BizTalk 2006

1 of 235 | Password in SOAP Ports - I've inherited a BizTalk 2006 applicaton that uses serveral SOAP ports to request data from a 3rd party web service. The web service is secured by "basic" authentication - username / password. After making a few enhancements to the application I deployed to an integration test server which has access to the 3rd party web service. The BizTalk app was unable to retrieve the data and I soon realised that I had forgotten to set the username / password on the SOAP send ports. I wanted the make deployment of the BizTalk app as automated as possible because I may not be present when it is deployed to the live server. I opened up the binding file, located the 1st of the problem SOAP send ports and ......

2 of 235 | MSBuild Extensions Pack now available - Mike Fourie has released the first version of MSBuild Extensions Pack on CodePlex.  This is a great collection of quality tasks for MSBuild that you can also use in Team Foundation Build. The MSBuild Extension Pack is the successor to the FreeToDev MSBuild Tasks Suite and provides a collection of over 170 MSBuild tasks designed for the .NET 3.5 Framework. A high level summary of what the tasks currently cover includes the following: System Items: Certificates, COM+, Console, Date and Time, Drives, Environment Variables, Event Logs, Files and Folders, GAC, Network, Performance Counters, Registry, Services, Sound Code: Assemblies, CAB Files, Code Signing, File Detokenisation, GUID......

3 of 235 | Cross-Application Subscription - Applications in BizTalk 2006 for me are just logical buckets that allow you place like-minded artifacts (maps, schemas, orchestrations etc.) together, so your environment when viewed through the BizTalk Admin Console looks clean and tidy and can be easily...(read more)...

4 of 235 | Interesting article - found this interesting and clever way of using  per-instance configuration in biztalk 2006 ...

5 of 235 | PipelineTesting v1.2.0.0 Released - I’m happy to announce a new release of my PipelineTesting library! PipelineTesting is used alongside your favorite Unit Testing tool to make it easier to create and test custom pipeline components, pipelines and schemas for BizTalk Server 2006 using Test-Driven Development, or simply to have a set of regression tests to detect bugs arising from code changes. These are the most important new features introduced in this version: Per-Instance Pipeline Configuration: You can now load an XML file with modified settings into a pipeline instance. This relies on the same XML format used by the BizTalk 2006 Admini......

6 of 235 | Documentation tool for BizTalk 2006 - Although this tool is not new, I blog about it because it is a must-have for every BizTalk developer:The tool is called UK SDC BizTalk 2006 Documenter (you can download it here) and builds documentation of your BizTalk application(s). It uses reflection to find all information, therefore the BizTalk application(s) you want to document need(s) to be deployed.One cool feature is the ability to create JPG's for orchestrations. ...

7 of 235 | Error while using the UK SDC Documenter as a Post build event - We were contacted by Brent Anderson from RBA Consulting. He ran into some errors while using the UK SDC BizTalk 2006 Documenter as a post build event.Error initialising documentation publisherBrent found out that using the documenter in a post build event works fine, as long as you just use the /def[ault] parameter.When we tried to use the /o[utput] parameter (to set another output directory), we were confronted with an 'Error initialising documentation publisher'. We also tried other parameters, but that resulted in the same error.SolutionAfter some research we found out that when you want to use other parameters, than the /def[ault] parameter, you must supply the /p:chm parameter to make ......

8 of 235 | New version of BizTalk 2006 documentation PDF - Microsoft released a new version of the core documentation PDF. It comes as one self extracting zip from 55MB.Although this results in giant one PDF file from 117MB containing almost 20000 pages, I like the fact that it is only one PDF.Download the documentation here. ...

9 of 235 | One or more instances of the orchestration still exist - Lately I tried to redeploy a BizTalk 2006 solution from Visual Studio 2005. Unfortunately I was confronted with the following error message “Could not change the bindings for orchestration '.', Version=1.0.0.0,Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=c380e04620d206e8' as one or more instances of the orchestration still exist”.When I tried to Unenlist and delete the Orchestration from the BizTalk Administration tool, I received the same error.I found out that I had a few suspended instances. These instances need to be terminated before you can undeploy/redeploy the orchestration.Terminating instances can be done in several manners:- the polite manner: by terminating the instances using the BizTalk Ad......

