The Messagism - Selvan.

Installing Oracle SQL Developer on Windows 64 box

2011-11-03T00:29:00.007+05:30

You may experience the following dialog popup, while installing SQL Developer 64 bit for Oracle.

"Enter the full pathname for java.exe"

I entered the correct path of the Java.exe on my machine that is “C:\Program Files\Java\Jdk1.7.0\bin” and clicked “Ok”.

But its not convinced and threw the following error.

"Cannot find a J2SE SDK installed at path: C:\Program Files\Java\Jdk1.7.0\bin"

I see the %path% environment variable for java set correct to “C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0\bin”

Resolution:

After few hours of try I figured out there is a “sqldeveloper.conf” file under “sqldeveloper\sqldeveloper\bin” requires replacing setjavahome key value to java folder “C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0” (Note the missing bin folder)

Thats all, I saved the config file and ran the "SQLDeveloper.exe" install file, No Popups, Installation began smooth as silk.

%Path% to Success !!

2011-10-27T00:49:00.001+05:30

This is interesting! I got my development virtual machine pre installed BizTalk 2009 and its Prerequisites. My Project is to integrating systems with Oracle database so I installed Oracle SQL Client version 10.1.0.20. Sweet!. The next day morning I arrived at the office and saw the BizTalk Primary Host Instance was stopped working and throwing the following error

1053: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.

I did not have any clue on the event log!, So I restarted my Dev VM and opened up the Admin Console that was like a disaster popped up the following error

Failed to Load Group [MachineName: BiztalkMgmtDb] data providers.

What this tells me is it cannot find the BizTalkMgmtDB, so I opened the services console to check the BizTalk databases are running, Yes it was running just fine.

!!! No Clue!!!

After couple of hours of digging what I did the earlier day I found the installation of Oracle client replaced the PATH environment variable from the existing to

C:\Oracle\Product\10.1.0\Client_1

Very Interesting! How would I go back to the old path variables with out restoring the system?. I borrowed the %Path% variable from my colleague Satish and hand crafted to what is installed on my dev box.

Finally I restarted the machine to take the Environment variable take effect. Viola i see the Biztalk Applications and Host instances are started successfully !

Move Dynamic Ports to Run on Custom Host

2011-02-11T09:53:00.004+05:30

In normal circumstance of BizTalk installation we create BizTalkServerApplication Host and it turns out to be a Default Host Instance for all dynamic ports thereafter. There are ways to change the default host for Dynamic Ports.

1. Create a Host called "DynamicHost" and check the "Make this the Default Host In Group"
2. Create a Send Handler for the adapter (Say FTP) you are interested in and assign it to "DynamicHost", Make it as a Deault Handler. Follow the same step for receive Handler.

3. Restart the Host Instance.

Done !

Tokens in Internet Service Bus

2008-01-28T19:32:00.000+05:30

Token providers are part of Identity Services in WF, they are typical username, password authentication as you see in the traditional web programming.

Biztalk new release supports two Token Providers

1. CardSpaceTokenProvider
2. AutomaticRenewalTokenProvider

I was using the option 1 in one of my sample application (MarketData Broadcast) in my forth coming article, over the period of time "CardSpaceTokenProvider" tries to renew the token by providing the Cardspace user interface, failing throws the following error

System.ServiceModel.Security.ExpiredSecurityTokenException: The Infocard token created during channel intialization has expired. Please create a new channel to reacquire token.

This can be good for the short running process.

AutomaticRenewalTokenProvider is as similar to the CardSpaceTokenProvider , but renewing the token automatically in the long runing process.

Choose your Best Token provider..

Callback Contract on Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)

2008-01-25T10:38:00.000+05:30

In the duplex mode communication, WCF Service supports Callback Contract. What does it mean?. Duplex communication is fairly simple as “Walkie-Talkie”. While Client calls Service , Service notifies back “hey I am doing it, will give you result back once I am done” and returns the result or none.

Here is a simple version of the concept..

Step 1 : Client calls a Method in Service

Step 2 : While executing the Server.Service method, service calls back a method on client side. Normal case the client method would update the user screen on the client with messages like “ Processing…”.

Step 3: Service returns result /void back to the client.

Repeating Tag Identifiers in Flatfile schema

2007-08-27T06:30:00.000+05:30

It’s been long time since I have blogged, Yeah, Its pleasure designing interfaces for a finance concern integrating with Legacy and SAP Systems. We work for a aggressive dead lines (why does this word sounds weird :) ) and implementation. Last week a colleague of mine was creating a flat file schema for the billing records that we receive from Mainframe systems. He had a problem in grouping each Header, List Group and List Items in the output XML.

