The Tao of BizTalk

BizTalk RFID doesn't play with .Net 3.5 Beta 2

2007-11-15T00:23:00.001Z

Just tried to install Orcas Beta 2 with BizTalk RFID to no avail...http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942521.

"Microsoft BizTalk RFID is not supported when it is installed on the same computer as the .NET Framework 3.5 Beta 2. However, Microsoft BizTalk RFID will be supported when it is installed on the same computer as the release version of the .NET Framework 3.5."

So I guess we wait

ESB Guidance V1 is here ;0)

2007-11-14T00:32:00.001Z

ESB Guidance V1 on MSDN go check it out. I'd used the CTP's but the new release looks all shiny and new. Marty and the guys did a great job. More on this soon.....

SOA & BP - Part 4: Orchestration generation

2007-11-02T19:28:00.001Z

Well if you hadn't heard the news, M$ is now all about the model which is great. However it's horses for courses one persons model isn't necessarily another's e.g. business analysts versus tekkie models have different goals. Translating from higher level to lower (closer to the metal) models is complex.

There were a couple of demos that showed the generation of BizTalk orchestrations from a business process model designed by an business analyst (the companies behind the tools shall remain nameless). For the uninitiated the demos look great; anyone who has been baptized in the fires of BizTalk can immediately see the danger.

A business guy describes his process but doesn't realize the operational implications of his description or decisions e.g. 'I have a business process that receives a PO and sends a request to an ERP system, then in 90 days if we don't get paid we chase the money'. Picture the model he/she could draw; you got it delay for 90 days. Do we really want an orchestration that hangs around for 90 days?

What happens if we want to upgrade this orchestration?

What happens if 90 days becomes 110 days?

What happens if someone unenlists the orchestration?

We would want to break the process into smaller shorter-running manageable steps not just one big orchestration. IMHO these tools are dangerous in the wrong hands, they should come with a 'use with care' sticker on the front.

On the flip side Jon Flanders just released a workflow to BizTalk xlang wizard. Now this is different; typically a WF workflow has been designed with a lot of the same considerations in mind that one would have when designing a BizTalk orchestration. Therefore you are converting like with like.

The dissonance between the models that business analysts and tekkies produce is difficult to reconcile. Role on Oslo ;0)

SOA & BP Conference - Part 3: BAM, BAM, BAM

2007-11-01T14:47:00.001Z

Jon Flanders did a session (sold out) last night on building a Service Monitoring Infrastructure with BAM. Great talk! He highlighted one thing that has been drifting on the edge of my consciousness over the past year; that is where is the sweet spot for BAM and where does the BizTalk tracking database play well.

After BAM was released in BizTalk 2004 it became obvious to M$ that the BAM product had as much traction with the operational people as it did as it did on the business side. The first signs of this were the embedding of BAM functionality with the M$ Operations Manager (MOM 2005 Resource Kit). The most recent evidence is that the new EDI functionality is supported from a tracking perspective by BAM. I felt compelled to ask the question then as to what to choose

BAM and Tracking

or

Just BAM

The answer yesterday was BAM only. I'm still weighing the implications of this. Ponder for a second what happens when you turn off all tracking in BizTalk. BizTalk would scream along enabling support for lower (not low-low) latency solutions, the downside seem all related to compliance and auditing. Now the questions is how to address these gaps with BAM.

My gut feel is that Jon is onto something here. Because BAM extends the reach of how we implement tracking in a really flexible way the power to track what's interesting to your business moves back into your control. BAM really provides a more holistic approach that reflects the reality of tracking.

SOA & BP Conference - Part 2: More on Oslo (kind of)

2007-10-31T19:00:00.001Z

Oslo really is a grand vision but what about Software Factories, DSLs, GAT, GAX etc. I've been asking that question of as many people as I could and I'm not sure what the answer is.

Last year was all about Software Factories as the future for all of us. I heard and saw lots of sessions and debates about SF versus MDA. There seems to have been a rethink on this, it's now all about executable models. Models will represent the 'actual' and 'current' state of things as opposed to a models now that show a design time state that is pretty stale and old nearly immediately. So what happens people who have invested in GAT, GAX, DSLs my gut feel is that you (we) may have been sold a pup. See the correction below...

The focus on GAT packages that was around last year seems to have blurred a bit. My sense of it is, that GAT in it's current form doesn't really align well with the Oslo vision. In terms of what is on the agenda in this at the conference; Don Smith is releasing a new version of Web Service Software Factory this week but the word on the street is that the pre-release version contained tools (really useful tools) that won't appear in the release because it confused the Oslo message. There's also a session on the Smart Client SF later in the week but very little hype.

Watch this space I will try and ferret out what the truth/future is.

