Hi folks,

Lately I've had several requests from folks whom want to have a play with BizTalk but don't want to setup the whole infrastructure etc.

Here's a great page from MS Virtual Labs that will get you on your way
(some labs are for BTS2006, others for BTS2009, the same principles apply)

Check it out and if you're ever away from a VM, might be handy a fallback plan.

BizTalk Virtual Lab Material

There's 4 pages and here's a snippet from Page 1

--------------------------------------------------------------

MSDN Virtual Lab: Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 Working with Schemas

After completing this lab, you will be better able to create a new BizTalk project, create an XML schema by using the BizTalk Editor, promote a schema property, create a flat file schema by using the BizTalk Editor, validate a schema and generate a sample instance message, create a strong name and assign it to an assembly, and build a schema project.  ...

4/3/2006 12:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada)- 9/30/2011 11:59 PM | Duration:90 Minutes

Primary Language:   English

Primary Target Audience:   Pro Dev/Programmer

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032296903&culture=en-US

MSDN Virtual Lab: Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 Working with Maps

After completing this lab, you will be better able to create a schema map by using BizTalk Mapper, add functoids to a map, validate a map, and build a schema map project.

4/3/2006 12:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada)- 11/30/2010 11:59 PM | Duration:90 Minutes

Primary Language:   English

Primary Target Audience:   Pro Dev/Programmer

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032296906&culture=en-US

MSDN Virtual Lab: Integrating Business Rules in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006

After completing this lab, you will be better able to define business rules, call business rules from within an orchestration, build and deploy the business rules project, and start and test the business rules.

5/7/2008 12:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada)- 5/31/2011 11:59 PM | Duration:90 Minutes

Primary Language:   English

Primary Target Audience:   Pro Dev/Programmer

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032379047&culture=en-US

MSDN Virtual Lab: New Features for Deploying and Managing a BizTalk Application in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006

After completing this lab, you will be better able to assign an application name to a BizTalk Server project, use the BizTalk Server 2006 Administration Console to create receive ports, receive locations, use the BizTalk Server 2006 Administration Console to import port binding information, bind orchestration ports to physical ports, export a BizTalk application to an MSI package, import a BizTalk application from an MSI package, and finally, use the Group Hub to manage suspended messages.  ...

4/3/2006 12:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada)- 12/31/2010 11:59 PM | Duration:90 Minutes

Primary Language:   English

Primary Target Audience:   Pro Dev/Programmer

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032296904&culture=en-US

MSDN Virtual Lab: Connected Commerce with Commerce Server 2007

After completing this lab, you will be better able to educate attendees on integrating Commerce Server 2007 with ERP or CRM systems and external business trading partners by utilizing the new built-in integration adapter for BizTalk Server 2006. Also, you will learn how to utilize the new Orders, Inventory, Catalog, and Profile BizTalk Adapters in detail to achieve high-performing, reliable connectivity between Commerce Server deployments and other external systems.  ...

4/20/2007 12:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada)- 8/31/2010 11:59 PM | Duration:90 Minutes

Primary Language:   English

Primary Target Audience:   Pro Dev/Programmer

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032338959&culture=en-US

TechNet Virtual Lab: Integrating Business Rules in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006

After completing this lab, you will be better able to define business rules, call business rules from within an orchestration, build and deploy the business rules project, and start and test the business rules.NoteBy registering for this virtual lab, you will receive a one-time follow up call from a Microsoft representative to inform you of special discounts and offers related to products and services presented in the virtual lab.  ...

4/3/2006 12:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada)- 11/30/2010 11:59 PM | Duration:90 Minutes

Primary Language:   English

Primary Target Audience:   IT Generalist

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032313534&culture=en-US

MSDN Virtual Lab: Creating Schemas using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004

After completing this lab, you will be able to create a new BizTalk project, create an XML schema by using BizTalk Schema Editor, promote a schema property, create a file schema by using BizTalk Schema Editor, validate a schema and generate a sample instance message, and build a schema project.  ...

