Paul Somers Integration Blog

2021-06-29T01:07:00.001-07:00

This is the end of this blog......

Azure vs Amazon vs Rackspace vs HP vs Google: Cloud Storage

2014-11-09T19:58:00.003-08:00

Sifting through the reams of information on the various enterprise cloud storage options can be pretty daunting.

Who's the best, and who gives me the best performance, well time to put them all to the test...

The good people at Nasuni have done this, not to steal their thunder, please check out a post here: View the excerpt of the report here

Download the Full Report from Nasuni

The end result winner... spoiler alert....

Microsoft Azure

Isolated host instances that won’t go away, even when you terminate them

2014-10-15T13:56:00.000-07:00

This can possibly be Stopping you from deploying things?

There is a backdoor way, and I do not recommend this in production unless it’s your only option.

If you know the back end of BizTalk and the databases, all of these instances, are stored in the messagebox database. You need to go in here and remove them, all of a sudden they disappear.

First we need to find the instance we want to remove.

Get the instance ID from here.

Go off to the Message Box Database, in the instances table are all of your current instances, its best to only remove the one you are looking at.

To remove it, simply delete the row.

The instance is now gone from the admin console.

Another trick, is isolated adapter instances, typically have the same class id. Or in the table, the uidClassID.

You can get the class id, and delete ALL instances of isolated adapter, by using uidClassID as your parameter.

On all BizTalk environments I have looked at, this class ID seems to be the same.

Use this method with care, it is unsupported, and you do it at your own risk, usual disclaimer.

BizTalk Mapping Patterns & Best Practices

2014-09-30T03:15:00.001-07:00

Sandro Pereira has written a cool e-book about mapping, I recommend getting a free copy.

The BizTalk Mapping Patterns and Best Practices book is a reference guide mainly intended for BizTalk developers to make their day-to-day lives easier. The book offers insights on how maps work, the most common patterns in real time scenarios, and the best practices to carry out transformations. The author has been working on this over the last one year, and his original idea of publishing these information as a blog changed in the due course to become a white paper, then finally to a “Community eBook” with about 400-pages and contributions from so many people.

Download it now from here please download now for free.

NOTE: The download link will link you to the BizTalk 360 website for the download, however after I was added to a dozen junk mail mailing lists following this registration, I would really recommend NOT using this site. Please refer to my blog post about BizTalk360.

UPDATE: Sadly they have moved the object so you have to go through this process, please be aware of lots of junk mail following this.

WCF Send Port that Returns XML responses, CORRECTLY

2014-08-20T19:03:00.000-07:00

Do you have a need to call out to SQL and obtain a set of results, typically this is done via the wizard, and typically it’s a flat structure, in that a single repeating list is sent.

What if you wanted more of a structured response, where the repeating list, has a repeating list within this, you can return multiple result sets, and have some kind of way of matching up the results, and create a rather complex map to do this, what if you have several of these structures, your timeframes to create this will blow out, and maintenance of this is extreme.

Did you know that SQL can produce this repeating, rather XML looking structure for you, with great ease?

This is one I have come across on several occasions, so I decided to blog it.

I will use a simple example to show you how to do this, and why it’s so much simpler.

I have a stored procedure, that accepts two parameters, [GetLoadTest] @Users,@Run

When using the wizard, I get this schema. The response is a typical stored procedure result set, of which is of limited use.

I am returning this:

The Schema for this is a repeating structure, with a child repeating structure. This is not easily going to work here. There is a funky xpath, xml object method which is both bad for performance, and requires code in an orchestration to make this work, and highly not recommended.

What if you could just have the message returned, actually return you message, as per your schema below. Well you can..... here is how.

Firstly my stored procedure that gets the results:

This will now return XML in my XML structure, as shown earlier, notice the NAMESPACE....

This is the schema for just this message, of which the Standard xml definition wizard can whip up for you.

Here is where the first part of magic occurs, you take the schema that the SQL wizard generated and modify the response node.

You add a reference to the LoadTestRecord Schema. Then you simply change the response message to be of this type, repeating, as below.

The next bit of magic is a pipeline component, these are typically used to turn the horrid things people send us into more meaningful things.

I am not going to bore you with the details, but the response that the WCF-SQL adapter give us, for a XML response message is not very nice, with CDATA nodes, and encoded XML content.

So I wrote a simple pipeline that will decode this mess and replace the StoredProcedureResultSet0 node, this is configurable in the properties of the pipeline...

The source code is attached here: Link TBA

Then it’s a simple as configuring your send port to use the pipeline. Create a pipeline that uses the pipeline component that I have, and the standard XML Disassembler pipeline component.

The send port

Select the receive pipeline.

Be sure to set the SOAP action.

Then your orchestration or even message subscription will receive the exact message that is specified in the schema, and mapping can take place on all the repeating nodes of repeating nodes.

VERY handy for client detail, further detail and extra detail, all of which are repeating.

You can use the standard out of box functionality, but this was a MUCH easier way of doing this, and the mapping was a breeze.

SQL does this as part of built in functionality and makes life a great deal easier.

It would however, as a NOTE TO THE PRODUCT GROUP... be much easier if there was a checkbox on the adapter properties, to say I am sending a XML response, and work out for me the schema based on the response, and not just default encode it in a very horrible way.

BizTalk 360 Message Flow

2014-07-02T18:14:00.001-07:00

I installed the latest latest version of BizTalk 360 (www.BizTalk360.com) , I already knew all the work arounds to make it work, so this was up and running quicker this time. Refer to my other post: Review/summary Biztalk360

I was intrested in the message flow, which leverages the tracking database, of which sad old HAT was used to display this detail, and peices the pircutre based on tracked events, back together. I congraulate the BizTalk 360 team for being able to hook into the queries of the DTA databse that that old HAT thing does when you click message flow on a tracked message.

There is an easier way of doing this, but lets go with this first of all, as this is what happened to my message.

I liked this that I decided a post about it was worth the effort, given that much of what BizTalk 360 can't track is shown here, in our solutions 90% of the messages go to and from the Bus, or message box, we leverage direct bound ports, that communicate with various external systems, that form part of a shared network of systems we can leverage the services of via the ESB. With out using the ESB framework, it becomes much simpler to implement.

However here is what it gives me, which is nice, I have had to remove any company details and information, hence the black blobs, but you can see the process is shown, and whilst it took time, and looks a bit messy, you can move things around, but you can see what went down graphically, its pretty to the eye.

