Monday, May 7, 2012

BizTalk debugging - BizTalk CAT Instrumentation Framework Controller

Hi BizTalkers,
I would like to introduce you to very interesting tool set I came across for debugging using SysInternal and CAT framework... 


Here is the Original site... on CodePlex


Project Description
The BizTalk CAT Instrumentation Framework Controller is an easy-to-use GUI for the BizTalk CAT Instrumentation Framework. The Controller lets you start and stop a trace, adjust filter options, log to a file and/or enable real-time tracing to DebugView!

The BizTalk CAT Instrumentation Framework is a high performance tracing/logging framework for BizTalk that builds upon the Event Tracing for Windows (ETW) infrastructure. It was created by Microsoft's BizTalk Customer Advisory Team (CAT). Microsoft used essentially the same framework to instrument BizTalk itself, as well as many recently released adapters.

The BizTalk CAT Instrumentation Framework is available here.
The BizTalk CAT team has also posted several blog entries about the CAT I.F. here.

The downside of the CAT Instrumentation Framework is that starting and stopping traces requires running command-line scripts, and by default the log data is viewable in a text file only after a trace is stopped. Many BizTalk developers are accustomed to using Trace.WriteLine() or Debug.WriteLine() in combination with the Microsoft SysInternals DebugView tool to see diagnostic messages in real time.

Enter the BizTalk CAT Instrumentation Framework Controller. The Controller is an easy-to-use GUI for the BizTalk CAT Instrumentation Framework. The Controller lets you start and stop a trace and adjust filter options. It can easily enable real-time tracing to Microsoft SysInternals DebugView (or other debuggers), to a log file or to both at the same time.

The Controller is designed for use both on development machines and production servers. Unlike Trace.WriteLine() or Debug.WriteLine(), with the BizTalk CAT I.F. you can enable tracing on a production server with only a negligible impact on performance (when tracing to a file).

Here's a screenshot:

MainForm.png

Test your BizTalk Knowledge Daily

Hi fellow BizTalkers,
I came across very interesting initiative by BizTalkers.com


Question of a day...
http://www.biztalkers.com/question.aspx


They post one question every day and you can test your knowledge by answering it.


It's really a great initiative.


Good going ... BizTalkers.com

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

BizTalk Server 2010 Administrator Training Kit

Most of the times, BizTalk Server developers eventually step into the role of BizTalk Server Administrators (yes, it's a niche skill and that's the right path to go) but to step up as BizTalk Server Administrator is a big responsibility...  Here is your chance to learn it from Microsoft using Virtual Labs for Administrators... very interesting


This training kit contains a complete set of materials that will enable you to learn the core administrator capabilities in BizTalk Server 2010. This kit includes lab manuals, PowerPoint presentations and videos, all designed to help you learn about BizTalk Server 2010. There is also an option below to download a Virtual Machine that is ready for you to use with the training kit.
Here is the link to Training
and for lazy people here is a copy of Microsoft's Page content.

Microsoft

BizTalk Server 2010 Administrator Training Kit

This training kit contains a complete set of materials that will enable you to learn the core administrator capabilities in BizTalk Server 2010. This kit includes lab manuals, PowerPoint presentations and videos, all designed to help you learn about BizTalk Server 2010. There is also an option below to download a Virtual Machine that is ready for you to use with the training kit.

Quick details

Version:1.0Date published:8/21/2011
Language:English

Files in this download

The links in this section correspond to files available for this download. Download the files appropriate for you.
File nameSize
BizTalkAdminCourse.exe26.1 MBDOWNLOAD
BizTalkAdminCourseVideos.exe337.0 MBDOWNLOAD
BizTalkAdminCourseVM.part01.exe700.0 MBDOWNLOAD
BizTalkAdminCourseVM.part02.rar700.0 MBDOWNLOAD
BizTalkAdminCourseVM.part03.rar700.0 MBDOWNLOAD
BizTalkAdminCourseVM.part04.rar700.0 MBDOWNLOAD
BizTalkAdminCourseVM.part05.rar700.0 MBDOWNLOAD
BizTalkAdminCourseVM.part06.rar700.0 MBDOWNLOAD
BizTalkAdminCourseVM.part07.rar700.0 MBDOWNLOAD
BizTalkAdminCourseVM.part08.rar700.0 MBDOWNLOAD
BizTalkAdminCourseVM.part09.rar700.0 MBDOWNLOAD
BizTalkAdminCourseVM.part10.rar700.0 MBDOWNLOAD
BizTalkAdminCourseVM.part11.rar700.0 MBDOWNLOAD
BizTalkAdminCourseVM.part12.rar700.0 MBDOWNLOAD
BizTalkAdminCourseVM.part13.rar700.0 MBDOWNLOAD
BizTalkAdminCourseVM.part14.rar700.0 MBDOWNLOAD
BizTalkAdminCourseVM.part15.rar700.0 MBDOWNLOAD
BizTalkAdminCourseVM.part16.rar334.4 MBDOWNLOAD
EULA.rtf276 KBDOWNLOAD
README.txt2 KBDOWNLOAD

Overview

About This Hands-On Lab
This three-day instructor-led course provides students with the knowledge and skills required to install and configure a computer running Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010. The course also shows you how to deploy and manage BizTalk applications in a production environment.

