BizTalk Server

IMPORTANT: I have moved my blog to http://blog.brianloesgen.com

Brian Loesgen — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 07:19:40 GMT

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IMPORTANT: this is my old blog and is not being updated anymore.

For my new site/blog/RSS, please visit http://blog.brianloesgen.com

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I’ll be speaking at Code Camp San Diego this weekend

Brian Loesgen — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:30:10 GMT

San Diego Code Camp is this weekend! I’ll be there on Saturday, doing two presentations:

If you’ve never been to a Code Camp before, you should check it out. It’s an “anything goes” community-driven conference-ish event. Lots of high quality sessions, at a recession-friendly cost (free). Lots of learning opportunities. What’s not to like?

As usual, this will be at UCSD La Jolla. See you there!

Full details are at http://www.socalcodecamp.com/

Technorati Tags: Azure,Cloud,SOA,ESB,BizTalk,Oslo,M,Models

ESB Toolkit 2.0 Ships (YEAH!!!), I’m presenting it tonight at the San Diego .NET user group Connected Systems SIG

Brian Loesgen — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:36:25 GMT

I’m REALLY happy to say the the ESB Toolkit 2.0 has been released. As part of the current launch tour I’m doing, I’m telling people that in my opinion the best part of BizTalk Server 2009 is the ESB Toolkit. If you’re a BizTalk dev, you really want it check it out. And, if you’re one of those unfortunates that had installation issues, it’s OK to come back now and try again. I installed a build a couple of weeks ago, took me about 15 minutes total. The team invested a LOT of effort in this area, and it shows.

By sheer coincidence (OK, so I knew rough timeframe, but not to the day :)), I’m doing an overview presentation of it, and showing some really cool dynamic messaging demos, at a user group meeting in San Diego tonight. Meeting will be at 6:30 (pizza at 6:00) at the Microsoft office in La Jolla.

The official team blog announcement is available here.

You can get the bits here.

I’ll be posting more info about this within the next few days, and, if you’re in San Diego tonight, come on by!!

US Southwest: BizTalk Server 2009 “First Look” tour

Brian Loesgen — Tue, 26 May 2009 02:24:17 GMT

Folks,

Last week in Salt Lake City, we kicked off a 6-city tour of the US Southwest featuring BizTalk Server 2009 and ESB Toolkit 2.0. This week I’ll be in L.A. and Phoenix. Remaining dates are as listed below. This is a free event, but you need to register. If you’re in one of the listed cities c’mon by, it’s a really interesting event.

~~Salt Lake City~~

(you missed it!)

May 20, 2009

~~8:30 am – 11:30 am~~

~~Click here to register~~

~~Invitation Key: 6F671A~~

~~Microsoft Salt Lake City Office~~

~~123 Wright Brothers Dr.~~

Suite 100
Salt Lake City, UT 84116

~~Phone: (801) 257-6400~~

Los Angeles

May 26, 2009

8:30 am – 11:30 am

Click here to register

Invitation Key: 2206BE

or call 877.673.8368 with

Event ID: 1032414717

Microsoft Los Angeles Office

333 South Grand Avenue

Suite 3300

Los Angeles, CA 90071

(213) 806-7300

Phoenix

May 28, 2009

8:30 am – 11:30 am

Click here to register

Invitation Key: B899AD

or call 877.673.8368 with Event ID 1032414811

Microsoft Phoenix Office

2929 N. Central Ave., Suite 1400
Phoenix, AZ 85012

Phone: (602) 280-8600

Irvine

June 4, 2009

8:30 am – 11:30 am

Click here to register

Invitation Key: C11DF2

or call 877.673.8368 with

Event ID: 1032414721

Microsoft Irvine Office
3 Park Plaza
Suite 1600

Irvine, California 92614

Phone: (949) 263-3000

San Diego

June 16, 2009

8:30 am – 11:30 am

Click here to register

Invitation Key: 4E9A14

or call 877.673.8368 with

Event ID: 1032414722

Microsoft San Diego Office

9255 Towne Center Drive

4th Floor
San Diego, California 92121

Phone: (858) 909-3800

Denver

June 23, 2009

8:30 am – 11:30 am

Click here to register

Invitation Key: B185E8

or call 877.673.8368 with Event ID 1032414999

Microsoft Denver Office

7595 Technology Way, Suite 400
Denver, CO 80237

Phone: (720) 528-1700

Please join us for a “First Look” at BizTalk Server 2009!

Enterprises across the world need to build applications that span their network and bring together services, systems, and people. The new BizTalk Server 2009 enables this connectivity while eliminating many of the cost and complexity challenges enterprises currently face.