CORRECTION>>> I talked to Don Smith on Thursday after his Service Factory demo. DSLs, GAT and GAX are still around Service Factory V3 looks super we'll see some really cool stuff in Rosario. I think the reason that stuff has not been talked about at this conference is to try and not confuse the Oslo message with other noise.

Once more Service Factory V3 is really really cool and looks really extensible.

SOA & Business Process Conference, Seattle 2007 - Part 1

2007-10-30T21:20:00.001Z

I arrived late last night into 'sunny' (I'm serious) Seattle - everyone told me it would be raining. So what's new. Well the big news is Project Oslo which has been under NDA until this morning. Oslo is the vision of the future and it's all about models and services.

Oslo is where workflow, Internet Service Bus (BizTalk Labs), WCF, BizTalk Server '6', hosted services all coalesce. All this along with general purpose modeling language(s), tool(s) Universal Model Editor (CTP's next year watch this space) and a model repository.

It's a really ambitious vision and one that M$ admit might never be fully realized. I guess we'll wait and see.

Architectural Styles

2007-08-29T22:39:00.000+01:00

What kind of architect are you?

Scratch that...

What style of architect are you?

We constantly draw comparisons between building architecture and I.T. architecture some comparisons are valid and some are not. I used to work for an hotel owner who trained under Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin. Frank Lloyd Wright developed an architectural style that he described as Organic Architecture.

Organic architecture is a philosophy of architecture which promotes harmony between human habitation and the natural world through design approaches so sympathetic and well integrated with its site that buildings, furnishings, and surroundings become part of a unified, interrelated composition. (see Wikipedia Organic Architecture)

The term "Organic Architecture" is explained by Frank Lloyd Wright as follows...

"So here I stand before you preaching organic architecture: declaring organic architecture to be the modern ideal and the teaching so much needed if we are to see the whole of life, and to now serve the whole of life, holding no traditions essential to the great TRADITION. Nor cherishing any preconceived form fixing upon us either past, present or future, but instead exalting the simple laws of common sense or of super-sense if you prefer determining form by way of the nature of materials..." - Frank Lloyd Wright, An Organic Architecture, 1939

(he had an opaque writing style so you may want to re-read this quote (I did ))

Others have contributed to the definition of this style; David Pearson's Gaia Charter lays out a list of rules for organic architecture.
"Let the design:

be inspired by nature and be sustainable, healthy, conserving, and diverse.
unfold, like an organism, from the seed within.
exist in the "continuous present" and "begin again and again".
follow the flows and be flexible and adaptable.
satisfy social, physical, and spiritual needs.
"grow out of the site" and be unique.
celebrate the spirit of youth, play and surprise.
express the rhythm of music and the power of dance."

I read Wright's description and the Gaia charter rules and I believe they are for the most part (trying to convince a customer to invest in the celebration of youth, play and surprise may be a stretch) a really good fit for the style in which I.T. projects should be approached.

We seem at the moment as an industry to be talking about architecture very much in terms of the functional concern it addresses e.g. infrastructure, business, information and solutions architecture. These descriptions are perfect from the point of view of delineating roles within an organization but the notion of defining a style crosses these boundaries and sets up a value system within which to be an architect. Thinking this way prompts one to think in terms of the people and the ecosystem within which you work and away from the purely functional aspects of what you do.

Organic architecture resonates with me; it's something to, aspire to. Organic architecture evolves rather than imposes. Organic Architecture has a light touch on the environment. Our I.T. architectures should display these same qualities? What do you think?

BizUnitExtensions

2007-08-29T22:27:00.000+01:00

I've meant to post about this for ages. I've been involved in a CodePlex project BizUnitExtensions for a while (I've been really quiet on it of late ;0). Benji talks about this in some more detail. If you are using BizTalk then this could be of use (I hope).

Non-BizTalk fun: Floccinaucinihilipilification

2007-08-29T22:00:00.000+01:00

I have had a love of words since I was a kid. Today, I was introduced quite by accident to 2 new words courtesy of a colleague who will remain nameless.

We've all met people who indulge exclusively in the first and I imagine we've all experienced the second.

Floccinaucinihilipilification
The act or habit of estimating or describing something as worthless, or making something to be worthless by deprecation

Shoeburyness
The vague uncomfortable feeling you get when sitting on a seat which is still warm from somebody else's bottom -(credited to Douglas Adams)

IMTC BizTalk 2006 R2 and BizTalk RFID

2007-05-24T10:21:00.001+01:00

As I mentioned I'm speaking at the IMTC. Here's a little taster of what the demo will cover. I'm probably being way to ambitious in what I want to cover but here are the major points

BizTalk R2 What's new?
WCF Adapters
BizTalk RFID
BAM Interceptors
R2 Adapter Framework (time permitted)

I've got just over an hour so it's going to be interesting fitting all that in. I decided not to do the usual order processing demo in an effort to try and get people a bit more engaged (I hope ;0). You can read the synopsis here.

