Winson's Technical Multiverse

WF3 Deprecation

2012-02-08T15:38:00.001-05:00

Note: From Microsoft

In .NET 4 the Workflow Team released an all new Workflow engine in the System.Activities namespace. With the release of .NET 4.5 Beta we are marking the types in the “WF 3” System.Workflow namespace as obsolete. The following assemblies have one or more public types that will be deprecated:

•    System.Workflow.Activities.dll
•    System.Workflow.ComponentModel.dll
•    System.Workflow.Runtime.dll
•    System.WorkflowServices.dll
•    Microsoft.Workflow.DebugController.dll
•    Microsoft.Workflow.Compiler.exe
•    Wfc.exe

As a result, customers who are using the deprecated WF 3 APIs will encounter build warnings with a message similar to “ Warning BC40000: X is obsolete: ‘WF 3 types are deprecated. Please use WF 4 instead.’ ” We will remove the types from the .NET Framework in a future release, but we have not yet determined that timeframe (not in 4.5). This current step allows us to communicate our direction to our customers and allow them plenty of time to move to the new WF4 model. We will, of course, continue to support these WF 3 types under the Microsoft Support Lifecycle Policy.

Rules related types (e.g. System.Workflow.Activities.Rules), which do not have a replacement in WF 4.5, have not been deprecated.

Customers who want to migrate their applications to WF 4 will find help in the WF 4 Migration Guidance articles on MSDN and the WF Migration Kit on the WF CodePlex site.

Technorati Tags: WCF,WF,Microsoft

BizTalk 2010 R2

2011-12-09T15:16:00.001-05:00

This is great! Some good news of a newer release of BizTalk 2010. Taking the name of R2, there is information flying around the MVP forums as well as the web of this newer product releasing 6 months after the Windows Server 8 release.

The big gotcha ? There is no disclosure yet on the Windows 8 release date

The good news is that there is the following information around which I have consolidated. Please note that these are *NOT* confirmed.

Expected to be released between Oct 2012 to Feb 2013
Work and share common code base with Windows 8
Work with VS 2011
Work with SQL 2012
Some promise of working with Azure Service Bus

The following information regarding the product itself is from the BizTalk Server Team blog http://blogs.msdn.com/b/biztalk_server_team_blog/archive/2011/12/08/biztalk-server-2010-r2.aspx

Platform Support

Improved B2B

Ready for the Cloud

New Platforms and Infrastructure

Windows Server 8*
SQL Server 2012*

Increased Developer and IT Productivity

Visual Studio 11* and Windows 8* to develop solutions
In-place migration from BizTalk Server 2010

Extended Platform Integration

DB2 client connectivity to SQL Server,
conversion of commands to T-SQL,
migration of packages to stored procedures
Adapter connectivity to new data sources, including IBM Informix V11 and IBM IMS/DB V11

Agile Alignment to Industry Standards

Regular updates to schemas, accelerators certifications and adapters. Highlights include:
Healthcare: HIPPA 5010 extensions: 2777CA, 999, HL7 2.5.1
Finance: SWIFT SRG 2011 support, SWIFT SRG 2012, SWIFTNet 7.0 (new messaging platform)

Improved Performance and Scalability

HL7 MLLP adapter performance improvements
Better performance with ordered send ports
Enhanced scale out configuration with multiple hosts
Expanded adapter options for faster batch processing

Extend on-premises solutions to the cloud

Easily extend your on-premises BizTalk Server solution to the cloud in a secure manner
Tighter integration of on-premises BizTalk Server applications with Windows Azure Service Bus

Improved Licensing

Adjustments to licensing that are geared towards cloud hosting, including:
Purchase from a hoster on a monthly basis (SPLA)
Register your existing license with a hoster (License Mobility)

Technorati Tags: BizTalk 2010R2,BizTalk 2010

SQL Server: Denali

2011-11-17T09:57:00.001-05:00

Denali is the codename for the next release of SQL Server. The focus on Denali are:

Greater availability. Deliver the required 9s and data protection you need with AlwaysOn
Blazing-fast performance. Get unprecedented performance gains with Project “Apollo,” a new column store index that offers 10-100x star join or similar query performance improvements available for the first customer preview.
Breakthrough insight. Unlock new insights with rapid data exploration across your organization with Project “Crescent,” available to customers for the first time. Get your hands on the data exploration and visualization tool that everyone is talking about and enables end users to explore data at the speed of thought.
Credible, consistent data. Provide a consistent view across heterogeneous data sources with the BI Semantic Model (BISM) a single model for Business Intelligence applications, from reporting and analysis to dashboards and scorecards. Make data quality a part of everyday life with the Master Data Services add-in for Excel and new Data Quality Services that is integrated with third party data providers through Windows Azure Marketplace. Customers can test this functionality for the first time and put data management and cleansing tools in the hands of those who need it. Available integrated Marketplace providers include:
- Cdyne: CDYNE Phone Verification will validate the first 7 digits of your phone number(s) and return what carrier the phone number id is assigned to, whether it is a cellular number or a land line, the telco, and additional information including time zone, area code and email address if it is a cellular number
- Digital Trowel: Powerlinx allows users to send data for refinement and enhancement and receive back cleansed and enriched data. The database contains 10 million company website addresses, 25 million detailed company profiles, and 25 million executives, including 5 million in-depth profiles with email addresses and phone numbers.
- Loqate: The Loqate Verify enables users to parse, standardize, verify, cleanse, transliterate, and format address data for 240+ world countries.
- Loqate: The Geocode enables a latitude-longitude coordinate to be added to any world address with worldwide coverage to city or postal code for over 120 countries
- Melissa Data: WebSmart Address Check parses, standardizes, corrects and enriches U.S. and Canadian addresses to increase deliverables, reduce wasted postage and printing, and enhance response
Productive development experience. Optimize IT and developer productivity across server and cloud with Data-tier Application Component (DAC) parity with SQL Azure and SQL Server Developer Tools code name “Juneau” for a unified and modern development experience across database, BI, and cloud functions. Additionally, Express customers can test a new LocalDB version for fast, zero-configuration installation.

Join Microsoft Canada for a weekly webcast series to help understand the benefits included in the next release of SQL Server, commencing November 9^th through December 7^th at 1:00 pm EST. Attendees that register and attend all five (5) modules of the webcast will receive a SQL Server Code Name "Denali" USB key and a copy of Windows Azure Step by Step (May 2011) to be mailed 4-6 weeks after the final webcast. Limit one per person.
URL: https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032497363&Culture=en-CA

Technorati Tags: Denali,SQL Server 2012

Build Update

2011-09-23T13:44:00.001-04:00

**Disclaimer: BUILD provided a developer preview of Windows 8 and along side of that several new key technology shifts. The most important words in the above sentence are “developer preview”. What ever you read, please remember those words.

Build in Anaheim was an incredible week of information. It would be an incredible shift to the way we work today and I would have to say a much needed alignment of what is required in the industry and its many channels.

To get started take a peek at the following:

Windows 8 was unveiled at BUILD, if you haven’t had a chance to download it and are looking to test out the developer preview it is available for download at http://dev.windows.com, for the Windows Server 8 download it is available via MSDN.

If would like to get a glimpse of the new development opportunities that Windows 8 has to offer then the best thing that you can do is to watch the keynote from BUILD:

BUILD Keynote Video

I did a ton of tweeting at Build under my twitter ID #wwoombile

For part 2 of this post, I will be doing a blog post around some of the tweets and trying to summerize this information to something more coherent.

Technorati Tags: BUILD,Windows 8

Microsoft Build 2011 aka PDC

2011-09-12T10:15:00.001-04:00

It takes a lot for an organization to change the name of one of the most core conferences in the Microsoft repertoire.

I am of course talking about the Professional Developer’s Conference or as it is affectionately known, PDC.

PDC is no more, instead, welcome Microsoft BUILD. In my 15 years of interacting, working and architecting Microsoft technologies, I have never encountered the amount of hush/hush as I have seen/experienced with BUILD.

We know there will be a ton of Windows 8 and Windows Phone 7 topics but what else ?

There are tons of rumors about all the attendees getting a Samsung Windows 8 tablet.

Not to look a gift horse in the mouth but the old ACER 1420p from the old PDC conference was a bit of a disaster. Support was iffy and a lot of the laptops actually broke.

I upgraded mine with more ram and luckily, only my power adapter has some issues (got a replacement from eBay )

I hope the messaging around the tablet and the amount of app support is either backward compatible or have the hardware be forward compatible to RC releases of the OS at least!!!

Either way, thank you for the education and/or any gifts for now! Please follow me on twitter for the latest updates at BUILD this week (Sept 13-16).

Cheers!

Technorati Tags: BUILD,Microsoft,conference

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Kit

2011-07-18T12:37:00.001-04:00

Download here.

Great free training kit for VS 2010 and the .NET 4 framework. It covers:

C# 4
Visual Basic 10
F#
Parallel Extensions
Windows Communication Foundation
Windows Workflow
Windows Presentation Foundation
Silverlight 4
ASP.NET 4
Windows 7
Entity Framework
ADO.NET Data Services
Managed Extensibility Framework
Application Lifecycle Management
Windows Azure

The fun part will be Azure and the ALM. Those would be great labs to read up on if anything.

Coming back from the Microsoft Partner Conference, there was little mention about F# but this is after all the MPC and not TechEd…

Check this out… there is also an online version here >> online version.

Technorati Tags: .NET 4,Visual Studio 2010,Training

BizTalk 2010 Developer Kit available!

2011-06-14T17:12:00.001-04:00

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=38c2ccfc-510c-4627-a33c-95e9d19f3478

Fantastic download from the BizTalk 2010 download .

The course contains the following hands on labs.

Work with schemas, maps, and pipelines, and create flat file schemas.
Configure a new FTP, HTTP and Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) adapter for BizTalk Server
Use BizTalk Orchestration Designer to create and test a simple orchestration.
Configure orchestration properties and variables, deploy an orchestration, and create and deploy a rule set and execute those rules from within an orchestration.
Define, deploy, and map a BAM observation model.
Use the deployment and management features in BizTalk Server
Build a simple Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) service and client and configure BizTalk Server to use a WCF Adapter.
Create a Microsoft .NET class library project that will contain a WCF Adapter.
Deploy artifacts needed for processing certain EDI documents and for turning XML messages into EDI.

Technorati Tags: BizTalk 2010

PDC renamed!

2011-06-02T11:09:00.001-04:00

The Professional Developers Conference has been renamed to Build!

There is now a new site www.buildwindows.com .

Technorati Tags: PDC,Windows 8

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Training Kit

2011-05-09T12:24:00.001-04:00

The Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit includes presentations, hands-on labs, and demos. This content is designed to help you learn how to utilize the Visual Studio 2010 features and a variety of framework technologies including:

C# 4
Visual Basic 10
F#
Parallel Extensions
Windows Communication Foundation
Windows Workflow
Windows Presentation Foundation
Silverlight 4
ASP.NET 4
Windows 7
Entity Framework
ADO.NET Data Services
Managed Extensibility Framework
Visual Studio Team System
Windows Azure

This version of the Training Kit works with Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=752CB725-969B-4732-A383-ED5740F02E93&displaylang=en

SharePoint Online Developer Guide

2011-04-11T10:49:00.001-04:00

Located here.

The Microsoft SharePoint Online Developer Guide is in Beta format but it does a good job in helping understand the role of SharePoint Online in the MS Office 365 environment.

This guide covers quite a lot of topics, some of which include:

Client Based APIs
SilverLight clients
Javascript clients
Remote APIs
etc.

A pretty good read!

Technorati Tags: SharePoint 2010 Online,Office 365

BizTalk RoadMap Tour

2011-04-07T10:45:00.001-04:00

The BizTalk team is hosting a roadshow this year in Toronto and Montreal. We will have Rahul Garg (Senior Product Manager from Redmond) at both events to speak about the BizTalk and connected systems platform roadmaps. We will also have partners and clients speaking at the event. So this should be a very interesting and useful event for you to attend.

a. The Toronto Event Details

Date: April 14^th

Location: 1950 Meadowvale Blvd, Mississauga, On, L5N 8L9

Time: 8:30 Registration, 1:00 Finish

Registration Link: https://microsoft.crgevents.com/BusinessIntegration2011/Content/Home.aspx

b. The Montreal Event Details

Date: April 12^th

Location: 2000, Av. McGill College, Bureau 450
Time: 9:00 Registration, 1:30 Finish

Registration Link: https://microsoft.crgevents.com/BusinessIntegration2011/Content/Home.aspx

Technorati Tags: BizTalk 2010,Azure,Appfabric

BizTalk MVP Award

2011-04-04T08:44:00.001-04:00

I just wanted to drop a quick note to say a big “Thank you” to Microsoft and all the support they have given me.

This is the 5th year in a row for this award so thank you, I will continue to do my best!!!!

Compilation of Hyper Jumping to Microsoft Cloud Technology

2011-03-21T09:03:00.001-04:00

In the past few weeks/months, there has been an enormous increase in updates for technologies around Azure and cloud technology in general.

This blog post is a consolidation of 3 tools to help jumpstart your cloud training.

The order of these downloads/programs may differ depending on your experience and what you hope to gain but all three are valuable.

1) Windows Azure Platform Training Kit – A good update for Windows Azure as of February to provide content on how to use Azure, SQL Azure and AppFabric

2) Windows Azure SDK and Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio – An updated SDK as of March 2011. Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio, which includes the Windows Azure SDK, extends Visual Studio 2010 to enable the creation, configuration, building, debugging, running, packaging and deployment of scalable web applications and services on Windows Azure.

3) LightSwitch Beta 2 Download and Training Kit

Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch helps you solve specific business needs by enabling you to quickly create professional-quality business applications, regardless of your development skills. Read more about it here.

The Training Kit includes the following content:

LightSwitch Overview
- Demo: Introducing Visual Studio LightSwitch
- Hands-on-lab: Simple Book Store Application
- Hands-on-lab: Enhancing the Book Store Application
LightSwitch Advanced Features
- Demo: Building Your First LightSwitch Application
- Hands-on-lab: LightSwitch Control Extensions
- Hands-on-lab: LightSwitch Data Source Extensions

All content has been tested to work with Visual Studio 2010 SP1. The setup scripts for all hands-on labs and demo scripts have also been updated so that the content can easily be used on a machine running Windows 7 SP1.

Happy Azure-ing!

Technorati Tags: LightSwitch,Azure,Cloud

Great Dynamics CRM 2011 Developer Training Kit

2011-02-10T13:38:00.001-05:00

Contains:

Presentations - Presentation decks in PowerPoint (.pptx) format that you can use to learn the concepts.
Videos - Video recordings of the presentation along with demos delivered by expert trainers.
Hands-on Labs - Hands-on labs with detailed instructions and source code that will walk you through various development features.

The link to the material is here

Technorati Tags: xRM,Dynamics 2011 CRM

SQL Server 2008 R2 Update for Developers Training Kit

2011-01-27T09:58:00.001-05:00

Announcing the availability of the SQL Server 2008 R2 Update For Developers January 2011 Update. This is a great resource for developers, trainers, consultants and evangelists who need to understand the key improvements introduced in SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2 from a developer perspective. It contains a rich set of presentations, demos, hands-on labs and videos that are perfect for self-paced learning or for conducting your own training. The January 2011 update includes lots of great new content and several usability improvements.

The easiest way to get started with the training kit is to download it, install it, open default.htm and browse the kit for the content that you are most interested in. Many of the presentations and demos in the training kit include a video that you can watch to familiarize yourself with the content. When you are ready for some hands-on experience, try installing one of the demos or hands-on labs. Each of them includes a configuration wizard that simplifies installation.

You can download the training kit now at the following URL:

http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9710868

Technorati Tags: SQL Server 2009 R2,SQL training

Bump for fellow MVP

2011-01-17T16:14:00.001-05:00

I wanted to do a quick bump for a fellow MVP that is hiring.

Jesus Rodriguez is a great guy and always willing to help others. Take a look at his org that is hiring in both Argentina and the US.

