. There is no documentation on what is new in Version 2.3

Missing Documentation

The documentation is for the HL7 Accelerator is from BizTalk 2010 as shown below.

HL7 Accelerator Documentation for BizTalk 2013 R2

The BizTalk 2013 / BizTalk 2013 R2 documentation on MSDN states that the HL7 Accelerator now supports the following:

Provides capability to include free-text data as part of the message that can be processed by the HL7 pipelines

I cannot find any documentation for this feature anywhere. Nor are there any samples.

Since I work with HL7 this feature is important.

Hopefully the BizTalk Team will release a CU that will resolve these issue. Until then, I will stay with BizTalk 2013.

A new book is in the works

2014-06-19T13:18:00.000-05:00

I am co-authoring a new book with Vikas Bhardwaj called "Complete HL7 for Microsoft BizTalk Server".

The publisher is Apress and we are look at a publication date in July.

As we get closer to the publication date, I will be providing more information on the content..

BizTalk on Fhir

2014-06-13T14:03:00.001-05:00

This is the first post in a new series on the use of HL7 Fhir (pronounced fire) with BizTalk.

I am (or rather my company) is a member of HL7 Organization. Since November of last year I have been working with fhir and have been able to integrate it into BizTalk.

I have taken part in two Fhir Connectathons, one in January and the second in May.

Leslie Sistla, who is the Director of Technology Strategy for Microsoft World-wide Healthcare published an article on the Healthcare blog about what I and Brian Postlethwaite, Senior Solutions Architect at DCA eHealth Solutions did at the May Connectathon.

Beside BizTalk, I have been working with Microsoft Azure, HealthVault , Office365, and am just getting into CRM 2013.

In the next post, I will provide a little information on the background of Fhir and what problems is solves.

Free e-book - Microsoft BizTalk 2010 Administration Essentials

2013-03-01T11:44:00.000-06:00

Due to unresolvable issues with the Publisher, we have decided to provide it directly to the BizTalk Community.

The book, which will be released in chapters, is available on the BizTalkAdminsBlogging.com.

Microsoft BizTalk 2010 Administration Essentials

2012-08-19T14:17:00.001-05:00

Our book is available for pre-order at PackT.

Release Date : November 2012

Overview

First BizTalk book that is completely oriented for System Administrators
Covers combined experiences of many renowned BizTalk Administrators from all around the world
Written in clear concise step-by-step style and includes real world issues and solutions

Technorati Tags: BizTalk Administration,BizTalk Operations

BizTalk Community series: Introducing Howard S. Edidin

2012-08-05T11:43:00.001-05:00

Steef-Jan Wiggers was kind enough to write an article about me on his blog, Azure Thoughts, EAI Challenges.

You can read the article here

Not just a BizTalk Anti-Pattern

2012-06-11T12:02:00.001-05:00

This is a follow up to my last BizTalk Anti-Pattern post

This is primarily for the Technical Recruiter.

My last contract was mutually terminated. I had worked for this client architecting their BizTalk 2006 R2 / ESB 1.0 EAI implementation. I was contracted to architect their migration to BizTalk 2010.

There was a disconnect between what the client expected and what a BizTalk Architect role does.

After I completed their 2006 R2 / ESB implementation, the client had cloned the ESB 1.0 and deployed it on web servers. Not only did they duplicate the Itinerary functionality, but they customized it. They created their own custom core components and pipeline components.

I won’t go into the details (saving these for the Anti-Pattern List). One of my tasks was to help the developers migrate their custom ESB Web Application to ESB 2.1. All their tests were failing. I was expected to help their developers.

It would benefit everyone if you would ask the client for explicit details on what they expect of a role. The client would rely on you more often to find the right person for the job..

A good source that describes the BizTalk Architect Role can be found on the TechNet Wiki.http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/6243.biztalk-roles.aspx#BizTalk_Architect

If you search the TechNet Wiki http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/, you should be able to details on other roles.

Technorati Tags: Anti-Patterns,BizTalk Architect Role,BizTalk 2010,BizTalk,Contract,ESB Toolkit,Recruiter

More BizTalk Anti-Patterns

2012-06-05T10:01:00.001-05:00

Just assuming is also a BizTalk Anti-Pattern

About a month ago I accepted a contract as a BizTalk Developer for a major care product service provider. The project was to incorporate United Parcel Services mapping and routing services into existing BizTalk 2009 Applications. This was a major project with a fairly large budget. They were willing to pay a fairly high rate.

Part of the scope of the project was to incorporate the Windows Azure Service Bus.

Unfortunately I did not ask any questions about their current environment. I just assumed….

It wasn’t until I started that I found out they were using BizTalk 2009 Standard.
They were not using Maps, WCF-Lob Adapters, Pipeline Components, or the ESB Toolkit. The only had a few schemas
They did everything in .Net code and WCF Services and called these services from Expression Shapes in Orchestrations

I was told that the were only using BizTalk for Guaranteed Delivery.

I demonstrated how they could easily develop this application in BizTalk without the need to write a lot of code.

They had no interest in changing their use of BizTalk. Nor were they interested in upgrading to Enterprise.

Technorati Tags: BizTalk,Anti-Patterns,Bad Practices

BizTalk Server 2010 Cookbook

2012-04-14T15:19:00.001-05:00

It’s about time someone authored a BizTalk Cookbook that all BizTalk Roles could relate to. Most BizTalk 2010 books have been geared towards developers only.

I had ordered this book several months ago and just received my copy yesterday. I hadn’t had a chance to read the book in depth. Normally I look at the table of contents and just read the chapters that interest me. I found this book a little different; all the chapters included sections that sparked my interest.

The author, Steef-Jan Wiggers is considered to be one of the top BizTalk experts in the world. He is well known and widely respected for his contributions to the BizTalk Community. He is a MVP for BizTalk, a distinction not easily earned.

Unlike most cookbooks, in which the chapters do not follow a pattern, I found that the recipes read much like tutorials. Steef-Jan has included sample code for each chapter.

Once I have time to thoroughly read the book and work through some of the samples, I will continue this review. From what I have seen so far, this book is a “must buy” for anyone involved with BizTalk. As I mentioned previously, this book is not only geared for BizTalk Developers.

The book is available from Amazon or from PackT.

BizTalkIn: The BizTalk Anti-Pattern List

2012-03-24T11:30:00.001-05:00

BizTalkIn: The BizTalk Anti-Pattern List

The BizTalk Anti-Pattern List

2012-03-15T11:06:00.001-05:00

I changed the name of the “Bad Practices” List on the TechNet Wiki.

It’s now called The BizTalk Anti-Pattern List

The BizTalk Bad Practices List is now on the TechNet Wiki

2012-03-10T10:52:00.001-06:00

Wiki > TechNet Articles > The List of “Bad Practices” for Designing, Developing, and Administering BizTalk / ESB Solutions

We all learn from our mistakes and reading about the mistakes of others. Hopefully the information in this list would benefit someone. .

