BizTalk Adapter Pack v2.0 Released

The final release of the BizTalk Adapter Pack version 2.0 is now available on MSDN and TechNet for subscribers. The single download contains both 32bit and 64bit versions.

Overview:

The Microsoft BizTalk Adapter Pack contains adapters that enable enterprise applications and databases to interface with each other by implementing a common adapter framework. They expose line of business applications and data as Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) services. Technically, the adapters are Windows Communication Framework (WCF) bindings, and they are built on top of the WCF Line Of Business Adapter SDK SP2.

Note that the adapters in the adapter pack do not require BizTalk Server – because they are bindings of WCF you can use them to expose the enterprise applications and databases by developing the solutions in Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Studio 2008 and hosting them on IIS or SharePoint or a custom WCF application.

TechEd USA had a presentation on the SAP adapters available in the Adapter Pack and how to use it with MOSS. Some more live meeting presentations introducing the adapters in the adapter pack are on their way so keep tuned!

If you want to start playing with the adapters now and don’t have a licence there’s a 120 day evaluation download available.

Adapters:

Version 2.0 of the adapter pack includes 5 adapters:

Microsoft BizTalk Adapter for SQL Server – Supports SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008. For BizTalk users this replaces the previous SQL Server adapter.  There is a separate download for this adapter that

Microsoft BizTalk Adapter 3.0 for Oracle Database - Oracle 9.2, Oracle 10.1, Oracle 10.2, Oracle 11.1

Microsoft BizTalk Adapter for Oracle E-Business Suite

Microsoft BizTalk Adapter 3.0 for mySAP Business Suite – SAP R/3 4.6c Non-Unicode, SAP R/3 4.7 Non-Unicode, SAP R/3 4.7 Unicode, SAP R/3 5.0 Non-Unicode, SAP R/3 5.0 Unicode, SAP R/3 6.0 Unicode

Microsoft BizTalk Adapter 3.0 for Siebel eBusiness Applications (32bit only) – Siebel 7.5 (7.5.3.15), Siebel 7.7 (7.7.2.8), Siebel 7.8 (7.8.2.6), Siebel 8.0 (8.0.0.1)

Licensing:

BizTalk Server 2009 Developer, Standard, Enterprise with or without software assurance – Included in the license

BizTalk Server 2009 Branch Edition – Not included in the licence

BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Developer, Standard, Enterprise with software assurance – Included in the license

BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Branch Edition – Not included in the licence

BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Developer, Standard, Enterprise without software assurance – Not included in the license

BizTalk Server 2006, 2004, 2002, 2000 – Does not work with these versions and of course not included in the license

For non BizTalk customers and BizTalk 2006 R2 customers without software assurance the current license price is US$5000 per processor socket. Please refer to the licensing page for an accurate price.

A separate download just for the SQL Adapter for BizTalk 2006 R2 and 2009 customers is available as well.

 

For more information refer to the adapters blog on MSDN.

–Thiago

Auckland Connected Systems User Group – Windows Communication Foundation Primer with Ulrich Roxburgh

After a lull we are back on track with the Auckland Connected Systems User Group meetings. The next one is set for the 4th of June 2009 at Datacom in Auckland with the Windows Communication Foundation Primer presentation by Ulrich Roxburgh.

Please register if you are attending, and forward the meeting details below to those who might be interested:

Windows Communication Foundation Primer – Ulrich Roxburgh

In this session Ulrich introduces Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), delivered as part of the .NET 3.5 framework. Learn the basics of WCF and see how to create HTTP/XML based web services, and then learn about other binding and encoding options such as TCP/IP and Binary. Also learn how to create REST based services, and consume these using AJAX web pages.
Ulrich Roxburgh has worked for Microsoft Consulting Services for 9 ½ years, in various capacities ranging from Senior Consultant to Managing Consultant, in both New Zealand and Australia. He now works as the main consultant for Services2 Ltd. providing premium consultancy services in the areas of enterprise architecture, solution architecture and implementation services.

Drinks and pizza will be provided as always!

Location:
Datacom Systems Limited, 210 Federal Street, Auckland CBD, Auckland, 1141
Map (parking on the street outside Datacom)

Presentation starts: 4/06/2009 6:00:00 p.m. 

Register to attend

Sysprep a BizTalk 2009 VHD or renaming a BizTalk 2009 Dev Box

Creating several BizTalk 2009 VHDs on Windows Server 2008 for your development team? Need to rename a BizTalk 2009 development machine? Well look no further than the admin samples that are part of the BizTalk 2009 SDK.

It contains the scripts you need to rename the machine in the registry, databases, etc, so that BizTalk will continue working after a sysprep’d VHD is started for the first time and the name is changed.

The path to it after you install the SDK on your BizTalk machine is <BizTalk installation path>\SDK\Samples\Admin\Sysprep

The online documentation is http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd792685.aspx

*EDIT*

The sysprep information in the SDK is a great starting point – but you may have to modify the scripts if you are not using domain accounts and groups for SQL Server and BizTalk. Also, if you are using BAM it is advisable to keep BAM unconfigured on the sysprep’d image and configure it after the first machine start and the scripts are run.

*END EDIT*

–Thiago

Book Review: SOA Patterns with BizTalk Server 2009 by Richard Seroter

I have been contacted by Packt Publishing to post a blog review of Richard Seroter’s book ‘SOA Patterns with BizTalk Server 2009’. They have kindly provided me with the electronic copy while a printed copy I ordered a while ago makes its way to New Zealand.

