BizTalkBill's Ramblings

Next Melbourne BizTalk User Group Meeting – Tuesday 4th August 2009

Bill Chesnut — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 23:53:37 GMT

We will be holding the next Melbourne BizTalk User Group Meeting on Tuesday 4th August 2009 at 5:30pm

The venue and sponsor for the meeting will be Stargate Group at Level 3, 600 Victoria Street, Richmond

The topics will be: ESB 2.0 Toolkit

BizTalk Team from Stargate Global Consulting will do a presentation on Installing the ESB 2.0 Toolkit
BizTalk Team from Stargate Global Consulting will do a presentation on Introduction to Itineraries
BizTalk Team from Stargate Global Consulting will do a presentation on Exception Management Framework

Please note we are starting the meeting at 5:30pm and there will be food and drinks supplied

If you cannot attend the meeting it will also be available via Live Meeting (Join the Meeting), starting at 6:00pm

Please RSVP for rsvp@melbiz.org if you plan on attending the meeting.

BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0 Released

Bill Chesnut — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 13:08:03 GMT

For all those that have been waiting for the ESB 2.0 Toolkit, it is available for download here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=bc86cf1e-ef29-4b19-95f7-388f64555090

Enjoy, off to install it now.

BizTalk 2009 Developer Training

Bill Chesnut — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 02:15:43 GMT

For all those interested in BizTalk 2009, I will be delivering the 1st 2009 Developer training on the 15th of June for Stargate. The Quicklearn BizTalk Developer Immersion course will be run in the Stargate Offices in Richmond, Victoria, if you are interested in signing up for the course please visit: http://www.stargateglobalconsulting.com/courses/pages/outline.aspx?ID=11

Please note: the BizTalk Developer Immersion course covers both BizTalk 2006 R2 and BizTalk 2009, the labs for the course can either be done using BizTalk 2006 R2 or BizTalk 2009.

BizTalk 2009 Hands on Days

Bill Chesnut — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 14:54:53 GMT

The Australian BizTalk User Groups would like to invite you to experience “what is new” in BizTalk Server 2009 in a series of one day Hands On Labs that will tour Australia in May and June.

These labs are designed for anyone who has used a previous version of BizTalk Server and wishes to explore firsthand the new features in BizTalk Server 2009. You will have an a dedicated BizTalk 2009 development environment to use during the event and the option to work on the hands on labs modules or experiment with the new features. The BizTalk Server 2009 development environment will include BizTalk Server 2009, RFID, ESB 2.0, Windows 2008, SQL Server 2008, Team Foundation Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 Team Suite.

The BizTalk Server 2009 release demonstrates Microsoft’s continued commitment to the BizTalk Server product family. Please join your local User Groups supporting this offering (the Sydney Connected Systems User Group, the Brisbane BizTalk Community (BrizTalk) and the Melbourne BizTalk User Group) and experience how the new features in BizTalk Server 2009 can extend and connect your existing applications, and deliver new projects more rapidly.

The Hands On Days will be on the following dates:

Melbourne	Brisbane	Sydney	Canberra	Perth	Adelaide
Saturday May 30th	Saturday June 13th	Saturday June 20th	TBA	TBA	TBA
Cliftons Melbourne Level 1, 440 Collins Street Melbourne, VIC 3000	Cliftons Brisbane 288 Edward Street Brisbane QLD 4000	Cliftons Sydney 190-200 George Street Sydney, NSW 2000	TBA	TBA	TBA
			Register Your Interest	Register Your Interest	Register Your Interest
Register early as there are limited seats.

The Event cost is $200* (inc GST) and will include lunch.

The event fee will be used to cover the venue and travel expenses of the presenters, any left over funds will be used for food and drinks at upcoming user group events.