Lex Hegt has added “The disadvantages of using SMTP” to the list.

Do you have something that you would like to share?

Technorati Tags: Bad Practices,Anti-Patterns,TechNet Wiki

The BizTalk Bad Practices List

2012-02-25T09:56:00.000-06:00

The List of “Bad Practices” for Designing, Developing, and Administering BizTalk / ESB Solutions

Since I specialize in providing Guidance and Training for companies implementing BizTalk, I have run into many situations where the client has already started designing and developing BizTalk Applications. Several have done so without any formal training or direction.

There have been many articles and blog postings about “Best Practices” and I thought we needed one about “Bad Practices”. Simply stating that this is a bad practice doesn’t mean anything. There is needs to be a reason why. And the best way to do this is provide real-life* scenarios I have experienced.

The "Bad Practices" in this list are not in order of importance. I have decided to append each one to this post rather than create a separate post for each one. I plan on adding a new "Bad Practice" once or twice a week.

If anyone has a particular "Bad Practice" they would like to share, please add it into a comment.

The List of “Bad Practices”

Start designing your ESB Itineraries first

The client had decided that they needed an ESB to send data from SharePoint to a Data Repository.
I don’t believe that they fully understood the capabilities of BizTalk 2010 and how the ESB Toolkit 2.1 is used.
Apparently they had no actual experience in architecting and designing BizTalk / ESB Solutions.
They did have quite a bit of experience and knowledge in architecting .NET Applications and WCF Services.

Having read all about the use of Itineraries in the ESB Toolkit 2.1, it was decided that their newly trained
and inexperienced Lead BizTalk Developer would develop a framework of Itineraries for routing messages,
that could be reused. The inexperienced developer simply took the samples included with the ESB Toolkit
and “adapted” them. The developer was told that Itineraries would be designed first.

At this time they had no requirements for BizTalk Applications.

To add fuel to the fire, it was dictated that they would use SCRUM for all projects. The BizTalk Developers would
develop their Itineraries in multiple sprints.

Notice that there has been no reference to designing BizTalk Applications.

Using the Generated Operations Name for the Action (SOAP Action Header)

from a WCF LOB Adapter

A BizTalk developer was using the WCF LOB SDK to generate a WCF LOB SQL Adapter service to perform
several CRUD Operation on database tables.

The developer built the application, deployed it, and imported the generated bindings. The section showing the
Operations is shown below.

The Bindings for the SOAP Action header is shown below.

The developer needed to create an Orchestration to consume the service. He created a new BizTalk Project
with an Orchestration. The Orchestration was to be used to Insert data into two tables He then added a new Request/Response Port with two operations as shown below.

If you compare the difference between the WCF LOB Service Operations names and what the developer used
for the Port Operations Names you will notice that they do not match.

After deploying the Orchestration the developer, he then tried to test it. An Insert Request Message was sent to
the WCF Service. He did not receive an Response Message.

After checking the Applications Event Log, he discovered that he had an invalid type error. He came to me for
help and we discovered he had misnamed the Operations on the WCFLOBPort in his Orchestration.

The issue here is that both the Operations Name in the Bindings and the Operations Name for the Orchestration Port must be the named the same.

Recommendation:

Naming your Port Operations so you can easily identify them in the

Orchestration is a good practice. You will need to modify the Operation

Name for the Action on your port to match.

Using the generated “Insert1”, “Insert2”, “Select1”, etc. makes it difficult

to identify, especially when you could have multiple Select, Insert, Update,

and Delete Operations within an Orchestration.

Using ADO.Net instead of SQL Stored Procedures for CUD Operations
within an Orchestration

A client wanted to promote the reuse of WCF LOB SQL Adapter services. It was decided that they would use
separate Stored Procedures for Create, Update, and Delete operations. They didn’t want the Stored Procedures
to contain any business logic.

There was a requirement to:

Insert a record into a table
Return the identity for the record
Insert the a record along with the identity into another table
Repeat for a few more tables.

They wanted to handle this within an Orchestration.

I told them that they needed to validate each operation within a Scope and if any operation after the initial Insert
failed, they would need to use the Delete Operations for Compensation.

I suggested a better way to handle it was to create a Stored Procedure with a Transaction to handle all the
operations. This way they would be able to eliminate the need for an Orchestration.

They didn’t like the idea of putting this “business logic” in a Stored Procedure. It didn’t fall in with their overall
Architecture.

Their Architect decided that using ADO.Net classes was a better way to solve the problem. They could call these
from within an Orchestration.

Spending the entire budget for BizTalk Development and leaving nothing
for Administration and Operations

A former client decided that they wanted to use BizTalk 2010 for their Messaging Solution.

They had very little exposure to BizTalk 2010. They decided that they would need to train their .NET developers
on BizTalk Development. They decided the best way to do this was to being in a qualified BizTalk Training
provider.

At first, they had planned on training five developers. Someone came up with the idea that
it would be worthwhile for all their architects and other developers go through the same training.

Can you imagine what the cost was for several weeks of training…?

Prior to my starting with the client, they had migrated several HL7 feeds from their legacy system to BizTalk.
The legacy system administrator became the BizTalk Administrator. They had also contracted for an experienced
BizTalk Administrator who had HL7 experience.

Their BizTalk Administrator had done an excellent job of installing and configuring their production environment.
IMO, this was the first good decision the client made.

They had sent their BizTalk Administrator for a week of training. It was my job to continue his training and
guide him on the administration and operations tasks necessary for an enterprise BizTalk 2010 infrastructure

I recommended that they implement SCOM 2007 R2 or another third-party tool to monitor their
BizTalk infrastructure. We were told us that they ran out of budget money

I suggested that they create a VM, so the BizTalk Admins could learn how to use SCOM and to
evaluate other monitoring tools. Again, they ran out of budget money for another VM.

It seems that all the architects and developers were provided with a VM and they did not have the
resources to create one for the BizTalk Administrators.

To be continued…

Using the Community ODBC Adapter from TWOCONNECT

2011-12-22T12:29:00.001-06:00

BizTalk 2010 does not have an adapter for every Data Resource. We have a choice of either purchasing an Adapter, creating our own by using the WCF LOB SDK, or using the Community ODBC Adapter provided by TWOCONNECT

TWOCONNECT has updated the open source ODBC Adapter made on GotDotNet several years ago, to work with BizTalk 2010. It has been updated to support the Net 4.0 Target and the Install Folder Path has been fixed for 64 Bit Systems.

According to TWOCONNECT:

It has support for creating two way operations
Can no longer be configured on a Request/Response Port
Poll While Data Found option on Receive Location is supported.
Performance Counters and Event Source created at install time.
No longer requires Administrator rights at Runtime

The adapter does have limitations and issues:

When using Insert, Update, or Delete Table Operations, there is no return value. It only supports a one-way operation.
You cannot use Output parameters in Stored Procedures

To demonstrate the use of the Adapter, I have created three scenarios.