12/7/2005 12:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada)- 7/31/2010 11:59 PM | Duration:90 Minutes

Primary Language:   English

Primary Target Audience:   Pro Dev/Programmer

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032279924&culture=en-US

MSDN Virtual Lab: Publishing a Web Service in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004

After completing this lab, you will be able to configure orchestration properties, create the orchestration to be published, build and deploy the orchestration publishing project, run the BizTalk Web Services Publishing Wizard, and start and test the published orchestration.  ...

10/24/2005 12:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada)- 2/28/2011 11:59 PM | Duration:90 Minutes

Primary Language:   English

Primary Target Audience:   Pro Dev/Programmer

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032303224&culture=en-US

MSDN Virtual Lab: Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 Consuming a Web Service

After completing this lab, you will be able to add a Web reference to a project, create a map, create variables for message instances, create the Web services orchestration, and build and deploy the Web services project.

10/24/2005 12:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada)- 1/31/2011 11:59 PM | Duration:90 Minutes

Primary Language:   English

Primary Target Audience:   Pro Dev/Programmer

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032303223&culture=en-US

TechNet Virtual Lab: New Features for Deploying and Managing a BizTalk Application in BizTalk 2006

After completing this lab, you will be better able to assign an application name to a BizTalk Server project, use the BizTalk Server 2006 Administration Console to create receive ports, receive locations, use the BizTalk Server 2006 Administration Console to import port binding information, bind orchestration ports to physical ports, export a BizTalk application to an MSI package, import a BizTalk application from an MSI package, and finally, use the Group Hub to manage suspended messages. NoteBy registering for this virtual lab, you will receive a one-time follow up call from a Microsoft representative to inform you of special discounts and offers related to products and services presented in the virtual lab.  ...

2/3/2006 12:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada)- 9/30/2010 11:59 PM | Duration:90 Minutes

Primary Language:   English

Primary Target Audience:   IT Generalist

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032296907&culture=en-US

I got an email from David Marsh telling me about this new world from MS. Let me share a little…
Way back when…LOGO was one of the first languages I learnt as a kid.

Moving a turtle around on a page with commands such as PenUp, PenDown, RightTurn etc etc – pretty cool as a kid and then you could draw things (there was a big version of the Turtle that interfaced into an Apple II via a ribbon cable as wide as a 4 lane highway)

MS Dev Labs have released a great SmallBasic environment that is very simple to pickup (great for kids).
It’s got a very simple set of commands AND it outputs straight to Silverlight.


Pretty quick ways of building silverlight apps….nice!

Check out http://smallbasic.com –only if you have some free time

---

From time to time I check out on what’s happening in my favourite ‘moon lighting’ area – Silverlight.

Love the Silverlight potential – I’m a big fan.

So from http://silverlight.net – I found a Z-80 EMULATOR!!! (like what’s next an Apple II)

You hit the ‘Run’ button and far too many years has passed between me and my Computer Engineering Degree of Demorgans Theorem and Fast Fourier Transforms.

Great effort! (by someone whom had SOOO much time on their hands)

http://www.expertgig.com/slsample/sl_z80emu/SL_Z80emuTestPage.html

Many times in BizTalk land we work with Schemas that are nested and have several related Schemas that are Imported from URL locations etc.

When you include these schemas and deploy to Production, you find out that the BizTalk server doesn’t access the Internet directly. Hence all the schema Imports fail.

You’ll then go and try hand edit the Imports, downloading the referenced Schema and try and Mash up something that refers to local files and no URL based Schemas. It may or may not work…till the next update…

I recently came across a handy set of free tools that take all the pain out to do with Schemas –>

Xml Help Line

Which has Xml Schema Lightener, Xml Schema Flattener

Another very handy tool not to leave home without.

Enjoy.

How is this?



16 cores and too much RAM to know what to do with.

I wish this was my latest laptop...but alas it's a test server for a bts project I'm on.....here's to dreaming.

Hi folks, we’ve used our SharePoint expertise and knowledge to distil SharePoint 2010 product feature set, to provide a rich 5 day course for you.

I believe with SharePoint in particular that as a developer you *need* to know details about the SharePoint environment that is running your code, and as an Admin, you need to know what and how the developer provides the additions/customisations that they do.

Check out the details and you can register with Microsoft here.

We’re really excited about the offering and have a great Christmas break.

See you soon… ho ho ho…

Folks Christmas and the holiday season has started with the BizTalk Team been busy and are opening up the BTS 2009 R2 TAP program on connect.