* Please note that the registration fee will be processed via PayPal by Chesnut Consulting Services

Agenda for the Days
			Presenters
Time	Topic	Duration	Melbourne	Brisbane	Sydney
9:00 AM	Intro	15 minutes	Bill Chesnut	Daniel Toomey	Mick Badran
9:15 AM	What’s New in 2009	60 minutes*	Bill Chesnut	Daniel Toomey	Mick Badran
10:15 AM	TFS Integration (Unit Testing & Automated Build)	60 minutes	Bill Chesnut	Dean Robertson	Bill Chesnut
11:15 AM	RFID	60 minutes	Mick Badran	Mick Badran	Mick Badran
12:15 PM	Lunch / Networking	45 minutes
1:00 PM	Enterprise Integration (WCF LOB adapters, EDI, AS2 and Accelerators)	60 minutes	Miguel Herrera	Miguel Herrera	Miguel Herrera
2:00 PM	ESB 2.0	60 minutes	Bill Chesnut	Bill Chesnut	Bill Chesnut
3:00 PM	Trouble Shooting & Problem Determination	60 minutes	Miguel Herrera	Miguel Herrera	Miguel Herrera
4:00 PM	Q & A	30 minutes	All	All	All
4:30 PM	End of Day

* Each presentation will finish in time for the attendees to have a chance to put what they have learned to use on the BizTalk 2009 Environments that will be provided.

Presenting at Code Camp Oz 2009

Bill Chesnut — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 00:34:18 GMT

For all those that have attended the Code Camp Oz events in the past, this years event is shaping up very nicely, lots of great topics and speakers.

I will be presenting the following 2 topics:

Saturday - 15:15 Full Session - A Dive into Dublin: WF and WCF Application Server
Sunday - 12:00 Short Session - Windows 7 & Windows 2008 R2: Booting from VHD

Looking forward to catching up with everyone in Wagga Wagga.

BizTalk Server 2004 Mainstream Support Ends July 14, 2009

Bill Chesnut — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 12:13:54 GMT

For all those still running BizTalk Server 2004, they should be aware that the Microsoft Mainstream support will end this year (http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/search/default.aspx?sort=PN&alpha=2004&Filter=FilterNO).

One other point to remember about with the release later this year of BizTalk Server 2009 and according to all the existing documentation there is not a direct upgrade path from BizTalk Server 2004 to BizTalk Server 2009, you must first upgrade to either 2006 or 2006 R2.

Also for those still on BizTalk Server 2000 or BizTalk Server 2002 the migration to BizTalk Server 2009 is not supported, so you will also need to migrate to 2004, 2006 or 2006 R2 and then upgrade to 2009.

Presenting at Melbourne BizTalk User Group

Bill Chesnut — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 13:21:46 GMT

I will be presenting at the Melbourne BizTalk User group this Thursday night (5th Feb 2009) on Windows Azure and a 1st Look at Dublin.

To attend please see the announcement on http://www.melbiz.org

Good Start to 2009

Bill Chesnut — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 14:00:00 GMT

I have had a good start to 2009, my BizTalk MVP status has been renewed for 2009 and our BizTalk Training effort is starting to take off.

I am now starting planning for the MVP Summit in Seattle during the 1st week of March and a visit to catch up with my parents while I am in the US.

BizTalk Training for January & February 2009

Bill Chesnut — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 14:00:00 GMT

I will be teaching the following BizTalk courses for Stargate Global Consulting during January & February 2009:

January 12th-16th - BizTalk "Developer Ready" in Melbourne - http://www.stargateglobalconsulting.com.au/biztalk_readytraining.aspx

January 19th -23rd - BizTalk "Deep Dive" in Melbourne - http://www.stargateglobalconsulting.com.au/biztalk_training.aspx

February 16th - 20th - BizTalk "Deep Dive" in Sydney - http://www.stargateglobalconsulting.com.au/biztalk_training.aspx (this is course information, registration for Sydney course will be up soon)

if you are interested in attending or need additional information please contact me via feedback.

