BizTalk 2006

51 of 210 | Latest BizTalk 2006 Documentation, PDF vs CHM, which is better? -     Everybody these days seems to be pretty excited about the new PDF version of BizTalk 2006 documentation (Btw, a latest .CHM version is out as well, but there is no hoopla around that). So thought I'll  download the PDF version and check it out as I have been using only the .CHM version extensively. But I was not very impressed with what I saw. To start with, the PDF version is really huge file 114 MB (whereas the .CHM version is only 44MB, the contents are the same), there is no way my PDA mobile device will load that kind of thing even with external memory card. The links in the PDF version are not active (not clickable), so you cannot navigate through the docume......

52 of 210 | 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. ...

53 of 210 | New BizTalk Book Out - Big congrats to Darren Jefford for finishing Professional BizTalk 2006. Darren throws out a quick summary of each chapter here. Given how few books existed for those struggling to learn BizTalk Server 2004, it’s a welcome change to see so many top - of - the - line books available for BizTalk Server 2006. Technorati Tags: BizTalk ...

54 of 210 | BizTalk HL7 end-to-end tutorial error - While preparing a POC with BizTalk 2006 and the accelerator for HL7 1.3, I realized there is a little error in the end-to-end tutorial (also in <drive>:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Accelerator for HL7 1.3\SDK\End-to-End Tutorial). In the "TutorialSampleInstance.txt" the name of the source (MSH3) is "ADTSystem", while the name of the party in both BizTalk Administration and BTAHL7 is "Tutorial_ADTSystem". The consequence is that no ACK or RX messages are generated. To solve it, just change the name of the MSH3 in "TutorialSampleInstance.txt" to "Tutorial_ADTSystem".   Technorati tags: BizTalk, HL7, end-to-end tutorial ...

55 of 210 | Books on BizTalk Server 2006 - Here is a handy list of books available on BizTalk Server 2006. Note that some of them are not published as of this writing:1. BizTalk 2006 Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach by Mark Beckner, Ben Goeltz, Brandon Gross, and Brennan O'Reilly (Paperback - Sep 13, 2006)2. Pro BizTalk 2006 (Pro) by George Dunphy and Ahmed Metwally (Paperback - Oct 23, 2006)3. Foundations of BizTalk Server 2006 (Foundations) by Daniel Woolston (Paperback - Jan 8, 2007)Not yet published4. Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 Unleashed by Stephen Mohr and Scott Woodgate (Paperback)5. Professional BizTalk Server 2006 by Darren Jefford and Kevin T. Smith (Paperback)-- RegardsBenny MathewSeamless Integration SolutionsBizTa......

56 of 210 | Building a Complete Certificate Scenario With BizTalk Server 2006 - I’m working on a BizTalk project where we’re testing the use of security certificates, and I’ve just had a bear of a time finding thorough walkthroughs of setting this up. It’s barely mentioned in the available BizTalk books, and while the BizTalk 2004 whitepaper (which has now been added to the BizTalk 2006 documentation) has some very nice coverage, it wasn’t exactly what I wanted. So, after much toil (and threats of lighting myself on fire), I present a step-by-step for building a certificate scenario using test certificates. I’ve used the .NET Framework tool makecert to build local test certificates. The hardest part for me was getting the correct series of command line parameters......

57 of 210 | 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....

58 of 210 | 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......

59 of 210 | Biztalk 2006 performance testing - I found a great article on performance testing. The test consists of BTS 2004, BTS 2006 w SQL 2000, and BTS 2006 w/ SQL 2005. This article is a great read. Enjoy. Well it seems that infosys now requires you to request a copy. I guess to many of you went and downloaded it directly. The link to request the copy is: http://www.infosys.com/microsoft/resource-center/technology-showcase.asp There are a few other papers as well that may be of interest so tak a look at all of them. The one I used was "BizTalk Server 2006 with SQL Server 2005 takes performance to a new high." Perhaps I will just post the highlights here and forget about the entire article. Sorry about the confusion. This i......