Here is the structure of the input flat file

Scenario

Each bill starts with bill header "BHR", each bill can contain multiple Line Item Groups (BLG) and Line Items (BLS). Bill doesn’t contain trailer row. Columns in the header, Line Group and line items are separated by comma.

Expected output is as similar as

I marked "BHR" as child delimiter (usually \r\n huh?) for the root node "Bills", since each bill is separated by the Tag Identifier "BHR".

Our initial schema design for the above problem was

Changing BLG or BLS Repeating record’s maxOccurs property as "*" unbounded did not solve our problem. We got only the first occurrence of BLS and BLG nodes as output.

Parsing Multiple Repeating Tag Identifiers under single record does not work as expected in BTS06.

To solve this issue I have done the following.

1. Added a "Choice Group" Schema node under the Root node
2. Moved "BLG" and "BLS" repeating records under the "Choice Group".
3. Changed the "maxOccurs" property of the "ChoiceGroup" node as "unbounded".

That’s all, it worked.

If you look at the third ListItems Node you can see BLG and BLS nodes repeating more than one time here (Marked in box).

I am sharing my sample flatfile and schema here ( Blogspot help us sharing files).

Happy Biztalking..

Designing Biztalk Schema

2007-04-05T22:47:00.000+05:30

I have recently posted an article series of Designing Biztalk 2006 Schema in code project site.
here is the link :

http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/designbiztalkschema1.asp

Read your Application Name in Pipeline and Orchestration

2007-01-24T06:24:00.000+05:30

I have seen few guys asking in newsgroup about reading Biztalk “Application Name” from pipeline and Orchestration. You can access the application name using
BTSCatalogExplorer and Microsoft.BizTalk.ExplorerOM.ReceivePort classes.

private string GetApplicationName(string ReceivePortName)
{
string retValue = string.Empty;
BtsCatalogExplorer bc = new BtsCatalogExplorer();
bc.ConnectionString = "Server=MyBTServer;Initial Catalog=BiztalkMgmtDb;INtegrated Security=SSPI;";

foreach (Microsoft.BizTalk.ExplorerOM.ReceivePort rcp in bc.ReceivePorts)
{
if (ReceivePortName == rcp.Name)
{
retValue=rcp.Application.Name;
}
}
return retValue;
}

The above shown method can be simply used in Receive pipeline and promote your application name in the message context, so that you can access it in your Orchestration.

Create a new property schema with “ApplicationName” and write code similar to this.

if (!pInMsg.Context.IsPromoted("ApplicationName", "http://...."))
{
string recPortName= pInMsg.Context.Read("ReceivePortName",
"http://schemas.microsoft.com/BizTalk/2003/system-properties");
pInMsg.Context.Promote("ApplicationName", "http://...",
GetApplicationName(recPortName));
}

Happy Biztalking..

Windows Workflow Toolbox

2006-11-27T05:14:00.000+05:30

This week after thanksgiving day i installed Windows Workflow foundation in my laptop it has VS 2005 ,gone through few samples. I had created a new workflow and looked at my toolbox to drag "CodeActivity", but i could see only eight controls. Ohhh where are WWF controls ?..

After spend sometime , i found that right click on toolbox and select "Reset Toolbox" menu bring all the controls back.

I am started playing WWF, hopefully i could write somethig i experience in WWF.

Biztalk 2006 Dependency could not be found Warnings

2006-11-05T21:15:00.000+05:30

Last week, I was creating an orchestration which executes pipeline component to debatch messages using "ExecuteReceivePipeline" Method. That worked fantastic. But when i compile the Biztalk project it thrown many warnings as shown below.

Warning 1 The dependency 'Microsoft.BizTalk.CachingService' could not be found.
Warning 2 The dependency 'Microsoft.BizTalk.DBAccessor' could not be found.
Warning 3 The dependency 'Microsoft.BizTalk.Tracing' could not be found.
Warning 4 The dependency 'Microsoft.BizTalk.Bam.EventObservation' could not be found.
Warning 5 The dependency 'Microsoft.BizTalk.Streaming' could not be found.
Warning 6 The dependency 'Microsoft.BizTalk.XPathReader' could not be found.

I know compilation warnings are never considered in many cases, but it was little annoying to me.

After a long digging i found that the referenced pipeline dll "Microsoft.Xlangs.Engine" was copied into my local Bin directory and that tried reference the above dll's those are GAC'd and not available in my local bin directory.
I just changed the "Copy Local" property of "Microsoft.Xlangs.Pipeline" reference dll under my Biztalk project as "false" and compiled again. All these warnings disappeared.