Free Windows Azure Platform - Training Workshop

2011-01-11T17:53:00.001-05:00

Abstract
The Microsoft Developer & Platform is pleased to announce a Metro Workshop event focused on Developers covering the Windows Azure Platform, for Microsoft partners and customers. Delivered through workshop style presentations and hands-on lab exercises, the workshop will focus on three key services of the Windows Azure Platform – Windows Azure, SQL Azure and .NET Services.

Attendee Prerequisites
This workshop is aimed at developers, architects and systems designers with at least 6 months practical experience using Visual Studio 2008 and C# within ISV

Click here to register for sessions in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal starting January 26 in Toronto

Agenda

Day 1 - Introductory Day

Windows Azure Platform Overview – Presentation
Windows Azure Compute – Presentation
Windows Azure Storage – Presentation
Intro to Windows Azure - Hands-on Lab
Intro to SQL Azure – Presentation
Lab Intro to SQL Azure - Hands-on Lab
Intro to the Windows Azure AppFabric – Presentation
Intro to AppFabric Labs - Hands-on Lab

Day 2 - Architecture Focus

Scalability, Caching and Elasticity – Presentation
Asynchronous Workloads – Presentation
Asynchronous Work and Azure Instance Control - Hands-on Lab
Storage Strategies and Data Modeling – Presentation
Exploring Windows Azure Storage - Hands-on Lab

Day 3 - Development Focus

The Azure Platform Application Lifecycle – Presentation
Deploying Applications in Windows Azure - Hands-on Lab
Windows Azure Diagnostics – Presentation
Building ASP.NET Applications for Windows Azure – Presentation
Building Web Forms/MVC Apps with Windows Azure - Hands-on Lab
AppFabric Deep Dive – Presentation
Service Remoting with Windows AppFabric Service Bus - Hands-on Lab

Toronto Training

Course Offering (Live) : _ Windows Azure Platform - Training Workshop

January 26, 2011 9:00:00 AM EST -
January 28, 2011 5:00:00 PM EST

Locations, Facilities

ctc TrainCanada - Toronto, ctc TrainCanada - Toronto

Toronto, ON, Canada

Registration deadline

January 21, 2011

Vancouver Training

Course Offering (Live) : _ Windows Azure Platform - Training Workshop

February 16, 2011 9:00:00 AM PST -
February 18, 2011 5:00:00 PM PST

Locations, Facilities

MultiHat Solutions; 228 970 Burrard Street; Vancouver, BC - V6Z 2R4, Canada, MultiHat Solutions

Vancouver, BC, Canada

Registration deadline

February 11, 2011

Montreal Training

Course Offering (Live) : _ Windows Azure Platform - Training Workshop

March 1, 2011 9:00:00 AM EST -
March 3, 2011 5:00:00 PM EST

Show schedule in my time zone

Locations, Facilities

AFI, 1100 René-Lévesque Ouest, bureau 1205, Montréal, QC, H3B 4N4, Canada, AFI

Montréal, QC, Canada

Registration deadline

February 24, 2011

Technorati Tags: Azure,training,appfabric

Where does WCF/WF fit in ?

2010-12-01T10:30:00.001-05:00

I preach a lot about Microsoft :)

A lot of times, users, junior or experienced get inundated with TLA (three letter acronyms) and sometimes lose track of where they may fit in.

The following is an overview of Windows Workflow Foundation (WF or Dub F as it is called) and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and how they fit into an overall part of something called the .NET Framework

Overview of .NET Framework (where WCF and WF fit in)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/zw4w595w.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/net/developer.aspx
http://download.microsoft.com/download/F/4/3/F43A79B1-707A-4670-8639-75845F7F3878/SanjayVyas_Overview_NET4.pdf

Here are the introduction posts:

What is WCF >> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms731082.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa663324.aspx
http://blah.winsmarts.com/2008-4-What_is_WCF.aspx
http://www.eggheadcafe.com/community/aspnet/18/10147251/what-is-wcf-used-for.aspx
http://www.skill-guru.com/blog/2010/04/24/what-is-wcf-window-communication-foundation/

What is WF >>
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa663328.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=2e575633-e357-4ee7-aaff-34138f00e830 (labs)
http://dotnet.sys-con.com/node/163734
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2006/08/31/Windows-Workflow-Foundation.aspx

Good overview

View of WCF and WF in .NET 4 >> http://www.msteched.com/2009/NewZealand/SOA206 (video)

Technorati Tags: WF,WCF,.NET Framework Overview

SilverLight code to help Download PDC 2010 Content

2010-11-24T10:31:00.001-05:00

Quick post to thank Mike Taulty’s work. A neat app to download all the great PDC content here.

PDC 2010

2010-11-03T10:45:00.001-04:00

PDC 2010 has come and gone. The great news is that the videos and presentations are available here>>

http://player.microsoftpdc.com/

Sales members you may be interested in the keynotes >> http://player.microsoftpdc.com/Schedule/Index

There are multiple venues:

Client and devices : http://player.microsoftpdc.com/Schedule/Filter/ClientDevices

Cloud Services: http://player.microsoftpdc.com/Schedule/Filter/CloudServices

Framework and tools: http://player.microsoftpdc.com/Schedule/Filter/FrameworkTools

I really wish I could have went, free LG WM7 phones were given away :(

Technorati Tags: PDC2010,Microsoft

BizTalk 2010 Released!

2010-09-27T14:16:00.001-04:00

Full access to BizTalk 2010 through the distribution channels including MSDN. General Availability is Oct 1.

You can get the Dev and Evaluation editions here.

You can see all the features on this blog.

And to sum things up, I am super happy the following features are now included:

The Mapper in BizTalk Server 2010 has been redesigned and enhanced to work easily with complex maps.

A few highlights of the new Mapper are:

· Reduce background “noise” using highlight propagation to show only the nodes that are relevant to the user

· Auto-scrolling and coalescing of sibling nodes to help locate the nodes of interest easily

· Search functionality to find the nodes of interest easily especially in large and complex maps

· Improve productivity with Cut/Copy/Paste/Move/Undo functionality

· Predictive match that help create maps faster

Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: BizTalk 2010

xRM vs SharePoint vs .NET coding Seminar

2010-09-27T10:58:00.001-04:00

Considering Business Application Frameworks for your next enterprise app: A comparison of custom .NET versus XRM versus SharePoint development

In the early nineties Jim worked with products like Lotus Notes to build business applications. For a while the impact of the web pushed these kinds of business application frameworks aside but once again the ascendancy of these kinds of frameworks is back and within the Microsoft stack this is most positively demonstrated through SharePoint and Dynamics XRM.

Jim is a great speaker and will help clarify the flexibility and capabilities of XRM vs .NET and SharePoint.

I encourage you to attend if possible.

Thursday 30th Sep, 2010 Location! MSN Office, 222 Bay Street, Suite 1201, Toronto, ON, M5K 1E7

Agenda

5:30pm to 6:00pm - Meet and greet (food and drinks will be provided)

6:00 - opening remarks from the user group president

6:45 to 8:00pm - Main Session

8:00 - Open Forum for Questions and Discussion

8:15pm to 8:30pm - Wrap up and prizes.!

Technorati Tags: SharePoint,xRM,cRM,Dynamics

SimplyFile, phew Support for Outlook 2010

2010-09-10T08:42:00.001-04:00

I hammer through a few hundred email a day and I was using SpeedFiler for the longest time. Unfortunately, there have been little to no updates on SpeedFiler and it was preventing me from upgrading to Outlook 2010.

There is a hack, but unfortunately for me, it did not seem to work.

Then I came across SimplyFile. At first glance, this product seem to be feature parity to SpeedFiler, but oh, there is much much more under the covers.

Since this is not a product review blog, I will not cover all the features but will only show the ones that really amazed me.

1) The filing:

Much more detail : Note that I blacked out some of the account names.

It has the nice ability to file and file the original along with the response. I really like that as I have had to sometimes do many clicks to not file the original.

2) My favorites: Task it and Schedule it

These ACTUALLY create tasks and schedules (meetings) based on the email. They take a second to do but this is great!

3) Snooze it

Allows me to hide an item for a set period of time. I love this as I have to sometimes set emails back to as unread to place emphasis!

4) If you are a Microsoft MVP, you can get an NFR license here.

Enjoy the productivity gains! Use the time to BizTalk further!

Technorati Tags: Productivity,email,SimplyFile,outlook,outlook 2010

Failed to connect to the SQL database SSODB on SQL Server

2010-07-28T15:17:00.001-04:00

This happens when trying to configure BizTalk 2009 on a SQL Server 2008 platform. Digging around the Net, I have seen this happen in SQL 2005 as well.

Visual indications show a red “X” on the Data Store name when configuring (sorry, no screen shot as this is on a remote VM with no access from this machine).

The fix ?

Use the Visual Studio Command Prompt (make sure you have the creds or run as administrator)
Type “cd C:\Program Files\Common Files\Enterprise Single Sign-On” (assuming drive C is where BizTalk is installed”
Type regasm ssosql.dll

Hope this helps.

Technorati Tags: ESSO,BizTalk 2009,SSODB

BizTalk Presentation

2010-07-09T16:19:00.001-04:00

Hi guys,

I will be presenting at the Toronto Architecture User Group in Toronto on Thursday July 29th, 2010.

The address is the MSN Office
222 Bay Street, Suite 1201
Toronto, Ontario
M5K 1E7

The agenda will be:

5:30pm to 5:45pm - Meet and greet (food and drinks will be provided)
6:30 - opening remarks from the user group president
6:45 to 8:00pm – BizTalk and the role of Data Architecture in the Enterprise
8:00 - Open Forum for Questions and Discussion
8:15pm to 8:30pm - Wrap up and prizes!

The presentation will be around the role that BizTalk and overall integration plays in information architecture and product taxonomies in the Enterprise.

Please come by .. if anything to say hello!

Technorati Tags: BizTalk,Information Architecture

BizTalk High Availability Host Separation

2010-07-07T09:52:00.001-04:00

While doing some digging into High Availability, I always find myself referencing Kent Weare’s great blogs. There were some quick updates that I found in the BizTalk 2009 documentation that may add on to this.

I figured that this may be valuable to the community so I wanted to blog this here.

We all know about providing dedicated hosts for receiving, sending and processing(orchestration) tasks. One that is overlooked is the tracking.

As per MSDN,

“BizTalk Server is optimized for throughput, so the main orchestration and messaging engines do not actually move events or messages directly to the BizTalk Tracking (DTA) or Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) databases, since this would divert these engines from their primary job of executing business processes. Instead, BizTalk Server leaves the events and messages in the MessageBox database and marks them as requiring a move to the BizTalk Tracking or BAM databases. A background process (the tracking host) then moves the events to the BizTalk Tracking and BAM databases, while a SQL Server Agent job copies tracked messages to the BizTalk Tracking database.”

So, we ask, what are the benefits ?

“A BizTalk Host that hosts tracking is responsible for moving the DTA and BAM tracking data from the MessageBox database to the BizTalk Tracking (DTA) and BAM Primary Import databases. This movement of tracking data has an impact on the performance of other BizTalk artifacts that are running in the same host that is hosting tracking. Thus, you should use a dedicated host that does nothing but host tracking.

Using a dedicated tracking host also allows you to stop other BizTalk hosts without interfering with BizTalk Server tracking. The movement of tracking data out of the MessageBox database is critical for a healthy BizTalk Server system. If the BizTalk Host responsible for moving tracking data in the BizTalk group is stopped, the Tracking Data Decode service will not run. The impact of this is as follows:

HAT tracking data will not be moved from the MessageBox database to the BizTalk Tracking database.
BAM tracking data will not be moved from the MessageBox database to the BAM Primary Import database.
Because data is not moved, it cannot be deleted from the MessageBox database.
When the Tracking Data Decode service is stopped, tracking interceptors will still run and write tracking data to the MessageBox database. If the data is not moved, this will cause the MessageBox database to become bloated, which will affect performance over time. Even if custom properties are not tracked or BAM profiles are not set up, by default some data is tracked (such as pipeline receive / send events and orchestration events). If you do not want to run the Tracking Data Decode service, turn off all tracking so that no interceptors save data to the database. To disable global tracking, see How to Turn Off Global Tracking (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=154193) Use the BizTalk Server Administration console to selectively disable tracking events.”

It took a little while, but I was able to track down the link into how to enable this as this was not in the older MSDN sites (or I mixed up the versions most likely :) :

To perform the procedure in this section, you must have the following user rights for modifying host properties to allow host tracking:

You must be a member of the BizTalk Server Administrators group.
You must have the following rights in SQL Server:
- You must be either a SQL Server administrator or a member of the db_owner or db_securityadmin SQL Server database roles in the BizTalk Tracking database (BizTalk DTADb), MessageBox databases (BizTalkMsgBoxDb), and the BAM Primary Import database (BAMPrimaryImport).
- You must be a member of the sysadmin SQL Server role on all the computers where there are MessageBox databases, or a member of the db_owner or db_ddladmin SQL Server role for all the MessageBox databases.

To enable host tracking

Click Start, click Programs, click Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009, and then click BizTalk Server Administration.
In the console tree, expand BizTalk Server 2009 Administration, expand the BizTalk group, click Platform Settings, and then click Hosts.
In the details pane, right-click the host that you want to modify, and then click Properties.
In the Host Properties dialog box, on the General tab, select or clear Options - Allow Host Tracking, and then click OK.

Select this check box to indicate that the host loads the BizTalk Tracking component to process health monitoring and business data. If you select this check box, the current host will have read/write access to the tracking tables in the MessageBox database, as well as to the Tracking database. Accordingly, any objects running in this host will also have read/write access to these databases.

If you clear the check box, the host will have only write access to the tracking tables in the MessageBox database and will not have access to the Tracking database.

So there you have it… HAPPY HIGH AVAILABILITYing!

Technorati Tags: BizTalk 2009,BizTalk 2010,Hosts,High Availability

World Wide Partner Conference - Washington

2010-06-14T09:35:00.001-04:00

Wanted to provide a quick heads up that I will be at the WWPC 2010 in Washington on the week of July 11th for those that may want to meet up.

More details on the event may be found here http://digitalwpc.com/

Microsoft and Virtual Machines

2010-06-02T11:16:00.001-04:00

I applaud and encourage Microsoft to release more and more beta products to test out.

The latest that I want to try out is the BizTalk 2010 beta and associated packages. However, without a VHD download, it is a bit of a PITA to try and create a new image with OS, SQL Server, Visual Studio, Windows Updates etc.

Although there are some nice VM’s from Microsoft to build upon (http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/en/us/solution-appliance-test.aspx), it still takes a super long time to build an image.

My suggestion ? Grab as many of the different DVD’s that Microsoft provides for BizTalk or ESB training. you can then use these base images to build upon for Betas or CTPs.

This will be great until at least Microsoft releases more ready to VHDs.

On a side note, it would be great if we can get perpetual “dev” licenses that these VHD’s can be built on that do not expire. It gets to be painful to have your VHD expire all the time.

My $0.02

Technorati Tags: Virtualization,VHD,BizTalk

BizTalk 2010 Beta Available

2010-06-02T10:13:00.001-04:00

The BizTalk 2010 Beta is available at www.microsoft.com/biztalk.

Here are some of the updates in 2010:

Great new advances in the Mapper (see here for a nice blog by Randal van Splunteren)
BizTalk Server Settings Dashboard and Latency Control per hose
Enhanced FTP adapter with FTPS Support
Mapper and BizTalk Adapter Pack 2010 support to WF
Enhanced trading partner management
New SCOM management pack

Technorati Tags: BizTalk 2010

Some Quick Microsoft Updates

2010-05-06T09:33:00.001-04:00

There are a ton of activities happening in Microsoft over the next little while. I will take the opportunity here to update the community on a few:

WINDOW SUMMIT 2010 – Now a Virtual Event

Windows Summit 2010 has become a virtual event! This is a special opportunity to learn – straight from the Windows team! How you can best use Windows 7 and Internet Explorer to enable great solutions for you customers.

This event is designed for people who want to build great products on Windows 7.

