BizTalk Step-By-Step

[200] Open BizTalk Sources

2009-03-08T06:44:00.000-07:00

Some useful tools provided as open source

BizUnit - Framework for Automated Testing of Distributed Systems
http://bizunit.codeplex.com/

The adoption of an automated testing strategy is fundamental in reducing the risk associated with software development projects, it is key to ensuring that you deliver high quality software. Often, the overhead associated with developing automated tests is seen as excessive and a reason to not adopt automated testing.

BizUnit enables automated tests to be rapidly developed. BizUnit is a flexible and extensible declarative test framework targeted that rapidly enables the automated testing of distributed systems, for example it is widely used to test BizTalk solutions. BizUnit is fully extensible. Its approach is to enable test cases to be constructed from generic reusable test steps, test cases are defined in XML which allows them to be auto-generated and also enables the ‘fixing up’ of Url’s for different environments, e.g. test, staging and production environments. Defining test cases in XML enables test cases to be auto-generated.

BizTalk Server Pattern Wizard
http://patternwizard.codeplex.com/
The BizTalk Pattern Wizard is an extensible tool to help you capture, share, and reuse your orchestration best practices. By using the BizTalk Pattern Wizard, you can capture a best practice, turn it into a generalized and configurable pattern, and share that pattern with the rest of your team or the entire BizTalk community

Enterprise Service Bus Guidance
http://esb.codeplex.com/
The Microsoft ESB Guidance provides architectural guidance, patterns, practices, and a set of BizTalk Server and .NET components to simplify the development of an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) on the Microsoft platform and to allow Microsoft customers to extend their own messaging.

BizTalk Adapter Wizard
http://biztalkadapterwizard.codeplex.com/
The BizTalk Adapter Wizard for BizTalk Server 2006 is a Visual Studio 2005 project wizard which creates all of the framework code for your custom BizTalk adapter. The adapter wizard is accessible from the Visual Studio menu: File - New - Project - BizTalk projects.

BizTalk Server 2006 Documenter
http://biztalkdocumenter.codeplex.com/
Creates compiled help files for a given BTS 2006 installation. This tool can be run on an ad-hoc basis using the UI or from the command line as a post build/deploy task to create a compiled help file describing a BTS 2006 installation. It will compile: BTS Host configuration, Send/Receive port configuration, Orchestration diagrams, Schema and Map content, Pipeline process flow, Adapter configuration, Rule engine vocabularies and policies, More… and publish them as compiled help files. Optionally you can embed custom HTML content and custom descriptions for all BTS artifacts to produce a more customized look and feel to the CHM output

BizTalk Server 2006 Orchestration Profiler
http://biztalkorcprofiler.codeplex.com/
Creates CHM report files illustrating the level of coverage for specified BizTalk orchestrations. This tool can be run to gain a consolidated view of orchestration tracking data for a specified period of time to help developers get an idea of how their orchestrations are being processed and how much coverage they are getting in their testing. In addition to simple coverage information the data presented helps to identify latency and code path exceptions by highlighting long running and error prone orchestration shapes which is key to effective performance testing.

MapCop
http://www.codeplex.com/MapCop
A program for testing BizTalk map files (.BTM) for a set of best practices.

BizTalk Sftp Adapter
http://sftpadapter.codeplex.com/
This adapter was developed for a customer who needed to transfer files independent from any choice of platform. Much concern for security, along with already invested infrastructure, where the main reasons for choosing Sftp before other protocols like Ftps.

BizTalk Scheduled Task Adapter
http://biztalkscheduledtask.codeplex.com/
An Biztalk Server 2004/2006 in-process receive adapter that executes a prescribed task on a daily, weekly or monthly schedule. The adapter is configured entirely within Biztalk, all config is stored within the SSODB and can be exported and imported via binding files. The schedule capabilities are similar to those available with the Windows Scheduled Task Service

The TCP/IP Adapter for BizTalk Server 2006
http://btstcpip.codeplex.com/
The TCP/IP Adapter for BizTalk Server 2006 is a community adapter that was originally developed for healthcare customers in the UK

SDC Tasks
http://www.codeplex.com/sdctasks
The SDC Tasks are a collection of MSBuild tasks designed to make your life easier. You can use these tasks in your own MSBuild projects. You can use them stand alone and, if all else fails, you can use them as sample code.

MSBUILD Extension Pack
http://msbuildextensionpack.codeplex.com/
The *MSBuild Extension Pack 3.5.1.0* release provides a collection of over 230 MSBuild tasks.

Deployment Framework for BizTalk
http://biztalkdeployment.codeplex.com/
The Deployment Framework for BizTalk eliminates the pain associated with BizTalk application deployments, and goes far beyond BizTalk’s out-of-the-box deployment functionality. It also includes additional tools to enhance developer productivity, such as binding file management.