Presenting at BrizTalk - 16th December 2008

Bill Chesnut — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:00:00 GMT

I will be presenting at the Brisbane BizTalk Community (BrizTalk) meeting on the 16th of December the topics will be BizTalk Server 2009 & Windows Azure.

for details on the meeting see: http://www.briztalk.org/Events/tabid/56/Default.aspx

BizTalk 2009 Beta now on Connect

Bill Chesnut — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 14:00:00 GMT

From the connect.microsoft.com Site:

BizTalk Server

BizTalk Server 2009 represents the next release in Microsoft’s long-term strategy to enable the connected enterprise. BizTalk Server 2009 enhances enterprise connectivity with broad industry support of WS* protocols, the edge via Microsoft BizTalk RFID, and business partners though EDI.

What’s new in BizTalk Server 2009?

Ø Simplify Interoperability

ü Support for .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 and Visual Studio 2008 SP1 - take advantages of the latest developer tools.

ü Support for Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 – full support of Hyper-V, and increased performance and scale.

Ø Extend To The Edge

ü EDI - enhanced out of the box support for the most commonly used EDI schema and trading partner management tools.

ü Simplify development of mobile applications that expose relevant, real-time business information (RFID Mobile).

Ø Enhance Productivity

ü ALM – new support is provided for Team Foundation Server (TFS), allowing development teams to leverage the integrated source control, bug tracking, support for team development, Project Server integration and support for automating builds via MSBuild.

ü Enhanced Developer Productivity – improved underlying project system enhances debugging support for artifacts, pipeline components and orchestrations, and enables support for unit testing.

Support

ü This beta is community supported. The TechNet forums will be the primary place for support - http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=1470&SiteID=17.

ü This beta is for evaluation purposes only. It is not supported in a live operating environment.

ü ESB Guidance 2.0 CTP is also now available at - http://msdn.microsoft.com/esb

Next Melbourne BizTalk User Group Meeting - Tuesday 2nd December 2008

Bill Chesnut — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 14:00:00 GMT

We will be holding the next Melbourne BizTalk User Group Meeting on Tuesday 2nd December 2008 at 5:30pm

The venue and sponsor for the meeting will be Stargate Group at Level 3, 600 Victoria Street, Richmond

The topics will be:

Bill Chesnut from Stargate Group (www.stargategroup.com.au) will do a presentation on "1st Look at BizTalk Server 2009"

Bill Chesnut from Stargate Group (www.stargategroup.com.au) will do a presentation on "PDC Recap - Windows Azure & Dublin"

Please note we are starting the meeting at 5:30pm and there will be food and drinks supplied

Please rsvp for rsvp@melbiz.org if you plan on attending the meeting.

I have renamed Windows Azure to Windows "Light Blue"

Bill Chesnut — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Today while setting down at the ISV Innovation Day at Microsoft in Melbourne and looking at the agenda, I thought about all the technology around Windows Azure and what it really means to developers.

Since returning from the US I having spent the last couple of weeks since PDC digesting the Windows Azure announcement and talk to other developers about Windows Azure, the most asked question so far is "how do you pronounce Azure?".

So I think from now on I am going to start calling Windows Azure, Windows "Light Blue", so that the questions about it can concentrate on the neat technology in it and not what it is called.

Over the Christmas holidays I am going to go through all the webcasts and PDC videos and try to collect all the different pronunciations of Windows Azure to prove my point, so stay tuned.

Microsoft Cloud Services now has a new name Windows Azure

Bill Chesnut — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Today at the Microsoft PDC 2008 Ray Ozzie announced Windows Azure, formally know as Cloud Services. Windows Azure is now available as a CTP (Community Technology Preview) just go to www.azure.com to download the SDKs and signup for an Windows Azure account.

Windows Azure will include what was previously called BizTalk Labs / BizTalk Services which in Azure is called .Net Services.

Please go to www.azure.com and signup for the CTP and make sure that you give Microsoft your feedback on Windows Azure.

Arrived in LA for PDC 2008

Bill Chesnut — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Even though I had a non upgradable seat on QF93, it turned out to be a good flight, the plane was only about 2/3 full and I had an empty seat between myself and Adam Long (CTO @ QSR) who I ran into at the airport waiting for the flight to leave and ended up setting next to on the flight.

