New papers on Biztalk Server 2006

Understanding BizTalk Server 2006

Learn about key features and improvements in BizTalk Server 2006, such as significantly simpler installation; better support for deploying, monitoring, and managing applications; and improved capabilities for Business Activity Monitoring.

BizTalk Server 2006 Adapter Enhancements

This white paper discusses both the new built-in adapters and enhancements to the existing built-in adapters that will ship with BizTalk Server 2006.

BizTalk Server 2006 Application Deployment and Management

This white paper describes two new key features of BizTalk Server 2006—the capability to manage BizTalk artifacts as a single application, and the ability to monitor a group of artifacts through the use of the BizTalk Server Administration Console, which makes BizTalk Server less time-consuming to manage.

BizTalk Server 2006 Business Activity Monitoring

This paper provides a detailed description of two new Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) features in BizTalk Sever 2006—the BizTalk Server BAM Portal, and Alerts and Notification Support—and it discusses enhancements to the BAM features in BizTalk Server 2004.

BizTalk Server 2006 Developer Tools Improvements

This white paper describes some key product enhancements in BizTalk Server 2006 that are of interest to developers, in particular the Flat File Wizard.

BizTalk Server 2006 Runtime Improvements

This white paper reviews the improvements that have been made to message processing as part of the core engine enhancements for BizTalk Server 2006.

BizTalk Server 2006 Setup and Migration

Included in this white paper is a high-level overview of the BizTalk Sever 2006 setup process and how it differs with the BizTalk Server 2004 install process.

Understanding the Hub and Spoke Deployment Model for BizTalk Server 2006

Read this article to understand how the BizTalk Server 2006 hub and spoke model supports administrators who want to install and deploy the associated bits of a BizTalk Server solution from one central server and multiple remote servers.

The Business Value of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)

This white paper examines the opportunities and benefits of RFID and how this technology will revolutionize supply chain management.

Preparing for Microsoft Developers Days 2006

Today I was told that I’ll be speaking and presenting some topic @ Microsoft Developers Days 2006. Plus I’ll be part of the organizing Committee for the event my responsibility is to look at the technical side i.e. speakers and their topics. Topics were decided 1 month earlier so my job was to prepare the speakers plus my own presentation. Also had a meeting with Microsoft ISV manager Waqar Khamisani for the approval of topics and presenters.

Free Microsoft re-Exams

If you are planning to do any Microsoft exam do it ASAP. Microsoft offers a free re-exam voucher when you fail one exam. Take this chance for a limited time. Find the details here.

The offer is valid till June 30, 2006.

VS2005 Launch Event @ UIT

Naseem siddiqui shareing his thoughts

INETA Launch Team Members Mr. Nasim Siddiqui (Software Architect, Kalsoft) and Myself. delivered presentations on “Visual Studio.Net 2005, SQL Server 2005” highlighting the new features of the products and to help the audience to understand how Microsoft’s latest easy to use technologies can help us to increase productivity by focusing on business logic instead of coding during the development process. Three things were discussed mainly Vs2005 and SQL server but Biztalk was also included in the discussion.

The presentations were followed by a Q/A session. The event formally with the distribution of Microsoft bags among the audience on referral draw.

Below: me :)

VS2005 Launch Event @ CBM

Event @ CBM went Excellent. I was accompanied by Wajahat (MVP ASP.NET). We Introduced INETA followed By Imagine Cup Videos. I was first to speak and I spoke on Click once deployment and New Data Controls in Vs2005 plus a brief on VSTO. Wajahat Spoke on SQL Server 2005 and how it’ll be helping the Developers and making their life easier. He also spoke at the Scalability issues.

Types of Contracts

There are 3 types of Contacts in indigo but I feel that we as developers will be using only the above 2 from the list below
1- Service Contract
2- Data Contract
3- Message Contract

Service contract defines the operations (functions) to be exposed to the outside world. Data contract define the data members to be sent and Message Contract defines what part of Data will be in the header and what part will be in the Body of the Message.

Q/A for BTS

Stephen Thomas has published a set of interview questions on BizTalk Server and Gustavo has provided his answers to those questions

BizTalk Server and "Indigo"

Scott Woodgate shows a glimpse into the future with a working prototype demo illustrating BizTalk Server and "Indigo" working together.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdntv/episode.aspx?xml=episodes/en/20050428biztalksw/manifest.xml

not Just

According to BBC

The European Commission has threatened to fine Microsoft up to 2m euros (£1.36m; $2.4m) a day until it gives rivals more access to its systems.

its not fair with Microsoft. Specially the way other software companies are fetching information from users.

ABC of an Endpoint

The message passing in Indigo is done by endpoints. Endpoint consists of ABC. A is address, B is binding and C is contract. By address we mean the URI of the location where the service is located or the address of the service. By B we mean the Binding which defines the Protocol, encoding, security transactions ECT and C is the contract of the Service i.e. what it is exposing to the outside world.

VS2005 Launch event in KIET

Yesterday we did a VS 2005 Launch Session at PAF KIET . That was second the launch activity by INETA Pakistan. I was accompanied by Adnan Farooq (MVP) and Hammad rajjoub (MVP). Event was attended by some 50-60 students + faculty members. We also introduced Imagine Cup 2006 and INETA to the audience. Adnan started off the proceedings with introduction to INETA. Hammad rajjoub followed it up with introducing Imagine Cup 2006 and VS 2005 Launch. Then I presented Smart Clients technology in VS 2005 with a introduction to Biztalk on which hammad also shed some light. then Hammad rajjoub ended presentation with an introduction to SQL Server 2005 and BizTalk 2006. We also showed a video for VS2005 launch address by Steve Ballmer. After the presentation we distributed the goodies amongst the audience, thank to Microsoft Pakistan. There were few questions on VS2005 and Biztalk which we were very glad to answer.



