Microsoft Technologies

What’s next for BizTalk? BizTalk Server 2010?

Jay Kinker — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 19:08:59 GMT

With announcement of.Net 4.0, VS2010 and other related products: One of common questions that I hear is “What’s next for BizTalk Server?”. My answer: it would probably be BizTalk Server 2009 R2.

BizTalk Server 2006 R3 was renamed to BizTalk Server 2009 and we know the list of features new version provides. I wonder why BTS2009 and why not BTS2006 R3. I see the BTS2009 more of a technology parity with other Microsoft products. Yes, it does have some enhancements but does is qualify for a new major release! I don’t think so. This looks more of a strategically decision than a technical/logical one : Just because all other (many related) Microsoft product have a new major releases do not qualify to have major release for BizTalk.

Very recently BTS2009 was released so, I doubt if BizTalk Server 2010 is released next year! If next release is around making it .net 4.0, VS2010 and related technologies compatible then It would probably be named “BizTalk Server 2009 R2”. It should be named BTS2010 only if some major enhancements are released as it was done with 2004 and 2006. Lets see what Microsoft comes up with.

Roadmap for BizTalk Server: http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/en/us/roadmap.aspx

New resources for BizTalk Server

Jay Kinker — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:00:45 GMT

Documents:

White paper - BizTalk Adapter Pack: Connecting LOB Systems and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd442475(BTS.10).aspx

White paper - BizTalk Server and WCF Support in Visual Studio 2008: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd443655(BTS.10).aspx

Downloads:

Microsoft BizTalk Adapter Pack Readme and Microsoft BizTalk Adapter Pack Installation Guide

Download the latest readme and the installation instructions for the BizTalk Adapter Pack: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&familyid=d9f588e9-fa3e-4b81-a598-ddd9f471f382

Microsoft BizTalk Adapter Pack 1.0

Documentation for the BizTalk Adapter Pack 1.0 in CHM format: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&familyid=58bd17c8-8efa-4b69-ab51-9f5b11a962dc

Installing UDDI Services 3.0

Guidance for installing and configuring UDDI Services 3.0: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&familyid=9d1831cc-8146-486b-b489-a06a1aa2fb5b

BizTalk Server Best Practices Analyzer V1.2: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&familyid=93d432fe-1370-4b6d-aaa8-a0c43c30f5ab

New KB's

BizTalk Acc for SWIFT 3.0 EN: Describes a hotfix rollup package that is available for BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT 3.0 Service Pack 1
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960914/EN-US

BizTalk Acc for SWIFT 3.0 EN: FIX: BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT 3.0 Service Pack 1 support for the MT202COV and MT205COV message types of the SWIFT 2009 Standard
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972031/EN-US

BizTalk Adapter for mySAP 2.0 EN: BizTalk Editor cannot load schemas that are generated from Schema Generation Wizard of BizTalk Adapter 2.0 for mySAP Business Suite if the type attributes begin with numbers
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959139/EN-US

BizTalk Server Std 2006 EN: FIX: Orchestration instances continuously switch from Active to Dehydrated state and cause high CPU usage on servers that host BizTalk Server 2006 (954877.KB.EN-US.1.0)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/954877/EN-US

BizTalk Server Std 2006 EN: BizTalk Server Operators group members cannot terminate service instances successfully in the BizTalk Administration Console in BizTalk Server 2006
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/958083/EN-US

BizTalk Server Std 2006 EN: Trailing white spaces are removed from a promoted property if tracking is disabled in BizTalk Server 2006
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959529/EN-US

BizTalk Server Std 2006 EN: Trailing spaces are truncated in an outgoing 278 EDI file when you use BizTalk Accelerator for HIPAA 3.3 in BizTalk Server 2006
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967212/EN-US

BizTalk Server Std 2006 R2 EN: FIX: An error message occurs when BizTalk Server receives an MDN that does not contain the Message-ID field in the HTTP header: "System.ArgumentException: Empty parameter string not allowed"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956916/EN-US

BizTalk Server Std 2006 R2 EN: FIX: You cannot select two or more maps that have source schemas the belong to the same multi-root schema file on the same send or on the same receive port in BizTalk Server 2006 R2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957352/EN-US