60 of 210 | 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......

61 of 210 | Biztalk Host Manager 2004 - Since Isaac is publishing post after post I thought it is time for me to also post something.I developed a useful tool, called the Biztalk Host Manager (BTSHostManager), which we use in our development team to be able to quickly stop, start and especially restart BTS host instances.Because all our developers found it a helpful tool we thought we would make it available for download.Some features:- It monitors background service state change of host instances (not by default, use options to enable) .- It works for Biztalk 2004 and 2006.- A seperate Biztalk 2006 version (compiled against 2.0 framework) will be available soon.- This is not the final release version. We are still testing it, so......

62 of 210 | 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......

63 of 210 | 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....

64 of 210 | 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 UD......

65 of 210 | 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 wo......

66 of 210 | Debatching large messages and extending Flatfile pipeline disassembler component in Biztalk 2006 - This article is aimed to explain the basics of custom flatfile disassembler...

67 of 210 | 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 take the exam as well. 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. ...

68 of 210 | BizTalk 2006 Consuming Web Services - Considerations when you try to consume web services. http://www.biztalkgurus.com/blogs/biztalksyn/archive/2006/12/18/BizTalk-2006-Consuming-Web-Services.aspx...

69 of 210 | Using BtsTask to GAC your BizTalk Assemblies on MSI Import - Deployment in BizTalk 2006 is a greatly improved process over that of BizTalk 2004. The typical deployment process in BizTalk 2006 goes something like this: 1. Export the MSI using BizTalk Administration2. Move to target computer3. Import MSI through BizTalk Administration or BTSTASK4. Run the MSI to GAC the DLL's Simple and straight forward. But why do we need to run the MSI after we import it? This accomplishes a few things, mostly to GAC the DLL's and to have the MSI package show up under Add/Remove programs. This makes is easy to see what has been deployed to the target computer. But what if you only wanted to move the code to one target computer and you did not care about seei......

70 of 210 | BizTalk 2006 Server - Automatic Account and Group Creation - This is a great time saver, a script that will create the Active Directory Groups, Users, and Assign Users to Groups for a multi computer install of BizTalk 2006.BizTalk 2006 Server - Automatic Account and Group Creation ...

71 of 210 | BizTalk 2006: Cool content... - So, there I am, sitting next to my boss, Andy, at work.  He's just downloaded the electronic version of a BizTalk book he's bought.   It's called "Pro BizTalk 2006" from Apress, and its written by George Dunphy and Ahmed Metwally.   Andy draws my attention to the chapter on the Microsoft Rules Engine.   I've got an interest in this piece of kit, so I start flicking through the pages to see what the chapter is like.   Not too bad at all.  Oh look, they've even got a section starting on page 290 that discusses how to use XPaths effectively to handle XML facts.   Good stuff.   I've blogged on this once or twice myself, and I......

72 of 210 | Failed Message Routing and Failed Orchestration Routing in BizTalk 2006 - This post discusses Failed Message Routing and Failed Orchestration Routing in BizTalk 2006 Failed Message RoutingFailed Message Routing is a new feature of BizTalk 2006.You can read about it here: Using Failed Message RoutingBelow is an excerpt from the above help topic: What Does Failed Message Routing Consist Of?When failed message routing is enabled, BizTalk Server does not suspend the message—it routes the message instead. Failed message routing can be enabled on both receive and send ports, with the following results:If failed message routing is enabled on a receive port and a message fails in the receive pipeline or in routing, a failed message is generated. In the case where......