10 of 235 | UK SDC BizTalk 2006 Documenter: '192' is not a valid value for Microsoft.Sdc.BizTalkOM.TrackingType - As stated by other BizTalk developers as well, I think the UK SDC BizTalk 2006 Documenter is a great tool! It creates a good looking .CHM file which documents your entire BizTalk installation.Unfortunately I found another error, or actually Brent Anderson did. He found out that when you have either or both Track Message Properties enabled on a Send port, the Documenter does not generate the documentation.fig. 1 – Send Port PropertiesThe Documenter shows the following popup:fig. 2 – Error popupUnder the hoods (with DebugView), the UK SDC Documenter gives more information:TraceErr : Microsoft.Sdc.BiztalkDocumenter.Documenter.GenerateDocumentation: System.InvalidOperationException:There was an......

11 of 235 | Next UK SOA/BPM User Group Meeting - 14th October 2008 London - The next UK SOA/BPM User Group Meeting has been announced which will be taking place on Tuesday, 14th October 2008 at Microsoft’s London office. The meeting will include an introduction to BizTalk 2006 R3 2009, a presentation by ISV Frends Technology...(read more)...

12 of 235 | "BizTalk 2009" is shaping up (formerly BizTalk 2006 R3) - The main details folks are as follows: (from an earlier email from Corp) Details: 1. BizTalk Server vNext: Naming Change: We have also updated the name of the next release from BizTalk Server 2006 R3 to “BizTalk Server 2009”. By calling the product BizTalk...(read more)...

13 of 235 | "BizTalk 2009" is shaping up (formerly BizTalk 2006 R3) - The main details folks are as follows: (from an earlier email from Corp) Details: 1. BizTalk Server vNext: Naming Change: We have also updated the name of the next release from BizTalk Server 2006 R3 to “BizTalk Server 2009”.  By calling the product BizTalk Server 2009, we can clearly communicate this is a full product release with new and enhanced capabilities and updated platform support for customers to take full advantage of the latest technology wave (Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server 2008, .NET Framework 3.5). BizTalk Server 2009 Timing: We will deliver a public CTP by the end of this calendar year.  Additionally, BizTalk......

14 of 235 | BIA meeting - 7 February - Last Wednesday the BIA group came together again. We welcomed a new member, David, to our team. David worked for years with Usoft and now he is joining our team because at his project they start a BizTalk trial in which he participates. Main goal of his work will be to migrate from a BizTalk 2002 environment to the new BizTalk 2006 Server.We discussed the possibility to become Microsoft ESB partner as we have an opportunity to use the ESB Guidance kit in a customer’s project. As a group we believe in the possibilities that the ESB Guidance package offers and we hope that we can join the 0.8 “beta” program.One of the things that will be possible with the ESB Guidance is to implement UDDI ins......

15 of 235 | BizTalk 2006 Recipes – A problem-solution approach - I would like to mention that there is a great book available about BizTalk 2006. It is called “BizTalk 2006 Recipes”, published by Apress and written by Mark Beckner, Ben Goeltz, Brandon Gross, Brennan O’Reilly, Stephen Roger, Mark Smith and Alexander West. (ISBN 1-59059-711-7)In the book you will find a comprehensive guidance on working through complex deployment challenges, including tested, reusable code snippets for use in production, enabling faster deployment and minimal post-implementation engineering support.I already did a quick read in the book during my BizTalk 70-235 study, the book gives a detailed step by step overview of solutions (with lots of images) on how to work with Bi......