Request\Response operation using a Select from a table.
Request operation using an Update on a table.
Request\Response operation using a stored procedure

For the scenarios, we are going to use SQL 2008 R2 Server Database as our ODBC Source.

Before we can use the Adapter we need to install it.

Installation and Configuration

Installation is fairly straight forward

We will have to manually add the Adapter to our BizTalk Environment as shown below:

We start off with creating a new 32 Bit Host and Host Instance as shown below:

We then assign our ODBC Host Instance to the ODBC Adapter’s Send and Receive Handlers as shown below.

Assign our ODBCHost to Send Handler

Assign ODBCHost to Receive Handler

Setting our ODBC Data Source

Assuming that our BizTalk 2010 Environment is 64 bit, we will need to use the odbccad32.exe, which is located in C:\Windows\SysWOW32, to create your ODBC Data Source.

We create a new System Data Source as shown below

Clicking “Add” starts the Configuration Wizard.

Enter a name for our Data Source.

Select our SQL Server.

Click “Next” until you get to the page show below.

Check the “Change the default database to:” and select our PurchaseOrders Database.

Click “Next” again.

We can review our configuration as shown below.

Click on “Test Data Source” to test our connection as shown below.

If we configured everything correctly, we will see the results as show above.

Scenarios

Request\Response operation using a Select from a table

Open Visual Studio 2010 and create a new BizTalk Application. Name it “ODBC_Sample”.

1. Next we will use the “Add Adapter Metadata Wizard” to generate our schemas and orchestration as shown below.

2. Select the ODBC Adapter as shown below:

3. Click “Next”.

4. Then enter our Target Namespace, Request and Response element root names as shown below.

5. Click “Next”.

6. We will be doing a simple Select Statement. Select “SQL Script” and click “Next” as shown below

7. On the Statement Information page, we set the “Query Type” to Select.

8. Next we will enter our Select Statement as shown below.

9. Next Click “Generate”.

After a few seconds you will see two schemas and an orchestration in your project folder.

10. Since we did a Select without a where clause, our generated schema is generic as shown below.

11. The Response Schema contains all the fields from our table.

12. Looking at the Multipart Message Types, we can see that there is a problem with the Multi-part Message Types. (This is one of the issues in the Adapter)

13. To correct this, we will need to re-assign the schemas to the Message Type.

14. Another issue is that there are two ports created instead of one as shown below.(This is also an issue with the adapter).

15. The solution to this issue is to delete the ODBCRequest and ODBCResponse Port Types and create a new Request-Response Port as shown below.

16. Next we need to add our Inbound Message. We are using the Request Message generated by the Adapter Wizard.

17. The following is our Port Binding.

18. The completed Orchestration for our first demo is shown below.

Request operation using an Update on a table.

We will need to repeat Steps 1 – 5 .

6. In order to do an Update, we need to manually enter our Update Query into the Query Editor as shown below

7. Before we click on “Generate”, we need to check the “Override default query processing” If we omit this step, all of our Input Parameters will default to an NVarChar Data Type with a field size of 1. We would have to start all over again with Step 1.

8. We have to select each Parameter and set its Type and Field Size. Setting the Sample Data value is optional.

9. Once completed we click on “Update Command”.

10. This brings us back to the Schema Generation page.

11. We can now click on “Generate”.

12. This time we have one Schema and an Orchestration generated.

We also have the same issue with Multi-part Message Types.

13. We need to set the Message type to the correct schema

14. Our generated schema is shown below

15. As you can see the correct data types are set for each parameter.

17. Our Orchestration is similar to our first demo, the only exception being a Send Port instead of a Send\Receive

Request\Response operation using a stored procedure

1. We create a new stored procedure as shown below.

2. Next we must follow Steps 1 - 5 as in the previous demos.

3. On the Statement Type page , we will select Stored Procedure.

4 On the Statement Information page, we enter its name as shown below.

5. Click “Generate”

6. This generates two schemas and an orchestration as shown below.

Our Request Schema

Our Response Schema

We still have the same issue with the Multipart Message Types.

7. We set the correct schemas again.

8. Two Port Types are created. We need to delete these and create a new Request/Response Port.

9. Creating our new Request/Response Port

10. We are sending a Request and Receiving a response

11. Our new Request\Response Port as show below.

12. Next we create our Orchestration as shown below.

Because we are using a Stored Procedure that returns a value, we can add Exception Handling. In this case we are validating the result and throwing a System.Exception if the Stored Procedure returns an Error Code.

Deployment

We will need to create two Send Ports, a Static Request-Response for our Select Table Operation and Stored Procedure Demos, and a Static Request Port for our Update Table Operation.

Creating Ports for the ODBC Adapter

1. Open the BizTalk 2010 Administration Console and add a new Application called “ODBC Test” as shown below.

2. After deploying our demos, we need to configure a Static Solicit-Response Send Port as shown below.

3. Since we are using Windows Authentication for our ODBC Data Sources, we uncheck “Include UserID and Password” as shown below.

4. We select our Data Source Name and click “OK”.

5. Our ODBC Transport Properties are set as shown below.

6. We will also need to create a static one-way port a shown below.

7. We configure the Send Port by setting our Connection String.

8. We then click on the Connection String button.

9. We select our ODBC_Test Data Source as shown below

If our ODBC Data Source supports Transactions, you can select from the “Transaction type to be applied” list as shown below.

10. In the case of our scenario, we will leave it set to the default “None”

11. We will need to create a Receive Port and Location using the File Adapter for each Orchestration

12. We then Bind our Orchestrations to our new Ports and our ready for testing.

Summary

We have leaned about the capabilities and limitations of the Community ODBC Adapter.
We have learned about the Port Types and Multi-part Message Types issues and how to resolve them.
We have walked through three different Design Time scenarios on using the Adapter.
We have learned how to configure our Ports for the Adapter

Technorati Tags: ODBC,Adapter,BizTalk 2010

Using the ODBC Adapter with Sybase ASE

2011-12-17T14:40:00.001-06:00

BizTalk 2010 does not have an adapter for Sybase. The only adapter that I could find was the free Community BizTalk Adapter for ODBC from twoConnect.

The adapter does have limitations.

When using Insert, Update, or Delete Table Operations, there is no return value. It only supports a one-way operation.
You cannot use Output parameters in Stored Procedures.

Recommendation: Use a stored procedure with an return value.

Technorati Tags: ODBC,Adapter,Sybase,client,requirements,data,Oracle,Database,BizTalk

Managing BizTalk Server 2010 is not a simple process.

2011-12-11T13:51:00.001-06:00

BizTalk Server 2010 consists of Services and Tools which can be used together or independently

These Services and Tools include the following.