73 of 210 | Failed Message Routing and Failed Orchestration Routing in BizTalk 2006 - This post discusses Failed Message Routing and Failed Orchestration Routing in BizTalk 2006 Failed Message RoutingFailed Message Routing is a new feature of BizTalk 2006.You can read about it here: Using Failed Message RoutingBelow is an excerpt from the above help topic: What Does Failed Message Routing Consist Of?When failed message routing is enabled, BizTalk Server does not suspend the message—it routes the message instead. Failed message routing can be enabled on both receive and send ports, with the following results:If failed message routing is enabled on a receive port and a message fails in the receive pipeline or in routing, a failed message is generated. In the case where......

74 of 210 | Failed Message Routing and Failed Orchestration Routing in BizTalk 2006 - This post discusses Failed Message Routing and Failed Orchestration Routing in BizTalk 2006 Failed Message RoutingFailed Message Routing is a new feature of BizTalk 2006.You can read about it here: Using Failed Message RoutingBelow is an excerpt from the above help topic: What Does Failed Message Routing Consist Of?When failed message routing is enabled, BizTalk Server does not suspend the message—it routes the message instead. Failed message routing can be enabled on both receive and send ports, with the following results:If failed message routing is enabled on a receive port and a message fails in the receive pipeline or in routing, a failed message is generated. In the case where an er......

75 of 210 | BizTalk 2004 SP2, New BizTalk 2006 Books - So we've got BizTalk 2004 SP2 finally out today (hat tip: Tim Rayburn) and you can see what's included in this must-install pack here ... List of bugs that are fixed in BizTalk Server 2004 Service Pack 2. Also, I recently picked up both BizTalk 2006 Recipes as well as Pro BizTalk 2006. The Recipes book is a solid intro into BizTalk, nicely explains concepts in a "problem ... solution" approach. The Pro book was excellent and taught me a number of things I didn't know already. I wrote up a review on the Amazon.com page, so no need to rehash it here. So, go right now and harass your boss, spouse, neighbor, or robot master into buying you both of these for the holiday season. No, that's no......

76 of 210 | Advanced BizTalk 2006 Web Services, Part I - I've recently had the opportunity to build some advanced web services with BizTalk Server 2006, and wanted to show 4 interesting use cases over this 2 part blog post. Over these 2 posts, I will demonstrate and investigate the following topics ... Using the "bare" and "wrapped" settings during web service generation Creating multi-parameter web services via BizTalk How the "one way" flag affects the web service Decoupling the BizTalk web service from a particular assemblyThis post will focus on the first two. [UPDATE: See Part II here] I would venture to say that virtually no one has clicked the "Advanced" button in the Web Services Publishing Wizard and changed any of those val......

77 of 210 | Advanced BizTalk 2006 Web Services, Part II - In Part I of this two post series, I began a look at some advanced concepts around BizTalk-generated web services. In this post, we look at two additional concepts. In the last post, I demonstrated the following topics ... Using the "bare" and "wrapped" settings during web service generation Creating multi-parameter web services via BizTalkIn this post, I'll investigate the final two points ... How the "one way" flag affects the web service Decoupling the BizTalk web service from a particular assembly First of all, what does the Force Request Response flag in the Web Services Publishing Wizard actually do? The idea is that you can control whether you have a one-way or request......

78 of 210 | Another New BizTalk 2006 Book Available - Another new BizTalk book is now available from APress.This book, Pro BizTalk 2006, published by APress and written by George Dunphy (works for Microsoft Consulting Services) and Ahmer Metwally (works for Microsoft) is described as a high-end resource based on real feedback from developers.  It covers topics not covered well in other BizTalk books like performance tuning, scalability, and administration.Amazon.com also has a package so you can get both the Pro BizTalk 2006 book and the BizTalk 2006 Recipes book for one price.  Lots of other great BizTalk Books coming around the corner as well...  ...

79 of 210 | Pro BizTalk 2006 Book Now Available - Another BizTalk 2006 book is now available on Amazon.com. Pro BizTalk 2006 by George Dunphy and Ahmer Metwally is described as a high-end resource based on feedback from developers.  It covers topics like scalability, administration & performance tuning.  I have not had a chance to take a look at this book yet, but it appears to cover some topics that are not covered well in the BizTalk help guide or in other books. Amazon.com is also having a special so you can get this book along with the BizTalk 2006 Recipes  book for one low price.  ...