This information is PUBLIC and available here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-summit/default.aspx

Different tracks will be available for different roles:

· Device technical implementer – May 25^th

· System technical implementer – June 2^nd

· Software technical implementer – June 16^th

Announcing wave 4 Windows Live Messenger

A heads up that we have announced the new Windows Live Messenger. There are big changes in the product this time around, and we are really excited. Here is the link to the blog post: http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windowslive/archive/2010/04/28/preview-of-the-new-windows-live-messenger.aspx

Please take a minute to check out some of the Messenger preview content that is available publicly:

· Watch a new Messenger launch video at www.messengerpreview.com

· Watch Steve’s presentation from Brazil at www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/windowslive/default.mspx

· Read the announcement blog post for details at windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windowslive/default.aspx

· Check out our twitter feed at www.twitter.com/windowslive

· Check out our Facebook fan page at http://www.facebook.com/LiveMessenger

SQL Server 2008 R2 Launch Events in Toronto and Montreal

You are invited to an exclusive event on Microsoft® SQL Server 2008 R2 and Visual Studio 2010. Come and discover powerful new capabilities that enable your organization to scale your operations with confidence, boost productivity, and deliver business insight that empowers your end-users.

Dates:

Montreal -May 26, 2010

Toronto - May 31, 2010

Date: Monday May 31th 2010
Location: MaRS Discovery District
MaRS Centre, South Tower,
101 College Street, Suite 100
Toronto, Ontario
M5G 1L7

Technorati Tags: SQL Server 2008R2,Windows Messenger,Windows Summit 2010

Renewed as Microsoft BizTalk MVP for another year

2010-04-07T10:33:00.001-04:00

It is shocking on April 1st to find out that I have been awarded the MVP for BizTalk Architecture for another year. I always think it is a prank or in this case, it was in my spam folder, nervous that I did not get any notification.

I am very grateful to the Microsoft folks and the community and will continue to try my best to provide updated information on the product and general trends and offer support where I can.

A big “THANK YOU” to all.

BizTalk 2009 R2 is now BizTalk 2010

2010-03-29T13:30:00.001-04:00

BizTalk Server 2010 Name Change Q&A

Q: Why was the original name for the release BizTalk Server 2009 R2?

BizTalk Server 2009 R2 was planned to be a focused release to deliver support for Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server 2008 R2 and Visual Studio 2010. Aligning BizTalk releases to core server platform releases is very important for our customers. Hence our original plan was to name the release as BizTalk Server 2009 R2.

Q: Why did Microsoft decide to change the name for BizTalk Server 2009 R2 to BizTalk Server 2010?

Over the past year we got lot of feedback from our key customers and decided to incorporate few key asks from our customers in this release. Based on customer value we are delivering and positive feedback we are getting from our early adopter customers we feel the release has transitioned from minor release (BizTalk Server 2009 R2) to a major release (BizTalk Server 2010).

Following is list of key capabilities we have added to the release

1. Enhanced trading partner management that will enable our customers to manage complex B2B relationships with ease

2. Increase productivity through enhanced BizTalk Mapper. These enhancements are critical in increasing productivity in both EAI and B2B solutions; and a favorite feature of our customers.

3. Enable secure data transfer across business partners with FTPS adapter

4. Updated adapters for SAP 7, Oracle eBusiness Suite 12.1, SharePoint 2010 and SQL Server 2008 R2

5. Improved and simplified management with updated System Center management pack

6. Simplified management through single dashboard which enables IT Pros to backup and restore BizTalk configuration

7. Enhanced performance tuning capabilities at Host and Host Instance level

8. Continued innovation in RFID Space with out of box event filtering and delivery of RFID events

Q: Is there any additional benefit to customers with name change to BizTalk Server 2010?

In addition to all the great value the release provides, customers will benefit from support window being reset to 10 years (5 years mainstream and 5 years extended support). This highlights Microsoft’s long term commitment to BizTalk Server product.

Q: What is the RTM date for BizTalk Server 2010? Will this change impact the RTM dates?

We are on schedule to deliver BizTalk Server 2010 in H1 FY11 (H2 CY2010). This name change will not impact the RTM dates.

Cool Azure TCO Analysis Calculator

2010-02-12T14:13:00.001-05:00

Sometimes you see things online that you wish would be available for other products, even though I will not hold my breath :) . It is quite cool and useful for understanding potential budgets and help calculate any business cases.

Check out the link to the TCO here.

Note you have to accept the terms that there is no implied warranty.

Note the toolbar, there are a lot of different options available, including saving this ROI sheet and different analysis options.

As a side note, did anyone ever notice how much the Azure icons look like GWT ?

BizTalk 2006 R2 SP 1 Released!

2010-01-29T11:01:00.001-05:00

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) is released and now available for download. As per status quo, this SP includes consolidations of hotfixes from 2006 and R2 releases and the following new features:

For WCF-Custom and WCF-CustomIsolated Adapters, the ability to look up custom bindings from locations other than machine.config.
Support for using multiple certificates to sign outgoing AS2 messages

Additional fixes are noted here.

Problems that are fixed in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Service Pack 1

917871 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/917871/ ) FIX: In BizTalk Server 2004, a signed MIME message may be marked as falsified when the message is received by an SMTP client

927052 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927052/ ) FIX: Error message when you try to enlist two orchestrations at the same time in BizTalk Server: "Value does not fall within the expected range"

931757 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931757/ ) FIX: BizTalk Adapter 2.0 for mySAP Business Suite may not release the connection to the SAP server as expected, and the messages may not be delivered

934040 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/934040/ ) FIX: One of the Microsoft BizTalk Adapters for Enterprise Applications stops processing incoming messages until you restart the BizTalk Host instance

934328 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/934328/ ) Implementation of the OpenReuse value and the ReuseOpenConnection value in the BizTalk SAP adapter

935960 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/935960/ ) An update is available that lets you disable Routing Failure Reports in BizTalk Server 2006

938483 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938483/ ) FIX: BizTalk Server 2006 suspends the orchestration and logs event 10033 in the Application log when BizTalk Server 2006 detects a schema version mismatch

938830 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938830/ ) FIX: You may experience a long delay when you use the Health and Activity Tracking (HAT) tool in a BizTalk Server environment

938839 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938839/ ) FIX: A trade partner may reject an RNIF 1.1 document or an RNIF 2.0 document that you generate by using BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet 3.3 or for RosettaNet 3.5

939014 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/939014/ ) FIX: A trade partner may reject a 0A1 message when you use BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet 3.0 or BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet 3.5 to send the 0A1 message to the trade partner

939080 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/939080/ ) FIX: Error message when you use Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2 to receive HIPAA messages

939589 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/939589/ ) FIX: You cannot insert a string that begins with a money sign in a database by using an XML updategram when you use Microsoft BizTalk Adapter for SQL Server

939885 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/939885/ ) FIX: Error message when you use BizTalk Adapter 2.0 for mySAP Business Suite: "Unable to cast object of 'xxxx'"

939920 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/939920/ ) FIX: Error message when you try to generate a schema for an adapter in BizTalk Server 2006: "Error reading WSDL file.[System.InvalidOperationException] There is an error in XML document (190, 41).[System.Xml.XmlException]"

940457 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940457/ ) FIX: Event ID 5799 and Event ID 5677 occur if you have a running orchestration that has a nil value in BizTalk Server 2006 or BizTalk Server 2006 R2

940483 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940483/ ) FIX: A BAM archive job fails because of a disk space shortage when you archive business activity data to the BAMArchive database in BizTalk Server 2004 or in BizTalk Server 2006

940563 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940563/ ) FIX: Multiple lines of an IDOC record are not parsed correctly in BizTalk Adapter for mySAP Business Suite

940753 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940753/ ) FIX: The 0A1 PIP message also incorrectly contains a namespace declaration when you use BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet 3.3 or BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet 3.5

940868 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940868/ ) FIX: An incorrect value is generated in the UniversalResourceIdentifier field when you process PIPs to send a message that includes attachments to a trading partner in BizTalk Server 2006 and in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

940950 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940950/ ) FIX: A trade partner may reject a 0A1 PIP message when you use BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet 3.3 or 3.5 to send the 0A1 message to the trade partner

941051 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941051/ ) FIX: A time-out error may occur when you use the BizTalk Adapter for Oracle Database as a receive adapter

941261 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941261/ ) FIX: Event ID 5720 is logged when you specify the BTAHL72XPipeline pipeline in a send port in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

941279 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941279/ ) FIX: Event ID 5784 and event ID 5753 are logged when you create a custom pipeline that uses the BizTalk Accelerator for HL7 2.x assembler/disassembler in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

941726 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941726/ ) FIX: Error message when you use a BizTalk adapter to send messages on a computer that is running BizTalk Server: "Only one usage of each socket address (protocol/network address/port) is normally permitted"

942024 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942024/ ) FIX: A Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) activity is not rolled back when the send port fails in delivering the output message in BizTalk Server 2006

942133 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942133/ ) FIX: A NACK message from a Web service does not contain the details of the original exception in BizTalk Server 2006

942221 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942221/ ) FIX: Error message when you try to stop the BizTalk service in BizTalk Server 2006: "The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion"

942235 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942235/ ) FIX: S BAM aggregate alert is not sent as expected in BizTalk Server 2006 and in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

942419 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942419/ ) FIX: Event ID: 1723 occurs when you use Adapters for Enterprise Applications together with BizTalk Server 2006 or BizTalk Server 2006 R2 to process lots of messages

942420 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942420/ ) FIX: Some output messages may contain incorrect data when you use BizTalk Adapter for J.D. Edwards EnterpriseOne to process lots of messages in BizTalk Server 2006

942438 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942438/ ) FIX: The BizTalk Adapter for FTP stops working if a pipeline component does not process the complete FTP data stream in BizTalk Server 2006

942465 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942465/ ) FIX: An update is available that lets you dynamically configure certain properties on a server that is running BizTalk Server 2006 R2

942580 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942580/ ) FIX: The BizTalk FileAct and InterAct Adapters for SWIFT 2.3 unexpectedly release the SWIFTNet SnF queue when you configure the adapters to use the SnF mode

942612 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942612/ ) FIX: You may experience problems when you use a Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) adapter in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2

942733 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942733/ ) FIX: Error message when you try to verify the signature of an incoming AS2 message or of an incoming MDN message on a computer that is running BizTalk Server 2006 R2

942735 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942735/ ) FIX: Error message when you use the BTAHL72XMLSendPipeline send pipeline to generate a 2.XML message in the BizTalk Accelerator for HL7 2.0: "Message is not a 2.Xml document"

942849 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942849/ ) The Configuration.exe configuration program cannot be started and no error is recorded in the event log after you install the BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet 3.5

943125 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943125/ ) The XLANG Scheduler Engine enters an infinite loop, and a BizTalk Server 2006 process uses 100 percent of the CPU resources if a time-out exception is handled by a non-transactional scope

943165 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943165/ ) FIX: A CPU usage spike occurs on all the BizTalk hosts after you install security bulletin MS07-040 on a server that is running Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 or Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2

943228 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943228/ ) FIX: The BizTalk FTP Adapter reports that no files are available even though the files exist when you try to connect to a GXS server in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

943355 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943355/ ) Event ID 0 is logged in the Application log when you use Microsoft BizTalk Adapter for Oracle Database on a 64-bit server

943383 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943383/ ) FIX: An XML declaration is not added to an outgoing document when you use the BizTalk Framework Assembler pipeline component in a pipeline in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

943859 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943859/ ) FIX: A receive location that uses the file adapter does not retry when a network failure occurs in BizTalk Server 2006 or in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

943874 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943874/ ) FIX: You may experience time-outs when you use a receive location to connect to a WCF service and you use the WCF request-response adapter in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

944063 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/944063/ ) FIX: In BizTalk Server 2006 R2, you cannot use the MIME.FileName context property to rename an EDI file when you use the SMTP adapter to send the EDI file as an attachment

944158 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/944158/ ) FIX: You may experience problems if a BizTalk application has a map configured on a send port in BizTalk Server 2006

944233 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/944233/ ) FIX: A message is processed even if the delivery notification acknowledgement fails to route in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006

944234 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/944234/ ) FIX: The CPU usage remains high for a long time on a computer that is running SQL Server and BizTalk Server 2006

944320 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/944320/ ) FIX: Error message when you try to import DTD schemas into a BizTalk project in BizTalk Server 2006 R2: "There were some errors generated during schema generation"

944426 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/944426/ ) FIX: Orphaned cache instances may be built in the Instances and Hosts Queue tables of the BizTalkMsgBoxDb database in BizTalk Server 2006 and in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

944513 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/944513/ ) FIX: In BizTalk Server 2006, the FTP adapter may take a long time to transfer a file to an IBM AIX-based FTP server

944532 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/944532/ ) Four properties have been added to the ErrorReport namespace context of BizTalk Server 2006 R2

944560 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/944560/ ) FIX: BizTalk Server may output the wrong S/MIME information when you use BizTalk Server 2006 or the BizTalk Server SMTP Adapter with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003

944749 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/944749/ ) FIX: Error messages may be logged when you use BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet 3.0 or for RosettaNet 3.5

944838 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/944838/ ) FIX: The Log Shipping feature may not restore database backup files in BizTalk Server 2006 or in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

945107 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/945107/ ) FIX: The HTTP header field for a signed RNIF 2.0 document incorrectly contains the multipart/related value in BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet 3.5 or in BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet 3.0

945118 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/945118/ ) FIX: A response message may be incorrectly matched to an original message when you send multiple messages by using the BizTalk FileAct and InterAct Adapters for SWIFT 2.3

945165 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/945165/ ) FIX: You may receive error messages when you receive an X12 997 functional ACK in a BizTalk Server 2006 R2 EDI application

945307 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/945307/ ) FIX: The BizTalk Server process may crash after you change the properties of BizTalk Adapters for LOB applications in BizTalk Server 2006

945719 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/945719/ ) FIX: You cannot start a Terminal Services session on a server that is running BizTalk Server 2006 after a memory leak occurs in the BizTalk Server service

946043 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946043/ ) FIX: You cannot click to select some check boxes in the installation wizard when you try to install BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT 3.0 on a server that has BizTalk Server 2006 R2 installed

947258 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947258/ ) FIX: Health and Activity Tracking returns incorrect results in BizTalk Server

947459 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947459/ ) FIX: The GS04 header value uses the CCYYMM format instead of the YYMMDD format in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

947981 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947981/ ) FIX: Event ID 1000 occurs when you try to start a 32-bit SNL receiver process on a computer that is running the 64-bit version of BizTalk Server 2006 R2

948509 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948509/ ) FIX: The BAM Portal request view display may be incorrect in BizTalk Server 2006 or in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

948747 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948747/ ) FIX: You may receive an event ID 5753 error message when you try to use the BizTalk Server 2006 R2 EDI functionality

949217 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949217/ ) FIX: The returned Sw-HandleSnFRequest response flags the message ACK as invalid when you use the BizTalk FileAct and InterAct Adapters for SWIFT 2.3 in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

949781 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949781/ ) FIX: Event ID 4133 and event ID 5802 are logged when you use BizTalk Server Accelerator for HL7 v2 in a BizTalk Server 2006 R2 environment

949872 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949872/ ) FIX: You cannot correlate batched EDI/AS2 messages to incoming MDNs in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

949912 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949912/ ) FIX: Event ID: 10034 may be logged when you use BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT 3.0 together with a 64-bit version of BizTalk Server 2006 R2 on a computer that is running a 64-bit version of Windows Server 2003

950456 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950456/ ) FIX: In BizTalk Server 2006 or in BizTalk Server 2006 R2, the transformation may stop responding, and the CPU utilization may be 100 percent

950536 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950536/ ) Event ID 10034 was logged when I used BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT 3.0 together with BizTalk Server 2006 R2

950577 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950577/ ) FIX: The size of a file is 0 bytes when the FTP adapter saves the file in a temporary folder in BizTalk Server 2004

950878 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950878/ ) FIX: BizTalk does not consume messages when the Ordered Delivery feature is enabled

951203 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951203/ ) A hotfix is available for BizTalk Server 2006 R2 that enables support for AS2 File name preservation

951760 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951760/ ) FIX: Outgoing 837 interchanges may contain incorrect GS and ST segment values in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2

952202 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952202/ ) FIX: MDNs are not sent to the sending party in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

952947 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952947/ ) FIX: A user in the BizTalk Server Operators group cannot enable or disable a SQL Server or MSMQ receive location in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

953388 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953388/ ) FIX: You may experience poor performance when you try to split large EDI interchanges in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