Whats important here is every link out of an orchestration and into another is not monitored, what detail that line contains, and what happened inside that orchestration is also not monitored and tracked in BizTalk 360, with sufficent detail, not even what went down each line, what was the message and what was the critical business detail here.

For my implementation of this process and all behind this process flow, I have BAM hooked in, it follows the whole process, leaps and jumps to and from different steps, and different orchestrations, flowing the logic, and pulling key data out. More importantly it knows if something didn't work, as we don't just fail and suspend, we handle and report, implement retry logic and re-submision abilities. Based on what BAM is telling us, the reporting we get is amazing, its not a pretty picture, but the reporting guys do make it look decent in reporting services.

Anyway have a look below, the picture is very nice, but just remember what is missing from the picture, is everything you need to see, and the picture falls into the pretty photos part, it is a great effort to get the picture, but there is more to BizTalk than a pretty Picture. Be sure to check my other post on this topic.

BizTalk360 Review and summary

2014-06-29T19:02:00.002-07:00

I am going to provide a review and summary of BizTalk 360. www.BizTalk360.com

I am approaching this from the point of view, I have not used it and I want to use it, and get it to do what it says on the box, monitor BizTalk.

Let’s start with actually getting it working…..

First blocker, the install, for some reason, even though I am an admin on the box, and I can install BizTalk fully, I need to go to a command prompt and run this as an administrator. I can install a BizTalk MSI which creates a website without needing to be an administrator; however this seems to have problems here.

Now we have it installed, we click the link on BizTalk 360, after a short pause we are greeted with this screen, nothing else to tell us why or what to do, just this screen. Now the user of whom we selected does not have access to the management database, we selected the isolatedhost user, that can talk to this database…. For some reason it’s not allowing us to? With no detail… great.

We change the user to another user, recycle the app pool, and reload the site….

I don’t quite know what to make of this… so we poke around, and configure the environment. Now our BizTalk is installed on the machine we are running this on, as it kind of needed it to have all the BizTalk Bits, so it should know where the management database is, as it’s stored in the registry. The default SQL instance and the standard name for the BizTalk Management database needs to be entered here. We press Test Connection, it never returns, we waited for about 10 minutes, and it never came back, just a circle spinning endlessly.

Read the documentation, they want us to use mixed mode authentication and use the BizTalk360 user it tried to covertly create for us, well bad news BizTalk 360, this is in violation of our security policy and not allowed, and this is not uncommon, most organisations have this as their policy. Strike 1.

Refresh the web page after also putting the license key in…. our Licence type is unknown… not sure what this means.

I notice a license icon next to the list, it brings up request new license, so I try and generate a request. Press the button…

Even though the user has permissions…..

I tweak some more, fudge it more….

I can then press the generate license request. It wants to send some highly confidential information, as part of this request, the domain name, the admin group name, the server name, this I am simply not allowed to give to an external party, and I am unable to go any further with this.

company:WWW|adminGroup:{Domain}\{Removed} BizTalk Server Administrators|mgmtSqlInstance: {Removed Server Name} |mgmtDbName:BizTalkMgmtDb|BizTalkVersion:3.10.229|EnvironmentType:Non-Production

I did have a license key however, and it still comes up unknown….

More tweaking it around…. I get to the dashboard…. Again I’m running as a user who is now the db owner of all of the BizTalk Databases, highly unorthodox, but it is the only way I could get this thing to even get me this far. Then I am blocked again….

Why this occurs? I have no clue; it’s just not going very well for this product.

The fact it’s actually querying the message box does not sit well with me, this database is used by every host instance, every orchestration, almost every second, and it’s a very intense usage database, that you don’t just run queries in a production environment, which are not supported by the product group.

I finally got it to work… well kind of, after giving my app pool user, ownership, which is VERY risky, but this is a sandbox, and I want to make it work… Then I find I need yet another BizTalk Database to be given access… The DTA Database… again, not something you should really be querying.

Continue to click down on the list of things you can do, BAM Views… same problem, my App Pool user does not have access, and why would it?

Looking further, at the advanced event viewer, which basically looks at the event log.

The filter I did, gave 100% BizTalk 360 errors… What’s even stranger is that the errors are about sending emails, of which I have not turned on, and thus not configured to send.

I bypass this, configure it all up.... Next test, all configured, alarms set, and monitoring setup.

I am monitoring a send port, and a receive location for x Number of transactions per hour.

I am also monitoring orchestrations that stop in a particular application.

I am sitting on the monitoring dashboard, which refreshes every 60 seconds.

My environment is saying it’s healthy. I filter for errors.

I stop the orchestrations I am monitoring, I wait….

One refresh, still healthy, two refreshes, still healthy a manual refresh still healthy.

BizTalk 360 is not looking too healthy. It never tells me it’s not running….. It never tells me later that no transactions went down the port…. BizTalk 360 FAIL, it just does not tell me....

On the whole, BizTalk 360 is trying to be the BizTalk admin console, with insufficient permissions, and bypassing proper administrator permissions, allowing ANYONE to get on here, even people who would otherwise not have permissions to BizTalk. It bypasses all the security of BizTalk Groups, the BizTalk Administrators group, the BizTalk Operators Group.

It bypasses all BAM related permissions for specific users, allowing the user to see things in BAM they would not ordinarily be allowed to see.

It does not monitor, of which one of its key features is, I received not one alert, and not one dashboard said things were bad. It always said my environment was healthy, several hours after I made it quite unhealthy.

It could only monitor things like orchestration running, and send and receive port transactions. We have MANY processes that are ESB processes, which use direct ports, and send messages to the message box, and are routed to other subscribers internally. None of this can be monitored.

It uses queries against the message box, management database, DTA database, BAM database and ESB database. A direct query of these databases is highly unorthodox, and very dangerous. I have several queries that can provide much of the detail, but I am NOT ALLOWED to, and do not run these on production, it’s downright dangerous to run un-supported queries on a production environment, particularly those running with their own permissions.

It tries to be the BizTalk Admin Console, of what the BizTalk Admin console is designed to be and ships free with the product, and can run on an operators desktop.

It tries to be the BAM portal, which comes free with BizTalk, which was built for BAM, and bypasses all permissions of this portal, in a very bad way given the data here can be highly confidential.

It tries to monitor BizTalk, which did not seem to work for me, but it’s running queries, multiple queries against the BizTalk databases, every 60 seconds, these are putting additional load on your BizTalk environment, and possibly blocking queries from BizTalk itself, highly dangerous.

