Vamsi Krishna

Microsoft ESB Guidance

Vamsi Krishna — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 14:11:28 GMT

Microsoft ESB Guidance: If you all are interested on Microsoft Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), then have to check this site

http://daveandal.net/articles/esbdocs/

they have an excellent architecture guidance on ESB package for enabling Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA).

Target Audience for the Microsoft ESB Guidance

This guide is intended for developers who create BizTalk or other solutions that leverage the Microsoft ESB Guidance components. To take full advantage of the Microsoft ESB Guidance, developers should possess knowledge and experience in working with:

· Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006

· Microsoft Visual Studio 2005

· Microsoft .NET development techniques, including the development of ASP.NET Web Services and .NET Framework components

The ESB Guidance package CTP3 uses features of BizTalk Server 2006 R2.

http://www.codeplex.com/esb/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=6291

BizTalk 2004 on Virtual Machine

Vamsi Krishna — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 17:25:00 GMT

While configuring BizTalk 2004 on one Virtual machine (on windows 2003), and SQL Server is located remotely on another VM, I came across this kind of exception, which doesn’t give you much of information, except that the transaction has already been implicitly or explicitly committed or aborted, search on google doesn’t either give you any information, hence I have listed it over here,

Error: c:\depot4000\jupiter\source\private\mozart\source\setup\btscfg\btswmi.cpp(266): FAILED hr = c0c025b3

[7:30:26 PM Error BtsCfg] Failed to deploy BizTalk system assembly "C:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004\Microsoft.BizTalk.GlobalPropertySchemas.dll".

Unspecified exception: The transaction has already been implicitly or explicitly committed or aborted.

[7:33:09 PM Info ConfigFramework] Showing MessageBox with text: Failed to deploy BizTalk system assembly "C:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004\Microsoft.BizTalk.GlobalPropertySchemas.dll". Unspecified exception: The transaction has already been implicitly or explicitly committed or aborted.

Solution: The Solution is to provide the appropriate domain user accounts for BizTalk configuration wizard, the installer should have access to the SQL Server BizTalk databases. Initially I thought it might be some issue with the MSDTC network clients which were already enabled, how ever it is purely based on the domain accounts which were not yet been created on SQL Server and BizTalk machines..

Error: Config error: Failed to deploy Biztalk system assembly... DefaultPipelines.dll When running the config wizard for BizTalk2004 (on windows 2003) the following error occurred: Failed to deploy Biztalk system assembly "C:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004\Microsoft.BizTalk.DefaultPipelines.dll". Unspecified exception: Unable to generate a temporary class (result=1). error CS2001: Source file 'C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\dbqvusoe.0.cs' could not be found. error CS2008: No inputs specified. Solution: The solution is to give the 'NETWORK SERVICE' user read and write access to the c:\windows\temp directory.

BizTalk Server 2006 Installation and Upgrade Guides

Vamsi Krishna — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 18:29:00 GMT

The BizTalk Server 2006 Installation and Upgrade Guides have been updated yesterday, you can find them out here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=B273269C-97E0-411D-8849-5A8070698E4A&displaylang=en

Microsoft Exam 74-135 Developing E-Business Solutions Using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004

Vamsi Krishna — Mon, 22 May 2006 13:39:00 GMT

I finally got a chance to take the certification last friday, and I PASSED, It wasnt easy, needs to have lot of development experience on BizTalk, It’s been in my mind since last year but due to the hectic schedule couldn’t make it,

FYI: This is now considered as a ‘Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist’ certification, note: this is not mentioned in the list of exams on the MCTS page (http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/mcts/default.asp)

Credential: ‘Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist’
Certification/Version: ‘BizTalk® Server 2004: Custom Applications’
Exam guide: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/exams/74-135.asp)

There is no skill assessment available for BizTalk 2004 certification, how ever if you are planning to go for the BizTalk 2006 then Microsoft has come up with Skills Assessment for Exam 70–235, you can take the assessment here, http://assessment.learning.microsoft.com/test/test_options.asp?regtestid=2420304&s=233 It contains around 30 –questions.