Microsoft product specialists and experts from gold-certified partner Neudesic will give you a “first look” at BizTalk Sever 2009 and how they can help streamline and integrate business processes while reducing cost and complexity.

AGENDA:

8:30 – 9:30 What’s new with BizTalk Server 2009

9:30 – 10:30 Using Microsoft ESB Toolkit 2.0 to reduce cost and complexity

10:30 – 11:30 Interactive Q&A discussion about SOA and ESB and emerging technologies

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

Application Development Directors/Managers and Architects, Supply Chain Directors, Process Analysts, and Developers who are interested in learning more about the features available in BizTalk Server 2009 and their impact on SOA and BPM solutions.

Technorati Tags: BizTalk,SOA,ESB

Details for Version 2.0 of the BizTalk ESB Toolkit

Brian Loesgen — Tue, 19 May 2009 02:23:33 GMT

Details were announced last week at TechEd (in Ofer Ashkenazi’s session and in mine) about the next version of Microsoft’s ESB Toolkit. Here’s a summary:

Name change

Yes, that’s not a typo, the “ESB Guidance 2.0” is now the “BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0”. This is just one of several changes, and was made to better reflect some of the points below. When released, it will be available for download from MSDN (not Codeplex).

Availability

Release-to-Web is expected to happen around mid-June. In the interim, CTP 2 (Jan 2009) is available at Codeplex, as it has been for months now. No CTPs or other releases are planned prior to the release-to-Web.

Cost

The ESB Toolkit is built on top of BizTalk Server 2009, and is free BizTalk licensees.

Community

Discussions will also be migrating from Codeplex to a public discussion forum at MSDN. Microsoft employees will also be monitoring the forums and will be helping answer questions.

Major Enhancements in Version 2.0

· Built on BizTalk Server 2009

· Provides greatly enhanced tooling, on top of an optimized core (includes a killer itinerary design tool)

· Supports UDDI 3.0

· Provides even more extensibility points

· Provides even more prescriptive guidance about enterprise integration patterns

· Streamlined installation experience (Powershell, configuration tool, etc). For those of you who had issues with installation, you’ll be pleased to hear I did an almost complete install last week (without following any docs), in about 15 minutes.

My opinion on this is that it is a natural evolution. The ESB Toolkit adds a LOT of value for customers adopting SOA technologies, implementing bus-based solutions, and using BizTalk as an integration platform. The transition to a more supported model in a natural step as the capabilities of the offering expand, and maturity sets in.

I’ve had the pleasure of working closely with the Patterns and Practices team that are responsible for this effort, and under Dmitri Ossipov’s leadership have really done a great job turning this into a product-quality set of components that a LOT of BizTalk shops will find very compelling and useful.

As soon as I can, I’ll be posting more information and videos here. This journey started a long time ago, and it just keeps on getting better!

Technorati Tags: BizTalk,ESB Guidance,ESB Toolkit,ESB

Microsoft Releases BizTalk Server 2009

Brian Loesgen — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 05:59:42 GMT

Microsoft officially released BizTalk Server 2009 today. Press release is here, and you can see a complete list of new features here.

I was wondering what to write, and a retrospective seemed appropriate.

But first, where are we today? I hear lots of questions out in the field: where will BizTalk fit in a Dublin world?, what about WF?, how does BizTalk mesh with the future technologies? One of the talks I just submitted for the San Diego CodeCamp I think sums up where we are now pretty nicely:

BizTalk Server 2009: Integration Server, SOA Foundation, Gateway to Azure

Microsoft recently released BizTalk Server 2009. In this session we will look at the power that BizTalk provides to connect applications, services and partners. Now in its 6^th release, BizTalk has evolved to play a vital role as the foundational messaging bus in a services-oriented architecture. We will look at the value BizTalk Server 2009 adds in bridging between on-premises and cloud-based application, as well as how it enables SharePoint to provide human interaction in workflows, processes and service orchestrations.

BizTalkers, we have a VERY interesting story to tell. We are the glue that holds things together. BizTalk Server 2009, plus all the adapters, WCF capabilities, ESB capabilities in the ESB Guidance, BAM, the rules engine, SharePoint adapter…. the list of value-adds and the power BizTalk provides goes on and on. BizTalk has evolved with the times, and the industry, adopted standards as they emerged, and added capabilities as they were needed. We started out by being (as Don Box said circa 2002-ish) “ahead of our time”, and, we still are. We were doing loosely-coupled async services long before anyone said that’s what we should be doing. We were contract-first message-oriented – about a decade ago!