16 of 235 | Documentation tool for BizTalk 2006 - Although this tool is not new, I blog about it because it is a must-have for every BizTalk developer:The tool is called UK SDC BizTalk 2006 Documenter (you can download it here) and builds documentation of your BizTalk application(s). It uses reflection to find all information, therefore the BizTalk application(s) you want to document need(s) to be deployed.One cool feature is the ability to create JPG's for orchestrations. ...

17 of 235 | Error while using the UK SDC Documenter as a Post build event - We were contacted by Brent Anderson from RBA Consulting. He ran into some errors while using the UK SDC BizTalk 2006 Documenter as a post build event.Error initialising documentation publisherBrent found out that using the documenter in a post build event works fine, as long as you just use the /def[ault] parameter.When we tried to use the /o[utput] parameter (to set another output directory), we were confronted with an 'Error initialising documentation publisher'. We also tried other parameters, but that resulted in the same error.SolutionAfter some research we found out that when you want to use other parameters, than the /def[ault] parameter, you must supply the /p:chm parameter to make ......

18 of 235 | New version of BizTalk 2006 documentation PDF - Microsoft released a new version of the core documentation PDF. It comes as one self extracting zip from 55MB.Although this results in giant one PDF file from 117MB containing almost 20000 pages, I like the fact that it is only one PDF.Download the documentation here. ...

19 of 235 | One or more instances of the orchestration still exist - Lately I tried to redeploy a BizTalk 2006 solution from Visual Studio 2005. Unfortunately I was confronted with the following error message “Could not change the bindings for orchestration '.', Version=1.0.0.0,Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=c380e04620d206e8' as one or more instances of the orchestration still exist”.When I tried to Unenlist and delete the Orchestration from the BizTalk Administration tool, I received the same error.I found out that I had a few suspended instances. These instances need to be terminated before you can undeploy/redeploy the orchestration.Terminating instances can be done in several manners:- the polite manner: by terminating the instances using the BizTalk Ad......

20 of 235 | Passed 70-235 - Last week I passed the 70-235 exam. The day after that my collegue Bas de Gier passed as well.Today 2 other collegues (Suresh Booms and Edwin Vriethof) took the exam as well and passed! Congratulations to all!Besides project experience and many hours of self study, the BizTalk 2006 Recipes book by Apress helped me a lot to get at the level to pass the exam. ...

21 of 235 | UK SDC BizTalk 2006 Documenter: '192' is not a valid value for Microsoft.Sdc.BizTalkOM.TrackingType - As stated by other BizTalk developers as well, I think the UK SDC BizTalk 2006 Documenter is a great tool! It creates a good looking .CHM file which documents your entire BizTalk installation.Unfortunately I found another error, or actually Brent Anderson did. He found out that when you have either or both Track Message Properties enabled on a Send port, the Documenter does not generate the documentation.fig. 1 – Send Port PropertiesThe Documenter shows the following popup:fig. 2 – Error popupUnder the hoods (with DebugView), the UK SDC Documenter gives more information:TraceErr : Microsoft.Sdc.BiztalkDocumenter.Documenter.GenerateDocumentation: System.InvalidOperationException:There was an......

22 of 235 | BizTalk 2006 R3 is now BizTalk 2009 & New Roadmap for the Future of BizTalk - Today Microsoft announced an updated Roadmap for BizTalk Server highlighting the next release of BizTalk and outlining plans for future releases every two years.  Included with this is a name change.  BizTalk Server 2006 R3 will now be called BizTalk Server 2009.  While most people will see this as a simple name change.  What this represents is Microsoft's commitment to BizTalk Server as an Enterprise Class Integration Platform.  This new name combined with the forward looking roadmap clearly showcases the future of BizTalk, which until now was a little unclear.    What to expect in the 2009 release of BizTalk: Support for the latest Mic......