80 of 210 | BizTalk 2006 Performance Metrics With SQL 2005 - Useful report released by our partner Infosys showing performance improvements using SQL Server 2005 with BizTalk 2006 instead of SQL Server 2000. I like how they explain the scenario they tested, show the results with BizTalk 2004 and SQL 2000, BizTalk 2006 and SQL 2000, and then BizTalk 2006 and SQL 2005. I also appreciate their commentary as to *why* the BTS06 + SQL05 combo performed better. One number you'll see a lot here is a 40% improvement in performance with BTS06 + SQL05. You'll find scenarios such as interchange (batch) processing, executing rules from orchestration, atomic transactions, convoys, and more. Don't miss the section on "backlogs" where you see how SQL 2005 signif......

81 of 210 | InfoWorld Product Review of BizTalk Server 2006 - InfoWorld has posted their product review of BizTalk Server 2006 and awarded the product with the highest rating.   This article is called BizTalk 2006 deftly connects enterprise apps.  InfoWorld concludes their review with: "BizTalk Server 2006 is a huge product, and I have only hit the high points of describing its capabilities.  It appears to be much improved from BizTalk 2004. The updated product has more capability, better tools, better scalability, better security, better value, and cleaner deployment." Some other notable quotes: o       BizTalk 2006 offers amazing scalability, which will make enterprise IT departments......

82 of 210 | BizTalk 2006 deftly connects enterprise apps - Suppose you’re the new CIO at an enterprise-scale company that has “islands of automation” for accounts receivable, accounts payable, inventory control, sales, support, and HR, and your goal is to integrate all business processes....

83 of 210 | What is the difference between Microsoft.RuleEngine.RuleSetDeploymentDriver and Microsoft.BizTalk.RuleEngineExtensions.RuleSetDeploymentDriver? - The Microsoft.RuleEngine assembly can be used by any .NET application. The BizTalk Server can be considered as one of the consumers of BRE. The Microsoft.BizTalk.RuleEngineExtensions is the extension for BizTalk to provide some additional functionality. The main difference is that the Microsoft.BizTalk.RuleEngineExtensions.RuleSetDeploymentDriver writes out information to the BizTalk tracking database so that rules can be tracked using HAT. If you use the Microsoft.RuleEngine.RuleSetDeploymentDriver class, deployment go a little bit faster (no need to save the rules to the tracking database, but it is not recommended. In general, you should use the one configured. In BizTalk 2006, the sta......

84 of 210 | New BizTalk Server 2006 Publications - Here they come!  2 new BizTalk Server 2006 books are published.      You can already order BizTalk 2006 Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach and pre-order Pro BizTalk 2006 (Pro).  Happy reading!   Regards Marjan...

85 of 210 | New BizTalk 2006 Performance Papers from HP - Having a great time here at the SOA and BPM Conference in Redmond. Got to hang out with Stephen Thomas, Alan Smith, Scott Colestock, Matt Meleski, Larry Beck and lots of other fellas. It's so foreign to me being in a room with dozens of folks who deeply know this product. I'm used to a small customer subset of knowledgable folks, not a big group of peers with a deep base of experience. One thing I've seen here at the conference that I wanted to share is a new set of whitepapers from HP that outlines a series of case studies and performance tests on BizTalk Server 2006. You can find such nuggets such as Case study: HP internal migration of Microsoft® BizTalk Server 2004 to 2006, and SMB ......