I then arrived a my hotel at 9:00am and was plesently suprised when they said the my room was ready for me, I was then off to the convention center to register, a quick process since not many people were arriving as early as I did.

PDC sessions start tomorrow, so check back from my daily updates.

BRE usage survey

Bill Chesnut — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 14:00:00 GMT

The CSD/BizTalk Product Group is conducting a survey to assess customer usage of the Business Rules Engine (BRE).

If you are interested in participating please click the following link: : https://live.datstat.com/MSCSD-Collector/Survey.ashx?Name=BRE_Usage_Survey_Blog

Off to PDC in LA on Sunday

Bill Chesnut — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 14:00:00 GMT

With all the Olso announcement set to be made at PDC this year, I am off to PDC on Sunday. Not that keen on LA, but at least no US flight connections.

2nd cut of BizTalkBill Sample Solution in downloads

Bill Chesnut — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:00:00 GMT

I have updated my BizTalkBill Sample Solution and the updated version is in the download section of the website.More...

Stargate Global Consulting partners with Quicklearn to Deliver Advanced BizTalk Training in Australia

Bill Chesnut — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 02:32:12 GMT

Updated Date: The course had been moved to the 8th-12th of December 2008

After working for the past couple of months to get this setup, I can now announce that Stargate Global Consulting (http://www.stargateglobalconsulting.com) is partnering with Quicklearn (http://www.quicklearn.com) to deliver advanced BizTalk training in Australia.

To launch the partnership Stargate is bring one of the Quicklearn instructors to Australia to deliver the Quicklearn BizTalk Deep Dive course at the end of July (week of the 28th).

For more information and to register follow this link: http://www.stargateglobalconsulting.com.au/biztalk_training.aspx

If you are in Perth and want to learn about WCF

Bill Chesnut — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:13:36 GMT

I will be in Perth this week (July 7th to 11th, 2008) on a BizTalk Consulting engagement and will be presenting to the Perth .NET Community of Practice on one of my favorite topics WCF. The presentation will be a hands on demonstration of how to use WCF. For the details on the meeting go to:

http://perthdotnet.org/blogs/events/archive/2008/07/03/hands-on-wcf-with-bill-chesnut.aspx

hope to see everyone there.

Next Melbourne BizTalk User Group Meeting - Tuesday 6th May

Bill Chesnut — Mon, 05 May 2008 04:41:30 GMT

We will be holding the next Melbourne BizTalk User Group Meeting on Tuesday 6th May 2008 at 5:30pm

The venue and sponsor for the meeting will be Stargate Group at Level 3, 600 Victoria Street, Richmond

The topics will be:

Bill Chesnut from Stargate Group (www.stargategroup.com.au) will do a presentation on "Introduction to Trading Partner Management"

Bill Chesnut from Stargate Group (www.stargategroup.com.au) will do a presentation on "Advanced BizTalk Rule Engine Examples"

Please note we are starting the meeting at 5:30pm and there will be food and drinks supplied

Please rsvp for rsvp@melbiz.org if you plan on attending the meeting.

Back in the Consultant Ranks - Stargate Group Launches Professional Services

Bill Chesnut — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 11:39:42 GMT

Some people said to me that I would miss the consulting work, well now I can have the best of both worlds, Stargate Group has launched Stargate Global Consulting and I will be splitting my time between being Systems Integration Manager and Principal Consultant - Stargate Group

Initial I will be concentrating on BizTalk Consulting and Training, we have launched a "BizTalk Ready" Developer Training course and will be running our first course at the end of February, see our website for details.

I will also be holding a Melbourne BizTalk User Group meeting on the 5th of February at the Stargate Office at 600 Victoria Street, Richmond, details will be on the http://melbiz.org site shortly.

Windows 2008 Hyper-V

Bill Chesnut — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 03:09:05 GMT

Not really a BizTalk thing, but since I do most of my development in virtual environments I am very interested in where MS is going with virtualization and I am happy to say the new Hyper-V stuff looks good.