Messaging Engine
Microsoft BizTalkESB Toolkit 2.1
Business Activity Monitoring (BAM)
Business Rules Engine (BRE)
Enterprise Single Sign-On Services
WCF Adapters for SQL and Oracle
Enterprise Adapter for Peoplesoft
Adapter for multiple protocols
System Center Operation Manager (SCOM)
BAM Interceptor for Windows CommunicationFoundation
BAM Interceptor for Windows Workflow Foundation
WMI for monitoring services

BizTalk 2010 Administration Role

The BizTalk Administration Role requires someone that has knowledge and experience with the Common Administration Tasks. See the section, Roles and Responsibilities for a BizTalk Server Environment, for more details.

Common Administration Tasks

These tasks include both Deployment and Operations.

· Installing and Configuring BizTalk Server 2010

o Installing BizTalk Server on a Single-Computer Environment

o Installing BizTalk Server in a Multi-Computer Environment

· Configuring BizTalk Server 2010

· Configuring BizTalk Server in a Cluster

· Securing Your Deployment of BizTalk Server 2010

Operations

Operations include:

Managing BizTalk Server

Managing BizTalk Server includes the management of the BizTalk Server along with deploying and managing BizTalk Applications

The personal responsible for these tasks must be knowledgeable and experienced with the following:

Monitoring BizTalk Server
Monitoring your BizTalk Server applications and infrastructure on a regular basis and resolving any issues that you find helps to keep your BizTalk Server applications accessible to your users. The goal of monitoring is to minimize the amount of time that an exception goes undetected and, therefore, unresolved. Additionally, you can use monitoring to help detect situations that might cause an exception.

Availability Monitoring
Availability monitoring answers the question "Is the in availability of a system or application resource preventing your BizTalk Server applications from running optimally?" These issues are almost exclusively system-level, such as availability of services and connections.

For example, if an adapter is failing because the Enterprise Single Sign-On service is stopped, this is an availability issue. If one of the servers assigned to a host has failed and your application is falling behind on processing messages, you have an availability issue.Likewise, if an application is stopped and is unable to process messages, you have an availability issue.

Health Monitoring
Health monitoring helps you answer the question, "Are any of my applications or resources in bad health?" For example, are any of my applications or their constituent artifacts currently experiencing exception conditions? Or, are messages suspended because of invalid data in the message payload?

Performance Monitoring
Performance monitoring answers the question, "How efficiently is the system performing its work?"This kind of monitoring focuses primarily on the load on physical resources like databases and disks. For example, if the CPU utilization is consistently at 90 to 100 percent and a backlog of messages is forming, this is a performance issue at the computer level.

BizTalk Server Monitoring
You can run the Monitor BizTalk Server SQL Agent job to identify any known issues in Management, Message Box, or DTAdatabases

Securing BizTalk Server

Managing BizTalk Server Security
Maintaining a secure Microsoft BizTalk Server environment requires that you manage accounts, certificates, and passwords.

Implementing Enterprise Single Sign-On
Enterprise Single Sign-On(SSO) provides services to enable single sign-on to end users for enterprise application integration (EAI) solutions. The SSO system maps Microsoft Windows accounts to back-end credentials. SSO simplifies the management of user IDs and passwords, both for users and administrators. It enables users to access back-end systems and applications by logging on only once to the Windows network.

Maintaining BizTalk Server

This section provides information about how to back up and restore BizTalk Server and the Microsoft BizTalk Server databases, how to archive and purge data from the BizTalk Tracking (BizTalkDTADb) database, and how to move some of the more commonly moved BizTalk Server databases. It provides an overview of the backup and restoration process, as well as recommendations for maintaining the BizTalk Tracking database. It provides information on manually purging data from the BizTalk MessageBox database in a test environment.

o Backing Up and Restoring BizTalk Server

o Archiving and Purging the BizTalk TrackingDatabase

o Moving BizTalk Server Databases

o How to Manually Purge Data from the MessageBox Database in a Test Environment

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010 Operations Guide

The Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010 Operations Guide is a key resource for the BizTalk 2010 Administrator. Within the guide is the section for BizTalk Server Roles and Responsibilities.

The development, maintenance, and administration of a BizTalk Server environment encompass several different roles with distinct responsibilities. This topic describes these roles, the responsibilities associated with the roles, and tools that can be used to complete the tasks associated with each role.

Role	Responsibilities	Tools	Operations Checklist Tasks
BizTalk Server Administrator	Administration Maintain environment uptime by monitoring BizTalk Server exceptions and resolving BizTalk Server specific issues. Platform Modifications · Create new hosts · Add and configure adapters · Create new MessageBox databases · Add additional BizTalk servers as required for scale out · Create new BizTalk groups Platform Monitoring · Monitor for BizTalk Server platform exceptions · Debug application errors. · Manage load across the BizTalk Server group.	BizTalk Server Administration console. The BizTalk Server Administration console is the primary management tool for BizTalk Server. It provides a graphical user interface for performing deployment operations for a BizTalk application. For example, you can start the Import, Installation, and Export Wizards as well as add and remove an application's artifacts and make other modifications to the application. Scripting and programmability APIs. Use Microsoft Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) or the BizTalk Explorer Object Model to create and run scripts that automate administrative tasks. The WMI object model exposes and simplifies administrative APIs. All administration APIs expose some form of the following operations on every object they manage: · Create · Enumerate · Modify · Delete WMI exposes this functionality in a consistent manner for all WMI objects. Business Activity Monitoring (BAM). Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) provides an observation-based tracking framework that can be used to capture operational or business process metrics. Metrics are captured in SQL Server where they can subsequently be reported on using a reporting mechanism that is most appropriate for the situation. BAM uses a Microsoft Office Excel workbook to provide business users with the ability to see a real-time comprehensive view of business processes. Health and Activity Tracking. Use the Group Hub page in BizTalk Server Administration Console to track the health of your BizTalk Server implementation, identify bottlenecks, and monitor the BizTalk Server environment. You can view the technical details of a particular orchestration, pipeline, or message instance, as well as see the message flow of a particular message that enters the system. Business users can view, monitor, and query tracked data. In addition, users can create custom views and queries, and save them for reuse in other locations. Business analysts and end users can track the state of their business processes by viewing both live and archived data.	· Checklist: Configuring Windows Server · Checklist: Configuring Internet Information Services · Checklist: Configuring BizTalk Server · Checklist: Monitoring Operational Readiness
Release Management	Deployment and Updating BizTalk Applications · Deploy new applications into the BizTalk Server environment · Manage strong name keys For more information about deploying and updating BizTalk applications, see Managing Applications	BTSTask command-line tool. BTSTask enables you to perform many administrative tasks from the command line.	· Checklist: Deploying an Application · Checklist: Exporting Bindings from One Application to Another · Checklist: Updating an Assembly · Checklist: Updating an Application Using Side-by-Side Versioning
Operations Support	Support Change Management · Support new service solutions · Support new technologies · Support new systems · Support applications · Support hardware changes · Support configuration management · Support release management Normal Operating Procedures Effective, efficient execution of day-to-day tasks including the following: · Security administration · System administration · Network administration · Service monitoring and control · Directory services administration · Storage management · Job scheduling Support Procedures Timely resolution of problems and inquiries. · Service desk support · Incident management · Problem management Environment Optimization · Cost management · Performance optimization · Service level management · Capacity management · Availability management · Workforce management	Performance Analysis of Logs (PAL) Tool Use this tool for analyzing performance counter log files. Microsoft BizTalk LoadGen 2007 Tool (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=59841). This is a load generation tool for simulating message transmission load on BizTalk Server. You can use it to run performance and stress tests against a BizTalk deployment for BizTalk Server versions 2004 and later. BizTalk Server 2010 Orchestration Profiler This is used to view orchestration tracking data for a specified period of time; helpful for determining where performance bottlenecks exist in orchestrations. Note Use of this tool is not supported by Microsoft, and Microsoft makes no guarantees about the suitability of this programs. Use of this program is entirely at your own risk. Note This tool can be used with BizTalk Server 2010 as well. Tools and Utilities to use for Troubleshooting	· Checklist: Providing High Availability with Fault Tolerance or Load Balancing · Checklist: Increasing Availability with Disaster Recovery · Performing Bottleneck Testing and Tuning · Performing Load and Throughput Testing · Performing Availability Testing
Developer	Application Monitoring · Support application exceptions that are not resolved by the BizTalk Server administrator. · Provide updates to source code for resolving issues. New and Existing Application Development Create new applications and update existing application functionality on the BizTalk Server platform.	Visual Studio 2010 Development platform used to create, modify, and debug BizTalk Server solution source code. Testing the Application Useful for unit testing .NET code. Debug View for Windows Tool for monitoring kernel-mode and Win32 debug output either locally or remotely.	Performing Unit Testing
Database Administrator	Database Management · Define appropriate database space allocation · Monitor database usage · Tune SQL Server · Set up backup and restore jobs for all SQL Server databases. · Ensure that maintenance scripts are run regularly for the Tracking and Orchestration Persistence databases. · Work with the trend analysis specialist to identify appropriate thresholds. · Complete standard SQL Server maintenance procedures.	SQL Server Profiler SQL Server Profiler can be used to capture Transact-SQL statements that are sent to SQL Server and the SQL Server result sets from these statements. Since BizTalk Server is tightly integrated with SQL Server, the analysis of a SQL Server Profile trace can be a useful tool for analyzing problems that may occur in BizTalk Server when reading from and writing to SQL Server databases. For information about how to use SQL Server Profiler, see Introducing SQL Server Profiler SQL Server Management Studio SQL Server Management Studio can be used to execute SQL statements directly against SQL Server databases. This functionality may be useful for querying the BizTalk Server databases or for updating the BizTalk Server databases in certain scenarios. For more information about SQL Server Management Studio, see Using SQL Server Management Studio	Checklist: Configuring SQL Server