Take away: "Copy Local" property is marked as "true" by default, when you add reference "Microsoft.Xlangs.Pipeline" dll.

Unable to load DLL (BAUtil.dll) Oracle Adapter Biztalk 2006

2006-10-03T01:09:00.000+05:30

I have seen in Technet few guys getting the following error when they first time try Oracle Adapter (LOB) in Biztalk 2006.

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Microsoft Biztalk Adapters for Enterprise Applications
Event Category: NoneEvent ID:
0Date: 6/28/2006
Time: 9:32:11 AM
User: N/A
Computer: INFO
Description:Runtime Error : Unable to load DLL (BAUtil.dll).

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: Microsoft Biztalk Adapters for Enterprise Applications
Event Category: NoneEvent
ID:
0Date: 6/28/2006
Time: 10:18:42 AM
User: N/A
Computer: INFO
Description:The event tracing cannot be activated: Unable to load DLL 'btasysutil.dll': The specified module could not be found. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8007007E).

This is just a permission issue accessing following Registry Key.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\BizTalkAdapters\Config

Just right click ,

Choose permission menu

and add your Biztalk Receive / Send User acoount with Read permission. In my case two accounts

BiztalkReadUser, BiztalkWriteUser

This doesnot require machine reboot !!

Flatfile Message Debatching in Biztalk 2006

2006-10-02T23:49:00.000+05:30

We know, Biztalk 2004 supports Flatfile envelope at Header and Trailer level. As per standard flatfile schema doesnot contain a Envelope property in both versions.

To execute the Pipeline XmlDisassembler I remember in Biztalk 2004, I mapped the input Flatfile schema to XML schema and marked "Envelope" Property to 'true' and send out of biztalk and polled again using Envelope configured Receive port.

Biztalk 2006 now comes with a new feature to execute pipeline in orchestration using the following statement.

OutputPipeline = Microsoft.XLANGs.Pipeline.XLANGPipelineManager.ExecuteReceivePipeline(typeof(ReceivePipeline_Splitter), Message_Envelope);

( ReceivePipeline_Splitter is the receive pipeline and Message_Envelope is the Input message to be debatched. Remember the execution pipeline in orchestration should be done within atomic scope.)

Another wonderful feature is the above method returns
"Microsoft.XLANGs.Pipeline.ReceivePipelineOutputMessages" as Enumerator,
So the Debatched messages will be accessed until you reach end of the enumerator using

OutputPipeline.MoveNext() pointer.

I have three schemas get the Message debatching job done without using Xpath loops,

1. Flatfile_Schema (Source Flatfile schema message)

2. Xml_Envelope_Schema (Temproary schema that marked as Envelope Property equals to true and needs to be mass copy data from Flatfile_Schema, the record schema can be identical to the Message_Debatch_Schema or Element with 'Any' attribute and BodyXpath property of envelope schema needs to be set)

3. Message_Debatch_Schema (Schema for the the Individual message, make sure you have identical structure and root node property of 'Target Namespace' should be empty)

The following statement in Message assignment shape save the message into XmlDocument object.

Message_XmlDoc = new System.Xml.XmlDocument();
InputPipeline.GetCurrent(Message_XmlDoc);
Message_In = Message_XmlDoc;

I have not tested the performance of this orchestration with Xpath loop debatching, but this seems to be fastest solution.

Adding Custom Pipeline to VS Tool box

2006-09-27T21:51:00.000+05:30

Today, i tried to add my Custom pipeline for Excel parsing into VS toolbox, i got the following error

"You have selected a invalid pipeline component assembly. Please check the security on the assembly if you are loading it from a UNC path".

Long back Ben pointed out missing attribute [ComponentCategory(CategoryTypes.CATID_PipelineComponent)] would cause this error.

http://bencops.blogspot.com/2006/02/you-have-selected-invalid-pipeline.html

In addition , if you dont mark your Custom pipeline class as "Public" you will end up with the same error !!

All we expect from MSFT is detailed Error description !!!

Ping Adapter for Biztalk 2006 using .NET 2.0

2006-09-01T01:56:00.000+05:30

Assume that your requirement is to read/write messages into webservice or FTP location from Biztalk and the connectivity between biztalk and end location's network connectivity is not reliable.

You may need to check the connectivity between biztalk and receive/send location before you receive/send any message from/to Biztalk.

In general your interface will be suspended or the receive location will be terminated with similar errors

"Maximum retry exeeds, terminating receive locations"

Ideally your support member look at your problem, based on the error message he would "ping" the the respective location, if it replies, he would start your locations again.

Cant we automate this process?, We can.

.NET 2.0 provides a Network namespace and set of classes to work on network connectivity from Biztalk.

