DotNetSlackers Latest ASP.NET News in Category BizTalk

BizTalk AppFabric Connect For Services

Stephen Kaufman's WebLog — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Last week I spoke at the Twin Cities Connected Systems User Group Meeting. The title of my presentation was Integration with Windows Azure Connecting to the Cloud. During my presentation I talked about ways to expand on-premise applications to the cloud as well as how to connect cloud applications back to on-premise resources. As part of my presentation I talked about the functionality provided through the BizTalk AppFabric Connect for Services. There were a number of people...

Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

Services Hosted in Windows Azure Service Bus

Stephen Kaufman's WebLog — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT

In my last post, I talked about the BizTalk AppFabric Connect for Services functionality for BizTalk. As you start to make your services accessible through the cloud you may find that you hit an error when you try to access the endpoint. You might also find that your endpoint doesnt show up in the Windows Azure Portal. In my case, I saw this error, in the screen shot below, when I clicked on the URL for my service in the AppFabric portal. Then I saw that I had the following...

Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

Presented By:

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT

BizTalk Server 2010 R2 Announced

Charles Young — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Yesterday, Microsoft announced the forthcoming release of BizTalk Server 2010 R2 on the BizTalk Server blog site. This is advanced notice, given that this new version will ship six months after the release of Windows 8, expected in the second half of next year. On this basis, we can expect the new version of BizTalk Server to arrive in 2013. Given the BizTalk teams previous record of name changes, I wonder if this will eventually be released as BizTalk Server 2013. Microsoft has been...

Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

Microsoft In Development on BizTalk Server 2010 R2

Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine Online | Todays Top Picks — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Microsoft said it plans release an update to BizTalk Server 2010 sometime after the release of Windows 8....

Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

Presented By:

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Announcing BizTalk Server 2010 Unleashed

Charles Young — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

BizTalk Server 2010 Unleashed has been published and is available through major booksellers in both printed and electronic form.The book is not a new edition of the old BizTalk Server 2004 Unleashed book from several years ago, although Brian Loesgen, our fearless team leader, provided continuity with that title.Instead, this is entirely new content written by a team of six authors, including myself. Microsoft BizTalk 2010 Line of Business Systems Integration which I reviewed recently, and...

Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

Book Review: Microsoft BizTalk 2010 Line of Business Systems Integration

Charles Young — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

One benefit of my recent experience on a BA flight was that I got plenty of time to read through Microsoft BizTalk 2010 Line of Business Systems Integration. Id promised the publisher weeks ago that I would take a look and publish some comments, but August has been such a busy month for me, and they have had to be patient. I should point out that, for the sake of transparency, that with another BizTalk book about to be released (next week) which I helped co-author, I have an urgent and obvious need...

Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

Presented By:

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

BizTalk Server 2010: Loading properties in custom pipeline components

Charles Young — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Following the previous post, here is a second bit of wisdom. In the Load method of a custom pipeline component, only assign values retrieved from the property bag to your custom properties if the retrieved value is not null. Do not assign any value to a custom property if the retrieved value is null. This is important because of the way in which pipeline property values are loaded at run time. If you assign one or more property values via the Admin Console (e.g., on a pipeline in a Receive Location),...

Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

Biztalk Server 2010: Pipeline component fails with ""Value does not fall within the expected range.""

Charles Young — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Here is a small snippet of BizTalk Server wisdom which I will post for posterity. Say you are creating a custom pipeline component with custom properties. You create private fields and a public properties and write all the code to load and save corresponding property bag values from and too your properties. At some point, when you deploy the BizTalk application and test it, you get an exception from within your pipeline stating, unhelpfully, that "Value does not fall within the expected range." Or...

Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

Presented By:

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Huge response to on-line AI course

Charles Young — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT

free on-line course on AI later this year in conjunction with Stanford University.The course is broadly based on Peter Norvig's book "Artificial Intelligence: A modern Approach" written jointly with Stuart Russell.Along with my colleagues on the Rules Fest committee, we have been following this with interest.In a few days, well over 100,000 people have signed up (112,774 at the time of writing, and still increasing fast).The course broadly overlaps with our natural areas of interest at Rules Fest...

Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

Microsoft BUILD

Integration through Biztalk — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Starting this year, Microsoft rebranded its Professional Developer Conference (PDC) as BUILD. I have no idea what message they are trying to convey with this name change. For some strange reasons, this change was not broadcasted strongly by the numerous Microsoft blogs and sites. The registration page was so hidden that even search engines could not find it using standard words like PDC Microsoft conference etc. Well, for people who still dont know, BUILD is being held in Anaheim, California in middle of September this year. At the time of writing this article, no agenda have been published by Microsoft for the conference. This is rather strange for an elite conference like this. My guess is that there will be breaking news around direction of Biztalk Cloud technologies. Update to Windows mobile platform (Mango code name) will get good coverage. Microsoft is really pushing hard to break into the Smartphone market. Even though Mango is looking like a robust platform, it is hard to penetrate the barrier created by Android and iPhone. Recent buy out of MMI by Google, bodes well for Microsoft. It leaves windows mobile as the only true Open Source mobile platform in the market. It is rather ironic that a company traditionally linked with developing proprietary technologies is taking this mantle from a company like Google that is traditionally linked with developing and encouraging Open Source systems. This demonstrates the fast changing technology landscape and underlines the difficulties faced by CIOs in planning strategic IT initiatives.

Microsoft is consolidating its offering around Desktop, Web, Cloud and Mobile with the latest release of Visual Studio 2011. These are very exciting times for Microsoft Developers, it seems that finally Microsoft is streamlining its technologies and removing the redundancies. Biztalk-Appfabric consolidation is happening along with Silverlight-HTML5 consolidation. Sharepoint story is unchanged and it is one of the few non-redundant technologies in the Microsoft stack.

So, where do we stand amidst all this? Consolidation of technologies will lead to more clarity for customers. One reason, Biztalk didnt maintain the steep growth curve was because of the confusion created by conflicting technologies on the Microsoft Connected System stack. Customers like clarity, especially while evaluating different technologies to implement. They tend to select products with more clarity around their future roadmap. Microsoft shops in general are prime candidate for Biztalk, but they saw technologies like AppFabric and WCF close substitute for Biztalk. For most of them, sole reason for buying Biztalk was because they were an EDI shop. On the other hand, Biztalk was a tough sell in non-microsoft shops as it works with Microsoft framework. A java shop will most likely go for a GIS or webMethods implementation.

Real value of Biztalk lies in developing it as an integration hub for both EDI and Non-EDI integrations and then extending it to link with Sharepoint. Next step will be to combine on-premise and cloud integration on same platform. This is where Azure Appfabric is leading us to. Keep an eye on PDC (BUILD) space for more on this.

Shashikant Raina

Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

Presented By:

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Death of Biztalk -- Are you kidding me?

Integration through Biztalk — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Honestly, I am tired of statements like BizTalk is Dead or BizTalk is Obsolete. With every release of new technology around Connected System stack, the noise around speculated BizTalk demise gets louder. Right from the time Oslo was released (which never saw light of the day) to recently released Azure App Fabric June CTP, blogosphere gets noisy with shouts of BizTalk is Dead.

In my opinion, if one thinks of BizTalk as a brand then it could be said that BizTalk may die as a brand in near future. Even that is a speculation for sake of argument. But if one considers BizTalk as Integration enabler and a set of tools, then it cant be dead. There may be re-organization around the tools but they will not die down. I agree that redundancies in form of Windows App Fabric and Windows Azure App Fabric do take something away from BizTalk. They also create confusion in the mind of new and existing clients. Especially, when the marketing pitch is not in tune with sales pitch. Few years ago, I would just blindly recommend BizTalk in scenarios involving hosted workflows and service compositions. But now it is not so easy. Microsoft has labeled BizTalk as Integration Server, Windows App Fabric is termed as Application Server and Windows Azure App Fabric is a cloud integration platform. It can get confusing between these 3 technologies. If I need to mathematically establish a relationship between these 3, it will look something like:

BizTalk >= Windows Server Fabric + Windows Azure App Fabric.

It can be argued that in near future Windows Azure App Fabric may expand to include more of the existing BizTalk tool set and that may make the relationship more like

BizTalk = Windows Server Fabric + Windows Azure App Fabric.

This is where people jump in and say that BizTalk is dead as it can be replaced by combination of the two technologies! In my opinion:

1. Azure App Fabric is not a mature product yet and it is too early to say anything. Remember Oslo?

2. It is quite possible that BizTalk tools will be re-organized around cloud platform using Azure App fabric as core. Depending on how one sees it, it could be branded as a new version of BizTalk with Azure App Fabric as the cloud enabler. This will not mean end of BizTalk.