If you're a customer (or have customers) that would/could benefit in working with some of the newer BizTalk features - with the prospect of MS being able to have some visibility into the solution, then go for it.

https://connect.microsoft.com/biztalk

I'm looking fwd to the BizTalk Dashboard and a whole bunch of other enhancements.

Here's a snip for you....

---------------------------------------

 

 

Welcome to the Microsoft BizTalk Server Connect website

 

We encourage you to visit this site where we will keep you informed of Technology Adoption Programs (TAP) and other customer pre-release programs for Microsoft BizTalk Server.

 

We have a number of programs currently underway as well as several that will be starting up in the near future.  If you are interested to participate in any of the programs below, please register for the program by selecting the associated link, and return the completed nomination form to btssoacp@microsoft.com .

 

Current Programs

•  BizTalk Server 2009 R2
• BizTalk Server 2006 R2 SP1 beta 

 

 BizTalk Server 2009 R2

 

What’s planned for the next BizTalk release?

 

VS 2010 Support

• Use of Visual Studio 2010 to develop application for BizTalk Server 2009 R2
• Projects developed in VS 2008 can be seamlessly migrated to Visual Studio 2010

 

 

Intelligent Mapper

• Enhanced user interface for better visualization of maps and to support complex mappings
• Background noise reduction using highlight propagation, auto scrolling  and sibling coalescing
• Support for search
• Reusable parts for improved user productivity
• Enhancements to the current functoids

 

Enhanced Trading Partner Management (TPM)

 

BizTalk Administration Console – Performance Enhancements

This feature aims to improve BizTalk Administration Console performance across the board by more than 60%. Key Scenarios like refresh, addition, deletion of port, enlistment of an orchestration will be optimized. Post Enhancements, the BizTalk Administration Console would be more responsive and address one of the key customer pain-points of Console performance in BizTalk 2009.

 

BizTalk Settings Dashboard

The BizTalk Settings Dashboard will serve as a one-stop shop for BizTalk Engine settings visualization and modification. This feature will enable BizTalk Administrators to centrally manage BizTalk Settings as admins will be able to export and import settings from one environment to another (for e.g. staging to production). The BizTalk Settings Dashboard is a step forward in consolidating all BizTalk Settings and will incorporate design extensibility to accommodate future addition of settings.

 

Improved Management Pack

The Improved System Center Management Pack will address key customer pain-points (e.g. high-CPU usage, duplication of discovered artifacts etc.) in the existing Management Pack. The new and improved design will also incorporate enhancement like better visualization of BizTalk Application and Platform Artifacts, Improved monitoring and diagnostics of artifacts like Orchestrations, Grouping of Alerts etc.

 

RFID OOB Event Filtering and Delivery

The scope for this feature covers providing a set of OOB components for Duplicate Elimination filter, EPC based filter, DWELL filter, posting events from BizTalk RFID to BizTalk Server, Posting events from BizTalk RFID to an EPCIS service and an Event Delivery framework for applications to subscribe and receive asynchronous events. These Out Of Box components address common RFID scenarios and will enable partners to focus solely on business logic hence helping accelerate BizTalk RFID solutions.

 

FTP/FTPS Adapter

The FTP Adapter in BizTalk is one of the most popular transport adapter in BizTalk server, used in different scenarios.  In BizTalk Server 2009 R2, we provide additional features in the FTP adapter that includes the following:

-          Support for FTPS, FTP over SSL – Enables to connect to FTPS servers for transferring files securely.  Both Implicit and Explicit FTPS are supported.

-          Support for read-only FTP servers – Enables configuration to pick up files from a partner FTP server which may provide only read-only permission.  The adapter will ensure that each file is submitted only once to BizTalk Server.

-          Support for atomic file writing – Can be used to ensure that files are read only after they are transmitted fully to the FTP server.

·         Enhanced performance – Re-designed to increase the performance, both while sending files to as well as receiving files from FTP servers.  The adapter will be more resilient to server going down.

Came across a great MS Article that gives you the broad brush strokes of updates and changes.

Very handy one

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ee518662.aspx

Enjoy!

There I was rebuilding a new VPC Image (which I'm running in Virtual Box) and the base VHD is a parent of 16GB.