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010 Performance Optimization Guide

Generally, the performance of a server is determined by the component that has the lowest performance—the bottleneck in the system. The key to improving performance is being able to identify bottlenecks, determine their cause, and apply the appropriate corrective action.

This guide provides guidance for optimizing performance, based upon hands-on experience of IT professionals who have worked extensively with BizTalk Server.Specifically, this guide includes four main sections:

Finding and Eliminating Bottlenecks: The Finding and Eliminating Bottlenecks section describes various types of performance bottlenecks as they relate to BizTalk Server solutions and information about how to resolve the bottlenecks.

Optimizing Performance: The Optimizing Performance section provides guidance for optimizing performance of a BizTalk Server solution. BizTalk Server performance is closely tied to performance of the platform upon which BizTalk Server is installed. This section provides recommendations for optimizing performance of both BizTalk Server and the BizTalk Server platform.

Scaling a Production BizTalk Server Environment: The Scaling a Production BizTalk Server Environment section provides detailed results of BizTalk Server 2010 performance testing completed by the BizTalk product team. These tests focused on scalability and measured the impact of adding BizTalk Server 2010 computers, the impact of adding BizTalk Server MessageBox databases, and the impact of adding both BizTalk Server 2010computers and BizTalk Server 2010 MessageBox databases to a solution simultaneously.

When increasing the number of BizTalk Server computers in a BizTalk Server group, for these tests only one BizTalk Server Message Box database was configured for the BizTalk Server group. These tests focused solely on the impact of adding BizTalk Server computers to a BizTalk Servergroup.
When increasing the number of BizTalk Server MessageBox databases used by the BizTalk Server group. These tests focused solely on the impact of adding BizTalk Server MessageBox databases to a BizTalk Server group.
When increasing the number of both BizTalk Server computers and BizTalk Server MessageBox databases used by the BizTalk Server group. These tests measured the impact of adding both adding BizTalk Server computers and BizTalk Server MessageBox databases to a BizTalk Server group.

References

BizTalk Server Development Center

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010 Technical Overview

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010 Help

Instrumentation Best Practices for High Performance BizTalk Solutions

Improving Fault Tolerance in BizTalk Server by Using a Windows Server 2008 Failover Cluster

BizTalk Administrator's Check List Created by the BizTalk Support Team

LiveJournal Tags: BizTalk 2010,BizTalk Operations,BizTalk 2010 Administration

BizTalk 2010 WCF LOB Oracle Adapter - Oracle Data Access Client

2011-11-15T18:27:00.001-06:00

Installation and configuration

If you are experiencing run-time errors with the Oracle Data Access client, the following steps should remedy the issue

Download the Oracle 11g ODAC 11.1.0.7.20 Universal Installer Version and the 64-bit ODAC 11.2 Release 3 (11.2.0.2.1) for Windows x64 from Oracle.

Extract both archives.
Run Setup.exe in the ODAC1110720 folder
Follow the steps as shown below.

Select the Oracle Data Provider for .NET and the Oracle Instant Client as shown below.

Next

Open the ODAC112021Xcopy_x64 folder.

Open a Command Prompt Here by using Shift + Right Mouse button.
Run Install.bat
Enter: install.bat all <drive>:\oracle myhome

When completed

Run the BizTalk 2010 WCF Adapter Setup and select Repair.
Do the same for the BizTalk 2010 WCF Adapter 64 bit.

If the BizTalk Host Instance for the Oracle Port is running, restart it.

LiveJournal Tags: BizTalk 2010,Oracle WCF LOB Adapter

Configuring the SQL Agents for BizTalk 2010 Developer Environments

2011-11-12T12:29:00.003-06:00

When setting up a BizTalk 2010 Development Environment on a Workstation or VM, sometimes BizTalk 2010 Developers forget to configure the BizTalk 2010 SQL Agents.

There are two SQL Agents Jobs which need to be configured and running.

Backup BizTalk Server (BizTalkMgmtDb)
DTA Purge and Archive Job

If these jobs are not running, the following issues could occur:

You could eventually run out of disk space
Overall Performance will be degraded
Timeouts when using the BizTalk Administration Console
Timeouts when testing your application
Deploying from Visual Studio 2010 could timeout

Recommendation:

Create folders to store the Backup and Archives. Preferably this should be on a secondary drive.

