Microsoft SOA and BPM Conference Live Blog Monday

Day 2 of the course. Discovered Twitter last night but having problems with my account (currently cannot log in and can't reset password) so here goes. Last night, had a great dinner with Tim Rayburn and a bunch of BizTalk MVPs. Lots of great discussions. Aaron has been shuttling me around with Jon and Matt, so I am getting to spend great quality time with the Pluralsight guys. This course rocks BTW and I would highly recomend it!

• Today, we start with What's New in BizTalk Server R2. I have to get much deeper in BizTalk so this is going to be great!
• I am really excited anout the new WCF Adapters - should make writing adapters much easier and standard
• EDI baked into R2 will help a lot of my customers - huge in health care I have noticed, HIPAA
• WCF is Microsoft's distributed computing technology
• Similar to SOAP Adapter in 2004/2006 although WCF Adapter can run in-proc and get new protocols (TCP, Named Pipes, MSMQ) + WS-*
• EDI is a core feature of R2, no more Covast needed
• Support for both X12 and EDIFACT
• EDI never goes away!! We all want it to be "XML"
• Supplants HIPAA accelerator
• Over 8,000 EDI schemas (4.39 GB unpacked!!)
• Drummond Group certified AS2 (HTTP EDIINT)
• Implemented in the Pipeline - no Adapters
• EDI screens look scary :) Man, there is a lot of stuff!
• BAM = distributed infrastructure for declarative extraction of business/operational data
• Interceptors/API allow data extract
• Tools for viewing and Alerts
• Two new BAM Interceptors for WCF/WF
• They don't require code - config
• Enables declarative end-to-end business level tracking
• WCF LOB Adapter Pack - LOB Adapters built on new framework
• In other  words Adapter != BizTalk Server
• Its callable via WCF Binding from anywhere - Adapter pattern to LOB based systen
• Custom WCF binding
• SAP, Oracle, Siebel, TIBCO
• Can plug into R2, will ship as a separate SKU
• WCF LOB Adapter SDK
• BizTalk RFID - stand alone product that is not dependent on any part of BizTalk Server 2006
• Includes Rules Engine component and various ways to connect
• Aaron is diving into WCF Adapters
• BizTalk has had Web Service support; just hasn't been that good; WSE3 support via Jesus Rodriguez who just sat next to me
• With WCF Adapters, can have "Services" with R2 and have BizTalk be a host!!!
• "Modern SOA" - offers full integration with WCF Runtime
• BizTalk will store WCF config info in the SSO db
• We're on the "RPC Intrerface" and REST thing again in discussion of WCF.................oh joy
• At least, we are using the Message class...
• Message GenericOperation(Message inputMessage);
• BizTalk uses this mechanism:

?using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Runtime.Serialization;
using System.ServiceModel;
using System.Text;
using System.ServiceModel.Channels;

namespace GenericService
{
    [ServiceContract]
    public interface IService1
    {
        [OperationContract(Action="*", ReplyAction="*")]
        Message GenericOperation(Message inputMessage);

    }
}

?using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Runtime.Serialization;
using System.ServiceModel;
using System.Text;

namespace GenericService
{
   [ServiceBehavior(InstanceContextMode=InstanceContextMode.Single)]
    public class Service1 : IService1
    {
        #region IService1 Members

        public System.ServiceModel.Channels.Message GenericOperation(System.ServiceModel.Channels.Message inputMessage)
        {
            return inputMessage;

        }

        #endregion
    }
}

• WCF Adapters complete bridge between BTS and .NET Framework 3
• Jon is taking pictures of my back while in the row behind me :) Yes, I shaved my head....

• Freaking Twitter still won't reset my password correctly (: Its way behind, now I have requests for resets stacked up, crap...
• Wow! Not one line of code to create and host a WCF Service in BizTalk (over Named Pipe too) - Create send/receive port, select WCF Adapter as transport, configure adapter to control WCF settings (GUI) and presto!
• BizTalk R2 seems much easier and better host than IIS.... not same scenarios obviously....
• Can host WCF Adapters in-proc or out of proc
• Looks like Glenn Block is heading over here for lunch...cool
• No metadata because they are using generic contracts - receive locations inherently untyped - ok for some scenarios
• Use WCF Service Publishing Wizard to provide metadata
• I'll need to run through these scenarios ASAP....
• Also a command line version
• Security tab - Security "mode" is a required setting
• WCF-Custom and WCF-CustomIsolated allow you to really party...
• Lunch!
• YES! Jon is going to show how to use Astoria from BizTalk so we can have REST interface!
• EDM Designer of Northwind... Add WCF Service
• Don't need Service Contract.....