3. Other possibility is that BizTalk and Azure App Fabric will continue their parallel paths for foreseeable future. This will not mean end of BizTalk.

It could be said that Azure App Fabric is a new technology that BizTalk developers will have to learn. Just like BizTalk 2004 release, made BizTalk developers learn .net. BizTalk 2006R2 made developers look into WCF.

Windows Server App Fabric is more of an Application Server than an Integration server. However, BizTalk Appfabric connect allows .net developers leverage LOB adapters and Mapper to create workflow solutions. This compliments BizTalk just like Azure App fabric does.

As a BizTalk developer, I have mixed feelings. On one side I feel unhappy that the BizTalk tool set is being broken and leveraged around different Microsoft stacks. Now everyone else will be able to enjoy the excellent tool sets of BizTalk that were once sole proprietorship of BizTalk developers. It kind of takes power away from us. But at the same time, I feel happy that as a BizTalk developer we are placed uniquely to leave our footprints across the different technology stacks that use BizTalk tools .

Following are list of tools that are still exclusive to BizTalk. These are key touch points while making a choice between BizTalk and other technologies.

Accelerators (EDI, SWIFT, Rosettanet, RFID, EDIFACT, HL7)
Pipelines
Flat File processing
BAM
BRE (it is exposed as a REST API now but still under BizTalk licensing)
BizTalk Mapper (BizTalk AppFabric connect enables you to use the mapper with Server App Fabric, still under BizTalk licensing)
Non-WCF adapters like FileAct/Interact
Host Integration ServerShashikant Raina

Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

Processing Empty Files in Biztalk

Integration through Biztalk — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

In my current integration project, there is a need to process empty files (0 byte) in Biztalk. Default behavior of FILE adapter is to delete an empty file and raise an event. This empty file is then deleted even more it reaches pipeline on way to Biztalk MsgBox. So there is no way to do a routing based on filename either in a pure message scenario or using an orchestration.

One possible solution is to extend the File Adapter that is part of SDK (Image 1.1). Add the 3 projects in a Visual Studio Solution as shown in Image 1.2

Image1.1

Image 1.2

Key steps:

1. Build the solution, GAC Microsoft.Samples.BizTalk.Adapter.Common.dll.

2. Registry Key.

3. Go to Biztalk admin console and try to add the new EMPTY FILE adapter. It is possible that you may get an error similar too :
The system cannot find the file specified.

/C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009\SDK\Samples\CustomAdaptersDevelopment\File Adapter\Runtime\Microsoft.BizTalk.SDKSamples.Adapters.DotNetFile.Runtime.dll

This error threw me off as my registry key file did not contain this path at all and it left me wondering why is Biztalk even looking for this path. I did a search for this file in the entire registry and I found couple of references. I had no idea what were they used for but I knew that Biztalk was somehow reading them from registry key. I renamed the key for these entries without deleting . I was able to add the adapter to Biztalk successfully.

4. Once adapter was added, I assigned it to appropriate Biztalk host so I can use it in send/receive port. While setting the receive handler for this newly added adapter, I got the following error:
The Messaging Engine encountered an error when intializing the receive adapter "EmptyFile", HRESULT:"Property /Config/pollingInterval not found on adapter configuration XML.".

I decided to debug the code to find the point of error. I found the error in method : ExtractPollingInterval in file ConfigProperties.cs under project Microsoft.Samples.BizTalk.Adapter.Common.csproj

Update the following code

long pollingInterval = ExtractInt(document, "/Config/pollingInterval");
string pollingUnitOfMeasureStr = Extract(document,"/Config/pollingUnitOfMeasure", "Seconds");

To

long pollingInterval = Convert.ToInt32(IfExistsExtract(document, "/Config/pollingInterval","5"));
string pollingUnitOfMeasureStr = IfExistsExtract(document, "/Config/pollingUnitOfMeasure", "Seconds");

Or update the root name of ReceiveHandler schema to Config. I did the code change and not the schema change

I was in a position to configure this new custom FILE adapter and receive an empty file. In order to get a handle on the empty file, I need to go to method PickUpFilesAndSubmit which is part of DotNetFileReceiverEndpoint.cs under DotNetFile.csproj The line of code that got me the handle to the incoming file is if (item.Length == 0).
Once I got the handle, I was able to add my logic to deal with the incoming empty file. In my case, I decide to add a string EmptyFile if the incoming file was empty. I would then detect this file in the send adapter using the same custom adapter and assign 0 bytes to it. In between, I will have my orchestration reading the file name of this empty file (added string EmptyFile) and route it to appropriate directory folder.