Assuming you has a secondary drive D:, create a new folder named “D:\SQLBackUp”.
Add three new folders; “Data”, “Logs”, and “Tracking”, under D:\SQLBackUp

You folder layout should look like this:

SQLBackUp

SQLBackUp\Data

SQLBackUp\Logs

SQLBackUp\Tracking

Configuring the Agents

Edit the SQL Server Agent job Backup BizTalk Server (BizTalkMgmtDb).

1. In Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio, double-click SQL Server Agent, and then expand Jobs.

2. In the Object Explorer pane, right-click Backup BizTalk Server (BizTalkMgmtDb), and then click Properties.

3. In the Job Properties - Backup BizTalk Server (BizTalkMgmtDb) dialog box, under Select a page, click Steps.

4. To configure backup compression:

a. In the Job step list, click Set Compression Option, and then click Edit. Set the Command as shown below:

exec [dbo].[sp_SetBackupCompression] @bCompression = 1 - Use Compression */

b. Click OK.

5. In the Job step list, click BackupFull, and then click Edit.

exec [dbo].[sp_BackupAllFull_Schedule] 'd' /* Frequency */, 'BTS' /* Name */, 'D:\ SQLBackUp\Data' /* location of backup files */, 0 (default) or 1 /* ForceFullBackupAfterPartialSetFailure

6. Click OK.

7. In the Job step list, double-click MarkAndBackupLog to open the Job Step Properties – MarkAndBackupLog screen.

8. On the General page, in the Command box, replace '<destination path>' with the full path (including single quotes) to the computer and folder where you want to store the BizTalk Server database logs and then click OK.

a. Set the destination path to D:\ SQLBackUp\Logs.

9. In the Job step list, click Clear Backup History, and then click Edit.

10. On the General page, in the Command box, change DaysToKeep=<number> to the number of days you want to keep the backup history, and then click OK twice to close the Job Properties - Backup BizTalk Server (BizTalkMgmtDb) dialog box.

a. Set the <number> to 3

11. Click OK

Change the Backup Schedule

1. On the General page, in the Command box, change DaysToKeep=<number> to the number of days you want to keep the backup history, and then click OK twice to close the Job Properties - Backup BizTalk Server (BizTalkMgmtDb) dialog box.

2. In the Job Properties - Backup BizTalk Server (BizTalkMgmtDb) dialog box, under Select a page, click Steps.

3. In the Job step list, click BackupFull, and then click Edit.

4. In the Job Step Properties - BackupFull dialog box, in the Command box, edit the command by changing the frequency to the desired interval at which to perform a full backup: 'h' (hourly), 'd' (daily), 'w' (weekly), 'm' (monthly), 'y' (yearly), and then click OK.

a. Use 'd' (daily)

5. In the Job Properties - Backup BizTalk Server (BizTalkMgmtDb) dialog box, under Select a page, click Schedules.

6. In the Schedule list, click MarkAndBackupLogSched, and then click Edit.

7. In the Job Schedule Properties - MarkAndBackupLogSched dialog box, in Schedule type, select Recurring from the drop-down list box (if it is not already selected).

a. Set the job to run every 60 minutes

8. Click OK.

Edit the SQL Server Agent job DTA purge and archive job.

1. In the Object Explorer Details pane, right-click DTA Purge and Archive (BizTalkDTADb), and then click Properties.

2. In the Job Properties - DTA Purge and Archive (BizTalkDTADb) dialog box, under Select a page, click Steps.

3. In the Job step list, click Archive and Purge, and then click Edit.

4. On the General page, in the Command box, edit the following parameters as appropriate, and then click OK.

exec dtasp_BackupAndPurgeTrackingDatabase 1, 0, 1, ' D:\ SQLBackUp\Tracking', null, 0

5. On the Job Properties - DTA Purge and Archive (BizTalkDTADb) dialog box, under Select a page, click General, select the Enabled check box, and then click OK.

Deleting the backups

Since this environment is used for Development and local testing, restoring the backups is unnecessary. The recommendation is to create a Windows Command File to delete the backup and log files. You would then create a new Windows Task Event to run the Command File.

Creating the Windows Command File

1. Open either Notepad or your Text Editor and create a new file.

2. Enter the following:

DEL /Q /F “D:\SQLBackup\Data\*.*” 
DEL /Q /F “D:\SQLBackup\Logs\*.*” 
DEL /Q /F “D:\SQLBackup\Tracking\*.*”

3. Save the file as “D:\DeleteBTSBackups.cmd”

Creating the Windows Task

1. Open “Task Scheduler”.

2. In the Action Menu, Select “Create Basic Task”.

3. Enter the Name and Description as shown below

4. Click Next.

5 For the Trigger select “Daily”.

6 Click Next.

7 Set the Start Date to Today

8. Set the Start Time to 12:00.00 PM

9. Set Recur every 3 days.

10. Click Next.

11. Set the Action to “Start a Program”.

12. Browse to the “D:\DeleteBTSBackups.cmd”

13. Click Next.

14. Check the “Open Properties” as shown below:

15. On the General Tab, set the Security Options

16. Change the User\Group to run under the Administrator credentials.

17. Select Run whether user is logged on.

18. Check “Run with highest Privileges

19. Select Configure for: Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 as shown below.

20. On the Settings Tab, configure the settings as shown below.

21. On the Conditions Tab, accept the default settings.

22. Click OK.

Summary

You have now have a BizTalk 2010 Development Environment that will require minimum maintenance.

LiveJournal Tags: BizTalk 2010,BizTalk Administration,SQL Agents

Administering BizTalk 2010: Roles and Responsibilities

2011-10-29T11:05:00.001-05:00

Roles and Responsibilities

BizTalk 2010 Administration is a team effort. It involves the BizTalk Server Administrator, BizTalk Applications Administrators, DBA’s, System Administrators, BizTalk Developers, and Business Analysts.

All Roles require a solid understanding of how BizTalk 2010 works and how it can be utilized to solve current and future needs.

They should be familiar with the following:

BizTalk 2010 in the Enterprise
BizTalk Roles and Responsibilities
Understanding the Message Bus
Business Rules Engine (BRE)
Business Activity Monitoring (BAM)
Single Sign-On Services (SSO)
Pipelines and Components
WCF LOB Adapters
WCF Services
Design Patterns and Practices
BizTalk 2010 Enterprise Service Bus 2.1
The BizTalk Server Environment
The BizTalk Project
BizTalk Operations
Deployment and Managing BizTalk Applications
Application Lifecycle Management with BizTalk Server 2010
Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN)

BizTalk 2010 Administrator Role

The BizTalk 2010 Administrator has overall responsibility for the BizTalk 2010 Server Environment.

Responsibilities:

The following are some of the key responsibilities.