You can write your own Request-Response Adapter or modify your File adapter to check the conectivity between computers by leaveraging .NET 2.0 Ping class.

You ping the source / destination and ensure the connectivity before you read / write data on the external enitity.

A sample logic

Ping pingSender = new Ping();
PingOptions options = new PingOptions();
//32 bytes buffer to be transmitted.
string Msg = "Its is a test Message from Selva";
byte[] buffer = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(Msg);
int timeout = 120;
PingReply MsgReply = pingSender.Send(Msg,
timeout, buffer, options);
if (MsgReply.Status == IPStatus.Success)
{
// Network connectivity is available
// aditionally you can check the
// Roundtrip time using MsgReply.RoundtripTime
}
else
{
// Network connectivity is not available
}

Note:

*** This maynot be ideal solution for Network connectivity issue, but it works like a charm. ***

Our architects contributed an MSDN article.

2006-08-28T07:31:00.000+05:30

Well,
After a long time i found that Jody Sweeton and Suresh (Architects) from our Shell team was a part of technical contributers in the great MSDN Biztalk article.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/bts_2004wp/html/ffda72df-5aec-4a1b-b97a-ac98635e81dc.asp

Cheers Jody and Suresh !!!!

Developers guide to Biztalk Persistence point

2006-08-19T03:52:00.000+05:30

I have posted an article on Biztalk Persistence point , feel free to write me your comments.
Here is the link

http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/Persistencepoint.asp

Rich error handling in BizTalk 2006

2006-08-17T22:57:00.000+05:30

In my last post, I wrote the key points of recoverable interchange and it states,

“Any interchange failed and suspended for its content error should not be resumed from BizTalk administration console”

As soon as message failed, your MOM gives you an alert or creates you an automatic Service Center tickets. But what shall I do with the suspended message failed for its content error?

You can save the suspended message, email it to the support team, investigate the content and trigger it back to the BizTalk receive location. – Very traditional rite?

BizTalk 2006 opens a new way to track the error from business perspective that is failed message routing.

Enable “Generate error report for failed Message” option in your receive location, from now your message will not be suspended and routed to message box. How?
Your failed message will be transformed to Common Error Message type, which can be subscribed by an orchestration or send port.

Let us take a scenario and discuss how failed message routing works step by step.

Architecture

The above diagram depicts the flow of successful or error message routing to the respective system.

1.BizTalk receives the Message from ERP System routed to SCM
2.BizTalk receives the Message from CRM System routed to SCM
3.BizTalk receives the Message from SCM System routed to ERP
4.ERP message processed successfully in Receive pipeline and published to Messagebox
5.ERP Message subscribed by Send pipeline and dropped in to the destination folder
6.SCM system polls the ERP message successfully
7.Message from CRM and SCM contains error and failed in Receive pipeline.
Biztalk coverts the failed message into Common error message and publish it in Messagebox.
8.Send pipelines are configured to subscribe the interested message based on the promoted property of the error MessageType and ReceivePortName.
Send port transform the error format to the interested format and delivers the file in respective support location.
9.CRM Support team open the file and modify the content accordingly and store it in to the BizTalk polling location C
10.ERP Support team open the file and modify the content accordingly and store it in to the BizTalk polling location B
11. This process automation helps to build error free and high productive system.
Finally this process helps a BizTalk Admin to have a nice sleep in his 24/7 operations (picture) :)

Key points of Recoverable Interchange in BizTalk 2006

2006-08-17T19:15:00.000+05:30

* Any interchange failed and suspended for its content error should not be resumed from BizTalk administration console.

* Interchange extracted and published successfully in messagebox but failed in routing can be resumed in admin console.

* Disassemble stage stops extracting the interchange when XmlReader error thrown.

* Not all the Disassembler components support Recoverable Interchange.

* Recoverable interchange does not support message polled from MSMQT adapter.

Intermediate : BizTalk Developer Book – Question and Answers

2006-08-17T01:18:00.000+05:30

(Answers based on MSDN Documentation)

What are the types of Adapter?
1. Protocol specific adapters ( Example : FTP, HTTP, File)
2. Application specific adapters (Example : SAP, Siebel, JDEdwards)

What are the communication-directions of Port?
1. One way Receive port
2. One way Send port
3. Receive-response
4. Send-Receive (solicit)

Can we group multiple Receive locations?
Yes. Receive port is a logical grouping of receive locations. For example, you create multiple receive locations, and you want the messages received at these locations to be processed by a specific orchestration.