Basically I'm fascinated by the potential that RFID has as a ubiquitous technology. Every other dmeo I've seen in this area is always in the context of inventory management, tracking and stock control. In a way my demo is much the same apart from the setting. I've moved off the shop floor and into Law Enforcement.

The various CSI shows on the idiot box inspired me with their use of technology (I hate the show especially CSI Miami, Horatio Kane in particular). Having said all that I love the technology (real or not).

To cut a long story short the demo will show a CSI Evidence Monitoring system with real live RFID devices as opposed to the AcmeProvider in the RFID SDK. When I'm done I'll post the code and a step by step of how to recreate the whole solution.

I'm speaking at the IMTC (Irish Microsoft Technology Conference)

2007-05-24T10:10:00.000+01:00

I haven't blogged in 10 months now. I've been 'encouraged' to give a BizTalk talk at the IMTC by Philip McK (mtug guy). I've decided I better start blogging again. I'm looking through the speaker list and I'm by far the least illustrious of my fellow speakers. But as the man said (not sure who this man is) we'll give it a go.

The last time I spoke was at the BizTalk 2006 launch. I really enjoyed it; I think by the end of a long day the last thing anyone was thinking about was loosely coupled systems. It was more likely they wanted to loose me from my mortal coil (or at least get me to shut up).

Hope to see some of you there!!!!

BizTalk Adapter stops polling???

2006-07-19T12:07:00.000+01:00

We had some strange behaviour with BizTalk (2004 Sp1 on Windows 2003 Sp1).
Basically a receive location using a polling adapter (MQ, SQL) would stop receiving messages e.g. messages start building up in the queue, table. No event log messages are generated and BizTalk looks like it's behaving correctly, the only way to resolve it was to recycle the host instance ;0). We found nothing on the web about this specific issue from M$ in terms of a BizTalk patch. However several other people have experienced this behaviour (see links below).
We tracked it down to a bug in the system timers class in .Net 1.1. There is a patch that you need to order from MicroSoft to fix the bug. We applied the patch and everything works fine (so far).

http://www.topxml.com/Biztalk-Adapters/rn-208787_SQL-Adapter-stops-polling.aspx
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=900822

Roll on a swift adoption of BizTalk 2006

NHibernate funny stuff

2006-07-19T11:56:00.000+01:00

I'm in the middle of changing jobs at the moment, so at present I'm going through my inbox and cleaning stuff up. I came across these gems from the ObjectSpaces (anyone remember it) mailing list.

..first...
The nHibernate project has died... No activity for months. Shame really, the approach was on target.

...and...

nHibernate is currently not active...
For open source, ojb-net has life...
Commercially, ORM.NET, Objectz, Pragmatier are available.

...best of all...
Yukon has crushed these projects.
Wait for Yukon...your OOP soul will live on...

It's interesting to see that of any of the above nHibernate seems to have had the most success.

'Thou shalt version thy contracts' - The importance of versioning

2006-04-19T08:20:00.000+01:00

It's always nice to have a concrete real world example of something. I got my example the other morning, my electric toothbrush stopped working. My toothbrush has replaceable brushes (a good idea provided they are in stock). It was time for a change in order to keep the pearly whites gleaming (I'd like to have all my own teeth when I'm 90). I bought a pack of refills for 'my' toothbrush, installation was a cinch ;0). I started it up and .................nothing happened. The motor whirred away happily but the brush didn't move. Why is this? They changed the interface ever so slightly but just enough to break the contract.

What should they have done; repeat after me 'thou shalt version thy contracts'.

I was frustrated, disappointed and annoyed. I stopped using my electric brush and bought a new brush(an old skool brush), one that can't disappoint me!

Service Factory Released

2006-04-19T08:06:00.000+01:00

Jason Hogg and Don Smith et al. have opened up the Service Factory on GotDotNet. A tantalising preview was given by Beat Schwegler and Ingo as a part of the Microsoft Architect Forum earlier this year. As a user of WSCF I'm really looking forward to getting my hands dirty with this release (time permitted).

It's a great example of how DSLs and GATT can work in VS 05. The latest drop has WCF support.

BizTalk 2006 Painless Install (beware of BAM Alerts)

2006-04-08T23:38:00.000+01:00

I installed 2006 RTM in under 30 minutes the other day including configuration(obviously on a single developer machine ;0). For any biztalkers out there, cast your mind back to the nightmare that was the 2004 install. My compliments to Microsoft, they've taken the pain away.