Installing BizTalk 2010

Single Server environment
Multi-server environment
Virtual Machine environment

Configuration

Configure BizTalk Server for single server environments
Configure BizTalk Server for multi-server environments
Configure BizTalk Server for Virtual Machine environments

BizTalk Hosts

Creating Hosts
Managing Hosts

BizTalk Host Instances

Creating and configuring Host Instances

BizTalk Adapters

Installing Adapters
Installing adapter prerequisites
Configuring Adapter prerequisites
Assigning Host Instances to Adapters

Routine Performance Checklists

Routine Maintenance Checklists
Weekly Action Items

Maintaining the BizTalk Group

Operational Readiness Checklists

Security and SSO

Security Policies
BAM Security
BRE Security
Using SSO Affiliate Applications
Managing SSO Affiliate Applications

Disaster Recovery

Creating a disaster recovery plan
Planning a disaster recovery test
Implementing a disaster recovery test

Deploying and Managing BizTalk Applications

Generating MSI packages
Generating Binding Files
Importing MSI packages
Importing Binding Files
Port configuration
Adapter configuration
WCF-Adapter configuration
Deployment validation
Documenting Deployments

Business Rules Engine (BRE)

Publishing BRE Artifacts
Deploying BRE Artifacts
Tracking

Business Activity Monitoring (BAM)

Installing and Configuring BAM for single server environments
Installing and Configuring BAM for multi-server environments
Installing and Configuring BAM for Virtual Machine environments
Deploying BAM Applications
Managing BAM Applications
BAM Management
Managing the BAM Portal
Creating and managing security
Monitoring BAM

Change Management for BizTalk

Change Management Documentation
The approval process

The Performance Lab

End to end performance testing
Creating a performance lab.
Running a performance lab.

Performance Optimization

Performance Counters
Host Throttling

Monitoring

Monitoring Techniques
WMI
Tools

System Center Operations Manager (SCOM)

Planning
Installation
Configuration
Administration

BizTalk Database Administration

Configuring the SQL Agents
Monitoring the SQL Agent Jobs

Enterprise Service Bus 2.1

Installing the ESB Toolkit 2.1
Configuring the ESB Toolkit 2.1
Deploying the ESB Application and Services
Installing the ESB Portal
Managing the ESB Portal
ESB Portal Security
ESB Fault Management
Creating Fault Subscriptions
Integrating the ESB with SCOM
Monitoring

IIS Administration

Managing IIS on BizTalk
Creating Application Pools
Security
ESB Services Management

Documenting your BizTalk Environments

Hardware Summary Diagram
BizTalk Server Configuration
Documenting BizTalk Applications

Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting techniques

Third-Party Tools

Installing
Configuring
Usage

LiveJournal Tags: BizTalk 2010,BizTalk Administration,BizTalk

Using Visio 2010 BPMN* To Design, Model and Document BizTalk solutions

2011-10-13T21:27:00.001-05:00

The PowerPoint 2010 Presentation, Visio 2010 BPMN Sample, and Excel Attribute Shape Report used for the Lake County .NET Users Group Oct 13: Visio 2010 Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) are available for download form my Skydive Public Folder.

The BPMN modeling procedure

2011-10-12T19:31:00.001-05:00

Its purpose is,

To analyze a building block (what it is supposed to do)

To synthesize its implementation (how it does this) as the explicit coordination of other building blocks (processes or activities)

It is iterative – we can apply it until we have left only indivisible building blocks (i.e. activities)

Artifacts are constructed recursively

Principles of the modeling procedure

it treats human and automated activities equally
it is primarily for capturing the flow of control, and not for optimization
it is a tool for both the business and the IT
it provides validation by simulation
it provides validation by quick prototyping – real services can be invoked
it is a visual programming approach

General BPMN Modeling Concepts

2011-10-12T19:31:00.000-05:00

General Modeling Concepts

A process is chronological. Accurate models should be oriented on a time line (in general, from left to right in sequence).
Processes generally begin with triggering events, and work their way through to significant business results.

They can also represent smaller segments of re-usable work.

All tasks or activities are assigned to roles that are meaningful to people in the business.

Be sure you have captured all relevant roles, which may sometimes be outside of the company.

A complete model should display how objects or data (or both) are transferred and where they are going.
A process can be modeled in a hierarchical fashion (e.g., with Sub-Processes).
The choices made for decisions, which occur within a process, determine which of all possible paths will be taken.
Establish organization standards or guidelines for developing models and naming model elements, e.g.,

Establish naming conventions for each type of modeling object. For example, all activity names could have the following format:

verb + (adjective/descriptor) +

Avoid redundancy in naming, e.g., do not include the word Process in the Process names or the words Task or Activity in Task names.

To help with report outputs, names should be 32 characters or less.
To help with readability, all words should be capitalized.

Establish a set of standard nouns, verbs, and acronyms that are used for naming objects.
Establish standards for versioning methods associated at the process model and artifact level to provide requirement traceability.

Using Visio 2010 Premium to create a BPMN Document

2011-10-08T13:34:00.001-05:00

Creating a New Visio 2010 BPMN Document

The following step will show you how to create the document and setup your workspace

1. From the Visio File Menu Select “Flowchart”.

2. Select “BPMN Diagram”.

3. From the BPMN Basic Shapes, drag a “Start Event” shape onto the page.

4. “Right click” on the “Start Event” shape and click on “BPMN Attributes” as shown below.

5. Position the “Shape Data” window as shown in the example below.

The Visio 2010 BPMN Shapes

Basic Shapes

BPMN Event Shapes

BPMN Activities

BPMN Gateways

BPMN Connecting Objects

Visio 2010 BPMN Menu Items

The Visio 2010 “Process Menu”

Check Diagram

When you “click” on the “Check Diagram” in the menu, all the pages in your document are validated against the “built-in” BPMN Validation Rules.

If the “Issues Window” item is checked, you will see the”Issues Window” as show in the sample below.

Issues Window

If the diagram fails validation you are presented with the error information as shown in the sample below

Issues Window with errors

“Double Clicking” on the line will highlight the where the issue occurs within the diagram.

Subprocess Menu Items

Link to Existing

If you select a shape on your drawing and then “click” on the “Link to Existing” menu item, you are presented with a drop down menu as show below.

Pages in this Document

You can create a “hyperlink” from the selected shape to any page within the document.

If you select “Browse to Other Document”, you can also create a “hyperlink” to any file type this can be an Excel Mapping document, Message Schema, Message sample, Business Rule Document, etc.

Create New

If you select a “Sub-Process” shape in the diagram and select “Create New” in the menu, a new diagram page is created. The page is named from the shape.

A hyperlink is created from the selected shape to the new page.

Create from Selection

If you select a group of elements on a page and select “Create from Selection”, this will create a new “Sub-process” Page. A new shape is added to replace the shapes moved to the new page.The page name is not labeled for the sub-process.

An example of the shape is shown below.