What are the types of Send port?
Static send ports: You can create static send ports within Orchestration Designer or by using BizTalk Explorer. You specify the adapter type, destination address (URI), and pipeline to use when you create a static send port.
Dynamic send ports: Dynamic send ports do not contain a fixed destination address, only a pipeline. The destination address is determined at run time from a specified property in the message.

Can we have a dynamic Receive port?
No.

Can we receive un-typed Message in BizTalk?
Yes. BizTalk allows un-typed message coming in System.Xml.XmlDocument format.

Can we promote a Record node as “Promoted property”?
You can also promote Record nodes as Property Fields if they have simple content (Content Type property of the Record node set to SimpleContent).

Can we have Message schema and Property schema in two different projects?
If a property schema is associated with a message schema, then these two must be in the same BizTalk project. Separating property schema from its associated message schema in different BizTalk projects is not supported.

What is the difference between MessageDataPropertyBase and MessageContextPropertyBase?
When the Property Schema Base property is set to MessageDataPropertyBase, it means that the value of the promoted property corresponds to data in the message, such as the value of some field. When the Property Schema Base property attribute is set to MessageContextPropertyBase, it means that the value of the promoted property may be from somewhere else, such as an envelope, or that it may be set by a pipeline component.

Can we write Sensitive Schema Element in Message context?
Yes possible, but only at runtime you have to use IBaseMessageContext.Write method in the custom adapter or pipeline component to write the sensitive information to the message context.
IBaseMessageContext.Promote method will throw runtime error.

Your schema has multiple root nodes (example: Order, invoice and Quote) and you have assigned RootReference property as “Order”. You have referred this schema in BizTalk Map. Next day you get a requirement to change the RootReference as “Invoice”. You changed it as the given requirement. Which Root name of the schema will BizTalk map use?

If you change the Root Reference property of a schema already used in a map, BizTalk Mapper does not notice the change and continues to use the originally specified root. If you want to build different maps using different roots of the same schema, it is best not to set the Root Reference property. That way, whenever the schema is used for a new map, you must explicitly choose the root.

You have two versions (1.1 and 1.2) of Invoice Schema installed in GAC with the same namespace. You remove the Schema version 1.2 from the Management database and GAC, what will happen?

When you remove a schema, and a previous version of the schema having the same root namespace exists in the application, the previous version will become active

What does Decode stage do in Receive pipeline?

The MIME/SMIME Decoder pipeline component or a custom decoding component should be placed in this stage if the incoming messages need to be decoded from one format to another.

Refer Resolve party for additional information

What does Disassemble stage do?

This stage is used for components that parse or disassemble the message.

What does Validate Stage do?

It validates the XML message produced by the Disassemble stage. Components in this stage specify schemas to perform the XML validation.

What does Resolve Party stage do?
The responsibility of the Party Resolution pipeline component is to map the sender certificate or the sender security identifier (SID) to the corresponding configured BizTalk Server party.
When the Party Resolution component reads the incoming message, it takes two message context properties as input: WindowsUser and SignatureCertificate. The WindowsUser property is populated by the adapter, or by a custom pipeline component, with the user name of the sender when it can reliably derive the sender information.
The SignatureCertificate is populated by the adapter or the MIME/SMIME Decoder pipeline component with the thumbprint of the client authentication certificate.

What is the unique execution model of Disassemble stage in comparison with Decode, Validate and Resolve party stages?
In decode stage only the first component that recognizes the message format is run, where as other stages will execute all the components placed in it.

What is the unique output style of Decode stage in comparison with Disassemble, Validate and Resolve party stages?
Decode stage can produce only one message; where as other stages can produce more than one messages.

What does Pre-Assemble stage do?
This stage is a placeholder for custom components that should perform some action on the message before the message is serialized.

What does Assemble stage do?
Components in this stage are responsible for assembling or serializing the message and converting it to or from XML.

What does Encode stage do?
This stage is used for components that encode or encrypt the message. We can place the MIME/SMIME Encoder component or a custom encoding component in this stage if message signing is required.

What are all the types of Custom Pipeline components?
General: The MIME/SMIME Decoder, MIME/SMIME Encoder, Party Resolution, and Validator components are the included general components.
Assembling: the component converts the XML message to the appropriate XML or non-XML native format of the message, based on the type of assembler and properties set in the schema.
Disassembling: the disassembling component may convert non-XML messages into their XML representation, which is required for processing by BizTalk Server
Probing: A probing component checks the first portion of the message to see if it is in a format that the component understands. If the format is known, the whole message is given to this component for processing

Can we use Custom XSLT in BizTalk map?
Yes. You have two options; you can choose scripting functoid or Custom XSLT Path of Map Grid property.