953995 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953995/ ) FIX: The WCF service that is generated may cause the IIS worker process to crash in a BizTalk Server 2006 R2 environment

954276 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/954276/ ) FIX: The response message from the Web service is not tracked in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

954557 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/954557/ ) FIX: The BizTalk Server native EDI functionality swaps the GS02 field and the GS03 field in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

954663 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/954663/ ) FIX: An event ID 0 error message is logged in the BizTalk Server Application log when you receive RNIF documents from a trading partner in BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet 3.5

954812 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/954812/ ) BizTalk Server 2006 may be unable to decode the S/MIME information in the header of an incoming MIME message that was generated by BizTalk Server 2002

954814 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/954814/ ) FIX: Importing an .msi file may take a very long time or you may get a "Timeout expired" error

954877 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/954877/ ) FIX: Zombie messages cause high CPU usage on servers that host BizTalk Server 2006

954906 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/954906/ ) FIX: The number of connections to SQL Server may increase to over 500 when you try to import the same BizTalk application .msi file again in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

955240 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955240/ ) FIX: Event ID 4096 is logged in the BizTalk Server Application log when you use BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet 3.5 to receive a 3A4 PIP message from a partner

955303 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955303/ ) FIX: The EDI description context property for the routing failure report has an unhelpful error description in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

955456 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955456/ ) FIX: Event ID: 0 is logged when you use BizTalk Adapter for Oracle Database to send a batch of messages to an Oracle table, and a few messages are suspended

955522 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955522/ ) FIX: An event error is logged in the Application log when you stop a host that is running a WCF-based send adapter in a BizTalk Server 2006 R2 environment

955651 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955651/ ) FIX: The FTP adapter stops processing the file transfer in a Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 environment after a network connection recovers

955705 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955705/ ) FIX: The "Encode all parts" option does not work in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

955976 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955976/ ) FIX: You receive an error message and the application fails when SAP Adapter 2.0 generates a proxy by using ECC 6.0 in BizTalk Server 2006

956051 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956051/ ) FIX: An update that adds a fourth option to process incoming EDI messages in BizTalk Server 2006 R2 is available

956916 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956916/ ) 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"

956939 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956939/ ) FIX: Error event when you use the BizTalk Adapter for Siebel eBusiness Applications to send messages on a computer that is running BizTalk Server 2006 R2: "No connection could be made as target machine actively refused"

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

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

957514 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957514/ ) FIX: You may receive an error message when you try to configure the Windows SharePoint Services adapter for Office SharePoint Server 2007 in a BizTalk Server 2006 R2 environment

957622 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957622/ ) FIX: Text nodes in outgoing WCF message templates are ignored by the WCF Adapter in a BizTalk Server 2006 R2 environment

957684 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957684/ ) FIX: Event ID 4096 is logged in the BizTalk Server Application log when you use BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet 3.5 to receive a 3A4 PIP message from a trading partner and when the value of the MonetaryAmount element is less than 1

958210 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/958210/ ) FIX: You cannot create a HOST instance when your user account is a member of BizTalk Server Administrators group in SQL Server

958211 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/958211/ ) FIX: The rules engine tables are not being purged when you use BizTalk Server

958235 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/958235/ ) 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

958296 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/958296/ ) FIX: An XML message remains in the active queue instead of in the suspended queue when you enable tracking after port processing for a send port that uses the EdiSend pipeline in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

959105 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959105/ ) FIX: Multiple RunTimeAgent processes are created when you use the Microsoft BizTalk Adapter for Oracle database to connect to an Oracle server

959136 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959136/ ) FIX: The client's credentials are not used when an orchestration calls a second WCF service, and event ID 5754 is logged in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

959139 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959139/ ) 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

959315 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959315/ ) FIX: You do not see any messages that pass through the ordered send port when you run some message queries in Health and Activity Tracking in BizTalk Server 2006 or in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

959631 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959631/ ) FIX: The BizTalk Server FTP adapter does not send messages and event errors occur when the FTP send port uses "QUIT" as the AfterPut command in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

960237 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960237/ ) 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

960473 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960473/ ) Invalid 997 functional acknowledgements are generated in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2

960731 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960731/ ) FIX: Transactions remain active for a long time when you use a WCF-Custom adapter in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

960914 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960914/ ) A hotfix rollup package is available for BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT 3.0 Service Pack 1

960990 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960990/ ) FIX: A hotfix is available for BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT 2008 Message Pack to resolve several issues that are related to SWIFT message validation

961020 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961020/ ) FIX: Event IDs 5812, 5743, and 5754 are logged when you use BizTalk Accelerator for HL7 2.0

961023 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961023/ ) FIX: Batched and unbatched messages log event 4119 as an informational event in BTAHL7, or the whole batch is suspended if any message contains a parsing error

961149 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961149/ ) FIX: The receive location does not use the start date and the stop date that you set in BizTalk Server

961163 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961163/ ) Batched EDI messages that are sent from the EdiSend pipeline are not saved for Health and Activity Tracking (HAT) in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

961330 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961330/ ) FIX: The EDIMessageContent table is not purged correctly when DTA Archive and Purge job is run in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

961346 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961346/ ) 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

961534 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961534/ ) FIX: You cannot configure BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet 3.5 when you log on to the server by using a user account from the trusted domain or when you use a named instance of SQL Server for the configuration

961541 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961541/ ) FIX: The BizTalk Adapter for TIBCO EMS does not reconnect to the TIBCO EMS server after the TIBCO EMS server becomes available to reconnect

961708 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961708/ ) FIX: You cannot configure BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT 3.0, and you receive the following error message: "You need to be a BizTalk Administrator"

961724 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961724/ ) FIX: The BizTalk 2006 FTP adapter does not retrieve a file from an FTP server when you issue the RETR command

961810 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961810/ ) FIX: The number of concurrently running orchestrations in BizTalk Server reaches 250, and you experience poor performance after you install the .NET Framework 2.0 SP1 or a later version of the .Net Framework

963000 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/963000/ ) FIX: BizTalk Server 2006 R2 does not process an XML message, and the following application event error is logged: "The targetNamespace attribute cannot have empty string as its value"

963013 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/963013/ ) FIX: The BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet 3.5 configuration tool (Configuration.exe) closes unexpectedly when you run the configuration tool on a computer that does not have Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 installed

963690 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/963690/ ) FIX: Arithmetic overflow exception after you run a BAM activity for a long time in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2: "Arithmetic overflow error converting expression to data type int"

967036 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967036/ ) FIX: Binding configurations for some binding types are not saved in the WCF-Custom adapter or in the WCF-CustomIsolated adapter in BizTalk Server Administration Console

967154 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967154/ ) FIX: The FTP receive location does not receive a file if the FTP raw command is configured in the Before Get field in BizTalk Server

967606 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967606/ ) FIX: The BizTalk Server FTP adapter does not retrieve files successfully from an IBM AIX-based FTP server that is set to the fr_FR locale

967765 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967765/ ) FIX: A Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) activity does not track the first message of a batch in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

967931 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967931/ ) FIX: Unused subscription predicates are not purged from the NotEqualsPredicates table of the BizTalkMsgBoxDB database in BizTalk Server 2006 and in BizTalk 2006 R2

967939 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967939/ ) FIX: You receive a NullReferenceException error message after you rehydrate an XLANG orchestration that was running for a long time in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

967945 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967945/ ) FIX: The generated XML files are much larger than expected when you try to split an EDI document that contains multiple sub-documents by using a "multiple" type schema in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

968654 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968654/ ) FIX: A message of the System.Xml.Xmldocument type that is sent from an orchestration is suspended and a routing failure report is generated when you specify the Direct Binding type for the ports in the orchestrations in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

969558 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969558/ ) FIX: Error message when you try to deploy BAM update when partitioning is enabled for an existing activity: “All queries combined using a UNION, INTERSECT or EXCEPT operator must have an equal number of expressions in their target lists”

969987 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969987/ ) FIX: You cannot suspend or terminate service orchestration instances after you incorrectly shut down a BizTalk Server host instance in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2

970075 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/970075/ ) FIX: A Message Disposition Notification (MDN) is not received when the compression feature is enabled for the AS2 adapter in Microsoft BizTalk Server

970231 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/970231/ ) FIX: Event ID: 208 is logged, and the MessageBox_Message_Cleanup_BizTalkMsgBoxDb job may fail in BizTalk Server

970292 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/970292/ ) FIX: Error message when you view the EDI Batching Report in BizTalk Server 2006 R2: "This operation failed while accessing at least one of the Message Box databases"

970491 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/970491/ ) FIX: Negative Acknowledgement (NACK) messages that contains an invalid DateTimeStamp value are not rejected in BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet (BTARN) 3.0

970492 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/970492/ ) FIX: A BizTalk host instance consumes lots of memory and processes messages very slowly when BizTalk Server 2009 receives lots of HL7 messages

970856 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/970856/ ) FIX: Messaging properties are not tracked for some messages in an interchange in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2

971274 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971274/ ) FIX: Slow performance when you use the BizTalk Adapter for Oracle Database as a receive adapter in Microsoft BizTalk Server

971799 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971799/ ) FIX: Error message in BizTalk Server 2006 in the Application Event log when you use a SOAP send port and messages are not sent successfully: "OutOfMemoryException: Exception of type 'System.OutOfMemoryException' was thrown"

971924 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971924/ ) Enabling tracking on an MLLP receive port or BTAHL72XReceivePipeline fails to save the inbound message

971984 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971984/ ) A hotfix is available that enables you to clear the BAM data from the BAMPrimaryImport database instead of having to archive the data to the BAMArchive database in BizTalk Server 2006

971998 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971998/ ) FIX: BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT 3.0 support for the MT202COV and MT205COV message types of the SWIFT 2009 Standard

972196 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972196/ ) FIX: A BizTalk host instance stops and an Event ID 5410 is logged in the Application log in BizTalk Server 2006.

972478 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972478/ ) 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

972530 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972530/ ) Some interchanges are suspended if you use the EDI receive pipeline to receive multiple interchanges that are included in a single EDI message in BizTalk Server 2006 R2 (972530)

972538 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972538/ ) FIX: Some BAM events are not tracked for a batch of messages if continuation is defined in the tracking profile in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

972849 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972849/ ) Fix: In BizTalk Server 2006 R2, you cannot build a BizTalk Server project if the project refers to a schema and the first part of the schema namespace is a substring of the project namespace

973453 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973453/ ) FIX: Error message in the Application event log when you use BizTalk Adapter for Oracle Database in BizTalk Server 2006: "Underlying connection was closed: Either there was a fatal error on the server or client authentication failed"

973474 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973474/ ) FIX: Error message "Fatal error encountered in EDI Disassembler" is logged in the Application event log when you receive an HIPAA 837 Professional document that contains more than 50 occurrences of Loop 2400 in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

973770 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973770/ ) FIX: You experience low performance when executing an SQL query that refers to the "ActivityID" field of the bam_ActivityName_CompletedRelationships table in BizTalk Server 2006 or in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

974265 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/974265/ ) FIX: Per-instance pipeline configuration in a request-response MLLP receive location is not executed correctly for a custom send pipeline when you use BizTalk Accelerator for HL7 2.0 in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

975118 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975118/ ) FIX: BizTalk host instances may crash with a System.OutOfMemoryException exception message in BizTalk Server

937173 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937173/ ) FIX: Error message when you receive an MIME/SMIME document in BizTalk Server 2006 or BizTalk Server 2006 R2: "Item has already been added"

945998 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/945998/ ) FIX: The values of an EDIFACT message are not calculated correctly in BizTalk Server 2006 R2 when the EDIFACT message specifies a comma (,) as the decimal separator in a UNA segment

948238 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948238/ ) FIX: BizTalk Server host instance stops unexpectedly and restarts because of a System.OutOfMemoryException exception in BizTalk Server

950673 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950673/ ) FIX: BizTalk Server 2006 R2 does not display the correct MDN Status in an AS2 message and the correlated MDN status report when the MDN contains the error "unexpected-processing-error"

950868 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950868/ ) FIX: You receive an error message when you configure the "BizTalk EDI/AS2 Runtime" option in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

950980 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950980/ ) FIX: The FTP adapter cannot parse a LIST response that is in non-English format in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

951762 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951762/ ) FIX: A suspended orchestration instance is not resumed immediately in BizTalk Server 2006 if the orchestration contains a Delay shape

952195 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952195/ ) FIX: The EDIFACT document is suspended if it contains a UNH2.5 segment in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

952310 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952310/ ) FIX: BizTalk Server Administration displays incorrect or blank application name for some orchestration instances after you add a new MessageBox database in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

970194 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/970194/ ) FIX: A Target server receives only the last message when you use a BizTalk FileAct adapter to send over PUT FILE requests that have the same "Sw:LogicalName" logical name specified in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

972853 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972853/ ) FIX: A hotfix is available that lets you remove white spaces in outgoing messages for BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet (BTARN) 3.5

973430 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973430/ ) FIX: You receive a NullReferenceException exception when you use the Call Orchestration shape in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

973901 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973901/ ) FIX: Error message when you receive an 837 document in BizTalk Server 2006 R2: "Missing or invalid or duplicate Transaction set identifier"

975826 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975826/ ) FIX: Error message when you use the POP3 adapter in BizTalk Server 2006 R2: "The POP3 adapter received a response line from a server that contains more than 512 characters"

976622 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/976622/ ) FIX: An orchestration instance is dehydrated, and messages are not sent to the SAP server when you use Microsoft BizTalk Adapter 2.0 for mySAP Business Suite

Design changes that are included in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Service Pack 1

The Microsoft.BizTalk.Edi.BatchingOrchestration.BatchingService orchestration now supports the Allow leading and trailing zeroes and spaces EDI property of a party. Prior to SP1, the orchestration instance would suspend when a message contained a leading or trailing zero or space.
Multiple AS2 certificates can be configured for outbound message signing. In the AS2 Properties of a party, you can enable the Override Group Signature Certificate property and specify a certificate. This allows you specify different certificates for different parties.
For more information about configuring certificates for AS2, visit the following Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) Web site:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb728096(BTS.20).aspx (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb728096(BTS.20).aspx)
When using the BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Management Pack, CPU may go to 100% when there are many BizTalk artifacts. This issue is fixed in a new release of Microsoft BizTalk Server Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007. To download the new management pack, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=389FCB89-F4CF-46D7-BC6E-57830D234F91&displaylang=en&displaylang=en (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=389FCB89-F4CF-46D7-BC6E-57830D234F91&displaylang=en&displaylang=en)
If there is a side-by-side deployment of a convoy orchestration, a message may be delivered to the existing older version of the orchestration (convoy subscription) as well as activating an instance of the new version of the orchestration.
In SP1, a new PruneSubsOfOrchestrationVersionsWithConvoy registry key is exposed. When PruneSubsOfOrchestrationVersionsWithConvoy is set to 1, the message will be delivered only to the existing convoy subscription of the older version of the orchestration. When set to any other value, the message will be delivered to both versions of the orchestration.
After you install SP1, follow these steps to configure the PruneSubsOfOrchestrationVersionsWithConvoy registry key:
Warning Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall the operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk.
1. Open the registry and select the following key:
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\BTSSvc$<HostName>
2. Create a new DWORD Value named PruneSubsOfOrchestrationVersionsWithConvoy.
3. Select Decimal and set the Value Data value to 1.
4. Restart the host instance.
In BizTalk Administration, the time taken to deploy, start or stop an application that has many artifacts has improved.
The WCF-Custom adapter can also use the bindings specified in the BizTalk configuration file (BTSNTSvc.exe.config or BTSNTSvc64.exe.config). Prior to SP1, the WCF adapters used the bindings specified in the machine.config file.
For more information on using the BizTalk configuration file for the WCF-Custom adapter, visit the following Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) Web site:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee519509(BTS.20).aspx (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee519509(BTS.20).aspx)

Technorati Tags: BizTalk 2006 R2 SP1

eCommerce and Content Management With Brian Walker

2010-01-06T13:59:00.001-05:00

As a New Year’s gift, here is a link to the session that my company is hosting with Forrester.