BizTalk Server Std 2006 R2 EN: FIX: An HIPAA 837 document that has noncompliant NM108 and NM109 data elements is not validated as expected in BizTalk Server 2006 R2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957512/EN-US

BizTalk Server Std 2006 R2 EN: FIX: The HHMMSSd time format is now available for selection for the GS5 element when you configure EDI properties of BizTalk party in BizTalk Server 2006 R2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960237/EN-US

BizTalk Server Std 2006 R2 EN: Invalid 997 functional acknowledgements are generated in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960473/EN-US

BizTalk Server Std 2006 R2 EN: FIX: The BizTalk Adapter for TIBCO EMS does not delete messages from the JMS queue after the adapter successfully receives the messages in BizTalk Server 2006 R2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961346/EN-US

BizTalk Server Std 2006 R2 EN: FIX: The BizTalk RFID service stops generating management events after you uninstall a BizTalk RFID hotfix in BizTalk Server 2006 R2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972449/EN-US

BizTalk Server Std 2006 R2 EN: FIX: The SE Segment delimiter/terminator is missing intermittently in outgoing 997 functional acknowledgements when you send and receive EDI messages in BizTalk Server 2006 R2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972478/EN-US

BizTalk Server Std 2006 R2 EN: Some interchanges are suspended if you receive multiple interchanges that are included in a single EDI message by using the EDI receive pipeline in BizTalk Server 2006 R2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972530/EN-US

BizTalk Server Std 2006 R2 EN: FIX: Event ID 5740 is logged in the Application log when you use an FTP adapter in BizTalk Server to receive files from an empty directory on an FTP server
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=958235

Microsoft with IIS Search Engine Optimization

Jay Kinker — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 01:27:22 GMT

Yes, now its Microsoft getting into SEO. Personally, I have not been a big fan of SEO initiatives and the action that is going around it. Following article is what I agree: http://societrends.com/2009/05/07/seo-is-todays-snake-oil/

Having said that, we still have to keep our customers happy and IIS SEO Toolkit can make developers life easy. Some of customization we do today for achieving SEO requires multiple third party utilities and in the end becomes miserable to maintain.

Executive Summary

Microsoft recently announced the IIS Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Toolkit Beta – a free toolkit that helps Web developers, hosting providers, and server administrators improve their sites’ relevance in search results by recommending how to make them more search engine-friendly. The SEO Toolkit Beta is available for installation via the Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 Beta.

Additional Information & Resources

The IIS SEO Toolkit can:

· Improve the volume and quality of traffic to Web site from search engines

· Control how search engines access and display Web content

· Inform search engines about locations that are available for indexing

The IIS SEO Toolkit includes three modules that integrate with IIS Manager:

· Site Analysis, which suggests changes that can help improve the volume and quality of traffic to your Web site from search engines;

· Robots Exclusion, which makes it easier to control and restrict the content that search engines index and display; and

· Sitemaps and Site Indexes, which can help inform search engines about locations that are available for indexing.

The IIS SEO Toolkit Beta can be installed with the Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 Beta.

· For more information, visit: http://www.iis.net/extensions/SEOToolkit

· For more information on the Microsoft Web Platform, visit www.microsoft.com/web

· To follow Microsoft Web Platform on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mswebplatform

Microsoft Manufacturing Toolkit based on BizTalk & SQL Server‏ is available

Jay Kinker — Sat, 23 May 2009 06:23:38 GMT

Dependencies

The Manufacturing Toolkit requires the following technologies in order to compile and run:

· BizTalk 2009/BizTalk 2006 R2

· SQL Server 2008/SQL Server 2005

· Windows Server 2003 R2/Windows Server 2008

· Visual Studio 2008 SP1

· .Net 3.5 SP1

Instructions for installing the toolkit can be found in the “Getting Started” Guide, which is part of the download.

Unable to find Installer for Swift Accelerator 3.0 for BizTalk Server 2006 R2

Jay Kinker — Sun, 17 May 2009 16:27:04 GMT

I have received this question multiple times in recent past. Many are not able to find BizTalk's Financial Accelerator for SWIFT 3.0 (A4SWFT 3.0) in their MSDN downloads. This is because all Accelerators and Adapters use to be in different section until last year.