86 of 210 | Sign and GAC your BizTalk 2006 Custom Pipeline Components ASAP - Recently I was working with a custom pipeline component in BizTalk 2006.  As you know, a change was made to how these components behave in BizTalk 2006.  That is, now they can be placed in the GAC as well as in the \Pipeline Components directly.  So what does this mean?  Put them in both place, one place, who knows?In general, the rule is when working with custom pipeline components on a development system put the components in the \Pipeline Components folder and put them in the GAC on non-development systems.  Although this is not really the approach the help guide says (under Developing Custom Pipeline Components), this approach works great since it......

87 of 210 | Working with Custom Pipeline Components in BizTalk 2006 - As you know, a change was made to how custom pipelines components behave in BizTalk Server 2006.  Now they can be placed in the Global Assembly Cache (GAC) as well as in the \Pipeline Components directly.  So what does this mean?  Put them in both place, one place, who knows? In general, when working with custom pipeline components on a development system the components must be placed in the \Pipeline Components folder to be available for the designer.  When working on a non-development server, putting the components only into the GAC can save on deployment time.  Although this is not really the approach the help guide says (under Developing......

88 of 210 | New BizTalk Book Hits the Shelves - A new BizTalk Server book is now available.  It is the first BizTalk book available that covers some of the new features of BizTalk 2006!  It's called BizTalk 2006 Recipes and is now available on Amazon. This book is a must have for any BizTalk project!...

89 of 210 | BizTalk 2006 Recipes Book Now Available - BizTalk Server books are in short supply.  And finding one that really helps solve real world problems is event harder to find.  A new BizTalk book is now available.  It's called BizTalk 2006 Recipes and is currently available on Amazon.com for around $38. I was fortunate enough to get to work with the authors of this book as a Tech Reviewer. This book covers BizTalk from end to end and is a must have for any BizTalk project!...

90 of 210 | Biztalk 2006 Map Advanced Properties - It's a been a while I blogged. I literally did not have time even to check the blogosphere for past few months. My projects are going very very busy and having fun with Biztalk. In the midst of work, I learnt a few advanced properties in Biztalk mapping which can be set directly by editing the Biztalk map file. As usual use this at your own risk. These are not tested fully to use in Production/Live environments. Optimizing Value Mapping Functoid Code Generation If you have worked with Value mapping Functoids in Biztalk maps and had a chance to look at the generated XSLT, you can notice that there are a bunch of variables declared which may not be used if the xsl:if condition evaluates fal......

91 of 210 | BizTalk Receive Locations Disabling - Error: "exhausted the network retry attempts" Do you have over 50 receive locations that you use for Biztalk 2004/2006. Have you ever found them disabled because of Exhausted Network Retries? The problem is not Biztalk but Windows Server 2003 and NetBIOS. Basically it comes down to a default value of connections to a particular server. The default value is 50. You can set this value up to 65000. We used 100 as the value and run at 91 connections constantly. This article will help: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;810886   Here is the basics of what you need to do: 1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click ......

92 of 210 | How to Add Multiple Binding Files to an Application in BizTalk 2006 - BizTalk 2006 makes it easy to add multiple binding files to an Application.  By adding multiple binding files to an Application, you can easily select environment specific settings during deployment.  So if you have a Dev, Test, and Prod environment you can have three binding files all built into the same MSI package.  Of course, you need to create and maintain multiple version of your binding files in order to use them in this manner.To add multiple binding files to an Application, just follow these steps.1.  Export your binding files using BizTalk Server Administration (you'll need to change your setting for each environment). 2. Once you have all the binding files......

93 of 210 | BizTalk Deployment Wizard thronging error while deploying a BizTalk Assembly. (SOX051116700042) - This is known bug of Biztalk 2004. I'm not sure this would happen in Biztalk 2006 environment again but I just want to make a memento of the issue. When the Biztalk server has a NNTP service, above error will defenitely come up, due to the nntpsvc.dll which is NNTP service component. Biztalk deployment wizard loads the dll and try to call function, NNTPSVC_LPC ( this calls LookupAccountName ) using security context of NNTPSVC. But deployment wizard doesn't actually have a permission to do so, one of the parameters will be empty and this AllocateCCall will throw an exception "Out of memory."This error does look like has something to do with DTC, but it doesn't. It's simply a matter NNTP svc.......