The strategic importance of content management for retailers and CPGs involved in e-commerce has dramatically increased in the past year. According to the old adage - content is king - and companies are starting to realize that the customer expectations have changed. Companies that harness their content properly can help engage customers and ultimately drive sales - online and across channels.
Please join us on January 21st at 1pm EST as we present an e-commerce content management discussion with featured guest, Brian Walker from Forrester Research Inc. Learn about the evolution and trends in e-commerce content management, as well as some key questions to ask as you plan your content management strategy.

In this Webinar we will explore:

· The impact of improved content on businesses

· The growing complexity of e-commerce content today

· How other businesses are prioritizing improving content and content management tools

· Key recommendations for e-commerce businesses today

Forrester Senior Analyst - Brian K. Walker

Brian serves eBusiness & Channel Strategy professionals. He researches the effect that technology advancements, operational needs, and changing consumer behaviors have on the online retail industry. Brian has specific expertise in B2C and B2B eBusiness within retail and online travel, and his interests focus on multichannel strategies; user experience design; and technology solutions that facilitate the interactions between consumers, retailers, and brands. Brian has experience with a wide range of eCommerce technologies, ranging from platforms and software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings to analytics, rich imaging, search, online marketing tools, and content management, among others.

p.s. NRF's 99th Annual Convention & Expo is just around the corner! Feel free to drop us a line if you'd like to meet up during the show to check our new CommerceLive features!

Happy New Year!

Technorati Tags: eCommerce,Commerce Server 2009

Consolidation of BizTalk v.NEXT Features/Resources

2009-12-07T13:36:00.001-05:00

There has been some nice talks and information around BizTalk v.NEXT

The first are updated resources to get the most of the information for the upcoming release of BizTalk. The first is a post from our friend Mr. Jim Bowyer, a Microsoft Tech Specialist).

· Deeper Microsoft Application Platform Alignment - Leveraging innovations in the platform including in .NET and in the Windows Server AppFabric to further enhance BizTalk Server’s enterprise-readiness by simplifying development, scalability, deployment and management capabilities. E.g. hosting of WF instances inside a BizTalk Server; allowing Flexible deployment options for WF inside BizTalk allowing WF instances to use the BizTalk messaging subsystems for persistence and reliability or bypass it to enable lower latency scenarios; new BizTalk Mapper designing transformation between WF data contracts (not just XML documents); Instrumentation of WF workflows to BizTalk Business Activity Monitoring (BAM), providing business process metrics and operational insight into WF based processes.

· Enterprise Connectivity for AppFabric -Making it easier for .NET application built on the AppFabric to integrate seamlessly with existing enterprise applications such as LOB systems and with existing Business-to-Business connectivity infrastructure

· On-Premises Server and Cloud Service Symmetry - Facilitating the connection from on-promises applications to cloud services on Windows Azure platform and from cloud services to on-premises applications. Providing the option to deploy some integration services as cloud services on the Windows Azure platform.

The second is a compilation that I have to admit is a rip off of the cURL scripts from Scott Cate’s most excellent blog.

Although, it is very cool to download all the PPTX’s and WMV’s of the sessions, it is over 16 gigabytes of data. I have included a modified copy to include only the BizTalk/App fabric related ones as an attachment in this blog.

Technorati Tags: BizTalk,cURL,PDC09

Microsoft BizTalk Server Futures and Roadmap

2009-11-23T10:28:00.001-05:00

The PDC (Professional Developers Conference) was truly one of those areas that helped give excellent insight into all old and new technologies Microsoft.

One very exciting one was the reaffirmation of the BizTalk platform in Microsoft’s roadmap. This along with some excellent updates to the Mapper were covered by our favorite PUM, Sriram. Please take the time to view it here.

The highlights include:

Platform Alignment - support for the following products and technologies:
- Visual Studio 2010
- Windows Server 2008 R2
- SQL Server 2008 R2
Productivity Improvements
- Single dashboard to apply and manage performance parameters
- Out-of-the-box support for Event Filtering and Delivery (RFID)
- PowerShell access to management tasks
- New System Center Operation Management SCOM Pack object model to better reflect BizTalk artifacts
B2B Scenarios Made Easy
- Mapper enhancements to make complex mapping easier to create and maintain
- FTPS to provide secure transactions between businesses
- Updated B2B accelerators for latest protocol versions

This is all available in what Microsoft will deem as the R2 version of BizTalk 2009 and confirms the 18-24 month release cycle.

Technorati Tags: BizTalk 2009 R2

Commerce Server Licensing Clarification

2009-11-11T13:22:00.001-05:00

I get asked this a lot of the differences between Commerce Server Standard and Enterprise. The resources on the web actually cause a few questions to be raised

Commerce Server 2009 Feature (32-bit and 64-bit)	Benefit	Standard	Enterprise
Functionality
Commerce Server Applications per Commerce site	Specific “applications” within Commerce Server can be created for better performance handling.	1	Unlimited
Number of Commerce Server Sites per Server	Specific “sites” within Commerce Server can be created for better performance handling.	10	Unlimited (Bound only by hardware or IIS limits)

The questioning usually comes around what is an “application” and what is a “site”.

Based on the MSDN site:

A) Commerce Server Application : A Commerce Server application is a logical representation of an application in Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS); it appears in both the Commerce Server Manager and IIS console trees. In the IIS console tree, an application is either at the root directory level of the Web site or at a subdirectory level of the Web site. Web services do not count as Commerce Server applications for license purposes.

B) Commerce Server Site: A Commerce Server site includes a collection of site resources and ASP.NET-based applications that use these resources through the Commerce Server object model. With a Commerce Server site, you can administer the applications in the site as a group. Note that a Commerce Server site does not map to the concept of a Web site in IIS.

Based on these definitions, Standard Edition can have one of “A” and you can have 10 of “B” that leverages off that one “A”.

*UPDATES**

This seems to be a hot topic as I got a few comments on clarification for what really is A and B.

Firstly, there is an update to MSDN to what an Application and a Site is:

“A Commerce Server 2009 application is a logical representation of a Web application in IIS. It appears in both the Commerce Server 2009 Manager and IIS management console trees. In the IIS management console tree, a Commerce Server 2009 application is either at the root directory level of the Web site or at a subdirectory level of the Web site. Commerce Server 2009 applications are also referred to as Web services.

When you unpack a site, a Commerce Server 2009 Web application is created. Customers use their browser to access this application. Web applications typically involve purchasing or ordering products that customers browse online, put in a basket, and ultimately acquire through the check-out process.

Depending on the components you select to install, as many as four additional Web applications (Web services) are created when you unpack a site:

Catalog Web Service
Marketing Web Service
Orders Web Service
Profiles Web Service

These applications are not counted against the Commerce Server 2009 Standard Edition limit of one Commerce Server 2009 application per site.”

So now an application is a web service. This makes things a ton easier.

I will attempt to show what these mean with some screenshots (as always, a picture is worth a thousand words!)

A – what is a Commerce Server Application?

According to the definition, we can see the applications in this screen shot of the Commerce Server Manager and IIS:

since by the definition by the definition a CS 2009 application is also a web service, we can safely say (excluding the 4 that come OOB), there are now 6 applications.

In IIS, from the picture above, I actually have 2 distinct web sites (SharePoint 35000 and SharePoint 35001) that are using Commerce Server Objects. The rest are just MOSS/IIS default sites.

B – what is a Commerce Server Site

This has been updated to reflect:

“A Commerce Server 2009 site includes a collection of site resources and .NET-connected applications that use the site resources through the Commerce Server 2009 object model. With a Commerce Server 2009 site, you can administer the applications in the site as a group. Be aware that a Commerce Server 2009 site does not map to the concept of a Web site in Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS).

Sites can be packaged and unpacked in a PuP file by using Site Packager. You package your Commerce Server 2009 site (including the IIS metabase settings), site files from the file system, resources from the Administration database, and SQL Server databases into a single file. You also use Site Packager to unpack the Commerce Server 2009 site (or sections of it) onto other computers.”

Based on this description, and from the IIS point I made above I have 2 Commerce Sites, one that is Admin site and the other being a FBA site for the Green Label Site.

Thus net/net, I have 2 Sites and since they are each using the 4 web services or applications (that come OOB). I should be fine in terms of licensing for standard edition.

Technorati Tags: Commerce Server 2009,Licensing

Commerce Server 2009 Contemporary Site – How to add a new Credit Card

2009-10-27T15:42:00.001-04:00

The current Commerce Server 2009 VPC on Connect has a good example of a shopping site on MOSS. The sample site comes with 2 credit cards.

The following shows how to add an additional credit card. I chose to add an American Express card.

1) add the credit card in the Customer and Orders Manager. To do this, go to Start >> All Programs >> Microsoft Commerce Server 2009 >> Customer and Orders Manager

2) Select Payment Methods

3) Right click and select New Payment method

4) Enter in the credit card details in the Name/Description box. Note that the Pipeline Name: is creditcard

Note the GroupID : 0e640fbd-8058-41b1-8405-c731cebf2c80

5) Click Save and Close. Next go to the Virtual directory and edit “C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\82\web.config”

6) Find the CreditCards section and add the entry for American Express with the GUID from above

7) Login to the Contemporary site and go to the My Account and select My Credit Cards. select Add a new credit card and you will see the new American Express card.

Technorati Tags: Commerce Server 2009,Contemporary Site

Neat Translation Service

2009-09-22T13:46:00.001-04:00

In the world of eCommerce and Integration there are typically a lot of requirements for translations. The support of double byte characters in the Windows Code set pretty much guarantee a truly international solution when using Windows Server products such as Commerce Server and BizTalk.

The fun thing was when I heard about this service that would be available soon during a TechEd 2009. Check this web site, I noticed a cool “plug in” into Windows Live Messenger.

This is the following icon:

Note that I have yet to play around with the widget.

To use this bot, simply add mtbot@hotmail.com to your contacts and invite him/her to your conversations.

After adding the bot into a 3 way conversation (or more) you can set your source and destination languages via numerics as the screenshots show.

The instructions for those that do not read french, are choose source and destination language

Probably have to take my word for it, but the translation is pretty good…

The interface is as follows:

A translation is (kinda ironic here…)

TBot lang – show the pair of active languages
TBot change – choose the languages for translation
TBot stop – stop translations
TBot start – being translations again
TBot set – set the working language
Tobot ? – Show this list of commands

Kinda fun and the translations are pretty accurate so far. I would say enough to get by.

p.s.

After translating the list, I set the working language to English and here is the list:

Technorati Tags: Commerce Server,BizTalk Server,Translations,Bing

Now that you built it, how do you keep it running and measure it ?

2009-09-21T13:21:00.001-04:00

I had a great discussion with fellow MVP’er and genius Kent Weare. The topic of discussion spawned from a very simple question:

“Internally, we are starting to measure our critical system’s uptime availability. These “critical” systems would include applications like Exchange, SAP, BizTalk , our Work order management system and the network of course. Are there any standards that your organizations follow? ”

I would say the majority of standards are represented in one way our another via the Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) which also has it ties with the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL).

Those 2 links provide a heck of a lot of reading but at the end of the day, all these are, are simple guidelines. The trick is to figure out how to apply it to your business.

Here are some general guidelines:

Determine SLA’s from the business for each class of applications (i.e. email, DB, integration)

Meeting SLA’s are the criteria for what constitutes uptime/downtime
Get consensus if maintenance windows constitute downtime

Find out from the business what level of uptime is required for each
Determine a weighting factor for each required class (i.e. DB is weighted at 80 points, Integration is 15 points, light DB is 5 points)

weighting factors can help determine overall uptime, if light DB is 5 points, even if it is down for 50% of the time, the division can still have a 99% + uptime record.

Get current volumes and end to end architecture for present and present + 6 months
Estimate cost of up time in 1 based on points 2-4
Be prepared to redo points 1-5 based on freak out from number in 5 :)
Typical organizations begin with uptimes around 98.9% to 99.9% as a starting point (and NO, 98.9 does not constitute 2 9’s ;) )

Things to remember

This model has to be reviewed with every single project and at a minimum every 3 months due to growth and bursts in regular business
Remember to follow the entire length of the transaction to determine uptime

these may include 3rd party providers unless specifically noted
these do include network, power generators etc. as they can tie into a DR plan (Disaster Recovery)

Factor in year to year growth

Servers spec’d out 2 years ago may not be sufficient to handle the current load if your cluster fails due to organic growth

Technorati Tags: MOF,ITIL,Uptime

August CTP of Commerce Server 2009 “R2” available

2009-08-28T09:21:00.001-04:00

Just a quick fyi that the August CTP of Commerce Server 2009 R2 is not available on connect.

Features include:

Complete 3-tier/n-tier functionality – which enables Commerce Server to be used outside of the normal Web page/Web server context from any type of Rich Interactive Application (RIA), such as Silverlight, Air, or a native mobility solution such as a native iPhone client

A robust claims-based authentication mechanism to allow this to be securely used over the Internet – even for shopping scenarios

Visual merchandising toolbar functionality – including much richer catalog editing, cross-sell/up-sell, and image management – all implemented in Silverlight 3
Numerous improvements to the out-of-box site

Technorati Tags: Commerce Server 2009 R2,Commerce Server

Funny but true errors in MSDN

2009-08-27T11:45:00.001-04:00

Just found this little blurb in MSDN: “Integration with the Catalog System. The Catalog System provides the same features and functionality as the Catalog System. For example, you can search inventory catalogs, import inventory catalogs, and export inventory catalogs.”

I am really glad that the catalog system provides the same features as the catalog system… ;)

Upgrading BizTalk 2006 R2 to 2009

2009-08-26T14:24:00.001-04:00

Found this interesting blog via Twitter.

I could not fully understand the reason for failure or the conditions for failure in this very very condensed blog. From what I gather, here is the contention point:

1) project was done in both BizTalk 2006 R2 and Visual Studio 2005.

2) Upgrade was to both BizTalk 2009 and Visual Studio 2008

It seems that the btoj files are not updated correctly and it requires multiple manual tweaks to get these BizTalk projects to be upgradable and recognized by VS 2008.

BizTalk 2009 Operations Guide

2009-07-27T15:20:00.001-04:00

The guide may be found here. It is a fantastic guide almost around anything that you need to know.

To save some trees, get an e-reader! The guide is 440 pages!

First Ottawa BizTalk User Group

2009-07-22T13:40:00.001-04:00

Very happy to report that the “Dublin, Oslo, WF 4.0 and BizTalk” discussion at the first Ottawa BTUG went extremely well. We are targeting an RFID talk in Mid October.

I have to say that there are some good people in Ottawa and we are well along the ways to a very tight community.

Please register here to join the Ottawa BTUG.

BizTalk 2009 is now “OFFICIALLY” working with Commerce Server 2009

2009-07-22T11:20:00.001-04:00

Fantastic news, the majority of the documentation on the internet and on Microsoft indicating that only older (think 2006) versions of BizTalk are supported by Commerce Server 2007 and Commerce Server 2009.

I am super happy to report now that the product team has confirmed that internal testing is complete. Commerce Server 2007 SP2 and Commerce Server 2009 work just fine with BizTalk 2009!!!

Ottawa BizTalk User Group – First event!

2009-07-13T14:03:00.001-04:00

Please register here for the first Ottawa BizTalk User Group event driven by myself and the great Andrei Balan.

The focus will be on Dublin and BizTalk.

Please help us make this fun event successful!

There will be tons of cool stuff and free pizza and drinks!

PowerShell Scripts for BizTalk

2009-07-13T11:30:00.001-04:00

This is a bit old but useful for those PowerShell fans that love BizTalk as well. Here is a great blog post from Tomas Restrepo on the some script samples to administer BizTalk Server.

Technorati Tags: BizTalk,PowerShell

Commerce Server 2009 code name R2 CTP

2009-06-08T11:42:00.001-04:00

R2 June CTP is now available here.

A couple of things to note:

This is not feature complete
Do NOT install this on a production environment
This is 64 bit only!
There is no upgrade from CS 2007 or CS 2009 to CS 2009 R2. i.e. you need to uninstall CS 2007/2009 before installing CS 2009 R2. The instructions are here.

However, the new functionality is pretty cool.