BizTalk Server Pipeline Component Wizard
http://btsplcw.codeplex.com/
A project meant to ease to development of pipeline components used within a BizTalk Server environment. Supports both C# and VB.NET

ContextAccessor Functoid
http://contextaccessor.codeplex.com/
This project is a sum between two functoids that get the Message Context Properties values using maps from a biztalk receive port or from an orchestration

BizTalk Packed Decimal Converter Functoid

http://packeddecimalctvr.codeplex.com/

BizTalk Functoids to convert from and to Packed Decimals

[200] What is Oslo and What is Dublin

2009-02-16T00:54:00.000-08:00

Oslo: is the codename for Microsoft’s forthcoming modeling platform, this platform is a set of technical investments that aim to significantly simplify designing, building, managing and scaling service-oriented and composite applications that can span from the enterprise to the Internet.

Dublin: is an application server which offer out of the box scalability and provides a centralized management, and will extend Internet Information Services (IIS) to provide a standard host for applications that use workflow or communications. it's almost a BizTalk server without Message Box, BizTalk is an integration Server while Dublin is an Application Server. Dublin will provide a content base message and message base correlation and forwarding services it will use the same BizTalk Adapters and any custom adapter will be available for both BizTalk and the incoming product Dublin. Dublin will host stateful workflow applications and it will be fully supported by Oslo. Dublin will first become available after the release of the .NET Framework 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010.

[200] How to Install the Oracle Client for Oracle BizTalk Adapter

2009-02-15T01:19:00.000-08:00

If you are trying to use Microsoft BizTalk adapter for Oracle database, then you MUST install the Oracle Client before operating the Microsoft BizTalk Adapter for Oracle.

Steps to Install the Oracle Client:

1- Locate Oracle Client install directory, and run setup.exe

2- Wait few seconds until a console windows appear.

3- Accept Welcome Screen, and click Next

4- From the installation type, select Custom

5- From Available Product Components, select “Oracle Windows Interface” Components: select the following

providers:

6- Accept Installation Summary page and click Install

7-Wait until the installing the oracle components

8- On End of Installation page click Exit

[600] BizTalk 2009 Packed Decimal Converter Functoid

2009-02-08T04:28:00.000-08:00

to install and use Packed Decimal functoids:

1- Using VS 2008, Compile the component or download the compiled .dll. you can find sourcecode under: http://www.codeplex.com/PackedDecimalCtvr/SourceControl /ListDownloadableCommits.aspx while you can find the compiled code under: http://www.codeplex.com/PackedDecimalCtvr/Release /ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=22917

2- Copy the compiled .dll into \Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009\Developer Tools\Mapper Extensions or D:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006\Developer Tools\Mapper Extensions if you have BizTalk 2006

3- GAC the compiled .dll file “BizTalk.Mapper.CustomComponents.Converters.dll”

4- Install the packed decimal functoids to your Visual Studio, right click your functoid, from the right menu choose “Choose Item”

5- Functoids should be Conversion under [Conversion Functoids]

6- Drag the proper functoid to your map, use [Configure Functoid Inputs] to insert pad length and float point position

7- Test output

[200] What's New In BizTalk 2009

2009-02-02T04:50:00.000-08:00

Microsoft has renamed the next version of BizTalk previously known as BizTalk Server 2006 R3 to BizTalk Server 2009 and published a detailed roadmap for the product. and here is what i found changed:

The following component/feature has been deprecated and no longer available:

BizTalk Deployment Command Line Tool
HWS Design Tools
Human Workflow Services Runtime Components
Human Workflow Services Base Assemblies
Human Workflow Service Administration Tools
BAS Schema Editor Extension
BizTalk Message Queuing
Deployment Wizard
Health and activity monitoring tool (Moved to BTS Admin Console)

Also the following features/Components has been deprecated

VS ExplorerUI (BizTalk Explorer)
Web Services Publishing wizard (ASMX)
Line of Business Adapters for SAP/Oracle DB/Siebel
The old SQL Server Adapter
Base EDI Adapter(exists as Standard EDI Adapter)
BTS Accelerator for HIPAA (exists as EDI feature)
Web Services Enhancements adapter WSE (Replaced by WCF)
MSMQt Adapter (newMSMQ adapter)BTSDeploy.exe Utility (replaced by BTSTask.exe)

When creating a new BizTalk project you will find it very similar to any other C# project, there no need to add registry code so you can see the generated code.

While the BizTalk 2009 project is C# project, so you can add and compile C# and other resources files. This will help to write your custom C# code inside the same BizTalk Project.