Sub-process link shape

del.icio.us Tags: BPMN,Visio 2010,BizTalk 2010,modeling

If you are trying to solve LOB Integration problems using BizTalk 2010

2011-09-24T13:30:00.001-05:00

“Microsoft BizTalk 2010: Line of Business Systems Integration “

I am sure that most BizTalk Architects, Developers, and Administration will agree that BizTalk Server 2010 is a collection of Tools and Services that can be used to solve many Business Problems. The most common problem is Integrating Systems that have no direct means of communication. These are usually the core business systems.

There are several good BizTalk reference books available, but only one of them addresses BizTalk's Integration capabilities. That book is Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010: Line of Business Systems Integration. This book is more than just another reference book. It starts where the published WCF LOB Documentation leaves off. Each chapter is like a training session.

The chapters in this book are very diverse. They range for developing custom WCF LOB Adapters using the WCF LOB Adapter SDK to integrating with Salesforce.com. Each chapter provides a through description of the LOB Adapter and step-by-step instructions in its use. There are several examples of how the LOB Adapter can be used to solve real business problems. There is source code available for each of the examples.

BizTalk is a complex product that can be overwhelming to those just starting to work with it. I have been working with BizTalk for over nine years and still am still overwhelmed with its capabilities. You can't be an expert on all that BizTalk offers. Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010: Line of Business Systems Integration has provided me with answers to questions that help me solve my client's LOB Integration problems.

The authors are highly recognized as the "LOB Integration Experts". Although I don't know them personally, I have communicated with them and avidly follow their blog postings.

If you are trying to solve LOB Integration problems using BizTalk 2010, Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010: Line of Business Systems Integration is a must buy.

BizTalkIn

Moving to Wordpress

Issues with upgrading BizTalk 2013 to R2

I just upgraded 2013 to 2013 R2.

These are the steps.

This are the issues I found.

I tired this on two Azure VMs. First I upgrade 2013 Standard, Next I upgraded R2 Standard to Enterprise. I created a new Azure BizTalk 2013 Developer VM and upgraded it to R2 after installing VS 2013.

Same issue.

Other Issues

Missing Documentation

The BizTalk 2013 / BizTalk 2013 R2 documentation on MSDN states that the HL7 Accelerator now supports the following:

A new book is in the works

I am co-authoring a new book with Vikas Bhardwaj called "Complete HL7 for Microsoft BizTalk Server".

The publisher is Apress and we are look at a publication date in July.

BizTalk on Fhir

This is the first post in a new series on the use of HL7 Fhir (pronounced fire) with BizTalk.

I am (or rather my company) is a member of HL7 Organization. Since November of last year I have been working with fhir and have been able to integrate it into BizTalk.

Free e-book - Microsoft BizTalk 2010 Administration Essentials

Due to unresolvable issues with the Publisher, we have decided to provide it directly to the BizTalk Community.

The book, which will be released in chapters, is available on the BizTalkAdminsBlogging.com.

Microsoft BizTalk 2010 Administration Essentials

Our book is available for pre-order at PackT.

Overview

BizTalk Community series: Introducing Howard S. Edidin

Steef-Jan Wiggers was kind enough to write an article about me on his blog, Azure Thoughts, EAI Challenges.

You can read the article here

Not just a BizTalk Anti-Pattern

This is a follow up to my last BizTalk Anti-Pattern post

This is primarily for the Technical Recruiter.

My last contract was mutually terminated. I had worked for this client architecting their BizTalk 2006 R2 / ESB 1.0 EAI implementation. I was contracted to architect their migration to BizTalk 2010.

There was a disconnect between what the client expected and what a BizTalk Architect role does.

It would benefit everyone if you would ask the client for explicit details on what they expect of a role. The client would rely on you more often to find the right person for the job..

More BizTalk Anti-Patterns

Just assuming is also a BizTalk Anti-Pattern

Part of the scope of the project was to incorporate the Windows Azure Service Bus.

Unfortunately I did not ask any questions about their current environment. I just assumed….

It wasn’t until I started that I found out they were using BizTalk 2009 Standard.

They were not using Maps, WCF-Lob Adapters, Pipeline Components, or the ESB Toolkit. The only had a few schemas

They did everything in .Net code and WCF Services and called these services from Expression Shapes in Orchestrations

I was told that the were only using BizTalk for Guaranteed Delivery.

I demonstrated how they could easily develop this application in BizTalk without the need to write a lot of code.

They had no interest in changing their use of BizTalk. Nor were they interested in upgrading to Enterprise.

BizTalk Server 2010 Cookbook

It’s about time someone authored a BizTalk Cookbook that all BizTalk Roles could relate to. Most BizTalk 2010 books have been geared towards developers only.

BizTalkIn: The BizTalk Anti-Pattern List

The BizTalk Anti-Pattern List

The BizTalk Bad Practices List is now on the TechNet Wiki

Wiki > TechNet Articles > The List of “Bad Practices” for Designing, Developing, and Administering BizTalk / ESB Solutions

We all learn from our mistakes and reading about the mistakes of others. Hopefully the information in this list would benefit someone. .

The BizTalk Bad Practices List

The List of “Bad Practices” for Designing, Developing, and Administering BizTalk / ESB Solutions

The List of “Bad Practices”

Start designing your ESB Itineraries first

Using the Generated Operations Name for the Action (SOAP Action Header)

from a WCF LOB Adapter

Recommendation:

Naming your Port Operations so you can easily identify them in the

Orchestration is a good practice. You will need to modify the Operation

Name for the Action on your port to match.Using the generated “Insert1”, “Insert2”, “Select1”, etc. makes it difficult

to identify, especially when you could have multiple Select, Insert, Update,

and Delete Operations within an Orchestration.

Using ADO.Net instead of SQL Stored Procedures for CUD Operations within an Orchestration

Spending the entire budget for BizTalk Development and leaving nothing for Administration and Operations

Can you imagine what the cost was for several weeks of training…?

To be continued…

Using the Community ODBC Adapter from TWOCONNECT

BizTalk 2010 does not have an adapter for every Data Resource. We have a choice of either purchasing an Adapter, creating our own by using the WCF LOB SDK, or using the Community ODBC Adapter provided by TWOCONNECT

The adapter does have limitations and issues:

To demonstrate the use of the Adapter, I have created three scenarios.

Installation and Configuration

Setting our ODBC Data Source

Scenarios

Request\Response operation using a Select from a table

Request operation using an Update on a table.

Request\Response operation using a stored procedure

Deployment

Creating Ports for the ODBC Adapter

Summary

Using the ODBC Adapter with Sybase ASE

BizTalk 2010 does not have an adapter for Sybase. The only adapter that I could find was the free Community BizTalk Adapter for ODBC from twoConnect.

Name for the Action on your port to match.

Using the generated “Insert1”, “Insert2”, “Select1”, etc. makes it difficult

Using ADO.Net instead of SQL Stored Procedures for CUD Operations
within an Orchestration

Spending the entire budget for BizTalk Development and leaving nothing
for Administration and Operations