API. Ability to update products and categories via the Commerce Foundation Services API. Authorization is not available in the CTP, thus any caller can update products or categories currently.
Business Administration Toolbar. Displayed on the NTLM site, the Silverlight 3-based administrative toolbar provides a point of extensibility that allows developers to create custom Silverlight "plug-ins" to be run from the toolbar. The toolbar supports multiple tabs for ease of organizing tools.
Cross Sell/Up Sell Relationship Manager. Used to manage cross sell and up sell relationships for a product or category. Launched from the Business Administration Toolbar (active when on a category or product page), the user can select products and/or categories to be displayed as cross sell or up-sell items.
Commerce Foundation Services. The ability to run Commerce Foundation Services as a service and thus make requests to Commerce Server in a distributed server environment. There are new configuration sections and elements to support this as described in the core documentation. Note that distributed Commerce Server is not supported out-of-the-box in the default contemporary site in this release.
Security Note: In a distributed Commerce Server environment, the ability to define secured access to Commerce Server assets via the Commerce Foundation Services will be required. Commerce Foundation Services security is not yet available in this CTP release but is planned for upcoming releases.
Router Service. This service can be configured to forward messages from a browser client to the Commerce Foundation Services operating in a distributed environment. The Routing Service implements a security boundary in Commerce Server applications where Commerce Server assets are installed in an enterprise behind security firewalls and not in Internet facing servers. The Routing Service exposes a service endpoint to handle client Commerce Server requests, and is also documented in the Commerce Server core documentation.
New default contemporary site. The out-of-the-box Default Site in Commerce Server 2009 is replaced with the default contemporary site. This updated default contemporary site gives you a more streamlined and appealing out-of-the-box shopping site to work from.
Business Tools Extensibility Kit. Formerly known as the Partner SDK, the Business Tools Extensibility Kit includes the source code for the Business Management Applications.

Technorati Tags: Commerce Server 2007,Commerce Server 2009,Commerce Server 2009 R2

Bing

2009-06-02T12:10:00.001-04:00

While I wonder around the way the name is marketed, I love this new revamp of Live Search.

On Vista (yes, I am too chicken to install Windows 7 due to constant customer demos on my machine), it was smart enough to replace my Windows Live search in the IE Search toolbar.

There are several things I like about this right away with the first being the look and feel. A quick search on my scoobie WRX shows this:

Google on the other hand shows:

You would notice that the direct hit on the stock is a perfect match and something that I tend to agree with.

The related matches are also a comparable with that of Google.

In this beta preview, they say the results are very locale based, more to come when I use this for more technical searches on my day to day.

Technorati Tags: Bing,Search

Free books from Microsoft E-Book Offer

2009-05-27T14:43:00.001-04:00

Couple of free books here. Good offers by MS Press every month.

Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services Resource Kit by Christa Anderson and Kristin L Griffin with the Microsoft Presentation Hosted Desktop Virtualization Team
ISBN: 9780735625853

In-depth and comprehensive, this Resource Kit delivers the information you need to set up, deploy, and manage a Terminal Services farm using Windows Server 2008. For more information or to buy the print version of this title, visit the Microsoft Learning website.

The Practical Guide to Defect Prevention by Marc McDonald, Robert Musson, and Ross Smith
ISBN: 9780735622531

This practical, hands-on guide captures, categorizes, and builds a process of best practices to help avoid creating defects during the development process—rather than fixing them after extensive analysis. For more information or to buy the print version of this title, visit the Microsoft Learning website.

Technorati Tags: Terminal Services

Commerce Server Inventory Adapter Error: “Finding the document specification by message type "MSInventoryCollection" failed. Verify the schema deployed properly.”

2009-05-26T14:20:00.001-04:00

I have been coding some sample updates on the Inventory Adapter for Commerce Server (2006 R2 version) on BizTalk 2009. I encountered a funny error.

Note that this is a simple flow that bypasses the message box all together. It is a simple file drop receive location with an XML transmit to an XML receive send port via the Inventory Adapter.

The error that I got was:

There was a failure executing the receive pipeline: "Microsoft.BizTalk.DefaultPipelines.XMLReceive, Microsoft.BizTalk.DefaultPipelines, Version=3.0.1.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" Source: "XML disassembler" Receive Port: "InventorySchemaReceive" URI: "C:\demo\Output\InventoryInput\*.xml" Reason: Finding the document specification by message type "MSInventoryCollection" failed. Verify the schema deployed properly.

Research did not get me anywhere. So I did what every normal BizTalk guy would do… that is right, I flipped it to “passthrough” on both the receive and send side and got the following errors:

The adapter "Commerce Server Inventory Adapter" raised an error message. Details "Failed to create the Inventory Service Agent in 'Commerce Server Inventory Send Adapter'. Please check that you have a valid URL and that it is accessible. If the URL is valid, please check that you have configured your web proxy settings correctly. Message: Index (zero based) must be greater than or equal to zero and less than the size of the argument list.. Stack   at System.Text.StringBuilder.AppendFormat(IFormatProvider provider, String format, Object[] args)
   at System.String.Format(IFormatProvider provider, String format, Object[] args)
   at Microsoft.CommerceServer.BizTalk.Adapters.CommonUtilities.ConnectToCatalogService(CommonConnectionProperties connectionProperties, String service, String eventViewId)
   at Microsoft.CommerceServer.Adapter.Inventory.SendAdapterProperties.LocationConfiguration(XmlDocument endpointConfig).".

and

The adapter failed to transmit message going to send port "SendtoInventory" with URL "CommerceServerInventorySend://SendInventory/http://localhost/DefaultSite_CatalogWebService". It will be retransmitted after the retry interval specified for this Send Port. Details:"Failed to create the Inventory Service Agent in 'Commerce Server Inventory Send Adapter'. Please check that you have a valid URL and that it is accessible. If the URL is valid, please check that you have configured your web proxy settings correctly. Message: Index (zero based) must be greater than or equal to zero and less than the size of the argument list.. Stack   at System.Text.StringBuilder.AppendFormat(IFormatProvider provider, String format, Object[] args)
   at System.String.Format(IFormatProvider provider, String format, Object[] args)
   at Microsoft.CommerceServer.BizTalk.Adapters.CommonUtilities.ConnectToCatalogService(CommonConnectionProperties connectionProperties, String service, String eventViewId)
   at Microsoft.CommerceServer.Adapter.Inventory.SendAdapterProperties.LocationConfiguration(XmlDocument endpointConfig).".

Ultimately, the error that put things on track was the following:

Failed to create the Inventory Service Agent in 'Commerce Server Inventory Send Adapter'. Please check that you have a valid URL and that it is accessible. If the URL is valid, please check that you have configured your web proxy settings correctly. Message: Index (zero based) must be greater than or equal to zero and less than the size of the argument list.. Stack   at System.Text.StringBuilder.AppendFormat(IFormatProvider provider, String format, Object[] args)
   at System.String.Format(IFormatProvider provider, String format, Object[] args)
   at Microsoft.CommerceServer.BizTalk.Adapters.CommonUtilities.ConnectToCatalogService(CommonConnectionProperties connectionProperties, String service, String eventViewId)
   at Microsoft.CommerceServer.Adapter.Inventory.SendAdapterProperties.LocationConfiguration(XmlDocument endpointConfig).

I then found a bug in the Inventory adapter configuration:

The Web Service URL had a space in the URL and after this, the adapter worked fine in both XML transmit and Pass Thru with the following message:

The inventory import process started.

Technorati Tags: Commerce Server 2009,BizTalk 2009,Inventory Adapter

BizTalk 2009 Overview

2009-05-26T11:37:00.001-04:00

Here is a great updated whitepaper on BizTalk Server 2009.

Technorati Tags: BizTalk 2009

Great New Paper on BizTalk 2009/R2/2006 Adapters for Enterprise Applications

2009-05-06T09:43:00.001-04:00

This document provides instructions for installing and configuring Microsoft® BizTalk® Adapters for Enterprise Applications for both BizTalk Server 2006, BizTalk Server 2006 R2 and BizTalk Server 2009. As auxiliary information, it also provides instructions for installing and configuring Microsoft BizTalk Adapter v2.0 for mySAP™ Business Suite Service Pack 1.

Microsoft BizTalk Adapters for Enterprise Applications includes the following adapters:

· Microsoft BizTalk Adapter for J.D. Edwards EnterpriseOne

· Microsoft BizTalk Adapter for J.D. Edwards OneWorld XE

· Microsoft BizTalk ODBC Adapter for Oracle Database

· Microsoft BizTalk ODBC Adapter for Oracle E-Business Suite

[The following Oracle E-Business Suite has been deprecated for Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009]

· Microsoft BizTalk Adapter for PeopleSoft Enterprise

· Microsoft BizTalk Adapter for Siebel eBusiness Applications

· Microsoft BizTalk Adapter for TIBCO Enterprise Message Service

· Microsoft BizTalk Adapter for TIBCO Rendezvous

Get it here.

Technorati Tags: BizTalk 2009,Enteprise Adapters

Additional Great BizTalk 2009 Material

2009-05-04T10:03:00.001-04:00

Here is a link to the BizTalk 2009 Hyper V guide!

The Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009 Hyper-V Guide is the first installment of the BizTalk Server 2009 update to a series of guides intended to provide easily accessible, hands-on guidance to our customer and partner community. This 139 page guide is available on MSDN, TechNet and as a separate DOCX, PDF or CHM download.

Technorati Tags: BizTalk 2009,Hyper-V

TechEd 2009 Speaking Session

2009-05-01T10:24:00.001-04:00

The details around my session are approved and here are the details:

Code: SOA 205

Title: Radio Frequency Identification: Affecting End Users, Online, ERP to Plant Floor

Date/Time : 5/15/2009 2:45PM-4:00PM

Room: Theatre 411

Abstract:

This session provides a look at BizTalk RFID and the effect it has on users in real life. How RFID would affect End Users/consumers of online offerings, Enteprise resource planning applications to the plant floor. This view examines how BizTalk and BizTalk RFID can play specific roles in supporting and adding value to each of these sections.

This will be a wild session as I just finished polishing up my demo and it is totally wicked!

BizTalk Hot Rod Magazine

2009-04-23T06:06:00.001-04:00

Kinda geeky cool tagline of “Where BizTalk Meets the Road” .

This is a magazine about all things BizTalk with some good posts in a nice PDF format.

Check here for the latest issue (6) of Q2 2009.

Technorati Tags: BizTalk magazine,BizTalk Hot Rod

BizTalk ESB Portal Fault Message Viewer

2009-04-23T05:26:00.001-04:00

Speaking with a lot of customers, they always seem to like the ideas and concepts around the ESB Portal Fault Message Viewer and the functionality it provides. The reality is that this nifty piece of work can add a great deal of value to most projects ongoing to day. Simply hook into Custom Exception Encoder Pipeline component and the portal will display all the errors.

Information on this is located in MSDN but I have attached a few screen shots of the portal with the fault views and the message details views below.

Technorati Tags: ESB,BizTalk,ESB Management Portal

Commerce Server 2009 Template Pack

2009-04-16T17:45:00.001-04:00

The new Microsoft Commerce Server 2009 Template Pack offers a refreshed, contemporary "skin" of the Default site for both desktop browsers and mobile devices (specifically Windows Mobile and iPhone™). This new Contemporary Site is a full-featured and functional shopping Web site that uses SharePoint as the presentation front-end in either Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS). It also offers a default production quality site design that creative professionals can quickly and easily customize to suit the needs of their organization.
Download the Commerce Server 2009 Template Pack.

New! Inline Product Property Editor
The Microsoft Commerce Server 2009 Inline Product Property Editor is a snap-in for product administration for merchandisers. This Microsoft Silverlight™ control, hosted in an ASP.NET Web Part, enables merchandisers to update product information on their SharePoint-based e-commerce site directly, instantly reflecting changes, in a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) experience. The Inline Product Property Editor allows for quick edits to attribute information such as description, title, and price, which are reflected back to the master catalog in Commerce Server 2009. The Inline Product Property Editor is designed to work on any SharePoint site, including the Default site, the contemporary site, or any other customized SharePoint-based site with Commerce Server installed.
Also included is the Inline Product Property Editor Extensibility Kit that consists of the source code for the Silverlight Web Part. Developers can use the source code to customize or extend the capabilities of the Inline Product Property Editor by using Microsoft Silverlight, and the Multi-Channel Commerce Foundation that was introduced in Commerce Server 2009.
Download the Inline Product Property Editor.

Localizing Your Commerce Server 2009 Site Using Site Variations
Download instructions on how to localize a Microsoft Commerce Server 2009 Default site, or any other SharePoint-based e-commerce site using Microsoft Commerce Server 2009, using site variations in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS).

Technorati Tags: Commerce Server 2009,Template Pack,MOSS,SharePoint

Free Virtualization E-book

2009-04-15T10:38:00.001-04:00

As you know, I have always been facisnated by Virtualization technology with only my bank account preventing me from getting a nice 64 bit server to play around with Hyper-V and host everything under the sun.

My fellow MVP Mitch Tulloch has released a free E-book which I want to share with everyone on virtualization solutions. Here is a blurb:

Understanding Microsoft Virtualization Solutions

By Mitch Tulloch with the Microsoft Virtualization Teams
ISBN: 9780735693371

This guide will teach you about the benefits of the latest virtualization technologies and how to plan, implement, and manage virtual infrastructure solutions. The technologies covered include: Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5, Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization, and Microsoft Virtual Desktop Infrastructure.

Thank you Mitch and feel free to get it here.

Technorati Tags: Hyper-V,Virtualization,Windows Server 2008

Kick off of Ottawa BizTalk User Group

2009-04-15T10:11:00.001-04:00

I am very proud to help launch the BizTalk User Group in Ottawa. We have our first event on May 20th, 2009.

Please see the event here. Please try to register here.

Technorati Tags: BizTalk 2009,BizTalk User Group

Feedback Feedback Feedback

2009-04-14T18:25:00.001-04:00

Just wanted to provide a reminder that I have access to provided much needed feedback to both the BizTalk and Commerce Server Teams.

Please lay on the feedback to either my email or post a comment (clean please!).

From Twitter to Blog – All Things BizTalk 2009

2009-04-14T11:07:00.001-04:00

Those that follow me on Twitter have seen me respond to a few BizTalk posts there.

I wanted to take this chance to consolidate all the great links that are on Twitter regarding the upcoming 2009 release!

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009 Technical Overview

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 AIF BizTalk Adapter Configuration White Paper

How to use the WS-Discovery Library that ships with BizTalk RFID 2009

Microsoft BizTalk Server Operations Guide (ok this is R2 but a super article!)

EPCIS support in BizTalk RFID 2009 - Part 1

A Quick Walkthrough of the BizTalk 2006 R2 Upgrade to BizTalk 2009

BizTalk 2009 RTM Upgrade Gotchas - Tracking Data

Long live Twitter!!! This was only consolidated over the weekend.

Checking the Version of BizTalk Server

2009-04-12T23:40:00.001-04:00

I always forget how to check what version of BizTalk Server is running on my box, especially with the 2009 version out there, there will be 3 very similar versions to content (not to mention the R* releases). Here is a simple way to check:

[This is prerelease documentation and is subject to change in future releases.]

In certain situations, you might be running different versions of BizTalk Server on different servers. This topic provides a procedure for obtaining the BizTalk Server version.

To identify the version of BizTalk Server that is installed

Click Start, click Run, type regedt32, and then click OK.
In the Registry Editor window, expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, expand SOFTWARE, expand Microsoft, expand BizTalk Server, and then click 3.0.
In the right pane, find the sub-key named ProductVersion, and note the corresponding value in the Data column.
The following table maps the value of the ProductVersion key to the version of BizTalk Server it corresponds to.

If the ProductVersion key is…	Then the version of BizTalk Server is…
3.0.4902.0	BizTalk Server 2004
3.0.6070.0	BizTalk Server 2004 SP1
3.0.7405.0	BizTalk Server 2004 SP2
3.5.1602.0	BizTalk Server 2006
3.6.1404.0	BizTalk Server 2006 R2
> 3.6.1404.0	BizTalk Server 2009

Technorati Tags: BizTalk,BizTalk 2009

Another Great CS 2009 Blog

2009-04-09T13:14:00.001-04:00

Kelly is a great guy that I work with. He did some interesting redesign work with the new CS 2009 OOB site as well.

Check out his blog.