Audience Profile
This course is intended for systems engineers and network administrators with two to three years of experience managing an enterprise-level Microsoft Windows Server environment.

At Course Completion
After completing this course, students will be able to:
  • Describe the services and tools provided in BizTalk Server 2010.
  • Install BizTalk Server 2010 on a computer.
  • Deploy BizTalk applications to a BizTalk server 2010 computer.
  • Manage and monitor BizTalk applications on a BizTalk Server 2010 computer.
  • Manage BizTalk Server groups and backup a BizTalk Server 2010 computer.
  • Monitor a BizTalk Server environment with System Center Operations Manager.
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System requirements

Supported operating systems: Windows Server 2008 R2


Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V is required to use the virtual machine included with this training kit.

In addition to the system requirements for Windows Server 2008 R2 as described in the release notes, a 64-bit system with hardware-assisted virtualization enabled and data execution prevention (DEP) is required.

It is also recommended to ensure that you have a clean install of x64 edition of Windows Server 2008 R2 to be able to use the Hyper-V technology.

Prerequisites, installation steps, OS recommendations, and known issues of Hyper-V can be found here

An import utility is included with the training kit. To use the import utility, the .NET Framework 4 must be installed on the host OS.

The lab manuals, PowerPoint presentations and videos can be viewed on the following operating systems:
  • Windows 7
  • Windows Server 2008 R2
  • Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2
  • Windows Vista Service Pack 2
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Instructions

In order to use this evaluation package you will need to have Microsoft Hyper-V installed on a physical machine.

Hyper-V is available on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2. This virtual machine requires Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008 R2. Details on how to install Hyper-V can be found here. Details of how to setup the VHD are included in the documentation that accompanies the product.

In the Setup folder there is an application that will add all the VMs into Hyper-V. The app does this while maintaining only a single copy of the base images. To install, open a command promt with the "Run as Administrator" option and change directory to the setup folder. The import will fail if you do not run the command prompt with this option. Then run the command:

importVM.exe full path to base image

For example, if the root of the labs is c:\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010 Training, then the command would be:

importVM.exe "C:\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010 Training\VM\common\BizTalk2010Demo.vhd"

Enter the username “ADVENTUREWORKS\Administrator” and password “pass@word1” to login.
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Additional information

USAGE: You are free to use this training for your own use and to train others. The complete training kit, including the Virtual Machine and the videos cannot be sold commercially although you can deliver training using these materials and charge for the training delivery and associated costs.


New to BizTalk?

Hi,
I am getting many requests from new BizTalkers asking to share Microsoft BizTalk resources.


So here is one more post dedicated to my new BizTalk lovers... (would be lovers)
 BizTalk Server 2010 Beginners Guide by Steef-Jan




I will keep updating this list... and guys, if you want to add more please do so.

How BizTalk Maps Work by Sandro

Dear BizTalkers,
As I was researching more for my BizTalk mapping post

I came across very interesting posts (three part series) by Sandro Pereira (Always pleasure to read his work)


As of now only two of them has been published by him, so I will keep you updated whenever third part comes out.




How BizTalk Maps Work – Processing model (Part 1)
How BizTalk Maps Work – Deconstructing a map (Part 2)
How BizTalk Maps Work – The sequence of links (Part 3) (coming soon) :)

I went through the posts and trust me they are worth the time... so do yourself a favor and read it



Rajshekar's Maps vs XSLT comparison

Hi BizTalkers,
I came across this interesting post by Rajshekar's comparison of the XSLT and BizTalk (virtual) maps. BizTalk Virtual Mapper VS Custom-XSLT 


As per my experience, if you are experienced BizTalk developer then obviously you also faced this dilemma before.... 
There are many options to transform one xml / multiple xml to new xml
1. Use BizTalk mapper 
2. Use .NET assembly which takes xmlnode as parameter and then use System.xml xpath queries in .net class
3. Use of XSLT


My personal favorite has been using XSLT or .NET class (especially in BTS04 upto BTS06 R2) as both these options gave me chance to debug my code than just testing it (as we do in map). But with newer mapper in 2010 things look much better than previous versions of BizTalk.


But from my experience too XSLT or .NET class remains my  preferred approaches over BizTalk mapper.


What's your preferred way of transformation of messages?

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