While the new BizTalk 2009 project is C# project, so the default configuration are Debug & Release

Add Web Reference has been deprecated in Visual Studio 2008 and it has been replaced with “Add Service Reference” that’s will be applied also to the BizTalk 2009 projects.

You can compile the BizTalk 2009 project without any need for Visual Studio or even BizTalk to be installed. This will be very helpful to be used on build servers.

New Enhances debugging support for artifacts, BizTalk unit testing feature has been added to unit testing Maps, Schemas, Orchestrations, and Pipelines. There is a restriction here for multisource map.

Testing Guidance by [Michael Stephenson] http://geekswithblogs.net/michaelstephenson/archive/2008/12/12/127828.aspx

Project Files becomes MsBuild Files

Pipeline new components (Enable Dynamic Port Routing, and Resend Manager)

New options when adding new resources using the BizTalk 2009 Administration tool, "Make visible to COM components (regasm)" and "Register service components (regsvcs).

Map Debugging

New Web Services Registry UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, Integration) includes a UDDI 3.0 registry which provides support for registry affiliation, extended discovery services, digital certificates and extensibility for a subscription API

New Administration Change, two new query has been added to compensate the HAT for tracked message events and tracked service event

New Messaging Changes

Recoverable interchange (XMLValidator, map – SuspendMessageOnMappingFailure property)
Choose the transaction isolation level in the WCF-Custom Send Adapter

Support for .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 and Visual Studio 2008 SP1

Support for Windows Server 2008 , and for sure support for the Hyper-V virtualization that provide the meaning of reducing the costs through lower hardware, energy, and management overhead, plus providing a dynamic IT infrastructure

Improved Failover Clustering, By taking advantage of Windows 2008 clustering, BizTalk Server is now able to be deployed in multi-site cluster scenarios, where cluster nodes could reside on separate IP subnets and avoid complicated VLANs

Support for SQL 2008

Support for Team Foundation Server (TFS), now the development teams can automate builds, bug tracking, Project Server integration, source control and team development support

Standard used for creating Web service registries

Provide new ESB Guidance plugins inside Visual Studio 2008, ESB Guidance 2.0 that is used for applying ESB usage patterns, improved itinerary processing, itinerary modeling using a visual Domain Specific Language (DSL) tools approach also it comes with enhanced ESB management portal.

BizTalk 2009 has the same failover clustering capabilities as Windows Server 2008 for greater reliability

Enhanced Business Activity Monitoring , the combination of BizTalk 2009 and SQL 2008 provide support for UDM cubes and scalable real-time aggregations which enhances support for Microsoft PerformancePoint Server 2007

Connectivity with intelligent RFID devices

Support for RFID 1.1
BizTalk RFID extended to Mobile Devices
Support for key industry standards
Enables using new readers with LLRP (Low Level Reader Protocol)
Machine readable tag data standards (TDT for EPC)
Web Services for device management and Discovery, Configuration, Initialization (DCI)
WS Discovery and partial EPCIS support

Enhanced support for EDI and AS2

EDI

Control of envelope headers
Automatic rollover of control numbers
Configurable content delimiter character
Support for multiple batches per party
Updated reporting to cover all new features

AS2

Support for multiple message attachments
Configurable message auto-resend
Filename is preserved end-to-end
Updated reporting to cover all new features
Drummond re-certification

Enhanced support for SWIFT

SWIFT Awards Gold Certification to Microsoft BizTalkAccelerator for SWIFT (http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2004/oct04/10-11swiftbiztalkpr.mspx)

New Adapters:

Oracle E-Business Suites
SQL Server (much improved over the existing SQL adapter)

Host Integration Server 2009 & BizTalk Adapters for Host Systems (BAHS) 2.0

New WCF WebSphere MQ channel to integrate directly with WebSphere MQ
New WCF Service for Host Applications has been added to expose the traditional Transaction Integrator to .NET Framework developers
Support for the most recent versions of CICS, IMS, CICS HTTP transport, DB2, DB2/400, DB2 Universal Database, and WebSphere MQ

*for beta version Sign up here - https://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=218

[400] Deploy a New Version of a BizTalk Application to Run Side-by-side with an Existing Version

2009-02-01T05:05:00.000-08:00

Purpose: Deploy two or more versions of BizTalk application to run side by side at the run Reason:

Used to deploy newer version of a Long Running orchestrations.
Production soft lunching Having more than a version of BizTalk application to run on production Server

Apply To: BizTalk 2006, BizTalk 2009

Steps:

Use visual studio to make the required updates
Increment the version number for each used assembly, use the most significant two digits x.x.x.x such like (1.0.0.0) to (1.1.0.0)
Compile your project and don’t use Visual Studio to deploy the newly created version
Use Microsoft BizTalk Administration Tools to deploy you new changes
Use same ports to Bind your orchestrations

Images:

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