Commerce Server 2009 White Label or Starter Site VPC

2009-04-08T23:23:00.001-04:00

If you have downloaded the VPC of the CS 2009 RTM VPC image from Connect, you may have noticed that the Business Tools do not exactly work. Reason ? Well, quite simply, they were not configured with Azman.

Even after setting up the web services in each of the prompts you will need to use Azman to configure both read and edit access to be able to play around with the AdventureWorks catalog.

To do this quickly, you can simply follow the instructions for Azman on the old CS 2007 Starter Site instructions here.

Or use the excerpt I have here:

Step 3: Add Windows groups to the administrator authorization roles

Step 1: Create the business management administrator Windows groups

If you have already created a business management administrator group and the same users will access the Starter Site, you can skip this step. However, if you have a different set of users for the Starter Site, you must create different business management administrator groups.

For instructions about how to create a local Windows group, see "To create a local group" in Windows Help. You must create four administrator groups: ssCatalogAdminGroup, ssMarketingAdminGroup, ssProfilesAdminGroup, and ssOrdersAdminGroup.

Note
These represent the minimum number of Windows groups to define. For descriptions about each predefined role, see "Managing Authorization Policies" in Commerce Server 2007 Help.

Follow these steps to create the local Windows groups for business management administrators.

To create the business management administrator Windows group

On the desktop, right-click My Computer, and then click Manage.
On the Computer Management screen, under System Tools, expand Local Users and Groups.
Right-click Groups, and then click New Group.

In the New Group dialog box, do the following:

Use this	To do this
Group name	Type the group name.
Description	Optionally, type a description for this group account.
Add	Click Add to select members to add to the group. Add all user accounts that you want to the administrative group.

Use this

To do this

Group name

Type the group name.

Description

Optionally, type a description for this group account.

Add

Click Add to select members to add to the group.

Add all user accounts that you want to the administrative group.

Click Create.
Repeat steps 4 and 5 for the other required administrator groups.
Click Close.
Click the Groups folder and verify that the following groups are in the list:
- ssCatalogAdminGroup
- ssMarketingAdminGroup
- ssProfilesAdminGroup
- ssOrdersAdminGroup

Step 2: Add users to the business management administrator Windows groups

Follow these steps to add users to the administrator groups you created in step 1. At a minimum, add your account, the <CS Installer> account, to each administrator group. You do this so that you will be able to open the Business Management applications after you install them.

To add users to the Business Management Administrator Windows Groups

On the desktop, right-click My Computer, and then click Manage.
On the Computer Management screen, under System Tools, expand Local Users and Groups.
Click Groups.
In the right pane, right-click one of the Groups that you created in step 1, for example, ssCatalogAdminGroup, and then click Properties.
In the <Group Name> Properties dialog box, click Add.
In the Enter object name to select box, type the name of the user account that you want to add to the administrator group. Click Check Names to verify the name is an authorized account, and then click OK.
Repeat Steps 5 and 6 for each user account that you want to add to the selected administrator group.
Click OK to close the Properties dialog box.
Repeat Steps 4 through 8 for each administrator group.

Step 3: Add Windows groups to the administrator authorization roles

You use Authorization Manager to add individual users or user groups to a role. Authorization Manager, a Windows Server 2003 security tool, provides a role-based security model that you use to set permissions. With role-based access control, you specify access control in relation to the organizational structure of your company. For more information about Authorization Manager, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=16923.

The following table lists the minimum set of authorization roles, and their corresponding authorization stores, that you must define.

Authorization Store	Authorization Role
CatalogAuthorizationStore.xml	Administrator
MarketingAuthorizationStore.xml	MarketingAdministrator
OrdersAuthorizationStore.xml	OrdersAdministrator
ProfilesAuthorizationStore.xml	ProfileAdministrator

Follow these steps to add business users or groups to the authorization roles.

To add users to the authorization roles

Click Start, click Run, type azman.msc, and then click OK.
In the Authorization Manager screen, right-click Authorization Manager, and then click Open Authorization Store.
In the Open Authorization Store dialog box, verify that the XML file option is selected, and then click Browse to locate the authorization policy for the Web service. For example, the catalog authorization policy XML file is located at <drive:>\Inetpub\Wwwroot\ssCatalogWebService.
Select <authorization policy name>.xml, and then click Open.
In the Open Authorization Store dialog box, click OK.
Expand the authorization policy to \<authorization policy name>.xml\<System name>\Role Assignments\<Role name>. For example, \CatalogAuthorizationStore.xml\CatalogandInventorySystem\Role Assignments\CatalogAdministrator.
Right-click <Role name>, and then click Assign Windows Users and Groups.
In the Select Users, Computers, or Groups dialog box, in the Enter the object names to select box, type the name of the catalog administrator Windows group that you defined in the previous procedure, for example, ssCatalogAdminGroup. Alternatively, you can also type the name of an individual business user account. Click OK.

Repeat steps 2 through 8 for each authorization role in each Web service authorization store. When complete, you will have defined the following:

Authorization Store	Authorization Role	Administrator Group
CatalogAuthorizationStore.xml	Administrator	ssCatalogAdminGroup
MarketingAuthorizationStore.xml	MarketingAdministrator	ssMarketingAdminGroup
OrdersAuthorizationStore.xml	OrdersAdministrator	ssOrdersAdminGroup
ProfilesAuthorizationStore.xml	ProfileAdministrator	ssProfilesAdminGroup

Technorati Tags: CS 2009,White Label Site,Starter Site

Re-Awarded BizTalk MVP

2009-04-07T18:38:00.001-04:00

Many thanks to Microsoft for the 3rd consecutive BizTalk MVP award!

BizTalk Server 2009 BETA CHM

2009-04-02T10:48:00.001-04:00

I have a few clients asking for the CHM information on BizTalk 2009 (BETA). To centralize it, here it is >> http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=38923F29-167F-497D-80A5-899602FEF8D7&displaylang=en

Technorati Tags: BizTalk R3,BizTalk 2009

Tech Ed 2009 RFID Session

2009-03-27T17:28:00.001-04:00

I get the privilege of speaking again at Tech Ed 2009 this year in Los Angeles.

Here are some details on my session, please swing by!

Title: SOA 205 - Radio Frequency Identification - Affecting End users, Online, ERP to Plant floor.

Abstract: A look at BizTalk RFID and the effect it has on users in real life. How RFID would affect End Users/consumers to online offerings, to Enteprise resource planning applications to the plant floor. This view will examine how BizTalk and BizTalk RFID can play specific roles in supporting and adding value to each of these sections.

Technorati Tags: RFID,TEchEd 2009,BizTalk RFID

Do you really want to be an MVP ?

2009-03-27T17:20:00.002-04:00

As you know my BizTalk MVP status is coming up for renewal in April 1st. A good guy I met at the 2008 MVP conference D’Arcy Lussier placed me in a video to *ahem* encourage his buddy Justice Gray to get his MVP.

This is not technical but a great deal of fun and dangers of being a Microsoft MVP. Well, technically, the dangers of getting there…

Check out D’Arcy’s blog.

If anyone is interested my segment is at 2:05!

<br/><a href="http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=725c79a3-acce-405b-be74-ade386e0cbb8" target="_new" title="Justice Gray - A Community Reaches Out"></a>Video: Justice Gray - A Community Reaches Out
Justice Gray - A Community Reaches Out

Feedback on BizTalk, BizTalk RFID and Commerce Server products

2009-03-11T12:11:00.001-04:00

When engaging with customers, it is always surprising to hear the challenges or "perceived" challenges of providing feedback to Microsoft on products. I would like to use this blog to restate that if you wish to provide either anonymous or named feedback on any of the BizTalk, BizTalk RFID or Commerce Server products.

Please feel free to even email me your comments and if you wish to remain anonymous in your feedback.

Technorati Tags: BizTalk,BizTalk RFID,Commerce Server.

Commerce Server 2009 Product Comparison Chart

2009-02-27T16:58:00.001-05:00

This chart will be always be helpful in conjunction in MSDN. And here is the new:

Commerce Server 2009 Feature (32-bit and 64-bit)	Benefit		Standard		Enterprise
FUNCTIONALITY
New Multi-Channel Commerce Foundation		Unifies the run-time calling model across all Commerce Server systems, introduces new commerce entities, built-in multi-channel awareness and meta data for commerce entities.	ü	ü
SharePoint Commerce Services		30 Web Parts and controls (including source code for extensibility), color-neutral default out-of-the-box web site, integrated into Microsoft SharePoint®, with optional sample data.	ü	ü
Marketing, Campaigns, Direct Mail		Allows for different marketing campaigns for different brands or different customer segments – or both. Comes with built-in discounts, advertisement management, and a direct mailer, with expression-based lists; all with multi-lingual support.	ü	ü
Sharing of Catalog and Marketing Campaigns Across Web sites		Easily manage multiple sites from multiple catalogs, or a single site with multiple catalogs.		ü
Content Staging		Allows for coordinated transactional content, Web application settings, and business data replication from a “staging” environment to production environment.		ü
Data Warehousing and Analytics Functions		Offers an integrated data warehouse across customer profile, catalog, order, marketing, and Web log data.		ü
DEPLOYMENT
Can Deploy to Production Environment		Production license.	ü	ü
Side-by-side deployment with Commerce Server 2007 SP2		Install Commerce Server 2009 into existing Commerce Server 2007 SP2 deployments with no changes; and incrementally take advantage of the new features.	ü	ü
Commerce Server Applications per Commerce site		Specific “applications” within Commerce Server can be created for better performance handling.	1	Unlimited
Maximum Number of Physical Processors per Server (can be hyper-threaded or dual-core)			2	Unlimited (Based on OS Max)
Number of Physical Servers per Web farm			2	Unlimited
Number of Commerce Server sites per Server		Specific “sites” within Commerce Server can be created for better performance handling.	10	Unlimited (Bound only by hardware or IIS limits)

REST versus SOAP

2009-02-27T14:17:00.001-05:00

Great discussion on REST versus SOAP. I gotta say the highlight of this webcast was that people that are fanatical about REST are known as “REST-a-farians”! Please check it out here.

Technorati Tags: ARCast,Architects,Architecture,Bob Familiar,REST,REST Starter Kit,REST Starter Kit endpoint screencasts,Ron Jacobs,Web Services,Windows Communication Foundation

BizTalk Server 2009 RFID RC Released

2009-02-26T11:46:00.001-05:00

Here are some of the features specific to the 2009 release of BizTalk 2009 RFID.

The key features of BizTalk RFID 2009 include:

BizTalk RFID Mobile (RFID platform for Windows Mobile and Windows CE based devices)

BizTalk RFID Mobile consists of a runtime engine, tools and components to develop, deploy and manage RFID solutions on mobile devices.
Store and Forward: BizTalk RFID Mobile supports the ability to store events locally as well as forward them to the server.
Remote Management: BizTalk RFID Mobile allows remote management of Windows Mobile-based devices.
SQL Sink service: BizTalk RFID Mobile supports using a SQL database to store events and information on the mobile device, in much the same way that BizTalk Server RFID does.
Support for Windows CE 5.0, Windows Mobile 5.0, Windows Mobile 6.0, Windows Mobile 6.1 platforms

Support for industry Standards

EPCIS: EPCIS Object Model and Capture Client to enable you to capture raw data, convert to EPCIS documents and use the capture client to post to a capture service. Capture service is not included.
LLRP Provider: Out-of-the-box connectivity with readers using the EPCglobal-ratified Low-Level Reader Protocol (LLRP) reader-host standard.
TDT: Services to decode tag attributes natively via the Tag Data Translation (TDT) standards library
WS Discovery: A library for providers to discover devices using the standard web services based discovery mechanism.

Support for newer platforms

Windows Server 2008
SQL Server 2008
.Net 3.5 SP1 and Visual Studio 2008

RFID Manager Usability Improvements

To get information and play with the bits, check out the connect site here >> Microsoft Connect Site.

Web parts Included with CS 2009

2009-02-26T11:34:00.001-05:00

Hey guys,

With the exciting release of Commerce Server 2009, there are over 30 web parts and controls that are included. Here is a description/overview of them:

Marketing

· Advertisement and Discounts – Displays advertisements and discounts that are relevant to both the current shopper and current site context. This Web Part works in conjunction with Marketing Manager and the various campaigns that are set up.

· Virtual Earth Store Locator – Integrates with Microsoft Live Virtual Earth so that the shopping site has detailed maps of store locations, enabling shoppers to find the store quickly.

· Reviews and Ratings (two Web Parts) – Displays the reviews and ratings for individual products. These Web Parts also let shoppers submit their own review and rating, with administrative workflow for management discretion.

Search

· Search Box – Displays a search box that can be configured to search both the e-commerce site and any static content.

· Search Results and Paging (two Web Parts) – Displays the results of the search in a two-column pane, allowing shoppers to easily see what’s on your site, and easily page through a large number of results.

Orders

· Add to Cart – Enables shoppers to add products to their cart.

· Shopping Cart – Displays all of the merchandise that the shoppers want to purchase.

· Mini-cart – Displays a summary, usually in the upper-right corner of the page, of the total items and amount in a shopper’s basket.

· Checkout – This Web Part manages the checkout process. It is responsible for the flow of checkout operations, providing a uniform navigation model. This checkout process may include address and credit card management actions.

· Order Details – Displays a read-only version of the shopping cart and checkout information.

· Order History – Displays previous completed orders, including order status.

· My Lists – Provides shoppers with a way to manage all of their lists.

· My List Details – Displays the details of a shopper’s list

Catalog

· Product Query – Displays the products and variants, usually based on a catalog, that a shopper is looking for.

· Product Detail Display – Displays the different products and product details on a product pages.

· Images Viewer – display different product, catalog, or other images.

· Site Map – Displays the map of your site.

Profiles

· Address List – Provides the interface to view and start address administrative tasks.

· Address Detail – Provides the management functionality, such as adding and editing addresses.

· Credit Card List – Provides the interface to view and start credit card administrative tasks.

· Credit Card Detail – Provides the management functionality, such as adding a credit card and credit card information.

· My Profile – Provides the management functionality for account profile information.

· Registration Wizard – Provides the functionality to let shoppers register on an e-commerce site.

· Change, Forgot Password (two Web Parts) – Provides functionality for shoppers to reset or change their account password.

· Live ID* – Provides functionality to associate shopper accounts with their Microsoft Live ID account, so that the shopper can associate their Live ID account to a particular shopping site.

Management

· Channel Configuration* – This feature provides the ability to assign a "channel name" to the site that has been created. A channel is any Web site that is targeted to a specific segment or device. The channel name is used throughout Commerce Server 2009 so that business and presentation logic can be tailored to address the specific needs of that channel.

· Property List Selection – This is a utility Web Part, meaning that users will use it indirectly as part of other Web Parts, and is used to enable the selection of various properties from the Commerce Server Core Systems.

· Product Provider – This is a utility Web Part, meaning that users will use it indirectly as part of other Web Parts, and is used by various other Web Parts to marshal data calls to Commerce Server and return product information.

· Inline Product Property Editor– This web part allows Merchandisers to edit product information right on the site pages. (Note: This web part will ship after CS2009 RTM.)

* These two items are technically not Web Parts, but they use SharePoint controls and are available in the Default site or can be integrated into other sites.

Technorati Tags: Commerce Server 2009,Web Parts

Some of the Latest and Greatest BizTalk WhitePapers

2009-01-26T10:59:00.001-05:00

BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Hyper-V Guide:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc768518.aspx

BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Operations Guide:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=5251F103-329D-4F8D-95B5-64F99F2F6DFC&displaylang=en

BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Performance Optimization Guide:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc558617.aspx

Developing Integration Solutions using BizTalk Server 2006 and Team Foundation Server:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ed7bd0ee-1385-4041-8f2a-354594ee88f3&DisplayLang=en

BAM in Depth for Developers
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ff6e4498-b1ff-4932-ba6b-1b53ac6fb3b2&DisplayLang=en

Technorati Tags: BizTalk 2006 R2

Make Your Voices Heard!!!

2009-01-19T21:54:00.001-05:00

This is a great time for this blog with the inauguration and all. With the release details of CS2009 in my previous blog, please take the time to try out the CTPs and provide feedback via http://connect.microsoft.com.