23 of 235 | Goodbye BizTalk 2006 R3, Hello BizTalk 2009 - Good communication today about not only the name change, but more importantly, the updated roadmap for BizTalk Server (read Q & A here, see roadmap here, and see BizTalk home page here, see Steve Martin’s announcement here). For me, the most important things communicated were: greater clarification on what the Oslo release means to BizTalk Server specific features in BizTalk Server 2009 a commitment to a continued 2+ year release rhythm of BizTalk releases recognition of the types of new features we’d like to see added to BizTalk (low latency support, developer enhancements, more platform integration) This is a great lead in to the upcoming PDC, and a smart move to reassure BizTalk custom......

24 of 235 | Goodbye BizTalk 2006 R3, Hello BizTalk 2009 - Good communication today about not only the name change, but more importantly, the updated roadmap for BizTalk Server (read Q & A here, see roadmap here, and see BizTalk home page here, see Steve Martin’s announcement here). For me, the most...(read more)...

25 of 235 | Fix to see C# Generated from Orchestrations in BizTalk 2006 - In the good old days of BizTalk 2004 (who am I kidding?!?), compiling a project that contained an orchestration resulted in the C# generated from the XLANG/s to be placed in the same directory, allowing you to put your C# guru hat on and review the code...(read more)...

26 of 235 | Types Of Convoys - Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:" "; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;}   Convoys are groups of related messages that are intended by a partner business process to be handled in a specific order within an orchestration.   1 ......

27 of 235 | VHD Test Drive - Update - Time for an update on the VHD Test Drive program. The current program was launched in November 2007. It comes in 2 flavors. The first part allows customers to download and test preinstalled and preconfigured virtual machines from Microsoft via MSDN and TechNet. The images can be used as-is under the terms and conditions of the MSDN or TechNet subscription licenses. The other part of the program is targeting the Microsoft ISV partners. Microsoft provides a set of images - similar to the ones available via MSDN and TechNet - for registered Microsoft partners for download via Microsoft Connect. These images can then be enhanced by Microsoft partners with their own applications and solutions.......

28 of 235 | Good Books to read about BizTalk Server 2006 - Hello All, I was going through almost all the Biztalk Server books present in the Market but the book which I would suggest are the best are: 1. Pro BizTalk 2006 by George Dunphy, Ahmed Metwally 2. Professional BizTalk Server 2006 by Darren Jefford, Kevin B. Smith, Ewan Fairweather Pretty good books and well explained the Architecture of the Server along with many real time senarios. ...

29 of 235 | Zombies - A lot has been written about Zombies in BizTalk, but somehow they never really caused me too much problem. until today. In one of our processes we are calling a web service to perform a certain lookup. That web service’s implementation (whether correct or not) is to return the instance of the class if found or null otherwise. When the service returns a null BizTalk receives an empty message, which triggers an exception in the process - Microsoft.XLANGs.Core.MissingPartException: The XLANG/s message has no part at index '0'.  The total number of parts found in the message is '0'. If you expect a multipart message, check that the pipeline supports multipart messages such as......

30 of 235 | Error when expanding ‘Application’ in the BizTalk 2006 Admin Console - Yesterday we encountered a worrying blocking error when expanding the Application node under a BizTalk Group in the 2006 Administration Console: Failed to create ApplicationNode (Microsoft.BizTalk.SnapIn.Framework) Additional Information: Exception has...(read more)...

31 of 235 | Efficient grouping and debatching of big files using BizTalk 2006 - I’ve seen people struggle both on the forums and while consulting when in it comes to finding an good way of grouping and transforming content in file before debatching it. Say for example we have a text file like the example below. 0001;Test row...(read more)...

32 of 235 | PipelineTesting code now on GitHub - I just pushed all the source code for my BizTalk 2006 PipelineTesting library to GitHub. I'll keep this public repository updated whenever I make any changes to the library, so if you're interested in keeping track of the code or forking it, this should make it a lot easier. You can find the clone URL for the new repository is: git://github.com/tomasr/pipelinetesting.git Enjoy! BizTalk Server 2006, PipelineTesting ...