You can find A4SWIFT 3.0 at:
Server>>BizTalk Server 2006 R2>>BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Accelerators (x86) -
CD (English)

Few more helpful links:

BizTalk 2006 R2 Accelerator for SWIFT (A4SWIFT) v3.0 Service Pack 1:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3F67A576-21AA-4BED-B405-5825F297EC16&displaylang=en

BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT 2008 Message Pack is available at:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925731#DL2

All Adapters and Accelerators for BizTalk Server 2009 are at different section so no confusion there.

What is Windows Azure?

Jay Kinker — Sat, 02 May 2009 16:42:43 GMT

Have you read or experimented with Azure yet?

Business wise this is a fantastic approach from Microsoft for the way they want to sell Azure platform. Pricing, SLA and commercial version are yet to be made available by Microsoft but it’s worthwhile looking at it in its current form.

For developers… here are some resources:

What is Azure: http://www.microsoft.com/azure/whatisazure.mspx

Demos and samples:

Updated MMC for .Net Services: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/AzureManagementTools

Windows Azure MMC (yet to be published): http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsazuremmc

Bid Now Sample: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/BidNowSample

Contoso Cycles (yet to be published): http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/contosocycles

Fluffy Photos: http://phluffyfotos.codeplex.com/

Installing SQL Server 2005 on VISTA

Jay Kinker — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 03:51:58 GMT

I am installing SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition on VISTA Ultimate and noticed that only client components are being installed. Setup shows an option to install “Server components” but never installs!

However, the setup does give a warning for “SQL Server Edition Operating System Compatibility”.

Solution: install SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition.

Developer edition do not give operating system compatibility warning!

Free Microsoft Software for Students : Microsoft DreamSpark

Jay Kinker — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 09:49:13 GMT

Isn’t this amazing? Students can now download Microsoft development products for free!!!

A fantastic initiative by Microsoft to enable students with development tools at no cost! The initiative was announced by Bill Gates at IIT, Delhi, India.

Bill Gates announced this first in February for US and few other countries. By end of this year the program should cover most major countries.

DreamSpark is a program set up by Microsoft to provide students with software design and development tools at no charge. The program was originally directed at college students, but now it has been expanded to include high school students.

Free softwares/products includes:

- Visual Studio 2008 (Professional Edition)

- SQL Server 2005 (Developer Edition)

- Visual Studio 2005 (Professional Edition)

- Many more…

List of developer tools available to students at no charge:

http://www.dreamsparkindia.com/dreamspark/GetDreamTools.aspx

Students should check http://channel8.msdn.com for regularly posted updates to see when Microsoft DreamSpark will be available to them.

DreamSpark Portal:

http://www.dreamsparkindia.com/dreamspark/

Microsoft News Release:

http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2008/feb08/02-18GSDPR.mspx

FAQs:

http://www.dreamsparkindia.com/dreamspark/FAQ.aspx

Microsoft Joins AMQP Working Group for Open Standards Messaging Software

Jay Kinker — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 13:51:12 GMT

In today’s heterogeneous computing environments and with the emergence of Web services and service-oriented architectures, interoperability has become a critical business and IT need.

Microsoft is joining the AMQP Working Group at the request of its members, including several of Microsoft’s customers in the financial services industry, in order to support the development of an open industry standard for ubiquitous messaging.

AMQP Working Group includes Cisco, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Red Hat and many more major institutions and corporates.

Read more about AMQP Working Group at: http://jira.amqp.org/confluence/display/AMQP/AMQP+Working+Group

More information about Microsoft’s interoperability efforts can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/interop

Survey link for BizTalk users

Jay Kinker — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:18:16 GMT

The CSD/BizTalk Product Group is conducting a survey to assess customer usage of the Business Rules Engine (BRE).

This is an opportunity for BizTalk Server BRE users to provide inputs to what they would like to see in coming versions.

Survey link: https://live.datstat.com/MSCSD-Collector/Survey.ashx?Name=BRE_Usage_Survey_Blog