The majority of things it does, come with the product, they actually make it harder to do than in the BizTalk Admin console, which has its own permission set, you can bypass this by granting a user super user access to specific applications only, which is nice, but it’s a bypass of the permission set.

Would I use and thus recommend BizTalk 360?

Do not get me wrong, I looked at this tool, and configured everything and after many problems got it working, and set up all the features, and put it through its paces, I actually wanted it to work, if what’s written on packaging, and in all the hype around this tool.

So would I use it? Absolutely not.

Why Not?

I get better and more precise monitoring from BAM, I get better alerting from BAM. I can see not just that there was a problem with system X which uses port Y, I can see what it is, I can see the number of transactions, the volume, or lack of volume, which transaction is effected, and why. I can do this for ESB to ESB transactions as well. I can better engage the business of whom is the ultimate owner of this and give them such great detail that they are often astounded by the level of knowledge we have about what’s going on.

If I use the System Centre Management pack for BizTalk, I can hook into just about every alert and event that gets raised in BizTalk. There are MANY perfmon counters that expose pretty much most of what’s happening in BizTalk, and you can configure monitoring of this in a much more supported fashion than what is exposed in BizTalk 360.

This puts me in a more supported situation, and 100% of this is free, in that it ships with the product, is supported and works, why would I use something else that does not work, and is not supported, in an organisations production environment that runs its core operations and controls a greater than million or billion dollar business…. I am not going to take a chance like this ever.

There is no way I could even convince the business to do so with risk factors like this.

BAM Alerts Failure Setting Up

2014-05-14T17:15:00.000-07:00

Many people, including many experienced BizTalk Developer, do not know about or fully understand BAM and in particular BAM Alerts.

If you know your stuff, you will know it’s VERY useful, not only because it is out of the BOX, but it is something that can be very useful.

I have experienced some problems setting it up, or getting it actually working on BizTalk 2013, finally they are using the right version of SQL, and the right version of everything else, sadly the BizTalk Team, are not so great at developing, and they cause issues, or rather don’t develop and then test their stuff correctly.

So I found some bugs, and I will provide you the Fixes.

When creating a BAM Alert, you may get a failure on the screen, something didn’t work. On closer inspection to the event log you see something like the following.

System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException (0x80131904): The EXECUTE permission was denied on the object 'bam_Metadata_GetUserAlertInstances', database 'BAMAlertsApplication', schema 'dbo'.

It seems the setup of the BAMAlerts database was not fantastic, In that no one has access to it, to create alerts, not just to this stored procedure, but to several….

A quick solution is to grant permissions to these stored procedures, as you go you find that this one now works, and the next one fails, so to avoid this problem, here is the script I used, and ALL of the offending stored procedures, as our BAM system is open to the public user base, we grant everyone access, as the information is very valuable.

Against the BAMAlertsApplication database.

GRANT EXEC ON [dbo].[bam_Metadata_GetUserAlertInstances] TO PUBLIC

GRANT EXEC ON [dbo].[bam_Metadata_GetAlertInstanceByViewName] TO PUBLIC

GRANT EXEC ON [dbo].[bam_Metadata_InsertAlertInstance] TO PUBLIC

GRANT EXEC ON [dbo].[bam_Metadata_InsertAlertOwner] TO PUBLIC

GRANT EXEC ON [dbo].[bam_Metadata_GetAlertInstanceID] TO PUBLIC

GRANT EXEC ON [dbo].[bam_Metadata_GetUserAlertInstance] TO PUBLIC

GRANT EXEC ON [dbo].[bam_Metadata_GetAlertSubscriptions] TO PUBLIC

GRANT EXEC ON [dbo].[bam_Metadata_CreateSubscription] TO PUBLIC

GRANT EXEC ON [dbo].[bam_Metadata_UpdateAlertInstanceXml] TO PUBLIC

GRANT EXEC ON [dbo].[bam_Metadata_IsAlertOwner] TO PUBLIC

GRANT EXEC ON [dbo].[bam_Metadata_GetAlertSubscriptionIDfromNames] TO PUBLIC

GRANT EXEC ON [dbo].[bam_Metadata_GetSubscription] TO PUBLIC

GRANT EXEC ON [dbo].[bam_Metadata_DeleteSubscription] TO PUBLIC

GRANT EXEC ON [dbo].[bam_Metadata_GetAlertOwners] TO PUBLIC

GRANT EXEC ON [dbo].[bam_Metadata_UpdateAlertInstance] TO PUBLIC

This will now enable you to create and edit an alert, add a subscriber, and remove a subscriber. As you can see there are MANY procedures that permission was simply not granted, very annoying.

Once this is done, you find you have yet another problem…… if your domain, like mine, has usernames that contain spaces, in that {Domain}\Paul Somers. The BAM alerts system does not like you. It will complain because it can’t handle a space, even if I put this in quotes, it still does not work.

The following owners could not be resolved: {Domain}\Paul; Somers. Correct the list of owners and try saving the alert again.

Use the navigation bar on the left to access Business Activity Monitoring views.
If the problem persists, contact your System Administrator.

Again VERY annoying, this I could not find a fix for, but the work around is to use a user with no spaces, to create the alert; our service account users have no spaces, so I used this rather.

All in all, the BizTalk team is making what is a fantastic feature, and very valuable ability of BizTalk, less than acceptable. If I did not know the power of BAM, and the true awesomeness of BAM, BAM Portal, and BAM alerts, I would be put off from ever using it….

I say to all, use it, it’s truly awesome, if you need help come talk to me, my contact details are paul@somers.com.

BAM Alerts: Cannot start service BAMAlerts on computer

2014-04-14T21:12:00.002-07:00

When installing BAM Alerts on BizTalk 2013, we encountered an error; it was preventing us from moving ahead with our plans for BAM. We investigated, asked the relevant people and nothing helped.

The error is below:

Exception object: 02d61034

Exception type: Microsoft.BizTalk.Bam.CfgExtHelper.BAMConfigurationException

Message: Error executing process: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2013\Tracking\bm.exe

InnerException: Microsoft.BizTalk.Bam.CfgExtHelper.BAMConfigurationException, Use !PrintException 02d60dc4 to see more.

StackTrace (generated):

<none>

StackTraceString: <none>

HResult: 80131600

0:001> !PrintException 02d60dc4

Exception object: 02d60dc4

Exception type: Microsoft.BizTalk.Bam.CfgExtHelper.BAMConfigurationException

Message: Microsoft (R) Business Activity Monitoring Utility Version 3.10.229.0

ERROR: Failed to set up BAM database(s).

The alert infrastructure was not created.