33 of 235 | Controlling BizTalk Orchestrations with PowerShell - Here's a sample PowerShell script/functions to start/stop BizTalk orchestrations. This is an extended version of the Stop-Orchestration VBScript included in the BizTalk 2006 SDK, which I hope someone finds useful . The script can be used to start or stop either a specific orchestration or a group of orchestrations defined in a BizTalk assembly. For example, to stop and unenlist all orchestrations in a given assembly, you could use this: stop-orch -assembly 'MyProject.BizTalk, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=50b7b2906e3f8aa5' -unenlist Here's the code for the script: ......

34 of 235 | Creating Multi-Part Messages in BizTalk - Last year I wrote an entry about adding arbitrary binary attachments to a Multi-Part message in BizTalk 2006 using a helper C# component. That entry has been fairly popular (as far as BizTalk posts go, which is not usually much!), and I occasionally get questions about it. The sample uses a bit of clever code to insert arbitrary attachments into an existing XLANGMessage instance during construction. However, it's not very clear that this is actually a supported scenario and so there's always a chance it might get you into trouble. I recently thought of another way, possibly much better supported to accomplish the same in BizTalk 2006, though ......

35 of 235 | BizTalk 2006 'R3'....starts to form - Christmas has gone, Easter too.....but here's something to smile about. There's some HUGE things cooking on the horizon in the land of BizTalk. We want SQL2008....we want VS2008 and we want the world of connectivity to/from BizTalk to be *easy*. Also as BizTalk RFID goes mobile....we want to go there too! Control, manage, deploy/stop/start processes etc etc. Here's a start.... Steve Martin (heads up the Connect Systems Division - CSD at Microsoft in Product Management) spilt the beans and let me tell you....when are the betas coming out!!!!!!! http://blogs.msdn.com/stevemar/archive/2008/04/23/biztalk-server-platform-updates.aspx &......

36 of 235 | Speaking at Developer Summit on Masterdata Management using BizTalk 2006 - I recently spoke at the leading developer conference here in Sweden called Developer Summit. The talk was called Masterdata Management using BizTalk 2006. The slides can be found here. I can really recommend Developer Summit as a conference. Everything...(read more)...

37 of 235 | System Center Operations Manager and BizTalk - The SCOM 2007 BizTalk Management Pack has finally been released.  The Management Pack is a complete rewrite and covers BizTalk 2006, BizTalk R2 as well as the new features of R2 including RFID and the EDI functionality. You can download the Management Pack here.   Also, If you were familiar with the Management Pack for MOM 2005 you will notice a number of changes.  The biggest is the change to the alerting functionality.  In SCOM you create subscriptions which will provide you with alerts for all of the events.  If you are looking for the alerting functionality that MOM 2005 had (the ability to pick a rule and provide an alert based only on that rule) you can find......

38 of 235 | System Center Operations Manager and BizTalk - The SCOM 2007 BizTalk Management Pack has finally been released. The Management Pack is a complete rewrite and covers BizTalk 2006, BizTalk R2 as well as the new features of R2 including RFID and the EDI functionality. You can download the Management...(read more)...

39 of 235 | BizTalk 2006 R3 first half of 2009 - More details on investments Microsoft has made in this new version: http://blogs.msdn.com/nabeelp/archive/2008/04/22/biztalk-2006-r3-is-coming.aspx ...

40 of 235 | BizTalk 2006 R3 is coming! - With the amazing wave of new platforms (Windows Server 2008, .NET Framework 3.5, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008) coming out of Redmond recently, some of the most asked questions are "When will BizTalk be able to utilise these new platforms...(read more)...

41 of 235 | Consuming pipeline issue fix for BizTalk 2006 - I previously blogged about an issue I was experiencing building a custom pipeline component in BizTalk Server 2006, and that I had found it was fixed and was not longer an issue in R2. Now there is a KB ( KB941802 ) out that deals with a fix for that...(read more)...

