Blog BizTalk

Updategram Overview
Since SQL Server 2000, updategrams along with OPENXML have been available to insert, update, or delete data using XML documents. An updategram works against the XML views that are provided by the annotated XSD schema that contains the information required to map to the tables and columns to be modified. Using an [...]

Setting up an HL7 Solution
HL7 Accelerator Overview
As you might know, the BizTalk Accelerator for HL7 offers a great deal of enhanced messaging capabilities for the healthcare industry. Although it is offered as a separate download, it comes with the license of BizTalk. The nice part about it is that it offers all of [...]

The BizTalk 2006 R2 Management Pack is a rewrite from the original pack for Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 (MOM).  It is designed around all of the new features of BizTalk 2006 R2 including RFID and EDI.  The pack ties into SCOM very nicely and once it has been imported into SCOM, it can automatically scan [...]

For those in the Connecticut area…
Tallan is providing a complimentary executive lunch around the topic of Microsoft Integration. It includes a talk by Tom Stickle, Program Manager at Microsoft for the Connected Systems Division, about the new integration features in BizTalk. In addition, there will be a real-life integration case study from a CT-based company.
The [...]

I gave a presentation on BizTalk High Availability options to the New England chapter of the BizTalk user Group on May 14th.
Here is a link if you are interested in downloading the presentation (powerpoint 97-2003 format).

If you want all resources of your BizTalk application to be registered in GAC on MSI import, it is necessary, prior to exporting BizTalk application to MSI file, to check ‘Add to the global assembly cache on MSI imports (gacutil)’ option in Modify Resources dialog box. This option is unchecked by default. To avoid the [...]

Found a great resource today for how to go about testing BizTalk applications.  It covers best practices on how to unit test various BizTalk artifacts such as schemas, maps, pipelines, orchestrations.  This covers how these should be covered with tests for integration testing as well as functional testing.  Very interesting read.
http://geekswithblogs.net/michaelstephenson/archive/2008/04/27/121687.aspx

One of the tasks developers find most tedious is documentation.  It gets to the point that documentation never gets done in many cases.  This is where documentation tools comes in handy.  There is a documentation tool that is available that analyzes the BizTalk application and creates a CHM file containing:

Send & [...]

Murphy’s Law: if anything can go wrong, it will. If BizTalk orchestration instance in a production server does not behavior as you expect it, how do you diagnose the problem? Remember, attaching debugger to an orchestration instance is usually impossible in this case.
DebugView is one of my favorite tools for troubleshooting issues in production environment. [...]

Unit testing is a best practice when it comes to application development.  BizTalk development falls into this realm of application development so it would be great to be able to unit test these applications as well. 
The most commonly used unit testing tool with BizTalk is BizUnit (http://www.codeplex.com/bizunit).   This is a step based test framework [...]