I loaded the currently available version of Windows 2008 Enterprise with Hyper-V on a new Quad Core machine with 8GB of Ram and the performance was nice, I tested 2 virtual machines running so no memory issues or such. I will do some more testing of the next week or so and really see what it can do, I am wanting to get some experience with SQL clustering, so my next virtualization project is to build a virtual SQL 2 node cluster.

One thing to be aware of is that when you take an existing VHD file to Hyper-V it loads a new HAL and requires a new set of additions, so you cannot share your VHD files between virtual pc/server and Hyper-V.

Busy End to 2007

Bill Chesnut — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 02:06:48 GMT

The end of 2007 turned out to be a very busy time for me, I started a new job as Systems Integration Manager at Stargate Group in Richmond Victoria, I had my BizTalk MVP Status renewed for another year and we had all of my wife's family over for Christmas Day.

2008 is looking like a busy year also, the lack of travel with my new job is a refershing change, so I am working on plans to restart regular meetings of the Melbourne BizTalk User group (should be something posted on the melbiz site soon) and building a new team at Stargate Group to support our internal BizTalk Application.

2008 is also looking like a busy year for BizTalk, with work continuing on the next version and more details and supporting product around "Oslo", so I am looking forward to attending the MVP summit in April to get some quallity time with the product group.

BizTalk 2006 R2 on MSDN Subscriber Downloads

Bill Chesnut — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 09:39:04 GMT

Better late than never, the BizTalk 2006 R2 Developer Edition is now on MSDN Subscriber downloads, currently getting ready to load it onto my new BizTalk 2006 R2 development Virtual Server Image.

Very interested in repeating some of my WCF performance test I did against the B2 release.

Jon Flanders coming to Australia to deliver Applied WF, another of the Readify Industrial Strength Series

Bill Chesnut — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 07:00:00 GMT

Jon Flanders, one of my BizTalk Server MVP colleagues is coming to Australian in November to deliver another in the ongoing Readify Industrial Strength Series, Applied Windows Workflow Foundation. To get the detail and to enrol visit http://www.readify.net. Having heard Jon speak several times I can ensure you that you will come away from the course eager to dive into your next WF project.

Microsoft SOA & Business Process Conference 2007 Website Llive

Bill Chesnut — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 07:00:00 GMT

This years Microsoft SOA & Business Process Conference 2007 is going to at the Microsoft Conference Center in Redmond, Washington, October 29th to November 2nd. The website for information and registration is now live at http://mssoaandbpconference.com/.

Presenting at this years Australian TechEd

Bill Chesnut — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 14:00:00 GMT

With a bit less prep than last year and a bit more prep than the year before, I will be presenting at this years Australian TechEd on the Gold Coast. I will be re-delivering on of the topics delivered at US TechEd:

· CON310 - Building Connected Systems on the Microsoft .NET Framework Using the Windows Communication Foundation Adapter in BizTalk Server 2006 R2

o 09/08/2007 1:45 PM - 3:00 PM

o Track(s): Connected Systems

o Level: 300

o Building applications today requires the ability to create secure, reliable connections between systems; manage complex business processes, transactions and rules; and integrate with systems of all kinds. Microsoft provides a number of technologies and products to help in building these applications, but understanding how these tools all work together can be difficult. In this session, we examine using Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation, BizTalk Server 2006 R2 and Windows CardSpace together to build today’s connected systems. Discussion includes the integration points available in these products, with an emphasis on the WCF adapters and including the adapter framework in BizTalk Server R2, and how to apply the technologies together.

So if you are interested in seeing how BizTalk 2006 R2 plays with the latest .Net technologies come along and see for yourself.

