What new Training Kit BizTalk 2010

There is a new training kit for BizTalk 2010. It contains:

Hands On Labs

• Creating BizTalk Maps with the new Mapper
• Consuming a WCF Service
• Publishing Schemas and Orchestrations as WCF Services
• Integrating with Microsoft SQL Server
• Integrating using the FTP Adapter
• Developers - Create a Role and Party-based Integration Solution
• Exploring the New Settings Dashboard
• Monitoring BizTalk Operations using System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2
• Administrators - Create a Role and Party-based Integration Solution

Presentations and Videos

• Introduction and New Features Overview
• The New and Improved Mapper
• Updated Adapter Features
• Trading Partner Management
• Configuring Performance and Application Settings
• Monitoring BizTalk Using Operations Manager

BizTalk 2010 Environment

You will be needing a BizTalk 2010 environment to do the labs and for that you have a couple of options:

a) Create an environment yourself if you access to resources like MSDN

b) Download the virtual disk contain BizTalk environment. You will need Window 2008 Hyper V for that. Workaround is that after downloading the VHD you convert it to VMDK and mount in VMWare workstation.

c) Download the BizTalk Administration Kit Virtual Hard Disk also containing training for administrators. Apply same workaround if you want it in VMWare workstation.

Success!

BizTalk RFID and StreamInsight Talk

Coming Monday I will present together with my colleague Wouter on BizTalk RFID and StreamInsight (Complex Event Processing). It is what my company calls a “Innoveer jij mee sessie” and these talks are about innovation. I did similar talk a few months back on BizTalk AppFabric Connect. Talks are in Dutch and hosted at or Headquarters in Nieuwegein. It is open for public and you are free to register here.

If you cannot make it the talk following resources will cover what we will talk about:

• TechEd 2010 StreamInsight Session and Demo
• Microsoft StreamInsight: Introduction to Complex Event Processing with SQL Server 2008 R2 StreamInsight
• The Eco System for RFID in BizTalk (google download PDF)

If you can make it and looking forward seeing you at presentation.

Cheers!

Learn about the BizTalk Business rules Engine

One of the strong points of the BizTalk Server Integration suite is the inclusion of a very versatile, flexible and extendable Business rules engine.

This versatility, however, is the same thing that makes it widely underused in deployments using BizTalk Server. Even today, being on the market in various versions for more than 6 years, I see people often struggle with it.

The root problem: the same flexibility and versatility comes with a rather steep learning curve to master.

To help you get started, Microsoft has packed a hands-on learning guide into a Virtual Lab. You can get to it here.

Try it, you won't be disappointed.

BizTalk 2010 : Line of Business System Integration

Packt Publishing has released another great BizTalk resource by title of Microsoft BizTalk 2010: Line of Business Integration.

Authors have done an excellent job detailing integration with Dynamics (CRM,AX), SalesForce, SharePoint, and SAP. There was not much documentation on integration with Dynamics for instance and most it was out dated. Currently there a couple of BizTalk books out there and all they focus mainly on out-of-box features and capabilities. None of them really talked about capabilities offered by BizTalk Adapter Pack that has been out there a couple years now. Line-Of-Business adapters in this package enable integration with SAP, Oracle, Oracle eBusiness Suite, Siebel and and SQL Server. This book does deal with integration with a couple of these LOB systems.

Besides that it shows how to integrate with SharePoint, and Dynamics two other Microsoft Products, which may seem that that easy to integrate with. It isn't, as it can be quite complex, but with guidance provided in this book it will make life easier for you. If professionals like yourself are facing issues on current projects with these systems, or need guidance on how prepare yourselves before going to do integration project, or want more background/knowledge than this book will be extremely useful for you.

I myself have bought the book and promoted it during a talk on Sales Force integration I gave to BizTalk Dutch User Group as it was a great resource for preparation and leveraging samples.

The Future of Middleware and the BizTalk Roadmap

If you are interested in future of BizTalk you can view session from World Partner Conference 2011 in Los Angeles by Tony Meleg: AP03 The Future of Middleware and the BizTalk Roadmap

Detail:
If you have a development practice or you are an ISV and you create complex solutions for customers, you need a number of middleware capabilities at your disposal. BizTalk Server has been at the center of Microsoft’s Middleware platform for a number of years, to provide many of these capabilities. AppFabric, both on-premise and on Windows Azure provides additional capabilities as well as some overlapping ones. So what is the strategy here, what is Microsoft up to long term and short term? How will this affect solutions you create and what opportunities will it create for your company? In this session, you will get the answers to these questions.

BizTalk AppFabric Connect Article

My article on newest feature of BizTalk Server 2010: AppFabric connect is now online on Dutch .NET Magazine website. .NET Magazine is a great resource for Microsoft technology. It is printed version is limited in space though, so not every article can be published in there. Fortunately the website doesn't have that limitation and every good article can be published there too. Thanks Gerard (Microsoft) for publishing the article online.

Steef-Jan co-elected BizTalk MVP of the year

During the MVP summit in Redmond our collegue Steef-Jan Wiggers is, together with Stephan W. Thomas and Richard Seroter, elected by his fellow BizTalk MVP's as BizTalk MVP of the year. Steef-Jan said about this 'For me this is an enormous boost, since I am a MVP for only a year (which, according to some, in itself is already special). Although this is great, I prefer to stay modest as in my view many MVP's are doing a great job as well. I will stay focused and commited to BizTalk, my employer Ordina and my clients'.

Further Steef-Jan will become a moderator of the BizTalk forums (General, Adapter Pack, etc.) at MSDN.com.

In his column 'Four questions with...' Richard Seroter interviewed Steef-Jan. You can read this interview here. His blog 'SOA Thoughts, EAI Challenges', can be found here.

@Steef-Jan: Your BizTalk collegues and the management team at Ordina congratulate you, with the deepest possible respect. It must be amazing to hear your name called in one sentence with uber-BizTalk gurus Stephan W. Thomas and Richard Seroter.

BizTalk Server 2010 certification is coming

March 30 the certification for BizTalk 2010 comes available. Check it out at the Microsoft Learning site.

BTSDecompress is on CodePlex

The utility to decompress BizTalk Messages and their context, discussed here, is published on CodePlex.

Hope you'll enjoy it!

Masterclass BizTalk en AppFabric bij Ordina

Op dinsdag 15 februari a.s. geeft Steef-Jan Wiggers bij Ordina een masterclass.

Gedurende het programma is er aandacht voor de nieuwste versie van BizTalk Server. Wat is BizTalk Server, wat is er nieuw en hoe evolueert het zich richting de toekomst.
Daarnaast zal AppFabric aan bod komen, zowel de Server als Cloud variant. De functionele als technische kant van BizTalk Server en AppFabric zullen worden belicht.

Voor meer informatie/aanmelden:  http://iturl.nl/sncK0

Since this post is aimed at the Dutch community, it is published only in Dutch.