Thats me :)

BizTalk Server 2006 Accelerators

Microsoft has released following BizTalk Server 2006 Accelerator Beta2s:

· Microsoft BizTalk Accelerator for HIPAA 3.3
· Microsoft BizTalk Accelerator for HL7 1.3
· Microsoft BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet 3.3
· Microsoft BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT 2.3

https://beta.microsoft.com/

I am really glad to see SWIFT Accelerator being made avaialble. Its an awesome oppurtunities for Banks and other financial institutes that are connected to SWIFT network to try BizTalk 2006 and see the value it adds to EAI as well as other domains.

Microsoft Distributed Computation Technologies

Microsoft has 5 different Technologies for building distributed applications. To start with my favorite is .Net Remoting, it’s for communicating with .Net to .Net Apps cause then it is at its best. Then we have ASMX, also known as ASP.Net Web Services). Then ES (Enterprise Services) where you can manage object Lifetimes and define transactions in Distributed Environment. WSE or Web services Enhancement with WS-* specification. Last but not the least is MSMQ or Microsoft Message Queuing which is best suited for Windows based Applications.

Indigo - The new Communication Technology

After doing some work on Avalon I shifted my focus to Indigo. I started reading about it. And the most fascinating thing is that I came across the unification of the existing .Net Framework communication Technologies. The power of all in one. It’s a great idea to start with. Then the thinking that the current investment of the people remains safe with interoperability. Finally the best thing is that the whole idea is around SOA.

BizTalk Server 2006 Beta 2 Launch

Microsoft has launched BizTalk Server 2006 Beta 2. For those who want to get their hands onto it are adviced to logon to Microsoft Beta Home. Once you are registered you can not only download beta 2 but also ODBA (Orechestration Designer for Business Analyst) beta 2 as well as BizTalk Adapters for Enterprise Applications. its a must download.

:)))

Depending upon the Dependency properties

Going through Avalon a new area of Avalon opened before me, "The Dependency Property System".Dependency properties are properties that are registered with the "Avalon" dependency property system. There are two typoes of Dependency Properties
1. By backing your common language runtime property with a dependency property. This Includes support for styling, databinding, animation, default values, value expressions, property invalidations, or inheritance.
2. Attached properties are properties that can be set By the child or contained element for/of its parent or Container Object.

This Dependency property system is the core component for the Avalon. I personally really adored this approch of microsoft.

Encounter with the Avalon Kind

I was working on the Microsoft Presentation layer (Avalon) and had a strange feeling that I’m working in good old days of HTML but just an advance version of the HTML. Jokes aside Microsoft has given Framework and Tool developers their long awaited desire of generating and persisting UI in XML format. The thing that impressed me most is the flexibility in creating Controls e.g. I can have a button and in a button I can have a Panel in that panel I can have images, text ect. The simplicity of XAML combined with the power of Avalon has made this Presentation Layer Framework a very elegant piece of Software Engineering. But I do have some fears about it as how it will perform in a Real Application with the complexity of User Requirement is involved. I hope and feel that Avalon will come good and Microsoft have finally nailed it right this time around.

Framework Description

Finally I finished scripting the Description of the Framework :). There were many things to talk about but the dilemma was not what to mention but rather how much of each element to state, I hope that I got it right. Following is the Post-Development draft for the Framework

"Framework provides a mechanism that guides programmers through a proper order of steps via a common interface to implement business vocabularies in a systematic format and technical structure. Framework, consisting of specialized APIs, services, and tools, is built around the concept of providing technological support for reducing knowledge as well as time programmers’ needs to built extensible applications. Framework is prevalent in the area of .Net based desktop designs.
At the heart of the Framework is an Application Container and a Framework Class Library (FCL).The Application Container constitutes an environment for servicing and running WinForms based application that inhabits FCL. FCL is a managed code library of classes and interfaces that define a contract of cooperation between application and the container itself. Framework is tailored around the concept of Thin Client. Framework Security Administration Panel implements IoC (Inversion of Control) to provide integration with Enterprise Business Application.

Framework provides,
1) Secure Client-Server Communication (based on Symmetric key Encryption as part of Security sub-package of Microsoft Enterprise Library Block).
2) Dynamic Download of Business Components.
3) XML based data-binding model – Performs auto-binding of WinForms to domain objects and vice versa.
4) Dynamic Security - dynamic menu generation and tasks (Action Buttons), as per the assigned user permissions/rights.
5) Theme Builder and Appling Theme – Theme builder generate user desired XML based Theme which automatically applies to application to give it a consistent look & feel.

Framework is built exercising .NET Remoting, XML and .NET Microsoft Enterprise Library Block.
Along with Framework development, C# code generation tool was also developed which Generates PONO reflected against existing database schema of different styles."

Presenting VS 2005

Previous week have been very tuff, I was to give presentations on Microsoft VS 2005 and also have to complete the Web alteration of the Framework. Presentations were a pre-Release Activity of VS 2005 (Whidbey) and SQL Server 2005 (Yukon). There were around 10-12 Software Engineer attending so it was good to have so many people to talk about and experience the new features of VS 2005. As a presenter it was a immense experience to present such existing features. I gave presentation on the following topics

Creating Professional Looking Windows Forms Applications

Deploying Applications with ClickOnce

Building Data-bound Microsoft Windows Forms Applications

Using New Features in .NET CF 2.0

Programming the Actions Pane

Programming with Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office System (VSTO)

One topic which I also presented in the training of Yukon was SQL Server .NET Integration.

As per the Alteration of the framework to WEB framework, it’s in middle of somewhere. I hope to finish it by the mid of next month.