How do you scope the Port types?
By assigning the “Type Modifier” property as shown below
Private—Access to this port type is limited to the containing module.
Public—Access to this port type is not limited.
Internal—Access to this port type is limited to modules within the same project.
Can we change the path of Web service after you deploy an Orchestration?
Yes. Use BizTalk administration console to change the path. You should ensure that a Web service exists for the URL that you specify. BizTalk Server does not validate the URL location.

Can we relate a Role with multiple Parties?
Yes. For example, an orchestration might use the role of a Shipper. The Shipper would have one or two parties associated with it. When the orchestration decides which shipping company to use to ship an item, it compares the prices of the parties in the Shipper role.

Basic: Biztalk Developer Book – Question and Answers

2006-08-17T01:07:00.000+05:30

(Answers based on MSDN Documentation)

What is Adapter?
To exchange messages with external systems, applications, and entities Microsoft BizTalk Server uses the concept of an adapter. Adapters are COM or .NET-based components that transfer messages to and from business endpoints (such as file systems, databases, and custom business applications) using various communication protocols.

What is Receive adapter?
An adapter receives information from an external entity and passes it into the BizTalk Server Messaging Engine.

What is Send adapter?
An adapter sends message to an external entity using the protocols supported.

Can BizTalk 2006 File adapter consume a zero bytes file?
No

What is Receive port?
A receive port is a collection of one or more receive locations that define specific entry points into BizTalk Server

What is Receive location?
A receive location is the configuration of a single endpoint (URL) to receive messages. The location contains configuration information for both a receive adapter and a receive pipeline

What is Send port?
A send port is the combination of a send pipeline and a send adapter

What is SendPortGroup?
A send port group is a collection of send ports and works much like an e-mail distribution list

What is Receive pipeline?
A receive pipeline operates on a message after it is received by the receive adapter. The receive pipeline takes the initial message, performs some transformations, and disassembles the raw data into zero, one, or multiple messages. These individual messages can then be processed by BizTalk Server.

What is Send pipeline?
A send pipeline is responsible for processing documents before sending them to their final destinations. The send pipeline takes one message and produces one message to send.

What are the stages of Receive Pipeline?
Decode, Disassemble, Validate and Party resolution.

What are the stages of Send pipeline?
Pre Assemble, Assemble and Encode.

How many components can we have in each stages of Receive Pipeline?
Zero to 255 components.

How many components can we have in Assemble stage of Send pipeline?
Zero to One.

What is Schema?
BizTalk uses the XML Schema definition (XSD) language to define the structure of all messages that it processes, and refers to these definitions of message structure as schemas.

What are the types of Schema we have in BizTalk?
XML Schema, Flat file Schema, Envelope schema and Property schema

Can we promote a Record node as distinguished field?
No

What is Flat file schema?
A flat file schema defines the structure of a class of instance messages that use a flat file format, either delimited or positional or some combination thereof

What is Envelope Schema?
An envelope schema is a type of XML schema. Envelope schemas are used to define the structure of XML envelopes, which are used to wrap one or more XML business documents into a single XML instance message

What is Property Schema?
A property schema, which is a simple version of a BizTalk schema, plays a role in the process of copying promoted properties back and forth between the instance message and the message context

What is Map?
Map defines the relationship between an input and an output schema using links and functoids.

What is Orchestration?
Orchestration is a flexible, powerful tool for representing your executable business processes. You can design flow, interpret and generate data, call custom code, and organize it all in an intuitive visual drawing.

What is Party in BizTalk?
A party, or organizational unit, represents an entity outside of BizTalk Server that interacts with an orchestration. In BizTalk Server, each organization with which you exchange messages is represented by a party. You can define how the party interacts by enlisting it in a role.

What is Role in BizTalk?
A role is a collection of port types that either uses a service or implements a service. A role represents the type of interaction that a party can have with one or many orchestrations. Roles provide flexibility and ease of management as the number of parties increase.

What is Orchestration port?
Ports specify how your orchestration will send messages to and receive messages from other business processes

What is Orchestration Port type?
A port type consists of a communication pattern, a set of operations (requests or responses), and the message types that those operations can work on.

What is the difference between Port and Port type?
A port is an instance of a port type; several different ports may have the same port type.

What is Web port?
Web ports are specially configured ports that you use to consume (call) Web services. Each operation in a Web port represents one method of a Web service.

Matter, Antimatter and Antiyou ??

2006-08-01T01:47:00.000+05:30

Most of us would have read Dan Brown's "Angel and Daemon" and surprised about the activities of Largest particle physics laboratory "CERN" located between France and Swiss. Though the use of Antimater (cannot be used in Weapons) and Super fast Plane explained in the novel is not true, Dan give us a hint on this great lab.