BizTalk Adapter for Windows Workflow Foundation sample (June 2007 CTP)

Bill Chesnut — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 14:00:00 GMT

Just announced at TechEd 2007 (US) - Host your Windows Workflow in BizTalk Server via the BizTalk Adapter for Windows Workflow Foundation sample (June 2007 CTP). For complete details see Paul Andrew's blog for the complete details (http://blogs.msdn.com/pandrew/archive/2007/06/04/biztalk-adapter-for-windows-workflow-foundation-sample-june-2007-ctp.aspx).

There is a video demo of this technology by Jon Flanders here.

Really good BizTalk article in MSDN Magazine - 8 Tips And Tricks For Better BizTalk Programming

Bill Chesnut — Wed, 02 May 2007 07:00:00 GMT

8 Tips And Tricks For Better BizTalk Programming - this is a really good article for both new and experienced BizTalk developers. I was surprised at a couple of the tips, but once reading them they make really good sense.

BizTalk Backup Job using UTC time to be fixed

Bill Chesnut — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 07:00:00 GMT

For all those that read my post on the BizTalk Backup job running at 10:00am (Melbourne, Australia time), there is a hot fix in the works, so keep checking back and as soon as it is released I will post the number.

A big thanks to MS Support in Australian for taking this and running with it.

Doing BizTalk Coding with a Tablet PC

Bill Chesnut — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 14:00:00 GMT

Well I have been traveling heaps lately, I have a 4 week schedule that has me doing 12 flights, but that is not the point of this post, I was on a flight home last Friday night and I really wanted to finish working on a BizTalk error handling orchestration, so out came the Toshiba M4 tablet and even though I had a empty seat beside me, with the people in front having the seats reclined, I just could not use the keyboard, so I decided to try BizTalk programming with the pen, and as crazy as it sounds I could do most things I needed to do, I did need to key in a few things, but I found the items I needed and did some cut and past.

Now this makes my decision about what laptop to get in June when my Toshiba M4 is due to be replaced, I had pretty well decided on going with a Dell 820, full spec’d out, but now I am thinking more and more about another tablet pc, so time to start having some more looks.

Found an interesting issue with the BizTalk SQL Backup job today

Bill Chesnut — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 14:00:00 GMT

Over the past couple of weeks I have been documenting the procedure I use to build new BizTalk Environments, this includes things like making sure that the backup jobs are in place and that the backup files get deleted (the default backup job shipped with BizTalk cleans up the history records in the database, but does not clean up the files created by the backup). This week I was helping a client clean up a tracking database that had gotten very large because of a miss configured purge job, while I was working on this problem I noticed that the full backups for the tracking database via the BizTalk backup job were happening at 10:00am local time (Melbourne, Australia). From my past experience as a SQL DBA, doing a full backup on a production database at 10:00am in the morning is probably not the best time to do it, I dismissed it as something up with the scheduler. Today while completing the setup of a new BizTalk server for another client, I again noticed that the full backups for all the BizTalk databases were happening at 10:00am, so I though to myself, what is up with this. The other strange thing is the file name did not match the time the file was created, here is an example:

READIFYPOC_BizTalkDTADb_Full_BTS_2007_04_12_00_00_08_497.bak - with a create date & time of -12/04/2007 10:00 AM

So something is really up with this backup job, I opened the backup job and looked at the first step, it calls the stored procedure sp_BackupAllFull_Schedule, so I open the stored procedure and on line 29 I find this:

select @CurrDT = getutcdate()

the picture suddenly becomes very clear, Melbourne has a UTC offset of +10 hours, now I know why the backups are running at 10:00am in the morning.

I understand why they used getutcdate(), almost all the dates in the BizTalk tracking database are stored in UTC time and when they generate reports they use something like this:

dateadd(minute, @UtcOffsetMin, [ServiceInstance/StartTime]) - from the "Most recent 100 services instances" query in HAT.