Now for the retrospective part:

Here’s my post about the BizTalk 2004 launch: http://blog.brianloesgen.com/archive/2004/03/08/2671.aspx
Here’s a retrospective I did about 4 years ago: http://blog.brianloesgen.com/archive/2005/11/30/61669.aspx (I figure I can quote my own retrospective in my retrospective once it’s over 3 years old :))

And, my favorite, is the CD I have:

Yes, it says “1999”, and no, as it turns out there never was a “BizTalk Server 1.0”, that would be BizTalk Server 2000. I actually remember seeing the first press announcement about this new thing called BizTalk, and telling a co-worker “I’m going to keep an eye on this, it sounds cool”. I started working with bits and interacting with the product team back in the BizTalk Jumpstart Kit days, which pre-dated even this Alpha. I think I’ll wait a few more years, then take that CD and try installing it on Windows 12 or whatever we are running then (assuming whatever I have can still read CDs!).

We’ve come a very long way since then, and the future continues to be bright for BizTalkers….

Note, if you’re in the US Southwest, watch this space for details of a “first look” tour we’re putting together.

Technorati Tags: BizTalk,SOA,ESB Guidance,ESB

My Oslo “M” end-to-end demo

Brian Loesgen — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 18:25:58 GMT

[[ 23:00 pacific time Apr 24 2009 – Update… there were some issues with the videos (although they all worked fine on my Win 7 box!). I’m re-encoding some new ones, the SkyDrive folder below will have a few choices. Please let me know of any issues. ]]

As part of my “M” end-to-end presentation in Stockholm last week, I came up with a way to walk through MSchema, MGrammar, MGraph and Intellipad that went over really well with the conference attendees. They “got” what I was talking about, rather than walking out with glazed-over eyes, so…. As I’d put so much work into it and it seemed to resonate well with the audience, I thought I should record it and push it out to the world.

Caveat: although this is based on the now-current Oslo SDK, we are still pretty early on in the dev life cycle, so change is pretty much assured. As such, if you’re watching this in the year 2010, some of the things I say and do may no longer be applicable. However, for those here and now and interested in learning more about the Oslo modeling platform, I think you’ll find it of interest.

I had to do it at a fairly high resolution in order to fit everything I wanted to and still have the “code” legible (if you have a DSL that looks like a human language, is it still called “code”?).

To see the video, click the link below and then pick your favorite flavor. Click it and press the “download” button above it.

Enjoy, and as always, comments and feedback are welcome.

Technorati Tags: Oslo,MUrl,M,Intellipad,models,DSL

Walkthrough: Composite Operations with the new WCF-based SQL Adapter

Brian Loesgen — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 08:41:36 GMT

The new SQL Adapter in the WCF Adapter Pack 2.0 supports composite operations, that is performing multiple SQL operations in response to a single input message. The purpose of this blog post is to provide a walkthrough of how this works. I am using the public beta of BizTalk Server 2009, the public beta of the WCF Adapter Pack 2.0 and released version of SQL Server 2008. See below for an important caveat, as well as a link at the end of the post to my test solution.

To start, as with most things in BizTalk’s contract-first world, we need a schema. In order to do this, choose “add generated items” from a BizTalk project in Visual Studio. Then, choose “Consume Adapter Service”. If you don’t see that Visual Studio template, then you haven’t installed the Adapter Pack, as that’s where it comes from.

Next, select the sqlBinding specify a server, and press “Configure”. Set the client credential type to Windows (assume appropriate SQL login rights), and then on the URI tab, specified the server and database to use:

Af6ter doing this, press “Connect”, and the metadata will be populated.

For the purpose of this walkthrough, I have created 2 stored procedures: the first one inserts a record into a table, the second returns all rows in that table. Those are shown in the UI below.

Note that in the category we have “Procedures” and “Strongly-Typed Procedures”. The distinction is that “Procedures” will create un-typed schemas, whereas “Strongly-Typed Procedures” will generate schemas that you can work with inside BizTalk for mapping, promoting properties, etc.

The “Filename Prefix” will be used as a prefix for all the generated schemas.

After that was configured, I clicked OK and all the schemas were generated for me.

Next step is that you need to create a composite schema that will define the message you send to the adapter. I’m not quite sure why this one wasn’t generated for me, it’d be nice (hint hint), but it’s trivial to do.