I work closely with the product team and they crave feedback from folks that actually implement e-commerce. This is a major way to get your feedback in and make sure your voices heard!

As well, you can either email me or the product team or use the comment section in this blog to provide feedback on what you are interested in seeing in the next release of Commerce Server.

Free speech for all!

Technorati Tags: Commerce Server 2009

Commerce Server 2009 RC Released

2009-01-17T21:23:00.001-05:00

Great news all. As of Jan 16, 2009, Commerce Server 2009 Release Candidate (RC) is out!

Check here for the download.

Technorati Tags: Commerce Server 2009,MultiChannel

Great Little Microsoft Virtual Server Remote Client (VMRCPlus)

2009-01-05T20:20:00.001-05:00

I tend to work around with a ton VM images and personally find it quite painful to RDP into each image, figure out its IP and then RDP to the IP for performance reasons.

There is this nice little utility called Virtual Machine Remote Control Client Plus that allows you to manage the remote images from your desktop, i.e. start/stop etc.

It is located here.

Take a look at the management screen.

Technorati Tags: Virtual Server

A Great Pointer to a Great BizTalk Blogger

2009-01-02T16:14:00.001-05:00

Being an MVP has it benefits, among them hanging out with people wayyy smarter than myself. I am part of a great distribution list and it pointed me to a fantastic blog by Tomas Restrepo.

In particular is an older blog he as out is a way to create/configure a design-time experience with a regular managed adapter in R2. Check it out on his blog.

Technorati Tags: BizTalk R2,Adapter,Custom interface

Great Tool to Help Me Keep Up To Date on the Goodness in the world.

2008-12-22T10:24:00.001-05:00

This is a fantastic tool that helps me keep up to date with all the RSS's I try to keep track of. I went out and bought a Sony Digital Reader . The nice thing is that it has a sync feature with a folder on my desktop. It also supports PDF formats nicely.

This being said, there is a fantastic service called Tabbloid (not a spelling mistake) by HP that allows you to take RSS feeds and create a newspaper tabloid out of it. Needless to say, this makes nice reading on my device or if you are not as eco friendly, to print.

Did I also mention that this service can email you your feeds on a daily/weekly basis for free ???

Removing Starter Site SSL Requirements

2008-12-17T15:13:00.001-05:00

I have played a bit with the Starter Site and keep on forgetting how to disable the SSL requirements. As you all may know, SSL is required for the Checkout, Profile and User web services.

You can obviously follow the directions nicely and create phony certificates for the time being but sometimes there are other reasons, i.e.:

Using a hardware accelerator
Development environments
Demo environments

However, if you want to remove the SSL dependencies from the Starter Site as well as the Business Tools, see these instructions (lifted from the Starter Site documentation):

To disable IIS metabase secure channel access for the Starter Site

Click Start, point to Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
In Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager, expand Web Sites, expand Default Web Site, expand StarterSite, right-click the folder that you are modifying, for example, Checkout, and then click Properties.
In the Checkout properties dialog box, click the Directory Security tab, and in the Secure Communications section, click Edit.
In the Secure Communications dialog box, clear the Require secure channel (SSL) check box, and then click OK.
Click OK to close the Checkout properties dialog box.
Repeat steps 2 through 5 for each sub-directory that you are modifying, Profiles and User.

To change the Web.config secure URL assignments

Click Start, click Run, type explorer, and then click OK.
In Windows Explorer, move to the location where you unpacked the Starter Site application, for example, <drive:>\Inetpub\wwwroot\StarterSite.
Open the Web.config file in a text editor.
Locate the <commerceSite> section.
Change the assignment of the requireSSL attribute. Set it to false:

requireSSL="false"
Add the assignment of the useSecureUrls attribute. Set it to false:

useSecureUrls="false"
Save the changes and close the file.
Reset IIS.

Please keep in mind it is always recommended to use SSL for valuable data.

Technorati Tags: Commerce Server 2007,Starter Site,SSL

Little Virtual Server 2005 SP1 Bug

2008-12-16T12:45:00.001-05:00

I went kinda insane for a little when I got a HTTP 500 error. I could not find the cause of the problem until I hit this nice little blog. It seems the culprit lies in Remote Desktop. You have to start the console using msdtc /console.

Commerce Server "Mojave" November CTP HERE!!!

2008-11-28T10:14:00.001-05:00

Mojave is pretty cool. It really allows for some super quick creation of e-Commerce sites. I would also want to clarify that Mojave does not require WSS or MOSS, it just works better together :)

The official messaging is :

Microsoft Commerce Server code name “Mojave” delivers the ability to increase your business reach by selling through multiple channels through a new default out-of-the-box shopping site based on ASP.NET 3.5 Web Parts deployed in SharePoint and other SharePoint commerce services, and a compelling new multi-channel commerce foundation, with a new unified run-time calling model, new extensibility points and new built-in features.

Specifically “Mojave” adds:

· New multi-channel commerce foundation, superseding the existing Commerce Server programming model, to rapidly build extensible e-commerce applications for the Web and beyond utilizing .NET 3.5 SP1+.

· SharePoint commerce services including 29 out-of-the-box e-commerce Web parts plus integration between Commerce Server and SharePoint offering a new default out-of-the-box site with new search functionality, new shopping features, and what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) content management and design experiences to facilitate rapid assembly and maintenance of e-commerce Web sites by business users and creative professionals.

The most important things of course are the system settings. I highly suggest a Hyper-V or Virtual PC environment for this:

System Requirements
The single-server deployment consists of running all the Commerce Server 2007 code name "Mojave" components and software requirements (including Windows and SQL Server) on a single computer. The single-server deployment uses the following software products:

· Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003 with SP2, or Windows Server 2003 R2 with SP2, and Windows critical updates

· IIS 6.0 with Windows Server 2003 or IIS 7.0 with Windows Server 2008

· Microsoft Commerce Server 2007 SP2

· SQL Server 2005 SP2 Standard and Enterprise (32-bit or 64-bit) or SQL Server 2008 Standard and Enterprise (32-bit or 64-bit)

· Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 with SP1

· Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS) SP1 or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) SP1
If using WSS:

· WSS 3.0 SP1 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=130486)

· WSS 3.0 Infrastructure Update (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=130487)

If using MOSS:

· WSS 3.0 SP1 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=130486)

· MOSS 2007 SP1 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=130488)

· WSS 3.0 Infrastructure Update (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=130489) (this is a pre-requisite for the MOSS 2007 Infrastructure Update)

· MOSS 2007 Infrastructure Update (32-bit) (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=130491)

· MOSS 2007 Infrastructure Update (64-bit) (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=130492)

To download the November CTP ISO and installation guide, click this link. You will need to register & sign into the Microsoft Connect site. Follow the instructions in the Installation Guide to install the November CTP. You can also download the November CTP samples which show how to use the API.

Technorati Tags: Commerce Server 2007,Mojave,MultiChannel

Microsoft ESB Guidance 2.0 CTP

2008-11-24T10:23:00.001-05:00

Onsite the Patterns and Practices library will soon be the Microsoft ESB Guidance.

The version 1 was pretty good but I wished there was more along the lines of the Itinerary functionality/design. Looks like my wish was granted!

New samples. This version includes the following new samples:
- SSO Configuration provider for Enterprise Library 4.0
- Multiple Web Service Execution Sample
- Exception Handling Service Sample
New ESB Web services. This version includes the following new ESB Web services:
- Generic Itinerary Services ( no itinerary header required)
New core features. This version includes the following new core features:
- Alignment with Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009 ( Beta )
- ESB Configuration tool
- Centralized itinerary store
- Itinerary resolver components
- Itinerary forwarder pipeline component
- Itinerary selector pipeline component
- Itinerary designer
- Centralized configuration uses Enterprise Library 4.0 Configuration Block
- Centralized caching uses Enterprise Library 4.0 Caching Block
- Multiple service invocation using both messaging and orchestrations
- Itinerary BAM tracking
- Improved ESB Core engine and itinerary execution

Changes to Existing Features and Components

Modifications. This version includes modifications to the following features:
- Resolver and Adapter Provider Framework. This version consolidates the Dispatch and Transform classes to support batch routing of messages within the Dispatch pipeline component using document specification type, and support for itineraries.
- Itinerary caching pipeline component This version uses Enterprise Library 4.0 configurable cache management.
- UDDI Publisher Utility This version supports UDDI3 only with publishing endpoints using publisher-defined key.
- General bug fixes.

Technorati Tags: BizTalk,ESB,SOA,BizTalk 2009

Oldies but Goodies on Commerce Server 2007

2008-11-07T14:25:00.001-05:00

This is on of the documents that I tend to read and re-read a bunch of times. This document provides a great overview of CS as well as tie in the performance numbers with the operations and architectural side of things.

This document will be dated very shortly with the new Mojave bits coming out but it is still a darn good staple for anyone out there. Of course I am referring to the CS Technical Overview document that may be found here >>

Technorati Tags: Commerce Server 2007,Mojave

Dublin - always new opportunities!

2008-11-03T20:24:00.001-05:00

"Dublin", what is it ?

According to internal MS sources and web research, Dublin is in fact the application server role in Windows Server that will contain extensions and a set of WCF /WF 4.0 enhancements in .NET 4.0.

Additional information can be found in Steve Martin's blog.

For those attending PDC, there will be a ton of new information and this conference is generating a great deal of interest in the technical community as there is just so much to show.

This will help answer any questions of Dublin's fit into the new cloud technology and how it ties into Oslo.

My 2 cents ? I think this is the beginning of a whole new way of developing. Architectures will change drastically and gains will be had by all. As per my title, it is a fantastic new opportunity for new work, new skills and of course new challenges :)

Technorati Tags: Dublin,BizTalk,Oslo,Cloud

Presenting Tomorrow!

2008-11-03T17:42:00.001-05:00

I will be presenting tomorrow at the Connected Systems Conference in 2008 in Toronto.

This is not a replacement for the PDC but a good supplement. Note that it is being held also in Montreal @ Nov 6th.

I will be presenting on RFID @ 2:30 pm. Please see the agenda below:

Agenda

8:00	Breakfast
8:30	Connected Systems Overview
9:00	BizTalk today, over the next year & Roadmap for the future
10:00	Adapter Pack
11:00	Break
11:15	Self Service SOA
12:30	Lunch
1:30	Service Virtualization & ESB 2.0
2:30	RFID stack & Mobility
3:30	Break
3:45	Connected Systems Assessment
5:00	Reception
6:00	End

Please use the links below to register:

Toronto: November4, 2008 (Tues)
Montreal: November 6, 2008 (Thursday)

Technorati Tags: RFID,Mobility,BizTalk,SOA

PDC and WCF Messages Modifications

2008-10-27T13:09:00.001-04:00

I wanted to do a very quick post and share 2 quick things. Bob M. is doing a great overview on Windows Azure at the PDC. You can see this here >> http://www.microsoftpdc.com

As well, a great whitepaper on modifying messages with the WCF adapter here >> http://download.microsoft.com/download/c/f/b/cfbcd6ad-5454-4c23-85d2-0cc3d7627015/WCFModifyingMessages.doc.

RFID Skimming

2008-10-21T16:53:00.001-04:00

Very interesting read here. The anti skimming laws will "protect" consumers :) .

One point of interest is that the Exxon Mobile Key fob has been hacked. A few years ago, I did remember that the CIO (or some other executive) on stage saying that they had paid hackers to try and crack the speed pass (fob) and that how they are unable to do so.

Providing Feedback to Microsoft

2008-10-21T12:06:00.001-04:00

Hi all,

If you have used the Business Rules Engine (BRE), please use this survey to provide feedback to Microsoft so that they can work with tweaking the BRE in the V.NEXT.

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

Technorati Tags: BRE,BizTalk,Rules Engine

Tutorial Search

2008-10-17T10:40:00.001-04:00

Hey all,

Just had this link handy and wanted to post it. This is a wicked method to find any sort of tutorial.

Technorati Tags: Tutorial Search

Making RFID Deployment Successful - My MSN Video

2008-09-27T22:14:00.001-04:00

Here is one of my videos online on Making RFID Deployments Successful. This is a good interview with the great Sudhir Hasbe, Program Manager for BizTalk RFID.

Sudhir is at this location.

Turn up the sound and catch my joke!

Technorati Tags: RFID,BizTalk RFID,Supply Chain

First post! Level Setting

2008-09-27T21:51:00.001-04:00

All, this is the first post on this blog. I hope this is the first of many.

To level set, these are the areas that will be of main focus for this blog:

RFID - especially BizTalk RFID
Integration - especially, you guessed it! BizTalk Server
B2B and B2C technologies using Commerce Server
PIM - Product Information Masters and Master Data Management using BTS, MS MDM and other Technologies

I will cover other areas of interest, specifically:

Vitalization
Operating systems (resulting from fixes in Vista that I find)
Windows Mobile ('cause I have a nice old HP IPAQ)

Cheers for now!

Winson's Technical Multiverse

WF3 Deprecation

BizTalk 2010 R2

SQL Server: Denali

Build Update

Microsoft Build 2011 aka PDC

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Kit

BizTalk 2010 Developer Kit available!

PDC renamed!

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Training Kit

SharePoint Online Developer Guide

BizTalk RoadMap Tour

BizTalk MVP Award

Compilation of Hyper Jumping to Microsoft Cloud Technology

Great Dynamics CRM 2011 Developer Training Kit

SQL Server 2008 R2 Update for Developers Training Kit

Bump for fellow MVP

Free Windows Azure Platform - Training Workshop

Vancouver Training

Montreal Training

Where does WCF/WF fit in ?

SilverLight code to help Download PDC 2010 Content

PDC 2010

BizTalk 2010 Released!

xRM vs SharePoint vs .NET coding Seminar

Considering Business Application Frameworks for your next enterprise app: A comparison of custom .NET versus XRM versus SharePoint development

SimplyFile, phew Support for Outlook 2010

Failed to connect to the SQL database SSODB on SQL Server

BizTalk Presentation

BizTalk High Availability Host Separation

To enable host tracking

World Wide Partner Conference - Washington

Microsoft and Virtual Machines

BizTalk 2010 Beta Available

Some Quick Microsoft Updates

Renewed as Microsoft BizTalk MVP for another year

BizTalk 2009 R2 is now BizTalk 2010

Cool Azure TCO Analysis Calculator

BizTalk 2006 R2 SP 1 Released!

Problems that are fixed in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Service Pack 1

Design changes that are included in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Service Pack 1

eCommerce and Content Management With Brian Walker

Consolidation of BizTalk v.NEXT Features/Resources

Microsoft BizTalk Server Futures and Roadmap

Commerce Server Licensing Clarification

Functionality

*****UPDATES******

Commerce Server 2009 Contemporary Site – How to add a new Credit Card

Neat Translation Service

Now that you built it, how do you keep it running and measure it ?

Here are some general guidelines:

Things to remember

August CTP of Commerce Server 2009 “R2” available

Funny but true errors in MSDN

Upgrading BizTalk 2006 R2 to 2009

BizTalk 2009 Operations Guide

First Ottawa BizTalk User Group

BizTalk 2009 is now “OFFICIALLY” working with Commerce Server 2009

Ottawa BizTalk User Group – First event!

PowerShell Scripts for BizTalk

Commerce Server 2009 code name R2 CTP

Bing

Free books from Microsoft E-Book Offer

Commerce Server Inventory Adapter Error: “Finding the document specification by message type "MSInventoryCollection" failed. Verify the schema deployed properly.”

BizTalk 2009 Overview

Great New Paper on BizTalk 2009/R2/2006 Adapters for Enterprise Applications

Additional Great BizTalk 2009 Material

TechEd 2009 Speaking Session

BizTalk Hot Rod Magazine

BizTalk ESB Portal Fault Message Viewer

Commerce Server 2009 Template Pack

Free Virtualization E-book

Understanding Microsoft Virtualization Solutions

Kick off of Ottawa BizTalk User Group

Feedback Feedback Feedback

From Twitter to Blog – All Things BizTalk 2009

Checking the Version of BizTalk Server

Another Great CS 2009 Blog

Commerce Server 2009 White Label or Starter Site VPC

Step 1: Create the business management administrator Windows groups

*UPDATES**