This solution requires tampering with contents of an emptry file. It may be to acceptable in some cases. In my case, it was acceptable.

Send Side Changes:

To intercept the EmptyFile (file with EmptyFile string) on the send side, I used the method: ProcessMessage in file DotNetFileTransmitterEndpoint.cs under project DotNetFile.csproj.
I inserted the following snippet after cloning the stream. This writes an empty file.
StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(Stream);
string fileContents = sr.ReadLine();
if (fileContents.Contains("EmptyFile"))
{
fileStream.Write(new byte[0],0,0);
return null;
}

Dynamic Send Port:

In order to get this adapter to work with Dynamic Send port following changes will be needed:

1. Use DotNetFILE:// instead of FILE:// in orchestration for setting dynamic address

2. In the adapter use the following code to extract destination string from the context properties:

filePath = message.Context.Read("OutboundTransportLocation", "http://schemas.microsoft.com/BizTalk/2003/system-properties").ToString();

Use this destination string to parse the final destination of the file and add code to write the file to that location.
Shashikant Raina

Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

Presented By:

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Twin Cities Connected Systems User Group MeetingMarch 17th, 2011

Stephen Kaufman's WebLog — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

If you are in Minneapolis on Thursday March 17th please join us for the Twin Cities Connected Systems User Group Meeting. The meeting takes place at 6:00 p.m. at the Microsoft offices at 8300 Norman Center Drive, Bloomington, MN 55437. Andy Morrison will be presenting on a Lap Around BizTalk 2010 and the ESB Toolkit 2.1...

Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

Tellago releases a RESTful API for BizTalk Server business rules

Charles Young — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

http://weblogs.asp.net/gsusx/archive/2011/02/08/tellago-devlabs-a-restful-api-for-biztalk-server-business-rules.aspx ...

Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

Presented By:

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Configuring BAM portal on Biztalk 2010

Integration through Biztalk — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT

So, I installed Biztalk 2010 on Win2008 server with SQL server 2008 R2 on a 32 bit machine. Biztalk configuration worked smoothly as one would expect it to until the wizard tried to enable BAM portal. Biztalk configuration wizard threw an error saying "Default Web Site can't be validated". I did some research and found that almost everyone that had this error got it fixed by installing "IIS6 compatibility" role on the Server. But in my case, this role was already installed. But just to be sure, I uninstalled it--> restarted the server and installed it back. Only to find that it did not make any difference!

I tried hacking my way by physically creating BAM application on the IIS but did not work either. Since BAM is a pre-compiled version, I could not debug it as I would do in an asp.net web application. Then, I thought of creating a new website called "BAM" at the same level as the "Default Website" but on a different port (not 80). In my case, I used port 81. I ran the Biztalk Configuration wizard, pointed it to "BAM" site instead of "Default WebSite" and it worked!!

Later, I did some research and found out that this is a "bug" or a "known behavior" with Biztalk 2010 installation. It seems creating a new site for BAM is generally accepted solution.

Check out :http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/biztalkgeneral/thread/ef650460-c219-4b34-bc7a-41bb7e75ec81

I would like to hear from others who faced/or not faced same issue.Shashikant Raina

Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

Appfabric Connect Feature on Biztalk 2010

Integration through Biztalk — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT

When Dublin (now Windows Server Appfaric) was close to being released, there was lot of talk around the speculative demise of Biztalk. Some of the key differentiators identified at that time were Mapper tool and ability to resume message flow using persistence data store. At that time, I wrote that it will be matter of time that these differentiators between Biztalk and Dublin will fade away (check the comment section of http://geekswithblogs.net/cyoung/archive/2008/10/15/125848.aspx). Current Avatar of Dublin aka WS Appfabric , provides the ability to persist data and supports resumption of messages. AppFabric Connect feature, that is part of Biztalk 2010 installation, exposes Biztalk mapper and LOB directly. So to be used with workflows, that can then be hosted on Windows Server Appfabric which in turn is part of IIS. Light weight applications does not need heavy weight Biztalk database anymore. Low latency scenarios can now easily be constructed using IIS hosting using Dublin.