94 of 210 | Biztalk Resources - Biztalk 2006 Resourcesby ganeshpSelf Paces Trainingby biztalk server teamBiztalk 2006 Learning Resourcesby luke nyswongerBiztalk Wikiby biztalkwiki...

95 of 210 | Flat file tutorials - Even though we have Flat file wizard in Biztalk 2006, it's still worth to know basic of flat file. Here's flat file tutorials. BizTalk 2004 Flat File Schema Tutorial 1 BizTalk 2004 Flat File Schema Tutorial 2 BizTalk Flat File Parsing AnnotationsThis next one is a good overview of property setting on a flat file schema it is taken from this blog post: http://weblogs.ilg.com/brumfieldb/archive/2004/08/09/440.aspxExtending the flat file disassembler pipeline Component Test your flat file processingThe Anatomy of a Positional Flat-File...

96 of 210 | New Methods in XmlReader 2.0 - As you might have guessed it I work on a lot in the XML namespace of .NET and I'm finally starting to use some of the new XmlReader features.  This post will go over some of them here.  And remember a wise man once said that everything can be solved with one more layer of abstraction.  These new features are nothing more than an encapsulation of code that the major of us have written thousands of times before but its all about productivity.  Why just today I was at a meeting going over some change requests and noticed that n new features were being added and schedule and budget remained constant.  :) .ReadToFollowing(string)  This method wil......

97 of 210 | BizTalk 2006 Documenter Available - I hadn't realized we released this publicly yet, but noticed this morning that the BizTalk Server 2006 Documenter is now available for you to download. See Paul's blog for the link. I love this tool. To be able to generate a CHM file containing summaries of all your BizTalk artifacts (and relationships), plus business rules, plus port configurations, plus orchestration image snapshots is freakin' great. Essential way to quickly document your entire BizTalk application without writing a single line in a boring Word doc! Technorati Tags: BizTalk ...

98 of 210 | Those long xpaths... - Tired of havng incredibly long xpath statements when using the "xpath" keyword in your orchestration expression shapes?  (They are generally long because of the xml namespace issues, unless your documents don't use namespaces.  When namespaces are in play, "local-name()" tends to overwhelm your actual path content.) For BizTalk 2006, we can take advantage of the fact that System.Xml 2.0 added the ability for documents to supply namespace mappings themselves when doing xpath work - without the need for manually populating and using a XmlNamespaceManager instance.  Note that XPathNavigator now has a SelectSingleNode method which can accept......

99 of 210 | Those long xpaths... - Tired of havng incredibly long xpath statements when using the "xpath" keyword in your orchestration expression shapes?  (They are generally long because of the xml namespace issues, unless your documents do not use namespaces.  When namespaces are in play, "local-name()" tends to overwhelm your actual path content.) For BizTalk 2006, we can take advantage of the fact that System.Xml 2.0 added the ability for documents to supply namespace mappings themselves when doing xpath work - without the need for manually populating and using a XmlNamespaceManager instance, as was the case for .Net 1.x.  Note that XPathNavigator now (as of .net 2.0) has a SelectSingleNod......

100 of 210 | How To Build and Deploy BizTalk Solutions Using MSBuild - MSBuild is the new build platform for Visual Studios.  It allows great flexibility, customization (through creating custom Tasks), and integration with unit tests. While MSBuild doesn’t directly support building BizTalk solutions, tasks are available to call the DEVENV executable and Microsoft UK has released a set of custom tasks to support a wide verity of common BizTalk tasks (available on GotDotNet).  This provided an easy method for scripting automated or ad-hock BizTalk builds and deployments using MSBuild. What can MSBuild do for you? -       Allow for automated and scheduled builds of your BizTalk code -     &n......