Cannot start service BAMAlerts on computer '.'.

The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion

InnerException: <none>

StackTrace (generated):

<none>

StackTraceString: <none>

HResult: 80131600

The root problem was the BAM alerts service was being created, but failing to start in the allocated timeout, and thus it failed. We had this working on our development machine fine, however this was UAT and it was not fine.

In UAT like most good setup’s we had various domain policies applied, that locked down the environment, for good reason. The service was trying to start, and waiting for verification that it could start.

What it was trying to do was a verification operation that took quite long time(> 60 seconds) because it was calling winhttp to download Certificate Trust List (CTL) but the download action was not successful.

This would not work, as it’s a locked down environment and we do not allow this. Then because the service does not start in time, it fails the install….

The solution, as simple as it is now… was to implement a setting in the bamalerts service that would tell it to bypass the checking of the security.

Create a bamalerts.exe.config, in the folder where BAMAlerts.exe is installed usually: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2013\Tracking.

Place this simple config into the file.

</runtime>

</configuration>

Retry the configuration of bam alerts, and it should work. (Be sure to clean up the alerts database, and see my other post, and remove the role NSEventReader from the BAM Primary import database or you will get a different error and it still will not work.)

This is a known issue, and there are some fixes out there for this, but it will also prevent other windows services from starting, not just BAMAlerts. In in locked down configurations, like ALL BizTalk environments should be, you can not just allow internet access for all things. It should be SOME not ALL things have internet access.

ERROR: Failed to set up BAM database(s). The specified account is already in the view.

2014-03-17T15:09:00.000-07:00

We have had this error occur when installing BAM Alerts.

It's a pain which was caused by another part of BAM not working, and leaving bits left over......

Solution is simple enough:

SQL Server Management Console
BAMPrimaryImportDB
  Security
   Roles
    DatabaseReoles
     BAM_ManagementNSReader
        Remove the account here.

Remove the BAMAlerts Database.

Try again.

IDOC to SAP and the hierarchy is all wrong?

2014-01-26T20:55:00.000-08:00

In SAP, have you ever come across this scenario, sending an IDOC to SAP and the hierarchy is all wrong?

I am working on the ORDERS message to SAP.

Have a look below, my E1EDP01 Segment needs to have children beneath it, E1EDP02 is a child of E1EDP01, however it does not have this…

This is what I need to see in SAP, however they are coming all below each other…. Why ???

I looked at the SAP schema in BizTalk, in particular:

DATAHEADERCOLUMN_SEGNUM - The segment number of this element.

DATAHEADERCOLUMN_HLEVEL – The Hierarchy level of the element

DATAHEADERCOLUMN_PSGNUM – The parent Segment number

Now, you can try mapping to these, however all the documents say that on the inbound iDOC these are not important…

Well the truth is, on the outbound iDOC they are fully populated, and it’s quite nice to see when SAP sends it to you.

On the inbound, these are not required, the KEY is to look at the schema of the IDOC, it’s quite crucial.

Look at my NODE, first of all in the version of the iDOC, its called E2EDP01008, in SAP based on the data structure type, its E1EDP01.

Look at the MAX occurs, it is just once and it MUST be there, however I have quite a few repeated here….

Look at its parent, it occurs 999999 times; which is enough, underneath the parent are all of the children nodes that were also repeating.

ONE Instance of the parent is for ONE item, and all the children related to that ONE item. It’s the parent that should be looping all of the items, however quite often some of the children do repeat, within EACH item.

For these you need to use table looping, or structure you source message to handle this correctly.

You need to focus on making the mandatory fields match up and getting the data from various places to ensure this occurs.

These are the steps I followed, and had to work out, and I managed to get it to work, it needs to be followed exactly, once done the potential is endless.

Configuring SAP and BizTalk

2013-11-26T17:12:00.003-08:00

SAP BIZTALK & ASSOCIATED ISSUES

I get countless problems with SAP, it’s a pain to get going, but once its working, it’s golden.

Have you ever experienced any of these errors, well here are the errors and the solutions.

ERROR 1: The Messaging Engine failed while executing the inbound map for the message coming from source Details:"Loading property information list by namespace failed or property not found in the list. Verify that the schema is deployed properly. "

ERROR 2: The Messaging Engine failed to add a receive location …. to the adapter "WCF-SAP". Reason: "Microsoft.ServiceModel.Channels.Common.ConnectionException: Details: ErrorCode=RFC_OK. ErrorGroup=RFC_ERROR_BUSY. SapErrorMessage=CMALLC : rc=2 > Connect from SAP gateway to RFC server failed

Connect_PM DEST=BIZTALK_2, TPNAME=BIZTALK_2

ERROR 3: The receive location "SAPxyz" with URL "sap://CLIENT=100;LANG=ENxyz&ListenerProgramId=BIZTALK_2&RfcSdkTrace=False&AbapDebug=False" is shutting down. Details:"The Messaging Engine failed while notifying an adapter of its configuration. ".

ERROR 4: The Messaging Engine failed to add a receive location "SAPxyz" with URL "sap://CLIENT=100;LANG=EN;@a/xyz…&ListenerProgramId=BIZTALK_2&RfcSdkTrace=False&AbapDebug=False" to the adapter "WCF-SAP". Reason: "Microsoft.Adapters.SAP.RFCException: Details: ErrorCode=RFC_OK. ErrorGroup=RFC_ERROR_SYSTEM_FAILURE. SapErrorMessage=Open file 'saprfc.ini' failed: 'No such file or directory'.

Answer 1: When the sap adapter is deployed, it is supposed to deploy this assembly, however it does not, so you need to add it as a resource to BizTalk.

Answer 2 & 3

These are related, check you have a receive location setup, with your program ID, go into the SAP GUI and check via the /nsmgw command, look for your host, it will be the one running the BTSNTSvc command. You need to have it appear here first, get a receive location hooked up to this… if not there is your problem.

Check /nsm59 look for your entry point under TCP/IP, and sure it exists.

Double click on it, and make sure the activation type is registered service program, it is not the default. Your SAP admin will need to fix this.

Perform the connection test, it must pass…your receive location will need to be configured and running....

Answer 4:

Read what it says in the description panel, for destination name, there are two of these… make both blank, it will stop asking you for the saprfc.ini

BAM Portal Not Installing

2013-09-17T21:45:00.000-07:00

You installed BizTalk Server

You want to config BAM Portal see this error:

Failed to validate BAM Portal Web site (BAMPortal)

Additional information:

The BAM Portal website Default Web Site is not valid.

