BizTodd - Todd Sussman

Too Many Integration Options???

Todd Sussman — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 11:53:00 GMT

As Microsoft puts out more and more integration products the decision to use what, when and where become more muddled. But fear not because I am here to be your bridge over troubled waters (Wife dragged me to a piano bar last night, so I had to sneak that in).

So lets start by looking at what we have today and what we will have in the near future.

Technology	Purpose	Future Technology
ASMX – Web Services	Direct integration between applications. Usually in a synchronous fashion.
.Net Remoting
Enterprise Services
Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ)	Asynchronous communication, using queues.
Host Integration Services (HIS)	Integrating Windows applications with IBM systems.
BizTalk (BTS)	Integrating applications using a broker or hub.
SQL Server Replication	Integrating data in a real time manner.
	Queuing for SQL Server. Available with all SQL 2005 versions.	SQL Service Broker (SSB)
	Integrating data from multiple data sources.	SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
	A foundation for service oriented applications.	Indigo – Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)
	A foundation for building workflow based applications	Windows Workflow Foundation (WF)

Each option has its role to play in the integration problem space, yet all of them have a common workspace (VS .Net), which makes solving complex integration scenarios fairly straightforward.

Now that we know what is out there and what is on its way, we can take a more in-depth look at some of these. I will attempt to do a series of blog posts highlighting each of these options, and when it would be the best choice.

WF Vs. BizTalk

Todd Sussman — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 19:11:00 GMT

This post is by a co-worker of mine, who sums up the differences between Windows Workflow Foundation and BizTalk better than I could ever hope to.

http://geekswithblogs.net/bloesgen/

BAM Milestones

Todd Sussman — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 19:10:00 GMT

So you are starting to realize the potential of BAM, but you notice that the times in your Business Milestones are a bit off. This is because BizTalk logs Business Milestones in UTC. So, I thought I would help you all fix this to show the time in your local time zone.

If you get into the DB call BAMPrimaryImport, and look for a SP call bam_ActivityName_PrimaryImport we are going to add a few statements after the BEGIN statement.

--A variable to hold the difference between UTC and your local time
DECLARE @TimeDifference int

--Calculate the difference
SELECT @TimeDifference = ROUND(DATEDIFF(mi, GetUTCDate(), GetDate()), -1)

--Fix the time difference
SELECT @BusinessMilestone = DATEADD(mi, @TimeDifference, @BusinessMilestone)
SELECT @2ndBusinessMilestone = DATEADD(mi, @TimeDifference, @2ndBusinessMilestone)

Ther you go! Now you will need to do this for each Activity you defined.

BAM Durations

Todd Sussman — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 19:09:00 GMT

Ever notice the duration field in a BAM query? You end up with a value like 1.102304-3e. Well BAM by default shows you the duration in days. It is iactually quite easy to adjust this to whatever you want.

All you need to do is make a change to two of the views that are created for you;
1. The ActiveAliasView
2. The CompletedAliasView

Both of which can be found in BAMPrimaryImport. You are loking for a statement that will look like this;

[Duration] = CAST([TimeStamp] AS FLOAT) - CAST([TimeStamp] AS FLOAT

What you need to add is this;
[Duration] = CAST([TimeStamp] AS FLOAT)*24(For Days)*60(For Minutes)*60(For Seconds) - CAST([TimeStamp] AS FLOAT*24*60*60

You will notice that if you query the BAMPrimaryImport DB that all the durations will appear as seconds, but if you have a processed cube, it will still reflect the old data, and when you add the new data, it will become unreliable. So if you need to do this, you must be prepared to start the cubes from scratch.

Moved My Blog

Todd Sussman — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 19:07:00 GMT

I have decided to relocate my BizTalk (Well primarily anyways) blog to GeeksWithBlogs.

I am a BizTalk consultant with Neudesic in The Phoenix area. I have been working with BizTalk since the tail end of BTS 2000. I have deployed close to 50 production systems since BTS2002, and recently decided to start becoming proficient in Windows Workflow Foundation (WF).

So what else can I say, but let the Blogging begin.

Todd