CERN website teach you about the Antimatter from kid basics. Applause....

I am interested physics and electronics, so this website is one of my freetime spot.

There is a Microcosm Educational game for your Kid here.
http://microcosm.web.cern.ch/microcosm/Content/Online/Online-en.html

For physics lovers...

What is matter and antimatter? (Source : http://www.cern.ch website)

Matter: Matter is the "stuff" that every known object around us is made of: anything you can touch is made of matter ... including you!

Antimatter : Matter is mad of three particles electrons, protons and neutrons. These particles have been mysterious for quite some time: although physicists knew they existed, they knew very little about them.

if the electron had a "twin" particle, identical to it but with an opposite electric charge. It would be just like its mirror image! Science called it an antielectron, ofcource thats true for any particles.

Antiyou :
Look at yourself in the mirror: what if the guy just in front of you, the one in the mirror, really existed?. That mystery is called antiyou.

For Biztalkers...

Sometime your message doesnot act like as you expect, you call that as AntiMessage :) :)

Some time your Manager doesn't act like... Just kidding.. :)

Group and sum of account - BizTalk XLINQ

2006-07-31T21:50:00.000+05:30

Stephen Kaufman had written an excellent XSL script to sum all amount pertain to the Account no. see here

http://blogs.msdn.com/skaufman/archive/2006/03/13/550523.aspx

Last Sunday I was bored to watch a movie and tried the convert the same XSLT in XLINQ.

So here you go.

using System;
using System.Text;
using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.XLinq;
using System.Collections;
using System.Query;
using System.Collections.Generic;

namespace XLinqIntro
{
class Aggregate
{
public static void Main()
{

XElement accounts= XElement.Load("Rows.xml");
XNamespace ns = "http://Blogtopic.SchemaSrc";

XElement GroupSumAmount =
new XElement(ns+ "Root",

new XAttribute(XNamespace.Xmlns + "ns0", ns),
new XElement("Destination",
from row in accounts.Descendants("Row")
group row by (string)row.Attribute("AccountNbr")

into rowGroup
select
new XElement ("Account",
new XAttribute("AccountNbr",rowGroup.Key),
new XAttribute("AccountSum",

rowGroup.Sum(row => (int)row.Attribute("Amount")))
)));

Console.WriteLine(GroupSumAmount);

}

}
}

This gives you the same output (Don’t ask me,

who cares about it? :) )

Does anyone check the performance of XSL and XLINQ?

Cheers for a Good week start.

Leveraging XLINQ concepts in BizTalk 2004/2006

2006-07-29T22:19:00.000+05:30

I have posted an article here, please have a look

http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/BiztalkXLINQ.asp

Repeating Record Tip for Biztalk 2006 Flat file Wizard

2006-07-28T04:56:00.000+05:30

Biztalk 2006 provides an enhanced Flat file wizard, helps a lot in saving your flat file schema building time unlike the previous versions.

If you generate a schema from an existing flat input file, your Repeating record Maximum Occurs/ Minimum Occurs schema property is default to the number of records in your flat input file.

Open your flat file schema and select your Record node and change the MaximumOccurs =unbound or ‘*’ and MaximumOccurs= 0 or 1 properties according to your business requirements.

I have seen some of my colleagues not noticed it and stuck up with following error while validating schema.

Unexpected Data found while looking for ‘\r\n’ The current definition being parsed..

Biztalk 2006 Engine –few interesting improvements which I noticed

2006-07-28T00:58:00.000+05:30

Large message transformation:

A new large message transformation engine keeps the memory consumption flat by buffering the input message data in to the file system, if the size of the message exceeds a user-configurable size.
TransformThresold size can be configured by editing the below mentioned registry key
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\BizTalk Server\3.0\Administration\TransformThreshold
(Don’t understand why Microsoft gives such an option to edit registry, rather include it as a configurable property in beautiful Biztalk Administration console?)

Per-Instance Pipeline Configuration:

Biztalk 2006 provides a enhanced way to configure the pipeline per-instance basis. Why do you need this? For example, In Biztalk 2004 you create a custom pipeline (say CustomDecodePipeline1) by configuring the AllowUnrecognizedMessage = true property and you share across three Receive ports (say A, B and C). You deployed it. Now the customer wants you to modify only the Receive port B that needs protect Unrecognized Message and you need to set AllowUnrecongizedMessage= false. How do you do that?
Biztalk 2006 Explorer provides ReceivePipelineData and SendPipelineData to override the default properties per-instance basis.

Calling Pipelines from Orchestration:

In previous version of BizTalk if you want to call pipeline component from orchestration either you send the message out of Biztalk and receive it by the pipeline or write a custom .NET component that fulfills your requirements.
Biztalk 2006 opens you an option of calling the pipeline components directly from Biztalk orchestration.