Since this feature is part of Biztalk 2010 installation, Biztalk license is needed to use this feature. In future this can and will change. It will then be possible to create custom WF that can be persisted to a DB and exposed as WCF endpoints, while mapping .net types using Biztalk with same set of mapping functoids that are part of Biztalk world. And all of this will be free!Shashikant Raina

Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

Presented By:

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Biztalk and the Cloud

Integration through Biztalk — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT

I was in NY city on Dec 1 for the Azure Firestarter event at the Microsoft Office. It was a nice overview of Azure. For past year or so, I have been thinking of getting my hands dirty with this technology. Between work and family, never really got a chance to do so. But this time, after the event I promised myself to actually put what I learnt into practice. Moreover so, because the free registration to Azure portal would expire in few weeks time.

So, I came up with a simple scenario.

1. Expose a CreditScore service using Biztalk within a firewall.
2. Publish this Biztalk Orchestration as WCF to Cloud Endpoint using WCF publishing
wizard
3. Use a simple windows client application to send a message and receive a reply from this Biztalk service exposed within firewall.

Step 1:

Create a two way Biztalk Orchestration that accepts an xml message(First Name, Last Name, SSN) and returns a message (Credit Score and Comments).

(Image 1)

Step 2.

Publish this Orchestration as the cloud endpoint.

Pre-Requisite:

1. Biztalk 2010
2. Windows AppFabric SDK 1.0
3. Windows Azure AppFabric Account to create the URL of cloud Endpoint (Free, if you have MSDN subscription)
4. Biztalk 2010 adapter pack

For details checkout : support.microsoft.com/kb/2449478

Step 2. Create a windows client to test this Biztalk service using endpoint exposed in the cloud.

Pre-Requisite for the client machine:

1. Visual Studio(2008 sp1 or 2010)
2. Azure AppFabric SDK 1.0 (to get NetTcpRelayBinding and TransportClientEndpointBehavior).

a) Open a "Windows Form Application" Project

"C:\Program Files\Windows Azure AppFabric SDK\V1.0\Assemblies\NET3.5\Microsoft.ServiceBus.dll"

c)Add Service Reference point to the URL exposed in the cloud : Sample URL:

shashiraina-demo.servicebus.windows.net/Test.Biztalk.Cloud.Orch/. This namespace in URL is created using AppFabric Account. (Image below)

(Image 2)

d) Use the proxy to generate client side objects. I used code instead of config file because, I was not able to get "TransportClientEndpointBehavior" and "NetTcpRelayBinding" to show up in Config file. This may be because I was just using a Windows Application as test client instead of "cloud" supported client. With code, I could easily use the ServiceBus namespace and get it working.

Sample client code is below:

GetCreditScore.GetCreditScoreRequest req = new GetCreditScoreRequest();
GetCreditScore.GetCreditScoreResponse res = new GetCreditScoreResponse();
NetTcpRelayBinding tcpRelayBinding = new NetTcpRelayBinding();
TransportClientEndpointBehavior clientEndBeh = new TransportClientEndpointBehavior();
clientEndBeh.CredentialType = TransportClientCredentialType.SharedSecret;
clientEndBeh.Credentials.SharedSecret.IssuerName = "owner";
clientEndBeh.Credentials.SharedSecret.IssuerSecret = "Extract this from Appfabric Portal";// (it will look something like the crossed out section in the Image 2" )
EndpointAddress endpoint = new EndpointAddress("sb://shashiraina-demo.servicebus.windows.net/Test.Biztalk.Cloud.Orch/WcfService_Test_Biztalk_Cloud_Orch.svc");

WcfService_Test_Biztalk_Cloud_OrchClient client = new WcfService_Test_Biztalk_Cloud_OrchClient(tcpRelayBinding, endpoint);
client.Endpoint.Behaviors.Add(clientEndBeh);

req.Score = new Score(); ;
req.Score.FirstName = "Shashi";
req.Score.LastName = "Raina";
req.Score.SSN = "123-234-2323";

res.Root = new Root();
res.Root = client.GetCreditScore(req.Score);

Response from the service is below: (Go Ahead and tried it out from your machine)!