For an install of Win2008, VS.NET 2010, SQL2008... it's pretty much game over with a full disk.

I spent the last 3 days shifting files around to clear space

So tonight I bit the bullet and Ghosted the partition over to a 200GB - much better :)

This issue I had was that the boot environment was different and 'in the good old days' we'd change the BOOT.INI and bobs your uncle.

Welcome to Vista and beyond...as you know we have the BCD Store
There's a very common tool (blogged about everywhere) called BCDEDIT.EXE which if GUIDs are your think and long command line options, you can 'manually' manage the Store (there's also a bunch of 3rd party apps that say 'lets do this from the UI' - I'm in recovery mode)

For the life of me I couldn't remember the tool I used last time this happened to me, which I said 'don't forget Mick'.

BOOTREC /rebuildbcd
Too easy...then if you can't sleep you could also crack onto BCDEDIT.EXE to 'customise' some aspect. (e.g. booting up off multiple logical CORES)
Bootrec
Bootrec
Bootrec

I will not forget Bootrec

Hi guys, I’ve been busy over the recent months always working and planning new ways to train, deliver and impart knowledge to *you* in a variety of different ways.

Truth be told our Region with respect to SharePoint Adoption and Knowledge, has been ahead of the curve worlwide – that you guys “SharePoint-ies”.
With the release of SharePoint 2010 soon-ish, we’ve been busy – to bring you the best value and the most effective training for your time.

For the release of SharePoint 2007 some numbers:

1. We trained over 1400 students on our Breeze SharePoint Bootcamp (we cover technical in-depth approx 80-85% of major SharePoint features in a week. Not for the faint hearted)
2. You guys demanded excellence and we gave you that.
3. We train 50% of the time and consult 50% – we bring real world knowledge into the classroom, what works, what doesn’t from a business perspective.
4. We’ve rolled out over 1000 different SharePoint 2007 sites (and are currently working on migrations to SP2010)
5. The buck stops with me – which can be good thing…so I’m told :)
   
   The big congrats goes to you! For being driven, demanding better, demanding more detail and better knowledge, you demand that the bar is raised and meet and excel that challenge.
   

Breeze has partnered with Microsoft & Excom, allowing us to each focus on our strengths, delivering to you the best possible offering in this space.

I’m pretty excited to announce our SharePoint 2010 Series running in Melb + Sydney initially (+ others soon)
(running at Microsoft Offices)

A Special Blog Reader offer: Would you like me to Webcast these sessions for those whom can’t make it?
Add a comment on this Post to let me know – I’ll get back to you with details.
(we are giving away goodies and offers but I can’t tell you too much)

Here’s the formal blurb: ------ snip ------

                    

 

Microsoft Australia, is pleased to invite you to a FREE Seminar on SharePoint 2010.

Melbourne – December 2, 2009

Sydney – December 11, 2009

Delivered by Breeze & EXCOM Education, this seminar is the first in a series that are designed to get you across the new functionality of SharePoint 2010 and importantly how your business can benefit.

SharePoint 2010 is the business collaboration platform that enables you to connect and empower people through formal and informal business communities, within the enterprise and beyond, and to manage content throughout the information lifecycle.

This next release of SharePoint has some exciting new enhancements for IT Professionals and Developers we think you will want to see for yourself!

This seminar is for all SharePoint enthusiasts from IT Professionals, Developers to Business Decision Makers and Information Workers. Bring along your questions to the unveiling of SharePoint 2010!

Seats are limited. Register NOW !!!!
For more information and to register, click HERE

As part of a 'dev' machine setup, I run on my latop Win2008R2 x64 Hyper-V...why? to simply run x64 hosts.
Virtual PC, Virtual Server - will run on x64, but not host x64 O/Ss. So really the only option is Hyper-V in the MS land.

I present, demo + and draw all over my tablet screen on a regular basis as well as cut code in Server O/S.

The main problems I faced:
- was my display was dog slow, especially running VS2010, ppt or generally anything else that an average user might do.
- I remove the Hyper-V role off my machine and low and behold it's back to normal.

A student pointed me to a TechNet article - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961661 in which the resolution is to install a VGA Display driver.
This is kinda not an option for me presenting etc.