If you want some insight on the 74-135 certification,
Better have some strong development skill set on BizTalk 2004, there might be some lucky ones who might have passed, but in general I feel if you are strong in your development skills with BizTalk, then you would sail through easily, else spend time knowing the kind of errors BizTalk applications might throw and start debugging them,

Secure Shell (SSH) Enabled FTP Adapter for BizTalk

Vamsi Krishna — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 00:13:00 GMT

Since there is not enough information available on the sFTP adapters for BizTalk, thought would post this one, you can find the article here, sFTP adapters for BizTalk

This document is more focused on the BizTalk side rather than SSH, however I have provided some basic background information on SSH servers and clients using the RSA key based authentication in my previous post.

BizTalk 2004/2006 doesn’t have any built in support for sFTP adapters, they only support traditional FTP adapters, hence we are only left with two options, either we need to develop our own custom adapters for sFTP or purchase it from other clients, for more information read the article I had posted on the sFTP adapter.
RSA Public-Key based Authentication

My Previous BizTalk Blog

Vamsi Krishna — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 16:05:00 GMT

Find my previous postings on the following site

http://vamsibiztalk.blogspot.com/

-Vamsi

Overview of SFTP, FTPS, SCP and FTP

Vamsi Krishna — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 12:49:00 GMT

Overview of SFTP, FTPS, SCP and FTP:

I am not going go in detail about sFTP or FTPS here, since my main motive is to integrate sFTP with BizTalk, hence if you need more information need to research by yourself

SFTP:

"sftp is an interactive file transfer program, similar to ftp, which performs all operations over an encrypted ssh transport".

SFTP is part of the OpenSSH standard. Along with SSH you have capabilities to use commands such as SCP, SFTP, etc. So....SFTP is very secure because each packet is encrypted and compressed while sending is taking place. It utilizes public key authentication and compression. The Abbreviation SFTP nowadays invariably means Secure File Transfer Protocol, however there is another protocol with the same abbreviation (Simple File Transfer Protocol). So lets not get confused.

Differences between FTP, SFTP and FTPS:

Why not just use FTP? Why should I use Secure FTP instead of FTP? Why is SFTP better than FTP?

FTP Vs SFTP Vs FTPS Vs SCP:

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) does not take any precautions to protect information transmitted during a session. This includes your username, password, and any files transmitted.

SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) is a secure replacement for FTP (File Transfer Protocol) based on the Secure Shell protocol. Unlike FTP, SFTP encrypts both commands and data providing effective protection against common network security risks. SSH Client and Server provide both command-line SFTP tools and a graphical user interface for Windows users. SFTP encrypts the session, preventing the casual detection of your username, password or anything you've transmitted.

The major reason for implementing SFTP versus FTP is security. FTP is not even remotely secure. During an FTP session, your username and password are transmitted in clear text. If someone is eavesdropping, it is not difficult for them to log your FTP username and password.

In FTP all data is passed back and forth between the client and server without the use of encryption. This makes it possible for an eavesdropper to listen in and retrieve your confidential information including login details. With SFTP all the data is encrypted before it is sent across the network.

SFTP is not the same as FTP/S; the latter implements the original FTP protocol through a separately-created secure tunnel.

FTPS (FTP-SSL) is a real ftp that uses TSL/SSL to encrypt the control session and if required the data session. With FTPS the control session is always encrypted, but the data session might not be. Why is this? Because with the control session encrypted the authentication is protected and you always want this (normal ftp uses clear text). If you are NOT pre-encrypting the file, you want the data session encrypted so that the file is encrypted while the data is in flight. However, if you are pre-encrypting the file then you do not need to have the data connection encrypted as you do not need to add the overhead of encrypting the data connection, since the file is already encrypted. Understand that SFTP is SSH file transfer and FTPS is FTP with SSL, FTPS is a file transport layer on top of SSL or TLS. The FTPS adds SSL-enabled FTP send and receive capabilities, uses the FTP protocol to transfer files to and from SSL-enabled FTP servers.

SCP (Secure Copy) is a non-interactive command-line tool for securely transmitting files from a machine to another. It is a secure replacement for RCP and provides a similar command-line syntax. SCP is strongly based on SFTP but is often a more suitable choice when setting up unattended file transfers using scripts.

SSH Servers

OpenSSH (http://www.openssh.com/)

OpenSSH is a free version of the SSH protocol suite. OpenSSH servers and clients are available for both Unix and Windows.
OpenSSH has been ported to Windows with the popular CYGWIN utility. The project was created by Network Simplicity (http://www.networksimplicity.com/)

SSH2 (http://www.ssh.com/)

SSH2 is a commercial version of SSH, with required license fees for commercial use (noncommercial use is free). Commercial SSH clients/servers are available for both Windows and Unix systems.