public class Northwind : WebDataService<NorthwindEntities>

• change svc file and browse it - aspNetCompatabilityMode = true
• View it and boom! Automatic REST interface to our data model!
• http://localhost:58140/northwind.svc/Employees/
• http://localhost:58140/northwind.svc/Employees/[1]/Manager
• http://localhost:58140/northwind.svc/Employees/[1]?$expand=Manager
• Very natural - why we like REST - also have formatting for JSON, RSS
• DataServiceHost built on top of ServiceHost
• Now BizTalk | Send Port | WCF Custom
• Point to http://localhost:58140/northwind.svc/Employees/
• and use webHttpBinding
• Why won't this work in BizTalk? The Web Get/Invoke attributes...can't go into predefined BizTalk contracts
• Could go into CustomBindingElement under WCF-Custom Transport
• Create own behavior - HttpVerbElement - GET
• Got a BizTalk endpoint that can call out to Astoria REST service
• Create Receive Location net.tcp://localhost:9898/DoingGet
• Create Send Port
• Create console client ....

[ServiceContract}

public interface IUsingGet {

     [OperationContract(Action="*", ReplyAction="*")]

     Message Get(Message inMsg);

}

NetTcpBinding b = new NetTcpBinding();

ChannelFactory<IUsingGet> cf = new ChannelFactory<IUsingGet>(b, ea);

cf.Open();

Message inMsg = Message.CreateMessage(MessageVersion.Default, "*", "Here is the message you will ignore");

IUsingGet c = cf.CreateChannel();

Message response = c.Get(inMsg);

Console.WriteLine(response.GetReaderAtBodyContents()).ReadOuterXml(());

-- Tell Encoder to not look for SOAP

Whoo! Nice!

• Jon has a HttpVerbBehavior
• BizTalk RFID... RFID is poster child for enterprise connectivity...replacement for barcodes
• The pain of RFID... h/w adoption blockers, s/w adoption blockers, h/w s/w/ automation, "scary technology"
• Scenarios: Cattle tracking?
• http://bluecsushi.com/ - really cool! Not just supply chain
• BizTalk RFID is separate product - "middleware"
• Server and app services for interacting with devices and tag reads
• Management tools for devices and RFID business processes
• API for interacting with devices
• Last part of course - WCF and WF BAM Integration
• Almost all applications need business visibility
• Data warehouse is generally the final keeper of this data
• In a SOA world hardfer to coordinate
• BAM is a distributed infrastructure for declarative extraction of business data
• Includes tools for defining data extraction
• Interceptors and API to allow data to be extracted
• Interceptors enable aspect-oriented, hot-swappable tracking profiles
• Services for collection and aggregation
• Tools for viewing data
• Alert capability
• BAM Actvivity = named set of related data collection points
• checkpoint - the atom of a BAM activity
• R2 - BAM stuff now works with Office2007
• Workflow Foundation Interceptor
• IC is converted into Workflow TrackingProfile object
• Operations from IC map to workflow, activity & user track point
• End of day: Jon is going to do a crazy demo - there is no WF inside BizTalk yet despite 2 versions (06 and 06R2)
• WF needs a host too
• XLANG not the future
• So Jon developed a sample with some WF team members - SDK in a few weeks
• Workflow Library project for hosting WF workflows inside of BizTalk Server
• using DataContracts as the messaging metadata
• BTSReceive and BTSSend
• Contract property - IServiceContract, pick method, and data bind to a field
• Has to be signed and GAC'd to be run in BizTalk
• Right click - Generate Orchestration
• Generates BizTalk project with schemas based on WCF Contracts
• Orchestration is generated automatically
• Orchestration is the flow, workflow is the processing
• Right Click - Deploy
• Now can find Orchestration in BizTalk and pick Host and Port
• Start
• Add a Client project
• Add endpoint address and binding
• Call
• Cool! Will be an SDK sample