Still I needed to run those x64 bit guests.
I was contemplating getting a monster laptop (the other day I was training with laptops that had 8GB of RAM, 6GB allocated to the VM!) or setting up various 'Demo RDP Connections' back into the office, so when I'm onsite and I need to demo then (somehow) I can get internet connectivity and RDP back to a server based VM - lot's of potential issues with this approach)

So the MS Story in this space at the moment is:
- 1) you want to run 32-bit hosts, VirtualPC or Virtual Server running on x64 or x86. Only x86 guests!
- 2) you want 64-bit guests -> Hyper-V (therefore you're looking at running Win2K8/R2). At work we have 15+ VMs running on Hyper-V machines really well, so no complaints there when running on Servers. It's just running it on my laptop where's it's not special.

Problem is - going fwd, the latest wave of Server Products, SharePoint 2010, Exchange 2010, CRM 5 etc....only run on x64

So onto to my unbelievable experience....

Last night I caught up with a couple of buddies Andrew Mee and Guy Riddle, where Guy mentioned all the pain he'd had in trying to get a x64 but guest up and running on his laptop. Here is his current solution:

Guy mentioned his setup:
1) Win7x64
2) VirtualBox - for VM emulation - WITH USB SUPPORT!!!! wow! In the land of BizTalk RFID, I had major issues with USB devices trying to be picked up inside the VM - 3rd party solutions etc. crazy.

He mentioned there were a few things to do around the disks etc...but he could run x64 guests on his Win7 machine AND the VMs FLEW!

So I thought there was a touch of the amber fluid talking and maybe he was indeed onto something. When I got home later that night I decided tonight was the night to refresh the laptop (fujitsu lifebook t4215/4GB/T7400) and Install Win7x64.

My potential issue with Virtual Box:
- I have a huge library of VHDs (parents, diffs etc) that for portability suites me down to the ground. I walk into a training room and can transfer my VHDs to the student machines and run them no hassles.
- If there's a VirtualBox specific format (VDI) then it yet another step in my export chain.

Alas - VirtualBox reads/writes VHDs automatically, unbelievable.

So I setup Win7x64 on my latop and got back to 9 sec bootup and shutdown times - gee that was refreshing after so long without.

I installed VirtualBox - it installed like a treat, and does 'snapshots' and has a great user interface. I didn't need to visit the cmd line once.

So now for the test - I was going to fire up my SP2010 Beta2 (Win2K8 R2 x64) VHDs, 40GB in size, differencing and Parent, straight from Hyper-V with Hyper-V extensions (in the past when I've done something like this, there's usually a blue screen invovled saying 'boot device not found')

Let's give it a crack I thought - all from the UI.
1) Within VirtualBox, I created a machine, added 2 CPUs, 1 NIC and 1400MB of RAM.
2) Attached the Child VHD from my SP2010.
3) I even had 3D graphic acceleration options for my VM, along with amd-v and 'nested tables' for some sort of faster memory access. Turn them all on I thought! We'll put it through its paces.

Started the machine......

1. upon first boot my hyper-v enabled VM booted straight up to the Login screen! Unbelievable I thought.
2. logged in and it found my NIC within 10 secs and was on the network within 20 secs (through NAT). If you've ever experienced a Hyper-V update where your Guests don't talk to the network anymore, until you put the new hyper-v additions on - you'll know the pain.
3. mouse/keyboard recognised.
4. I then thought - let me install the VirtualBox additions - can't hurt.
   
5. RDP support etc etc ...it's like shopping @ christmas - how good is this! yes I'll have that...and this...
   
   
   
   
   
   So back to Guy's immortal words - "it runs fast. Snappy, responsive etc"
   
   My SP2010B2 in 1.4GB RAM x64 VM runs fanstastic! - Fastest I've seen a VM run on my laptop for a long long time (unless it's WFW 3.11)
   

        It's just so refreshing to have a responsive VM running in reasonable memory. I found that if I allocated 2.5GB to a VM under hyper-v I wouldn't notice a marked improvement. It's not like it flew, and then I had to tweak it back to find that 'optimum sweet spot'

What an experience! What I'm seeing is that certainly for the desktop machine, VirtualBox can be a serious contender for x64 guests.

Thanks Guy for planting the seed!!!