42 of 235 | Taking my mouthwash - About four years ago I got my first glimpse of BizTalk.  When I first saw it, I could see lots of possibilities and real potential if this tool was implemented and used properly. Roughly three years ago I began working in an environment which had a BizTalk solution built.  Now, this solution relies heavily on several web sites which use HTTP post methods to do extra transformations of the messages to strings and from strings to XML.  Not the best solution, in my opinion, but it works. Well, to say it simply, this has always left a bad taste in my mouth for BizTalk.  We have had issues with the server configurations, keeping the Health & Activity Tracker working, heck even SQL Server fai......

43 of 235 | Truncating the BizTalk 2006 Tracking Database - In Truncating the BizTalkDTADb Database I discussed how to truncate the tracking database in BizTalk 2004. Over on the BizTalk Gurus forums, user nbusy wanted to do the same thing for BizTalk Server 2006 - he’s kindly allowed me to repost his instructions...(read more)...

44 of 235 | Failed Message Routing - One of the things Microsoft introduced with BizTalk 2006 is failed message routing.  Prior to this, developers had to come up with custom solutions to remove failed messages from the messagebox to prevent them from accumulating.  Now all one has to do is enable routing for failed messages on the receive ports and create an orchestration to consume these failed messages.  When a message comes into the messagebox, BizTalk tries to find a matching subscription based on the context properties of the message.  If no matching subscriptions are found, the message is suspended.  To demonstrate this we can create a receive location and drop in a XML file.  Checking in the Group Hub we find the follo......

45 of 235 | XmlAssembler TargetCharset Property Error in BizTalk 2006 & 2006 R2 - While researching a post about message encoding in BizTalk, I can across this Microsoft Knowledge Base article regarding the TargetCharset property on the XmlAssembler component - it would appear that if the property is set through the Admin Console,...(read more)...

46 of 235 | BizTalk 2006 Message Archiving Component - More Efficient Stream Handling - I’ve re-worked the BizTalk 2006 Message Archiving Component as a true streaming pipeline component - utilising a forward only eventing stream - to more efficiently use process resources when archiving large files, as suggested by Mikael Håkansson...(read more)...

47 of 235 | Announcing a new BizTalk 2006 Message Archiving Component - A couple of days ago I uploaded a revised version of my BizTalk 2006 Message Archiving Component onto CodePlex - version 0.2 can be downloaded from the CodePlex website at http://www.codeplex.com/btsmsgarchcomp. The component works with BizTalk 2006 &...(read more)...

48 of 235 | Depurando información en la DTA en BizTalk 2004 - El proceso de depuración de la base de datos de tracking "DTA" en BizTalk 2004 o BizTalk 2004 SP1 puede tardar horas o tal vez días, depende de la cantidad de información en la BD, debido a la lógica del procedimiento dtasp_PruneTrackingdatabase().  Este inconveniente no sucede en BizTalk 2006 y BizTalk 2004 SP2 por que se hicieron unas correcciones a estos procesos de depuración de las bases de datos.  Sin embargo, parte del proceso de instalación de BizTalk 2004 SP2 es limpiar la BD de tracking por lo tanto si esta tiene mucha información dicho proceso podra tardarse mas horas de lo previsto ya que utiliza este procedimiento. Para ......

49 of 235 | A bug with multiple hosts... - Wayyyy back in November of 2006, I wrote about a bug in BizTalk 2006: This bug is encountered when you attempt to start a BizTalk 2006 application definition with orchestrations that have been bound to different hosts.  (Say, OrchA in HostA, and OrchB in HostB.)  After the application has been deployed, the first time the application is started (and 'orchestration start/enlist' is included in the start options) you will receive an error that looks something like this: Microsoft.BizTalk.ExplorerOM.BtsException: Could not enlist orchestration 'BizTalkSample.Orchestrations.Echo,BizTalkSample.Orchestrations, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=05a4a......

50 of 235 | A bug with multiple hosts... - Wayyyy back in November of 2006, I wrote about a bug in BizTalk 2006: This bug is encountered when you attempt to start a BizTalk 2006 application definition with orchestrations that have been bound to different hosts. (Say, OrchA in HostA, and OrchB...(read more)...