The author Richard Seroter is a several times Microsoft MVP for BizTalk Server and a Microsoft Connected Systems Advisor. He has a very informative and active blog, presents frequently at user groups, and published a series of posts on TOPXML.com about WCF and BizTalk Server.

The book SOA Patterns with BizTalk Server 2009, as I have mentioned earlier, has been much anticipated by the BizTalk community. It covers some hot topics like implementing Service Oriented Architecture with BizTalk and the Enterprise Service Bus Guidance 2.0. But it goes far beyond this, providing much sought after guidance around WCF, BizTalk communication patterns, messaging, orchestrations, versioning, UDDI, and the new WCF based SQL adapter.

If you follow Richard’s blog you will be glad to know that the book is as absorbing and effortless to read, full of real life examples and code samples.

Chapter 1 gives an overview of BizTalk Server, how it has been used for Enterprise Application Integration (EAI), Business-to-Business (B2B) integration, Business Process Management (BPM), and how the foundations of these can be applied to Service Oriented Architecture. Richard in this chapter also covers the basic architecture of BizTalk, and the main artefacts that compose it.

Chapters 2 and 3 go over Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and BizTalk Server and how they work together to provide powerful BizTalk backed WCF services, as well as consuming WCF services from BizTalk. It has many details around the WCF adapters that you will find nowhere else, like an overview of the WSDL of a WCF service and how it relates to values populated in the WCF Publishing Wizard.

Chapter 4 will appeal to those architecting BizTalk solutions, as it goes over the principles of service oriented architecture and how they apply to BizTalk Server. This is one of my favourite chapters in the book.

Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8 will take you through a wild ride of hands on Service Oriented patterns and best practices implemented with BizTalk Server. Each chapter covers a different topic: Schemas and Endpoints, Asynchronous Communication, Orchestration, and Versioning.

Chapter 9 covers the new WCF SQL Adapter that is part of the BizTalk Adapter Pack 2.0. Richard covers several scenarios with the new adapter, including query notifications and using the adapter without BizTalk.

Chapter 10 is all about UDDI 3.0 that comes with BizTalk Server Server 2009, and how to use it to publish metadata about your services. This topic will get more coverage in the future given Microsoft’s drive to have BizTalk playing a big role in their SOA offerings and their move of UDDI from Windows Server to BizTalk.

Chapter 11 covers the much improved ESB Guidance 2.0. Richard gives a great overview of what’s offered in this version of the guidance pack, an goes over three scenarios of increasing complexity.

Chapter 12, the last chapter of the book, contains a quick insight into how BizTalk relates to Dublin, .NET Services and Oslo. I can see this topic becoming another book or at least a few blog posts after these technologies mature. I have no doubt they will be compared to BizTalk many times over in the coming years.

In summary this is a must have book for new and aspiring BizTalk and SOA solutions architects and developers alike. It should be referred back to at the beginning of any new BizTalk and SOA project.

The book can be purchased from Packt Publishing and Amazon. As a gift to those who have read this review, here is a PDF of Chapter 9: “WCF SQL Server Adapter”. Enjoy!

–Thiago

.NET and SQL Certifications presentation and BizTalk Server Exams

I have recently attended to a presentation on .NET and SQL Server certifications hosted at Datacom by the Auckland SQL User Group. 

The presenter, James Hippolite, gave a great overview of the current .NET and SQL Server certifications available, and some insight into the experience of taking a Microsoft exam to those unfamiliar with the process. He also went through an amusing yet instructional history of the .NET exams and his experiences with them, and how the exams have evolved. You should check out his presentation slides for more information.

With regards to BizTalk Server there are currently three exams available that you can book and take through Prometric:

Exam 70-241: TS: Developing Business Process and Integration Solutions by Using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2 – Available October 17, 2008. Upon passing this exam you become  a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist in BizTalk Server 2006 R2. http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exams/70-241.aspx

Exam 70-235: TS: Developing Business Process and Integration Solutions Using Microsoft BizTalk Server – – Available July 18, 2006. Upon passing this exam you become a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist in BizTalk Server 2006. http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exams/70-235.mspx

Exam 74-135: Developing E-Business Solutions Using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 – Available January 17, 2005. Upon passing this exam you become a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist in BizTalk Server 2004. No other exam is required. http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exams/74-135.mspx

There used to be a BizTalk 2000 exam that has been retired for a long time, even though I know some brave individuals and fellow BizTalkers that have passed it as well as passing the the ones above.

One thing to note is that exams 70-504 Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) and 70-503 Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) by no means substitute the BizTalk specific exam. WF and WCF are foundations in the .NET framework upon which to develop applications. BizTalk Server is a complete integration and enterprise ready solution.

In the years ahead we will see features that have been available in BizTalk for a long time implemented in ‘Dublin’, an upcoming extension to Windows Server to host WCF and WF services. This will give companies the option of developing solutions for Dublin for scenarios where BizTalk would be overkill or does not apply. Maybe the two will share some core functionality in the future? A great article in the subject is Aaron Skonnard’s article on MSDN Magazine, ‘WCF And WF Services In The .NET Framework 4.0 And Dublin”. See the ‘What about BizTalk Server?’ note at the end.

–Thiago