(Microsoft.Biztalk.Bam.CfgExtHelper.PortalHelper)

Exception from HRESULT : 0x80005008(System.DirectoryServives)

Basically its not allowing you to select the default website, its giving a red cross.

Simple Solution:

Open the Server Manager MMC snap-in (right-click on Computer and select the Manage option).
Expand the features node.
Select the Web Server node.
Look through the role services. Check for IIS 6 Management Compatibility and see if it says it is installed.
If not installed, click Add Role Services on right of screen. Select the IIS 6 Management Compatibility and install.
Go back to BizTalk configuration, the BAM Portal feature should now install without any issues.

Please verify that the pipeline strong name is correct and that the pipeline assembly is in the GAC.

2013-07-09T21:40:00.000-07:00

We have received the error:

There was a failure executing the response(send) pipeline: "xxx" Source: "Unknown " Receive Port: "yyy.TwoWay" URI: "/path/BTSHTTPReceive.dll?Receive" Reason: Failed to get pipeline: Namesapce.Pipelines.CPipeline,Namespace.Pipelines, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=edf16f912420a3a8. Please verify that the pipeline strong name is correct and that the pipeline assembly is in the GAC.

With many errors in BizTalk with this error, on the two way receive port, all suspended not resumable.

We recently did a deployment, and ever since then this has been occurring. We deployed, we did the normal remove all, re-deploy and restart all hosts.

Still this error occurred.

It turned out that one of the Dev’s had renamed one of the pipelines, slightly, and when we deployed we forgot the one very important host.

All of the errors were occurring under the Isolated Adapter, as this was a http receive port. This runs under the isolated host.

What is the Isolated host? And how can I restart this? It says not applicable in BizTalk Admin.

Well it’s any out of process host, for the HTTP receive, and most of these, its isolated host, is…. IIS.

Doing an IISReset, is just like restarting that isolated host. It flushed the old assemblies from memory, and caused it to reload all assemblies fresh from the GAC.

SAP DATA TYPES

2013-05-16T17:13:00.000-07:00

When sending a document to SAP, or making a RFC or BAPI call you may get this error:

Microsoft.ServiceModel.Channels.Common.XmlReaderGenerationException: An error occurred when trying to convert the byte array [30-00-30-00-30-00-30-00-30-00-30-00-30-00-30-00] of RFCTYPE RFCTYPE_DATE with length 8 and decimals 0 to XML format. Parameter/field name: REF_DATE Error message: Year, Month, and Day parameters describe an un-representable DateTime. ---> System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Year, Month, and Day parameters describe an un-representable DateTime.

Usually its the date field, most likely one you do not even use, and do not care about, sadly SAP date format is different from yours, and a null date is a big no no.

It comes down to how you generated your SAP schemas in the first place.

Add Generated Items/Add Adapter Meta Data/WCF-SAP

Under the Configure Button are three tabs, set up your connection on the first two, and then there is binding properties.

Look at the metadata section, change the Enable Safe Typing to true, this will generate your schema with safe types, its a fancy way of saying that all of the types generated will be of type string, rather than of type datetime, long, int, etc... SAP does not seem to care, it will do the conversion correctly now.

The node names do not change, just the types, so you can simply replace your current schema, keeping the same name, with the definition generated now.

Then your problem, will go away, and SAP will once again be happy.

AT RUN TIME: Ensure your send or receive port also has the same setting or it will not work.

BizTalk Server 2013 is now Released to Manufacturing (RTM)!

2013-03-20T10:00:00.000-07:00

I am excited to announce that BizTalk Server 2013 is now Released to Manufacturing (RTM)! BizTalk Server 2013 makes it easier than ever to build hybrid applications that span on-premises and the cloud.

BizTalk Server 2013 will be available on MSDN starting March 21. The English locale SKUs will be available for purchase starting April 2013. Other language SKUs will be available for purchase starting May 2013.

This is the eighth release of BizTalk Server, another step in the on-going investments we are making in BizTalk. In this release, we have focused on the “One BizTalk” vision and have invested both in the on-premises server and in the cloud. The cloud offerings, which will be released soon, include Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) capabilities as well as Platform as a Service (PaaS) capabilities. Please stay tuned for exciting updates on this topic in the near future.

For the on-premises BizTalk Server 2013 release, we have focused on the following themes:

Cloud Connectivity

· Ability to run existing BizTalk applications in the cloud (IaaS)

· Improved Performance

· Simplified Development and Management Experience

· Support for the latest platform and standards

In terms of features, this translates to

Integration with Cloud Services – BizTalk Server 2013 includes new out-of-the box adapters to send and receive messages from Windows Azure Service Bus, making it easy to build hybrid solutions. It also provides capabilities to host BizTalk endpoints in Azure through the Service Bus Relay providing a simple and secure way to connect external partners and application to BizTalk Server on-premises. New adapters include
- WCF-BasicHttpRelay
- WCF-NetTCPRelay
- SB-Messaging
RESTful services – BizTalk Server 2013 provides adapters to invoke REST endpoints as well as expose BizTalk Server artifacts as a RESTful service.
Enhanced SharePoint adapter – Integrating with SharePoint using BizTalk Server 2013 is now as simple as integrating with a file share. We have removed the dependency on SharePoint farms, while still providing backward compatibility.
SFTP adapter –Enables sending and receiving messages from an SFTP server.
ESB – The ESB capabilities previously introduced in the ESB Toolkit are now fully integrated with BizTalk Server and the ESB configuration experience is vastly simplified to enable a quick setup.
Dependency tracking - The dependencies between artifacts can now be viewed and navigated in the Admin console.
Improvements in dynamic send ports –You now have the ability to assign a host handler per adapter, providing better scales and performance for dynamic send ports.
XslCompiledTransform – The mapping engine now makes use of the enhanced XslCompiledTransform API, which provides significant improvements in mapping engine performance for complex maps.
Ordered Send Port improvements –We have made changes to the BizTalk runtime engine which significantly increases the performance of ordered send port scenarios, for example in HL7 solutions that use the MLLP Adapter.
BAM Alerts update – In previous releases of BizTalk Server, BAM Alerts feature had a dependency on SSNS (SQL Server Notification Services). With the current release of SQL Server (SQL Server 2012), SSNS is no longer available. However, we have made sure your existing BAM Alerts scenario work just the same even if your backend is targeting SQL Server 2012. If your backend is SQL Server 2008 R2, you will continue to require the dependency on SSNS.