List of SFTP Clients:

There are many client tools, you can use to connect to the SFTP servers, few of them I was interested were Core FTP LE, putty.exe, freeSSHd.exe, FileZilla_Server-0.9.12c.exe, Cygwin, WINSCP

Your choice of an SSH client is highly dependant on the type of functionality required for SSH. For example, if SSH is being deployed primarily for its file-transfer capabilities, We can go with Core FTP/WinSCP and SSH Communications' these SSH clients are probably good choices.

On the other hand, if SSH is being deployed for remote shell access via an HTTP proxy server, the SecureCRT and PuTTY clients are probably good choices.

Lastly, if SSH is being deployed for remote access from undefined and uncontrolled terminal locations, MindTerm is probably a good choice, since it offers SSH access with the need of only a Web browser.

Operating system support The operating systems the clients can run on.

Protocol support:

Information about what internet protocols the clients support. External links lead to information about support in future versions of the clients or extensions that provide such functionality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_FTP_clients

List of various BAM Questions

Vamsi Krishna — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 21:39:00 GMT

You can also access this from my original blog,

http://vamsibiztalk.blogspot.com/2006/01/list-of-various-bam-questions.html

I have created the list of problems or questions we might encounter with BAM, some of them are my own experiences and some I have gathered from different sources and bundled up in one forum,

This article explains some of the questions posted on the BAM, thought would be useful for everyone whose working on BAM, any comments are welcome:

SharePoint Services Errors for BizTalk

Vamsi Krishna — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 21:29:00 GMT

Error 1:

While configuring the databases used by Windows SharePoint Services, might receive the following error,
Line 1: Incorrect syntax near 'COLLATE'. (Error code: 170).

Solution: Provide the SQL Server Access rights to the BTSService, to do this go to security, logins and add the BTSService (User) which is member of administrator, and add to the all the server roles.

Error 2:

templatepick.aspx - page not found

When you create a new top level site under a parent site in sharepoint, it brings up the page saying it has been created successfully, when we click on the sites URL to specifiy the template it should display the default template selection wizard, but instead we might receive a page not found error.

Solution: If you want to delete the following sub site under sites, click on Documents and Lists, under Sites, delete the above site and recreate it, still problem occurs delete the root sites and recreate.

Error 3:

The "WSSLib" adapter is suspending an outbound message going to destination URL:"http://localhost/sites/SomeException/Exceptions". Details:"The request failed with HTTP status 404: Not Found.".

Solution: This means that you haven’t put the WSSWebServices.dll in to the C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\60\ISAPI\BIN folder and WSSDocLibService.asmx in to the C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\60\ISAPI folder, hence it was not able to find these files, so the following exception occurred.

Note: Kindly check your internal path using the IIS manager,WebSites/_vti_bin, right click and view the properties, capture the local path located under virtual directory tab you should be able to find the folder path location.

Error 4:

When ever we click on ‘Upgrade a server or virtual server’ in SharePoint site, we might get the annoying help file,

"To upgrade your server to Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, run Setupsts.exe. Running Setupsts.exe upgrades your server and the default virtual server. If you have additional virtual servers to upgrade, you can upgrade each virtual server individually by using the upgrade operation with the Stsadm.exe command-line tool."

Solution: Prohibit the FrontPage from the IIS and remove it from add/remove program, then reset the IIS.
Try to open the site again and this time, You should see the following response, Virtual Server Successfully Extended, This would allow us to browse to the next level in the sites,
You can open the home page for your new Web site in your browser by using a link on the confirmation page. You can continue to extend other virtual servers or configure Self-Service Site Creation so users can create their own sites.

Error 5:

“1057 while trying to query service SPTimer."

Solution:

Make sure you enter the user name as "domain\user name" or "machine name\user name;" otherwise, you get the following error: "System Error 1057 while trying to query service SPTimer,

Installing SharePoint:

Solution:
To Install Install Windows SharePoint Services without installing MSDE,
basically need to do the following,
C:\Program Files\STS2Setup_1033>setupsts.exe remotesql=yes

for more info, Kindly go to the following sites

http://weblogs.asp.net/jan/archive/2004/02/03/66544.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/wss/2/all/adminguide/en-us/stsc01.mspx

http://www.codeguru.com/Csharp/.NET/net_asp/miscellaneous/article.php/c8569/