BizTalkIn

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 Chief Enterprise Architect or perhaps it was the CTO 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,
which could be reused. The inexperienced developer simply took the samples included with the ESB Toolkit
and “adapted” them. The developer was told (a little bit of micromanagement here) 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.

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.

Business Rules and Business Process Exceptions

2011-09-12T20:25:00.001-05:00

Often a business process team will create a working prototype of a business process. These prototypes might arise from 'use-cases' or business cases.

This idealized process develops a deep understanding of the final version, yet much of the important work remains. You should even consider executing this development artifact in a test bed. Yet to complete a business process, the technical team should detail the process diagram with the necessary scheduling, exceptions and compensations. The purpose of the details is to erect a more complete process model. The business processes should act on all the messages, including the system failures. The process should handle every anticipated exception.

There are 3 types of exceptions may affect process execution:

Technical exceptions
Transient exceptions
Business exceptions

As we will see, business rules can create, named business exceptions. If a BizTalk Orchestration is transactional, the process should compensate for transactions that fail to complete. In compensation, the process cleans up or backs out records from ERP’s, operational datastores or data warehouses.

Often processes should be complete within a time period, so there could be time out actions noted on the diagram. Business processes usually receive a message and translate that message into yet another message for consumption by the next part of the process. BPMN is powerful for developing time-outs, exceptions and compensations. As seen in the BPMN fragment below, you can attach time-outs, exceptions and compensations directly to a subprocess task list. When time-outs and exceptions occur within the two process tasks, the BizTalk Orchestration traps these at the point of the subprocess.

Figure 1 BPMN fragment

In this scenario, a grant authorization system evaluates grants and records the data. The time-out BPMN (the clock) will raise a time-out exception and wait. The diagram reports any exception that occurs (the zigzag) to the exception task. The compensation takes care of a record in the grant database.

You can model Business Processes with advanced abilities that suspend processing, or communicate with disconnected, mobile processes. These powers yield opportunities for the enterprise to fine-tune their most complicated practices. Yet to develop these capabilities you should understand how to handle the three types of exceptions and what you must plan for when developing the production version of the process diagram.

A business process diagram should use exception handlers to redirect the process flow in case a transient or business exception happens. However, no process can manage every exception. There are technical exceptions that will cause the entire process instance to suspend.

Technical Exceptions

Technical exceptions occur when the process causes the process instance to fail. An internal server exception should be abnormal; however there are operational circumstances that cause these. Technical exceptions include:

The common .Net Null exceptions

Exceptions caused by Illegal Argument exceptions, (suppose an external operational system decides to change a field from 10 to 20 characters)
Server database exceptions, out of tablespace, violation of database constraints

These are outside and therefore invisible to the calling subprocess. Processes cannot handle them because the execution state of the process has stopped. When this technical exception happens, the current transaction is always marked for rollback. The process throws the exception to the scheduler or message router.

Transient exceptions

A transient exception is usually caused by code external to the server like database connections or connection pooling exceptions. Within the scope of the current transaction, a transient exception is visible and the process can catch it with an exception handler. If the exception is not handled in the scope of the current transaction, the subprocess marks the transaction for rollback and throws the exception to the scheduler or message router. The process is suspended.

The suspended process can be restarted and resume processing after the database connection or some other condition is restored.

Business Exception

A business exception is one that can be expected by the process. Examples of these exceptions include:

·Exception raised by an activity, a specific, named exception is raised, for instance a business rule could raise a named exception.
Exception caused by receiving an error message (like an SOAP fault).

If the exception is not handled in the scope of the current activity, the activity fails. When the activity defined a coordinated transaction, the transaction is committed. When no exception handling takes place Exception processing begins and leads to compensation and the failure of the process.

Business Rules Decisions and Business Exceptions

Many organizations use the BizTalk 2010 Business Rules Engine (BRE) to validate and transform incoming transactions. Validations and transformation are important types of 'decisions' that a business process makes with the data within process flows.

This is a common decision pattern: evaluate a set or transactions, say from an incoming data set. Each record that fails the validation should be stored in an area for latter cleanup. You can either handle the validation directly, with values in the process flows or you can raise a business exception, create a reusable process for handling the exception and move on.

Another common decision pattern validates user form input, in a workflow. Users might correctly complete a form and send it to a process flow. If there are business rules that violate complex data and business conditions, the process should collect data from the user at a later date.

Figure 2 is an example of what I am describing. A decision service validates incoming data. If the data does not pass validation, the subprocess raises a named exception, otherwise the record is processed.

Figure 2 Decision Services

The basic idea is to design your exceptions, time-outs and compensations to enlarge the flexibility of the process and allow most process to continue unattended. Handle the process and move on.

Diagram complexity

The complete BPMN diagram has many important exception features that must be accommodated.

Unfortunately, these additional boxes and notations make it difficult for business users to understand. This is where you use a BPMN Structuring Phase diagram. This diagram does not display exceptions, compensations and timers attached to subprocesses. The tasks following these should also not be displayed. This would clarify the core nature of the process and provide your business users an easy to understand document.

del.icio.us Tags: BizTalk,BRE,BPMN,Orchestration,Exception Handling

Windows Live Tags: Rules,Exceptions,Often,team,prototype,prototypes,version,development,artifact,diagram,compensations,purpose,messages,system,failures,exception,execution,Technical,Transient,BizTalk,Orchestration,transactions,compensation,data,warehouses,message,consumption,BPMN,task,tasks,Figure,scenario,authorization,clock,database,Processes,abilities,opportunities,enterprise,capabilities,production,handlers,instance,server,Null,Illegal,Argument,violation,constraints,transaction,connection,Within,scope,handler,Examples,error,SOAP,failure,Decisions,Many,Engine,Validations,transformation,decision,validation,area,cleanup,Another,user,Users,example,Services,Handle,notations,Phase,timers,Tags,outs,rollback,scheduler,router

Using BPMN to design and document BizTalk 2010 Projects

2011-09-09T10:01:00.001-05:00

The following are the recommended steps to design and document a BizTalk 2010 Project using Visio 2010 Premium – BPMN

1. The Project Manager and Business Analyst will create the Functional Requirements documentation.

2. The BizTalk Architect or Lead BizTalk Developer will create a new Visio 2010 BPMN document for the project.

3. The BizTalk Architect or Lead BizTalk Developer will create the “Black Box” BPMN diagram.

4. The Project Manager and Business Analyst will review the diagram to validate that it meets the project requirements.

5. The BizTalk Architect or Lead BizTalk Developer will then add a new tabs for the BPMN Structuring Phases (1 -3). The Structuring Phase diagrams will be constructed.

6. The Business Analyst will use the Structuring Phase diagrams to determine what supporting documents need to be created. These documents include; Transformation (Maps), Business Rules, etc...

7. The BizTalk Architect or Lead BizTalk Developer will validate the Structuring Phase 3 BPMN Diagram for any errors.

8. The BizTalk Architect or Lead BizTalk Developer will add a new tab for the Reconstruction Phase Diagram.

9. The BizTalk Architect or Lead BizTalk Developer will create the Reconstruction Phase Diagram.

10. The Business Analyst will validate the Reconstruction Phase Diagram.

11. The Business Analyst will add a new tab for the Instrumentation Phase Diagram.

12. The Business Analyst will attach the documents to the Shapes within the Instrumentation Phase Diagram.

13. The Business Analyst will enter the attributes values for each shape in the Instrumentation Phase Diagram.

14. The BizTalk Architect or Lead BizTalk Developer will validate the Instrumentation Phase Diagram.

BPMN Diagramming Basics

2011-09-06T20:38:00.000-05:00

Microsoft has recently published a Training Course, "Learn the basics of Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) and how create a BPMN flowchart diagram in Visio 2010 Premium" on the MS Office Support site.

I highly recommend this for anyone involved in designing BizTalk Solutions. The BPMN shapes and attributes relate to BizTalk Orchestrations.

Doing research for a new Book

2011-08-28T11:22:00.000-05:00

I came up with an idea for a book and had submitted it to PackT Publishing. I received a response that one of the editors was interested.

The title is “Using Visio 2010 Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) to design, model, and document BizTalk Solutions”. So far, I have not been able to find anything published on this subject.

This book is primarily for Business Analysts, Project Mangers, Architects, Developers, and Administrators who are currently using or are planning to implement Microsoft BizTalk Server.

This book is not about developing BizTalk Applications, nor is it a guide book on using Visio 2010.

How to Gac and copy a BizTalk 2010 Pipeline Component

2011-07-07T14:50:00.000-05:00

On Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 Server, the Gac Utility is located in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\Bin\NETFX 4.0 Tools.

XCopy is not supported, so the easiest way to copy the DLL to the BizTalk 2010 Pipeline Folder is by using "Copy" with the /y switch to Suppresses prompting to confirm you want to overwrite an existing destination file.

The following script can be added to the Post-Build Event Command Line.

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\Bin\NETFX 4.0 Tools\GacUtil.exe" /nologo /i "$(TargetPath)" /f

copy "$(TargetPath)" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010\Pipeline Components" /y

Using BPMN to document BizTalk Solution Requirements - Part 1

2011-07-05T16:51:00.003-05:00

I have been working with BPMN for a few years. My primary tool has been Enterprise Architect by Sparx Systems. Microsoft introduced BPMN 1.2 in Visio 2010 Premium Edition. I have recommended both products on almost every BizTalk Contract.

On my last contract, I taught several classes (Project Managers, Business Analysts, Architects and Developers) on the use of BPMN and how it relates to BizTalk Applications. They are using it not only for BizTalk, but all Business Process Applications.

BizTalk 2006 had a nice addin for Visio, the "Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 Orchestration Designer for Business Analysts". A Business Analyst could create an Workflow in Visio and a BizTalk developer could use the diagram to create the Orchestration.

I have been researching how to do the same thing with BPMN.

To be continued...

BizTalk 2010 Certification exam

2011-06-12T12:21:00.002-05:00

I passed the Developing Business Processes and Integration Solutions using BizTalk Server 2010 Certification exam on Saturday. I am now officially a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MSCTS) .

The last certification exam I took was in 1999. I guess I am still certified as a MCP for Windows 95. Anyone still using it?

The BizTalk Project from Hell

2011-01-17T14:38:00.000-06:00

I took a permanent position with a consulting firm in November. They brought me on board to help them with a BizTalk 2009 project for a Healthcare project they started over a year ago.
Apparently they didn’t hire a qualified BizTalk Developer or Contractor. They decided that they would do the Application themselves.
They figured out how to create Orchestrations and how to use the BRE. Everything else was done in both Serialized and Non-Serialized .Net Classes. They called these classes from Expressions and Message Assign Shapes in Atomic Scopes.

BizTalk and Me..

2011-01-11T08:56:00.000-06:00

I have been working with BizTalk for over eight years. I started with BizTalk 2002 and am now working with BizTalk 2010. The majority of my work has been with consulting firms and as an independent contractor.

I hope to provide the reader with a inside view of these experiences.

BizTalkIn

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

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.

Managing BizTalk Server 2010 is not a simple process.

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

These Services and Tools include the following.

BizTalk 2010 Administration Role

Common Administration Tasks

Operations

BizTalk 2010 WCF LOB Oracle Adapter - Oracle Data Access Client

Installation and configuration

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

Configuring the SQL Agents for BizTalk 2010 Developer Environments

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.

Recommendation:

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

Configuring the Agents

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

Change the Backup Schedule

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

Deleting the backups

Creating the Windows Command File

Creating the Windows Task

Summary

Administering BizTalk 2010: Roles and Responsibilities

Roles and Responsibilities

BizTalk 2010 Administrator Role

Responsibilities:

Installing BizTalk 2010

Configuration

BizTalk Hosts

BizTalk Host Instances

BizTalk Adapters

Routine Performance Checklists

Maintaining the BizTalk Group

Security and SSO

Disaster Recovery

Deploying and Managing BizTalk Applications

Business Rules Engine (BRE)

Business Activity Monitoring (BAM)

Change Management for BizTalk

The Performance Lab

Performance Optimization

Monitoring

System Center Operations Manager (SCOM)

BizTalk Database Administration

Enterprise Service Bus 2.1

IIS Administration

Documenting your BizTalk Environments

Troubleshooting

Third-Party Tools

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

Name for the Action on your port to match.

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