Now that I figured out why it was doing the full backups at 10:00am in the morning I started trying to find out how to fix the problem without changing the BizTalk stored procedures, I searched Google and the only thing that I found was someone that have setup a job that ran at 5 minutes before they wanted to do the full backup that executed the sp_ForceFullBackup stored procedure to force the next run of the backup job to do a full backup. This was not the solution I was looking for, since what that would produce is a backup at the time I select and then another backup when the UTC date changed at 10:00am. I then went and looked at the other 2 steps of the backup job, the second step that does the transaction log backups also uses getutcdate(), but the job that delete the backup history uses getdate(), so it deletes the backup history 10 hours ahead of schedule.

So as bad as I hate to change the shipped stored procedures, I decided to change them and see if that fixed the problem, YES, the problem is fixed, the full backup runs the 1st run after midnight local time and the file name matches the file create time of the file system.

I guess it is now time to open a support incident and see if they can explain why doing a full backup at 10:00am is a good thing. If they don't I will have to create a set of _LocalTime stored procedure with my changes in them to prevent services packs from unfixing my fix. I have already done this with my sp_DeleteBackupHistoryAndFiles stored procedure that also deletes the backup files from the file system (see the download section of my website for your copy)

Readify Holding another Master Class

Bill Chesnut — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 14:00:00 GMT

I was luck enough to attend the last Master Class that Readify held on WCF, we have now scheduled another master class, this time it is WPF. Ian Griffiths will be coming out from the UK to deliver Applied WPF in Sydney the week if the 23rd of April 2007, for details see - http://www.readify.net/Default.aspx?tabid=254.

From my experience with the WCF master class I can say the to get the depth of information delivered in these classes is second to none and not available anywhere else in Australia. If you want to take your WCF knowledge to the next level don't miss this opportunity.

BizTalk 2006 R2 Beta now on http://connect.microsoft.com

Bill Chesnut — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 14:00:00 GMT

Microsoft today posted the BizTalk 2006 R2 Beta on http://connect.microsoft.com

BizTalk 2006 R2 includes support for WCF, RFID and enhanced EDI support

Earned my MCPD Web Certification Today

Bill Chesnut — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 07:00:00 GMT

I passed the final exam for my MCPD Web Certification today, this will allow me to become an MCT.

Off to Code Camp Oz this weekend

Bill Chesnut — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 07:00:00 GMT

Off to Code Camp Oz this weekend ( www.codecampoz.com), hope to see lots of familiar faces.

BizTalk Server Pattern Wizard

Bill Chesnut — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 08:00:00 GMT

The BizTalk Server Pattern Wizard is now on Codeplex ( http://www.codeplex.com/PatternWizard )

Microsoft Releases BizTalk 2004 Service Pack 2

Bill Chesnut — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 03:00:00 GMT

Here is the link to BTS 2004 SP2

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=d20b4510-e5a6-4d7b-87a1-4bd52bdd57b8&displaylang=en

Microsoft® BizTalk® Server 2006 Adapter for Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM 3.0

Bill Chesnut — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 03:00:00 GMT

Microsoft has released the Microsoft® BizTalk® Server 2006 Adapter for Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM 3.0 you can download it from here - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=4628fca6-388d-45bc-a154-453b920dbcb8&displaylang=en

Attending Microsoft SOA and Business Process Conference at Redmond - Day 0

Bill Chesnut — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 03:00:00 GMT

I arrived in Bellevue, Washington on Sunday for the Microsoft SOA and Business Process Conference, the conference officially started tonight with with the Early Registration Reception at Parlor Billards. It was great to catch up with the poeple I had met at last years conference and to finally put faces to the people I have been talking to via the BizTalk MVP monthly conference calls. The next 4 days are packed with lots of BizTalk, BPM and SOA information, I am sure that I will be suffering a good case of information overload by the end of the week.

Victoria.Net Regional Conference

Bill Chesnut — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 03:00:00 GMT

THIS IS THE VICTORIAN ICT EVENT OF 2006!

BE A PART OF IT – BOOK TODAY!!

VICTORIA.NET REGIONAL CONFERENCE

SATURDAY 17 JUNE – UNIVERSITY OF BALLARAT

NO CHARGE to Victoria.NET members!!
20 speakers over a whole day of action-packed conference program
Something for everyone in two full streams: business & technical
Easy to implement information
Great give-aways, including a 1-year MSDN subscription!