Image 3

So, without punching a hole in your DMZ, you could expose your Biztalk services to outside world. I have been involved in complex configurations in ISA reverse proxy to expose Biztalk services to outside world. But using "Appfabric Connect for Services" , all these complex configurations can be eliminated. Moreover, the ACS (Access Control Services) that is part of Azure Appfabric allows creating your own plug-in security framework.Shashikant Raina

Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

Saying Goodbye to U2U, and Hello to Microsoft

Jan Tielens Bloggings [MVP] — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Last week was a very special week for me: I delivered my last course as a U2U trainer. Ive been a full-time U2U employee for almost 7 years. During that time I had the opportunity to travel the world, meet lots of interesting people and make many new friends, while talking about Microsoft technologies. In the last couple of years my focus was mainly on SharePoint, but in my early years I was quite active with BizTalk, ASP.NET as well. My career at U2U had many, many heights: having a drink while...

Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

Presented By:

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Integrating Biztalk with Mobile CE device

Integration through Biztalk — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

One of my recent projects involved developing Biztalk services to be consumed by Windows CE mobile devices. I got a chance to work with compact Microsoft framework. In an ideal world, one would expose Biztalk as WCF service and use advanced feature set to integrate the services with the mobile client using compact framework. There is a whole set of compact power tools with own svc generating utility that matches svcutil.exe of .net framework world. Compact framework svcutil may work well with pure WCF kind of services (not tested though) but it will not work with Biztalk services that are exposed as WCF using WCF publishing wizard. It seems there is a bug in the svc util tool for compact framework and the only other option is to consume exposed WCF as a webservice from the client side. This can be done by simply using Add Web Reference option in the mobile client project. Doing this will generate requisite client side proxy objects to talk with the exposed Biztalk service. Service side is to be exposed as WCF with basic-http binding to be consumed as a web service from mobile client. There is one caveat to this approach though. While using a SSL at transport level, it was observed that the client could not pass the request to the service hosted inside the corporate domain from a client situated on WAN (internet). Everything would work fine for calls made within the LAN though. The key difference between LAN and WAN scenarios was the use of reverse proxy ISA. Client requests would have to be routed through ISA for WAN scenarios whereas in LAN scenario ISA will be automatically by passed. This issue could be circumvented by exposing Biztalk as ASMX service (instead of WCF) and using SOAP adapter. Apparently, the security information that is carried over from client through ISA to Biztalk is carried in the envelope part of the SOAP message over the wire. It is possible that the way this security information is formatted in a service exposed as WCF v/s the one exposed as ASMX service is different. That could possibly explain why the client call will work in WAN scenario for ASMX type service and not work for WCF type service.Shashikant Raina

Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

Batching Non-EDI received documents

Integration through Biztalk — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

EDI Batching in Biztalk is done using Batching orchestration that is shipped with Biztalk. This batching orchestration is directly binded with MessageBox and picks up message with EDI.ToBeBatched=True. This flag is set when the message is received using edi receive pipeline. There is a component called "BatchMarker" in the receive pipeline that promotes and sets "EDI.ToBeBatched=True".

In scenario when the incoming message is a Non-EDI type (i.e a Positional Flat file), we have two options to promote the context properties that are required for Batching orchestration to work correctly. First option is to use Orchestration and second is to use a custom pipeline. In this example, I will demonstrate how to use an orchestration:

1. Create an orchestration that takes the Flat File message as input message
2. Create a Outbound Msg (Msgout) representing EDI schema
3. Add a map that does FF-->EDI conversion.
4. Create a correlation set containing 3 EDI context properites. Set these 3 propeties inside an expression shape within the context of a constuct block.

EDI834_Out(EDI.ToBeBatched)=true;
EDI834_Out(EDI.BatchId)=1; //get this ID from "Parties"
EDI834_Out(EDI.EncodingType)=0;// 0 for X12; 1 FOR EDIFACT

5. Initialize the correlation set in send port. This is the key step to promote the 3 context properties else you may end up "writing" the properties and not promoting them.
6. Create a Send Port that Filters "EDI.ToBeBatched=False". You may further differentiate by adding filter for BatchID.
7.Deploy the orchestation and start the send port.Shashikant Raina

Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

Presented By:

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT