BizTalk vs. WF/WCF Smack Down

Author writes:- A few months ago I had a great opportunity to help create a sample Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) solution for a SOA Roundtable event at the North Central District Microsoft office. I had previous experience with WF but this was still a challenging experience that gave me the opportunity to learn even more about the technology and when it should be utilized. The purpose of building the sample was to be able to compare it, at the SOA Roundtable event, to a BizTalk solution that had already been created. Both solutions solved the same business problem. The business problem was centered on a service-oriented solution to requesting and aggregating the responses from three airline ticket services.


From a process perspective, a client sends a request to a SOAP endpoint that was actually an aggregation service. The aggregation service, originally built in BizTalk Server 2006, communicates with three different mock airlines’ ticket systems, exposed as three services, over different transports, all of which required different message formats. After receiving responses from the three different airlines, the service then aggregated the responses and returned a single response message to the client application.


Read more [PDF]

Write your first Singleton orchestration

Write your first Singleton orchestration

As you know In BizTalk Orchestrations, a new instance of an Orchestration is created every time a message arrives at the Receive Port. So what will be the number of orchestrations if we developed an orchestration responsible to login the user ? WOW. for each user want to login, there will be an instance of orchestration .

So How can I solve this?

Do you know that there is a singleton pattern which is a design pattern that is used to restrict instantiation of a class to one object?

Depending in this term we will build a singleton orchestration which will always be only one instance of the Orchestration

HOW !!!!!!!!

Could you please explain more?

The first message that arrives at the Receive port creates a new instance of the Orchestration (initialize the correlation). All other messages would use the same Orchestration for processing (following the correlation), all the messages which arrive at the orchestration must have common property. In our example it will the receive port name

The recipe is very simple, do the following and you will get a singleton orchestration :

1)Create a correlation type with the property BTS.ReceivePortName.

2)Create a correlation set with the correlation type created in the previous step

3)In the first Receive Shape (Activate = true), set the property "Initializing Correlation Sets" as the correlation set ,and in the Second receive , set the property "Following Correlation Sets" as the correlation type .

4)Do you remember while(true) loop , we will create a similar loop similar to this loop in our orchestration

5)The listen and delay shapes is just for Massage , in order not to let the orchestration being within the memory all the time .

You can download the whole project from here

This post had been taken from this site

Virtual Labs for Biztalk 2009

Virtual Labs Virtual Lab is the fastest and easiest way to test drive Microsoft products and the Virtual Lab environment. These are 30 to 90 minutes hands-on overviews of some of your favorite Microsoft products and developer tools. Try them out online now - no need to download full trial versions or dedicate test machines.

Virtual Labs for Biztalk 2009.

Building your first BizTalk Solution.

Author:Microsoft

After completing this lab you'll be better able to:

• Create a BizTalk project in Visual Studio 2008
• Configure a BizTalk project for deployment
• Deploy a BizTalk solution and configure it
• Create ports to receive and send messages

Working with Schemas.

Author:Microsoft

After completing this lab you'll be better able to:

• Create a new BizTalk project
• Create an XML schema by using the BizTalk Editor
• Promote a schema property
• Create a flat file schema by using the BizTalk Editor
• Validate a schema and generate a sample instance message
• Create a strong name and assign it to an assembly
• Build a schema project

Working with Maps

Author:Microsoft

After completing this lab you'll be better able to:

• Create a map by using BizTalk Mapper
• Add functoids to a map
• Validate a map
• Build a map project
• Debug a map

Working with Pipelines

Author:Microsoft

After completing this lab you will be better able to:

• Create a receive port and a receive location
• Create send ports and define message filters
• Start the send ports, enable the receive location, and test the configuration
• Configure BizTalk group and host security settings
• Create a custom send pipeline
• Modify a send port to use a custom pipeline
• Create a custom receive pipeline
• Build and test the pipeline solution

Processing Flat Files

Author:Microsoft

After completing this lab you'll be better able to:

• Create a schema using the Flat File Schema Wizard
• Create and configure a pipeline to use a flat-file disassembler component
• Configure the receive pipeline of a BizTalk receive location
• Configure pipeline for recoverable interchange processing

Integration with POP3 and SharePoint and Routing Failed Messages

Author:Microsoft

You will understand integrating BizTalk with sharepoint using POP3 adapter and routing failed messages.

Creating BizTalk Server Orchestrations

Author:Microsoft

After completing this lab you will be better able to:

• Create logical ports and bind them to physical ports
• Define correlation sets and correlate related messages
• Create messages in orchestrations
• Manipulate context properties and distinguished fields in messages
• Create a BizTalk orchestration to define message processing logic

Integrating Business Rules

Author:Microsoft

After completing this lab you will be better able to:

• Start and test the business rules
• Define business rules
• Call business rules from within an orchestration
• Build and deploy the business rules project

Deployment and Management

Author:Microsoft

After completing this lab you will be better able to:

• Use the Group Hub to manage suspended messages
• Use the BizTalk Server 2009 Administration Console to import port binding information
• Bind orchestration ports to physical ports
• Export a BizTalk application to an MSI package
• Import a BizTalk application from an MSI package
• Assign an application name to a BizTalk Server project
• Use the BizTalk Server 2009 Administration Console to create receive ports, receive locations

Using the WCF Adapters in BizTalk Server 2009

Author:Microsoft

After completing this lab you'll be better able to:

• Configure BizTalk Server 2009 to use the WCF Adapter
• Create an Orchestration that consumes a WCF Service
• Expose a BizTalk Orchestration as a WCF service

Building a WCF Adapter using the WCF LOB Adapter SDK

Author:Microsoft

After completing this lab you'll be better able to:

• Create a WCF Adapter
• Call a WCF Adapter
• Create a WCF Adapter listener

Processing EDI messages with BizTalk Server 2009

Author:Microsoft

After completing this lab you'll be better able to:

• Configure BizTalk Server 2009 EDI to process EDI messages
• Customize and deploy an EDI schema
• Create and configure a Party for EDI processing customization

Sending EDI Messages with BizTalk Server 2009 R2

Author:Microsoft

After completing this lab you'll be better able to:

• Customize and deploy a BizTalk EDI Schema
• Deploy and configure a BizTalk Map for transformation on EDI messages
• Configure a Party for EDI customization
• Configure BizTalk Server 2009 EDI to send EDI messages based on incoming XML documents
• Configure BizTalk Server 2009 EDI to batch outgoing EDI messages for a particular party

Building an RFID application with BizTalk Server 2009

Author:Microsoft

After completing this lab you'll be better able to:

• Create an RFID Device
• Build and Bind an RFID Process
• Build an RFID EventHandler for use within an RFID Process
• Register an RFID Provider with BizTalk RFID

What Is New In BizTalk Server 2009

Author:Microsoft

After completing this lab you'll be better able to:

• Upgrade a BizTalk 2006 R2 solution to BizTalk 2009
• Debug a map file
• Unit test maps and schemas

You can find more here

Want to AutoDelete the Files from backup folder after certain time?

This is Direct Link to the Cyber-D's Blog

You will come across this problem all the times... if you are backing up the incoming files by BizTalk... and want to get rid of them after certain time period

Here is what I will use ... if permitted by Client.

Cyber-D's Autodelete 2.16

This program can automagically delete files in a specific folder that are older than the specified time. It checks the file dates by modification time. You can have it run on every Windows startup to delete old temp files, backups, webcam snapshots history, temporary internet files, etc...

If you get an "Error 5:" message when autodelete runs, then you most probably are a Windows Vista user and have UAC (User Account Control) turned on. The only way to run autodelete with UAC on is by running it as an administrator. You can also right-click on the autodelete shortcut and go to the 'advanced' tab, then the 'advanced' button and activate 'run as administrator'. The program will not give an error but you will get a UAC warning every time the program runs. I have not found a way to avoid this yet, so the only advice I can give is to disable UAC by going to the controll pannel and in the search type 'disable UAC', you will be given a link to disable UAC

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009 Operations Guide

As most of you might know... but just in case you are not aware...

Here's the Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009 Operation Guide.....

Download.... here..

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=46a77327-affb-4ca2-9451-67912babbb03

BizTalk Server Operations Guide is a valuable resource for anyone involved in the implementation and administration of a BizTalk solution, particularly IT professionals. The guide provides detailed information for planning a BizTalk Server environment, as well as recommendations and best practices for configuring, testing, maintaining, and monitoring this environment. The Operations Guide contains checklists for all the key tasks to help BizTalk users. Applies to: Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009

What is the difference between BizTalk Oracle Adapters?

I know even you must have wondered for couple of years by now... what's the heck with these Oracle Adapters and what's the difference between them. Do they need ODP.NET or just plain .NET... What... what.. what....?

so here is the table I found on this site, pretty comprehensive... very useful

BizTalk: Feature comparison of BizTalk Oracle Adapters

Feature	Microsoft BizTalk Oracle Adapter	Microsoft BizTalk WCF Adapter	TopXml Adapter for Databases
BizTalk Server support version	BizTalk Server 2006	BizTalk Server 2006 R2	BizTalk Server 2004/2006
Access	ODBC driver to connect to DB	Oracle Adapter for .NET (ODP.NET)	Oracle Adapter for .NET (ODP.NET)
Processing	Supports “PollingQuery” and “TableChangedEvent”	Single Polling mechanism that provides the following features: ·        Generate strongly typed schema based on a SELECT statement ·        Specify Post-Poll statements to be executed after a polling event ·        Poll and Post-Poll statements executed in a Transaction context ·        Specify Transaction Isolation level ·        Poll, Post-Poll and transaction levels can be specified with binding properties	·       Generation of BizTalk schemas based on SQL statements, Stored Procedures (in, out, return parameters), multiple tables ·        Periodic polling of data source ·        Oracle alerts (send and receive) can send asynchronous notifications based on some events. Uses DBMS_ALERTS oracle package. ·        Oracle Receiver can be configured to receive alerts and Oracle Sender can send alerts to data source. ·        Oracle Pipes allow inter-process communications with Oracle sessions
IDE Integration	Standard integration	Enhanced integration at design time between BizTalk and Visual Studio that provide the following features: ·        Standardized GUI for browsing, searching and retrieving LOB artificats ·        Design-time enhancements for browsing stored procedures, functions and packages (categorized and hierarchical manner)	·        Redesigned and developed in C#.NET that provides tight integration with BizTalk Adapter framework ·        Generate schemas based on stored procedures and also Select, Insert, Update, Delete and InsertUpdate statements on tables and views
Programming Interface	·        Standard XML schema messages ·        Metadata is retrieved as XML messages	·        Exposes WCF Programming interfaces that provide WCF channel, WCF service model and web service model ·        Exposes programming interfaces for retrieving metadata including search and browse capabilities	·        Schema generation capabilities that allow importing database schema from the underlying data provides into the orchestrations. ·        Uses Enterprise Instrumentation framework for tracing and logging ·        Send Adapters are equipped with Exception handlers that allows you to specify Send Adapter behavior when a particular exception is raised
Transactions	·        Not Supported	·        Supports WCF mode Transactions for Outbound and Inbound	·        Supports Transactions and Transaction Isolation levels
Additional Features	·        Not Supported	·        Supports IN, OUT, INOUT REFCURSORS with strongly typed and weakly typed variants ·        Supports BLOB, CLOB, BFILE types in tables and stored procedures with streaming capabilities ·        Enhancing on top of ODP.NET, the WCF-based Oracle DB adapter supports RECORD type parameters in stored procedures/functions even though these types are not natively supported by ODP.NET (version 10.2.0.20)	·        Supports various Data sources such as IBM DB2, SyBase, MySQL etc ·        Extendable Data Providers
Support and Licensing	·        Depends on licensing agreement with Microsoft ·        No additional pricing for the adapters	·        Depends on licensing agreement with Microsoft ·        No additional pricing for the adapters	·        Additional pricing and licensing model ·        Online Support