How I did this for the walkthrough:

create a new schema
rename the root to SQLMsg (or whatever you like, this is unimportant)
add a sibling record called SQLMsgResponse (this name does matter, it is the name of the request, with “Response” appended)
add two child records under SQLMsg, and another two under SQLMsgResponse (names don’t matter, they’ll get renamed below)
right-click the topmost “<schema>” node, and in the “Imports” property, add the “CompositeTypedProcedure.dbo.xsd” schema
in the first child under SQLMsg, set the “Data Structure Type” property to InsertIntoDestination (this is a reference that you just imported above)
in the second child under SQLMsg, set the “Data Structure Type” property to SelectAllDestination
in the first child under SQLMsgResponse, set the “Data Structure Type” property to InsertIntoDestination (this is a reference that you just imported above)
in the second child under SQLMsgResponse, set the “Data Structure Type” property to SelectAllDestinationResponse

Your schema should now look like this:

The, create an instance of the new composite schema to use as a test message, and populate the request. Here’s mine:

I then created a simple orchestration that would receive a request, call the adapter, and persist the response from the adapter. The request and response messages are of the type we just created in the composite schema:

Build and deploy the solution. After deploying it, note that there was a binding file generated along with the schemas, which is awesome, as this means you don’t need to manually create the send port. So, import the binding file which exists in you Visual Studio project.

HOWEVER… pretty big caveat here…. after importing the binding, you need to change the action mapping. If you use the default value, it will fail. You need to replace what is generated with the magic keyword “CompositeOperation”. This tells the adapter that it needs to call multiple operations, which it will resolve based on the schemas and namespaces. I believe the reason this works the way it does is that it allows you to import multiple operations in a single pass, and then use some subset of those operations in a composite operation, thereby enabling re-use of the generated schemas to potentially cover multiple different combinations of composite operations. Either way, watch out for this one. The error message tells you exactly what the problem is, however it won’t tell you about the keyword.

As an aside, and for the benefit of those who have not worked with this adapter yet, here are the binding configuration properties you have access to:

Then:

create an inbound file drop location
create an outbound file drop folder
bind everything
start the application
drop your instance doc into the file drop location, triggering the orchestration

Lastly, here’s the output file:

In closing, I think this is an awesome new capability, and I am really liking the new SQL adapter. In case you haven’t heard, the old SQL adapter is being deprecated, so you really should be working with this one going forward.

You can download my test solution here.

Technorati Tags: BizTalk,SQL Adapter,BizTalk Server,BizTalk Adapter Pack

I will be speaking in Stockholm on Oslo

Brian Loesgen — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 22:15:04 GMT

[Even though it may have been more appropriate to speak on Oslo in Oslo? :)]

Next month I will be speaking at the Cornerstone Developer Summit in Stockholm, Sweden. I will be doing 2 sessions, one on M, the other on the new wave of Microsoft SOA offerings (Oslo, BizTalk, Dublin, Azure, .NET 4, et al) and how things fit together from an architectural perspective.

I’m looking forward to this event, I hear it’s a top-notch event and always a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to catching up with a couple of my old friends Julie Lerman and Scott Bellware. I’m also trying to get to the local BizTalk user group where MVP Alan Smith and I will present a BizTalk Best Practices session.

To find out more, or to sign up for the conference, visit:

http://www.cornerstone.se/sv/ExpertZone/developersummit/2009/Startsida/Arkitektur/

Technorati Tags: Oslo,BizTalk,Dublin,Azure,WCF,WF

I will be speaking tomorrow in San Diego, special combined meeting, Connected Systems and Architecture SIGs

Brian Loesgen — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 09:37:28 GMT

Zoiner and I are both travelling this week, but rather than cancel our meetings, we have rejiggered them (I’ve always wanted to use that word in a sentence).

So, San Diego .NET User Group Connected Systems and Architecture SIGs are doing a joint meeting tomorrow (Monday March 9 2009), and I will be doing my Microsoft SOA Offerings presentation.

I plan to show a demo I’ve been working on. It involves BizTalk Server 2009, ESB Guidance 2.0, Dublin, Windows Workflow Foundation and Windows Communication Foundation (from .NET 4.0), and Azure, all in a couple of VMs running simultaneously (off my notebook) with two networks, using 64-bit Virtual PC hosted on 64-bit Windows 7. With the exception of Virtual PC, *everything* in that chain is beta -- or earlier. Now that should certainly appeal to the inner-geek in all of you!

Meeting starts at 6:00 for pizza, 6:30 for the meeting itself, at the Microsoft La Jolla office.

Technorati Tags: BizTalk,Azure,ESB,SOA,WF,WCF,Dublin