BizTalkBill's Ramblings

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.

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/.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

REGISTER:

Send the following information by return e-mail to Collins Rex at info@victoriadotnet.com.au:

NAME

COMPANY

CONTACT E-MAIL

CONTACT TELEPHONE

STREAM MOST INTERESTED IN

BUS TRANSPORT REQUIRED (YES/NO) *

EVENING SOCIAL PROGRAM (YES/NO) X

* 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.

DON’T MISS THIS OPPORTUNITY! BOOK TODAY!!

SUPPORTED BY MULTIMEDIA VICTORIA

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.