One thing to note (it's in the upgrade guide I think) I tried to upgrade from an Enterprise beta version to a Developer RTM version; it's not possible. I uninstalled the beta and deleted the BTS databases. Here's why you should always RTFM; if you've previously configured BAM you will have a notification Services alert (probably BAMAlert). When you install the RTM and accept all the defaults your BAM configuration will fail unless you first delete the notification or second rename the notification in the config e.g. BAMAlerts1. Fortunately this was the only issue I had.

My next task start exploring the 3 full scenarios that are provided as samples (the setup of the samples looks painful).

WSCF v0.6 has shipped

2006-02-28T13:04:00.000Z

Thinktecture just shipped a new version of WSCF, version 0.6. It's available for download from Thinktecture. I've used with the tool from 0.4, I'm really looking forward to seeing what this new one offers.

On the Thinktecture note Ingo Rammer is in town tomorrow for the Microsoft Architect forum, he's talking about Software factories with Beat Schwegler. Ingo is a superb speaker so this should be an excellent event.

/Microsoft and ‘SO’

2006-02-28T12:47:00.000Z

I was sick yesterday with a bit of a fever a bit ‘non compus mentis’ as they say. All I could think about while in this state was architecture. I remember a thought coming to me through this shrouded reality; Microsoft are subliminally indoctrinating all of us about SO. So, why did I think this?

Next time you listen to an MS guy/gal talking, listen to the first word they say. I can’t guarantee it but for the most part it’s the word ‘so’. Everyone knows that you shouldn’t start a sentence with a conjunction. So, why are they doing it, the only reason I could think of was to drive the SO sword ever deeper. Now as I write this it seems infinitely less plausible, or does it?

Amendments
I looked up the whole conjunction starting a sentence thing it seems that there has definitely been a diminution of this grammatical rule since I were a lad.

Ponder this, thank (replace with your name of divinity or not) that MS aren’t pushing ESBs (see here what Scott Woodgate has to say about this).

BizTalk 74-135 Passed!!

2006-02-20T23:42:00.000Z

I finally sat and passed the Biztalk 2004 74-135 exam. I'm now BizTalk certified (or certifiable depending on who you taIk to). I've seen lots of requests for tips on this exam. I'll do what I can within the rules of the certification program.

This checklist is targeted mainly at developers who develop but don't manage or administer BizTalk 2004.

I think that the exam is a pretty fair guide of someone's overall knowledge of the BizTalk platform. As described it covers everything the platform has to offer. Therefore if you answer 'NO' to any of the following then I suggest you look to the help and/or the BizTalk Unleashed book.

You know BTS but-

have you used BAM
have you used BAS
have you used HWS
have you installed BTS
have you configured tracking
do you know your pipeline interfaces
do you know your adapter interfaces
do you know how to configure BTS for performance

If the answer is no to more than 2 of these questions then aren't ready.

Personally I've never used HWS and I'd be lying if I said I had more than a passing aquaintance with BAS. So I basically took a chance that I would do well on the bits I did know, as it turns out I was must have.

It looks like the 2oo6 exam will be very similar. If you are using BizTalk alot then very little study is required otherwise do it at your own risk.I’m just gutted I didn't do it last year. I've been putting it off since last May.

Positioning this blog in space and time

2006-02-20T23:37:00.000Z

My very first blog entry! I’ve been putting this off for so long; it’s gotten to be a habit (a bad one). To start I suppose I need to position this blog and set some expectations.

Me:
I’m a solutions architect

This blog:
Every so often I’ve got something useful to give back to the community (or at least I hope I have). I’ve benefited a lot from other peoples blogging endeavours. Now it’s time to give a little back. Along the way I’ve disovered some stuff and I’ve had one or two interesting thoughts that I wanted to share, now I have a home for them.

Right now I’m interested in a couple of things BizTalk and Software Architecture to name but a few. Along the way other technologies might rear their ugly (or not) heads so don’t be surprised.

Me and BizTalk (BizTalk and I)
I’ve been working with BizTalk 2004 for what seems like an age now. I’ve been experimenting with BizTalk 2006 since Beta 1; I even demo’ed BizTalk 2006 at the November launch. I promised at that demo that I would put up a blog and post material from that presentation (expect to see it shortly).

So what should you expect?

General musings on architecture
Information on the embryonic Irish Architect SIG
BizTalk howto’s and stuff that I think is cool in the 2006
If you've ever wondered how to become an Architect then follow the Chronicles of an aspiring Architect

I think my friend Daragh nailed it on the head when he set the goals for his blog
‘Learning, helping and making a little money’
If I can do that with this blog I’ll be happy.