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One of the real limitations of BizTalk server (design issue) is the lack of details for when things go wrong - and lets face it there will always be things outside the control of the product, not even mentioning bugs in the product itself. For example, when dealing with plain files (flat files or xml) something that is critical to some people gets lost - the original filename. It is possible to retrieve it through the context of the message inside BizTalk but it has to be done one by one per message...
Although it is probably better for a source system to produce things like sequence or counter numbers I did found an easy and neat way to implement this in BizTalk (2004) that is not resource intensive. When the requirement first came up I did a search on the net and found a solution that is based on an orchestration, but this means that handing real big volumes of files could become a problem i.e. like when you receive batches of files over 1000 a time. The solution I came up with is based on creating...
Every now and then after doing some developing and testing on my local BizTalk dev box I need to get the bindings for a specific 'solution' that are not related to any specific assemblies. The usual way would have been running the whole deployment wizard selecting export bindings, no associations, clicking next, next etc. Ok so I got lazy and simply created a batch file that produce an unassociated binding file. The command is simply: btsdeploy EXPORT UNBOUNDPORTS BINDING="<wherever you want the...
After I received a request to have BizTalk(2004) zip files for some application that must have the data compressed I did some research into how to access (read) the original filename if it is available. I came across Stephen Kaufman's blog that listed a whole bunch of the 'built-in' promoted properties. Thanks to this information I was able to create a 'zip' pipeline component that can be used in the encode stage of a send pipeline. The zipping part was done using the open source zip library by Mike...
If you are planning to upgrade your BizTalk 2004 environment to BizTalk 2006 then have a look at the following blog that summarize a lot of important things to remember: http://blogs.msdn.com/biztalk_upgrade/ I would like to hear from others that have actually done this (upgrading BizTalk) to find out about 'issues'. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!
Just when you think you just might get slightly up to date with technology they come with anouncements like this: http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060606/sftu068.html?.v=51 Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!
A while ago during a training session (BizTalk 2004 admin) it was just by accident that I came across the fact that BizTalk (2004 and 2006) came with a Windows Shell Extension that allows you to view the installed assemblies. It is similar to the shell extension that allows you to view the CAG but just specific to BizTalk. For some bizare reason it is only included in the developer install in the 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004\Developer Tools' directory: The extension filename is...
As part of a test to investigate BizTalk 2006 I ported some relatively simply application from BizTalk 2004 to see how easy it would be... boy, was I wrong about the easy part! In the end it was the 'simple' things that became the problem - doesn't that sound familiar. The first part was easy, porting the schemas - Seemed very easy, just copy the xsd to the new project directory and include in the project. I did not realize it yet but this is where the problem started. Then I discovered that for...
The following is just an opinion (mine) and everyone is welcome to differ. BizTalk server, the product Microsoft ships must be one of the most misunderstood products out there. The mere mention of the name can make some developers laugh and say things like 'that is a waste of a product' or 'I tried it and it was bullsh*t'. BizTalk as a product is more than just a simpler way to do integration development. Few people realize it and even fewer developers... Sure, most of the things that BizTalk can...
Often I've heard people asked this question and some people seem to have their own ways around it. How do you get the original filename as it was picked up by the File Adapter? The answer is inside the BizTalk help file but as usual (with alot of MS products) it is well hidden and you actually have to know what to search for before you can find it. Anyway after some digging around (on google) I came across the proper variable name '%SourceFileName%' and with that information I managed to actually...
Backups are often the last thing some people think of and usually the first they look for when things go wrong... Most applications out 'there' use a single database as a source and backing up the data is a simple matter of backing up that specific database. When you deal with an OLTP system then things get a bit harder as your backups can influence the running system (lock tables etc.). Even that is fairly easy to solve these days with transaction log backups or log shipping. When you get to a system...