· Support for latest LOB version and protocol standards - Additionally, we also support the latest LOB versions and protocol standards. For B2B, the enhancements include

Support for X12 5040, 5050, 6020, 6030
Support for EDIFACT D06A, D06B, D07A, D07B, D08A, D08B, D09A, D09B, D10A, D10B
HL7 2.5.1

With this release, we are also moving to a per-core licensing model to keep BizTalk consistent with our SQL Server licensing. The changes to BizTalk Server licensing reflect the evolution of the industry, along with new hardware deployment practices. With these changes, Microsoft will continue to offer industry-leading TCO to our customers.

Under the new Per Core licensing model, the net price impact to individual customers will vary based on how they deploy BizTalk Server 2013, their current capacity, and their future needs. For customers who are running BizTalk Server software on processors with four cores or less, the license cost for

BizTalk Server 2013 remains consistent with BizTalk Server 2010, as core licenses are priced at one quarter the cost of a processor license. For customers running servers with higher capacity processors, licensing cost will grow with the increased power of their hardware.

BizTalk Server 2013 offers expanded virtualization rights, options and benefits to provide greater flexibility when deploying in virtual environments. When deploying BTS 2013 in a virtual environment, you have the choice of licensing either individual virtual machines (VMs) as needed or to license for maximum virtualization to support highly virtualized and private cloud environments.

For more information on the per-core licensing, go to the InfoPedia site and download the customer-facing document “;BizTalk Server 2013 Licensing Datasheet and FAQ”.

200 Million Workers Want Windows 8 Tablets, Not iPads

2013-02-04T20:02:00.003-08:00

I have installed windows 8.... I installed the enterprise edition, as I wanted all the good stuff and I had a single key allocated to me for this.

It was a lot more difficult than I would have thought to get it installed and running.

I am up and running... It works, it is not windows 7.... It is different as is most new major releases of windows, if you look back over time..... Get used to it.

If you have touch, great, if you want to use the old desktop apps, even better, they all work...

Get used to the interesting features, the magic bar on the side, the lack of great support for multiple monitors on a pc, and a new way of looking at your apps, with the fantastic live tiles....

Once you open the box fully and look inside, it's actually pretty decent, 100% better than ipads, yes not as many fancy apps in the app store, but remember..... those millions and millions of existing apps, games... etc that you used to have access to, you still have access to, go to the shop and buy them...... just as you always did...

Now look at the main user of windows, business....... I would like to draw you attention to the post recently:

200-million-workers-want-windows-8-tablets-not-ipads

On an iPad, I can not run ANY of my old apps, on a windows tablet I can, I get the best of both worlds. Finally I can use word and excel on my tablet, as opposed to what you get on iPad.

I have a significant choice of device, manufacturer, and features of the hardware platform.

I firmly believe the PRO versions of windows 8, those that run intel and still run all of my old apps will be the way forward, and for business, give me something that can do both, I am already sold.... so the article above, is to me, right on the money.

Sorry Apple lovers, and thanks for leading the way again, I used to be an Amiga guy, but hey where are they now? I don't think those loyal to Apple will go away, but they will not be so popular, and those very annoying, very user unfriendly, mad house, apple stores will finally go away, replaced with a better store in the mall.

My $2 worth.

Windows 8 Shortcuts

2012-12-06T13:31:00.003-08:00

With windows 8 my shortcuts did not work fully, well there is a whole bunch of new methods in windows 8, I thought it would be good to share.

1. Admin Menu: It's not the Start Menu so familiar in earlier versions of Windows, but the Admin Menu is as close as it gets in Windows 8. Windows + X pops it up from the bottom left corner.

2. Charms: When you hit Windows + C the Charms bar pops out from the right-hand side of the screen. Charms, a new Windows feature, are a set of tools such as Search, Share and Settings that are located in a Charms Bar that can be flicked in from the right side of the display on a touchscreen.

3. Settings: One of the Charms is Settings. To avoid calling out the Charms bar then choosing Settings it's possible to go directly to Settings: Windows +I. This will reveal the Power button, too. Click on that to reveal the Sleep, Shut down and Restart options, options users say are way too hard to find.

4. Sharing: If you are in an application and want to email or share its content with someone on a social network, hit Windows + H.

5. Second screen: If you are connecting to a second screen as you might presenting a PowerPoint in a conference room, use Windows + P.

6. Search: There are three layers of Search: Apps, Settings and Files. Using touch it calls for whisking out the Charms bar, selecting Search then choosing one of the three layers. With shortcuts, each layer can be reached with one command. They are: Apps: Windows + Q ; Settings: Windows +W ; Files: Windows + F

7. Snap an app: It's possible to snap an application on hold in the right or left quarter of the screen with a second active app occupying the rest of the screen. To snap to the right, press Windows + . ; to snap to the left, press Windows + Shift + .

8. Running Apps: Thumbnails of apps that are running are concealed off the left side of the screen. Pressing Windows + Tab reveals them.

9. To close an app: It's just like it was in Windows 7: Alt + F4 .

10. The desktop: While it's different from the traditional desktop, it is much more familiar territory than the Start Screen. Typing Windows + D brings up the Desktop...Same as Windows 7

WCF SQL operations

2012-11-22T21:41:00.003-08:00

When adding WCF sql ports to BizTalk, you can add a whole host of different types of operation with SQL and it’s incredibly powerful.

The problem is with all these options, the wizard rarely makes a binding file for you, it will make the schemas, but the binding file contains that extra little bit of magic…

The key to all of this in the SOAP action header you specify on the port.

There are your basic ones:

TableOp/Insert/dbo/Employee

TableOp/Update/dbo/Employee

If you read this, it will do a table operation and insert or update employee record(s) in the employee table.

Then there is of course stored procedures for both send and receive ports.

TypedProcedure/dbo/StoredProcedureName

Simple enough, however maybe you have a few operations you want to do, you want to go for a more composite operation.

Your Soap action can be CompositeOperation

The message you send can do a whole host of things, for example, insert into a table, and when done, run a stored procedure.

You have your insert schema, and your execute stored procedure schema, that the wizard generates, now bundle this into the following structure and all of a sudden a whole world of opportunities opens up.