DETAILS:

Date: Saturday 17 June

Time: 9am to 5.20pm

Venue: Geoffrey Blainey Auditorium, Mount Helen Campus, University of Ballarat

CONFERENCE PROGRAM:

TIME	TECHNICAL STREAM	BUSINESS STREAM
0900 - 0945	Registration and Light Breakfast
0945 - 1000	Welcome & Keynote *Speaker TBC*
1000 - 1040	Getting the most from Visual Studio Dave Glover, Microsoft Australia	Business Coaching: Tips to Improve your Business Geoff Currie, Action International
1040 - 1055	Morning Tea
1100 - 1140	What's New in C# & Visual Basic Bill McCarthy	Ballarat: Going Places in ICT? George Fong, cBallarat Regional Technology Parks & Their Role in ICT Development Stan Jeffery, Ballarat Technology Park
1145 - 1225	Developer Productivity TBC	Small Business Server 2003 for Business John Bade, Outback Computers
1230 - 1320	Lunch
1325 - 1335	Address by the University of Ballarat *Speaker TBC*
1340 - 1420	Office for Developers Ed Richard, Software Objectives	IBM & Ballarat University: An Education Model for the Future Scott Hebbard, University of Ballarat
1425 – 1505	QuickReview of SQL Server Greg Linwood, SQL Servants Quick Review of BizTalk & Windows Workflow Foundation Bill Chesnut, Readify	YOU Can Export! Min-Joo Sohn, Austrade & Wataru Takagi, Austrade Japan AusIndustry: Programs for Regional ICT Development John Finch, AusIndustry
1510 -1525	Afternoon Tea
1530 - 1610	ClickOnce & Deployment Scott Baldwin, Readify	Getting the Most from MS Office for Business Ed Richard, Software Objectives
1615 - 1655	Practical Security for Developers Chris Hewitt, Readify	Ways to Make Money from ICT by Partnering with Microsoft Peter Halliday, Universal Trustees & David Gibson, Microsoft Australia
1700 – 1710	BDNUG Introduction *Damian Edwards, Rural Ambulance* *Victoria*
1715 - 1720	Close

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* If there is enough of a demand, we will arrange bus transport from Melbourne to Ballarat return. This service will be provided at a cost of $30 per person, payable in advance. Please indicate whether or not you will require transport.

X If there is enough of a demand, we can arrange dinner and the show “Blood on the Southern Cross” at Sovereign Hill, for delegates and their families. The cost will be $65 per person for members (and their families), and $70 per person for non-members (and their families). Please indicate whether or not you are interested in the evening entertainment.

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Answer to GAC'ng a assembly in VS2005 in PostBuild Event

Bill Chesnut — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 03:00:00 GMT

I was getting a 9009 error from “gacutil /iF $(TargetPath)”, if found some info on the web (http://www.mcse.ms/archive103-2006-1-2052602.html) that point me to using

"$(DevEnvDir)..\..\SDK\v2.0\Bin\gacutil.exe" /iF “$(TargetPath)”

it now works.

Readify becomes Microsoft Gold Partner

Bill Chesnut — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 14:00:00 GMT

With Readify's continuing growth we have now attained Microsoft Gold Partner Status, thanks to lots of paperwork by Kim.

BizTalk 2006 has RTM'd

Bill Chesnut — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 14:00:00 GMT

BizTalk 2006 has officially been released and is now available for download from MSDN.

BizTalk 2006 will be generally available on May 1, 2006.

The price increase will also be effective on May 1, 2006, so to save 20% on you BizTalk 2006 purchase BizTalk 2004 with SA now.

BizTalker Mailing List

Bill Chesnut — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 23:03:00 GMT

We (Melbourne & Sydney BizTalk User Groups) have just set up a BizTalk mailing list, with the same idea in mind as the aus-dotnet & SQLdownunder list. You can subscribe to it by clicking here and pressing send.