<xs:element name="Request">

<xs:complexType>

<xs:sequence>

<xs:element ref="ns0:Insert" />

<xs:element ref="ns1:CompareEmployee" />

</xs:sequence>

</xs:complexType>

</xs:element>

<xs:element name="RequestResponse">

<xs:complexType>

<xs:sequence>

<xs:element ref="ns0:InsertResponse" />

<xs:element ref="ns1:CompareEmployeeResponse"/>

</xs:sequence>

</xs:complexType>

</xs:element>

Then there are the Generic operations, vastly undocumented, for example a SQL reader, that can execute SQL against the database and return the results of the query…

Your Soap Action header would be: GenericOp/ExecuteReader

The schema looks like this:

<Query>[PL/SQL STATEMENT1];[PL/SQL STATEMENT2];…</Query>

</ExecuteReader>

Have a look at some of the more unknown options available, and you start to see the power in all of this.

Operation	Soap Action Header
ExecuteNonQuery Request	GenericOp/ExecuteNonQuery
ExecuteNonQuery Response	GenericOp/ExecuteNonQuery/response
ExecuteReader Request	GenericOp/ExecuteReader
ExecuteReader Response	GenericOp/ExecuteReader/response
ExecuteScalar Request	GenericOp/ExecuteScalar
ExecuteScalar Response	GenericOp/ExecuteScalar/response

Refer to this link for more: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd788372%28v=bts.10%29.aspx

BizTalk 2013 Beta Released

2012-11-05T20:55:00.000-08:00

BizTalk has existed in one form or another since the early Site Server Days, then BizTalk 2000-2002 and then BizTalk 2004, and now all the way to 2013.... Welcome BizTalk Server 2013 (previously called BizTalk Server 2010 R2)

I have been using it as part of the TAP, it still rocks like BizTalk always does, but now it's great in the cloud.... finally.

It is available for download at Microsoft Download Center.

BizTalk Server 2013 Beta offers significant enhancements to the already rich integration capabilities by including the following feature additions:

Integration with Cloud Services: BizTalk Server 2013 Beta includes new out-of-the box adapters to send and receive messages from Windows Azure Service Bus. It also provides capabilities to transfer messages using different relay endpoints hosted on Azure.

SB-Messaging adapter: This version introduces the SB-Messaging adapter to send and receive messages from Service Bus entities like Queues, Topics, and Relays. You can use the SB-Messaging adapters to bridge the connectivity between Windows Azure and on-premises BizTalk Server, thereby enabling users to create a typical hybrid application (read more here).
WCF-BasicHttpRelay Adapter: Microsoft BizTalk Server uses the WCF-BasicHttpRelay adapter when receiving and sending WCF service requests through the BasicHttpRelayBinding. The WCF-BasicHttpRelay adapter enables you to send and receive messages from the Service Bus relay endpoints using the BasicHttpRelayBinding (read more here).
WCF-NetTcpRelay Adapter: Microsoft BizTalk Server uses the WCF-NetTcpRelay adapter when receiving and sending WCF service requests through the NetTcpRelayBinding (read more here).

RESTful services: BizTalk Server 2013 Beta provides adapters to invoke REST endpoints as well as expose BizTalk Server artifacts as a RESTful service.

WCF-WebHttp Adapter: Microsoft BizTalk Server uses the WCF-WebHttp adapter to send messages to RESTful services. The WCF-WebHttp send adapter sends HTTP messages to a service from a BizTalk message. The receive location receives messages from a RESTful service. For GET and DELETE request, the adapter does not use any payload. For POST and PUT request, the adapter uses the BizTalk message body part to the HTTP content/payload (read more here).

Enhanced SharePoint adapter: Integrating with SharePoint using BizTalk Server 2013 Beta is now as simple as integrating with a file share. We have removed the need for dependency on SharePoint farms, while still providing backward compatibility (read more here).
SFTP adapter: After Microsoft, in 2009, improved the FTP adapter by extended to support FTPS, BizTalk Server 2013 Beta enables sending and receiving messages from a secure FTP server using the SSH file transfer protocol (read more here).
ESB Toolkit integration: With BizTalk Server 2013 Beta, ESB Toolkit is now fully integrated with BizTalk Server. Also, the ESB Toolkit configuration experience is vastly simplified to enable a quick setup (read more here).
Dependency tracking: A typical BizTalk Server application involves various artifacts such as orchestrations, send ports, receive locations, pipelines, schemas, maps, and the likes. All these artifacts have dependencies on each other. The dependencies between artifacts can now be viewed and navigated in Admin console (read more here).
Improvements in dynamic send ports: BizTalk Server 2013 Beta provides the ability to set host handler per adapter, instead of always using the default send handler of the adapters (read more here).
Updates to the supported EDI schemas: BizTalk Server 2013 introduces support for the following EDI schemas:

X12: 5040, 5050, 6020, 6030
EDIFACT: D06A, D06B, D07A, D07B, D08A, D08B, D09A, D09B, D10A, D10B

XslCompiledTransform: BizTalk Server mapping engine makes use of XslTransform API for mapping needs. With BizTalk Server 2013 Beta release, the mapping engine makes use of the enhanced XslCompiledTransform API. This will provide improvements in mapping engine performance.
Ordered Send Port improvements: With BizTalk Server 2013 release, we have made changes to the BizTalk runtime engine which increases the performance of ordered send port scenarios.
BAM Alerts update: In previous releases of BizTalk Server, BAM Alerts feature had a dependency on SSNS (SQL Server Notification Services). With the current release of SQL Server (SQL Server 2012), SSNS is no longer available. However, we have made sure your existing BAM Alerts scenario work just the same even if your backend is targeting SQL Server 2012. If your backend is SQL Server 2008 R2, you will continue to require the dependency on SSNS.

System Requirements

Supported Operating Systems: Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Windows Server 2012

The software is for evaluation and deployment planning purposes only. If you plan to install the software on your primary computer, we recommend that you back up your existing data prior to installation.
To run BizTalk Server 2013 Beta you need:

32-bit (x86) platforms: Computer with an Intel Pentium-compatible CPU that is 1 GHz or faster for single processors; 900 MHz or faster for double processors; or 700 MHz or faster for quad processors
64-bit (x64) platforms: Computer with a CPU that is compatible with the AMD64 and Extended Memory 64-bit Technology (EMT64T), 1.7 GHz or faster processor recommended for BizTalk Server 2013 Beta
2 GB of RAM minimum (more recommended)
10 GB of available hard-disk space
VGA monitor (1024 x 768) or higher-resolution monitor
Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device

To use BizTalk Server 2013 Beta you need the following software:

SQL Server 2012 or SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1
Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5
Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 [Required for selected features only]
Microsoft Office Excel 2010 [Required for selected features only]
SQL Server 2005 Notification Service [Required for selected features only]
SQLXML 4.0 with Service Pack 1 [Required for selected features only]
Internet Information Services (IIS) Version 7.5 and 7.0 [Required for selected features only]

All these capabilities will be available in Windows Azure Virtual Machine platform gallery soon.

Windows Azure Conference

2012-10-31T15:22:00.003-07:00

As a community event, hosted on channel 9, there is to be the Windows AzureConf.

This is a free event for the Windows Azure community. This event will feature a keynote presentation by Scott Guthrie, along with numerous sessions executed by Windows Azure community members. Streamed live for an online audience on Channel 9, the event will allow you to see how developers just like you are using Windows Azure to develop applications on the best cloud platform in the industry. Community members from all over the world will join Scott in the Channel 9 studios to present their own inventions and experiences.

WHERE WHEN:

November 14, 2012
8:00 AM - 5:00 PM PST
Channel 9

For more information visit here: http://www.windowsazureconf.net/

Microsoft Integration MVP

2012-10-18T22:13:00.004-07:00

I am so pleased to announce the new MVP Category.

Microsoft Integration MVP

I have always been doing integration, for the last 12 years I've been doing integration, it's just something about being able to reach out to other business systems and not just make them talk to each other make the connections between them dance. Lay down the right architecture and make it work.

The technology I used also varied, be it WCF, BizTalk, Azure, SQL Azure, Azure XYZ. , SharePoint, SQL Server or anything else, when you do integration you previously had to choose which MVP to be…

Now thanks to Microsoft you don’t need to choose anymore….

I could not be happier with the name as it correctly reflects exactly what we do, I will write posts and articles on any of these topics all under the banner of integration, and all on the Microsoft technology stack. Bring it on I say.

The Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MS DTC) has cancelled the distributed transaction.

2012-09-21T22:07:00.000-07:00

We had a WCF-SQL send port that was to insert a large data set into the database, and then execute a stored procedure when done, this can all be sent as one message to sql and it works it out.

The problem is that this took a very long time, we increased time outs but were still getting a time out every time, with the error:

System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: The Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MS DTC) has cancelled the distributed transaction.

Server stack trace:
   at System.ServiceModel.AsyncResult.End[TAsyncResult](IAsyncResult result)
   at System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannel.SendAsyncResult.End(SendAsyncResult result)
   at System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannel.EndCall(String action, Object[] outs, IAsyncResult result)
   at System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannel.EndRequest(IAsyncResult result)

Exception rethrown at [0]:
   at System.Runtime.Remoting.Proxies.RealProxy.HandleReturnMessage(IMessage reqMsg, IMessage retMsg)
   at System.Runtime.Remoting.Proxies.RealProxy.PrivateInvoke(MessageData& msgData, Int32 type)
   at System.ServiceModel.Channels.IRequestChannel.EndRequest(IAsyncResult result)
   at Microsoft.BizTalk.Adapter.Wcf.Runtime.WcfClient`2.RequestCallback(IAsyncResult result)

We looked around and found that the timeout for the msdtc controller was in the machine,config.

%Windows%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\CONFIG\machine.config

Or if you run 64bit.

%Windows%\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\CONFIG\machine.config

<system.transactions>

<machineSettings maxTimeout=”01:10:00″ />
</system.transactions>

You may find this already in there, we had 00:30:00 as the timeout, we increased this, and it worked.

Problem solved.

To Integrate or to Integrate Badly

2012-08-15T20:36:00.000-07:00

When someone chooses to integrate there is always the wrong way and the right way to go about this. Just because you chose to integrate does not mean you did a fantastic job about it.

One such example I came across recently was a nameless organisation decided to integrate their systems, they provided a very good level of integration and it was all working fine, then they got over zealous, a contractor they hired thought hey I can do integration also, the company not knowing any wiser said OK sure let’s do it.

The integration was a simple one, I’d like to change my surname, and it should update all the systems, because I am married now and have taken my husband’s name by choice.

The old way of doing this was very manual and very cumbersome and took a long time to implement.

We already provided integration of other user profile details, which were updated in the various systems in the organisation. The contractor thought hey I can do it too…

The surname request update had a fancy front end, when the user submitted this, their request was sent as an email to someone in HR, the first problem.

They would manually make the changes required in the system… The second problem.

What is worse, is that the email got it wrong, it said update my first name to this name, and not my surname, so the person in HR went and updated their first name to their new surname… This person was outsourced from the organisation. The third problem.

This had flow on effects, that had not been thought of, when someone changes their name, their AD name needs to update, their email address needs to change, and a whole bunch of other systems need to be informed.

To get around this they just deleted the user and made a new one as if they had just joined the organisation, the flow on was very very bad… Major problem goes with out saying.

All of their access gone, all of their email gone, their permissions to all the internal systems gone, this would have happened even if they had changed their surname.

The loss of productivity for this person was about two weeks’ worth, the person was not a low level admin, they were senior and on a good rate.

Take this against the decision to use a contractor who said yeah we can do it, probably $1000 for the efforts, then add the down time of the one employee, $20000 in loss of productivity and in ability to work, you are not only paying for them to work but they can’t work and produce income for the organisation.

Now multiply this by a low estimate of 5 people who may have been effected by this across an organisation of 7000 people…

You have a net loss to the organisation of: $100,000 plus your low cost of implementing this in the first place.

Take this and compare against doing it correctly in the first place, taking the time to understand the impact, going and updating the various systems, in near real time, and ensuring that the user was good to go within 15 minutes.

A cost estimate for this would be somewhere between $20,000 to $60,000. Had more than 5 people requested this change, think of the cost to the organisation.

It becomes very clear that you need to integrate, and you need to do it properly. You need to have the right people working with you who understand this and are able to see these issues well before they happen.

Never believe someone who says yeah we can do that, no problem, it is easy, we will just email someone, or we will add a manual step, or we will just leverage the existing process or method, or we will just delete them and put them back… these things make me cringe… don’t do it… ever!

Talk to the professionals, they have done it all before.

Business Process and Integration

2012-07-31T20:33:00.004-07:00

The corporate landscape of today includes a wide variety of heterogeneous business applications.

Each designed to solve a specific and specialised business problem. These applications are often not designed to work together seamlessly. This creates a major challenge when information needs to be extracted or combined for various purposes across the enterprise. The question then arises, “How do organisations extract relevant information and deliver it in the right format, to a destination either inside or outside of the organisation, across functional domains, at the right time?” This business challenge makes Business Integration a high priority.

The number one organisation I recommend to solve this problem is Connexion Technology I am proud to announce a partnership between myself and Connexion Technology, one that will see this organisation move to the forefront of this space, and help countless organisations.