Call your Send pipeline using the following syntax from Expression shape.
……
Microsoft.XLANGs.Pipeline.XLANGPipelineManager.
ExecuteSendPipeline (typeof(CustomEnvSendPipeline1)
,InvoicesMsg,PerInvoiceMsg);

Receive pipeline using

CustomPipelineOut = Microsoft.XLANGs.Pipeline.XLANGPipelineManager.
ExecuteReceivePipeline( typeof(CustomEnvReceivePipeline1), envInvoiceInMsg);
………..
Receive pipelines must be called from an atomic scope of transaction.

and its time to go back to my work, have a good day.:)

Techies.. Fun and Innovative

2006-02-07T17:36:00.000+05:30

Fun and innovative designs..

I could see people around me doing really nice and innovative stuffs. Here you go

Whiskey PC by Marton's

http://www.metku.net/index.html?sect=view&n=1&path=mods/whiskypc/index_eng

Vibration detector by Princy

http://princessofgold.blogspot.com

Call / Start Orchestration.

2006-01-23T16:24:00.000+05:30

Why do we need to call orchestrations? You may have some complex logic that may need to be called from many processes, so creating one base orchestration will help reduce maintenance in the long run.

You can see two shapes for invoking sub process (Call Shape, Start Shape) in the orchestration design time toolbox.

Call Shape is synchronous and Start shape is an asynchronous way of executing the calling orchestration.

· Execution mode of Call shape is synchronous while start shape is asynchronous

· Call shape do not use MessageBox to invoke other sub process, where as start shape using Message Box.

· Call shape is preferred, when the calling orchestration returns the information quickly. Start orchestration is for the process that may take sometime to complete but needs to be aggregated at some point of time.

· We can pass parameters for both the Start/Call Orchestrations and exception variables cannot be accessed in both the shapes.

· Passing the derived type as a parameter that has base type as a parameter in orchestration through Call /start shape would cause error. It’s by design and we can use the following syntax in expression shape to invoke.

Call shape
call OrchestrationNamespace.OrchestrationName(derivedtype);

Start shape
exec OrchestrationNamespace.OrchestrationName(derivedtype);

· Message passing from the Call shape is referred as pass-by-reference where as start shape is for pass-by-value.

Performance of Call/Start shapes can be found CaPo’s blog
here

First line of XSD..

2006-01-18T14:14:00.000+05:30

I always want to be a hard core developer and i understand things by walk through each line.
Well, this is the questions came in mind, when i started learning Xml Schema Definition three years ago.

What is the firstline in all the XSD means?.

if you open a XSD file in Notepad or Biztalk mapper, you could see the first line with

?xml version="1.0" encoding='UTF-8'?

and its called Processing Instruction for the XSD. This statement (element ??) instruct the parser to follow the existing standards defined in each attribute. For exmaple the version attribute instructs the parser to follow the XML standards of 1.0. Some of the parser might not understand the latest xml standards (1.1 ??).

encoding attribute UTF-8 stands for Unicode Transformation Format-8. XML parser follows an octet (8-bit) lossless encoding of Unicode characters.

In absense of this statement would cause runtime error.

Microsft India Rocks !!!

2005-12-06T17:14:00.000+05:30

Gates is coming to india to release VS 2005 by 2nd week of Dec. Microsoft india did a very nice work as korean MS community did. You understand what am i talking about????

Yes .. Msft launches a Developer song available here.

http://www.microsoft.com/india/ready2005/song/default.aspx

Enjoy !!

Regards
Selvan, MS Community.

How Message get processed in Biztalk 2004

2005-11-08T12:51:00.000+05:30

There is a wonderful article for Message engine wrtitten by
Charles Young . here is it : http://geekswithblogs.net/cyoung/articles/7007.aspx

One more difference between promoted and distinguished field

2005-11-03T16:08:00.000+05:30

Distinguise property uses common namespace ( http://schemas.microsoft.com/BizTalk/2003/btsDistinguishedFields) for all messages,

where as promoted field uses message namespace defined in the document schema and store the unique id at bts_DocumentSpec table in biztalk management database.

Keep in mind before you promote a node as distinguished / promoted

2005-11-03T13:27:00.000+05:30

1. Max occur property of each promoted property and its anchester should be '1'.

2. Donot promote a node as distinguished or prmoted field in a schema more than once. If you do you will get "duplicate promotion" error

3. Promoted property sholud have only the listed predefined data types., donot type your own types in "Data Type" property of Field Element.

4. Only Field Element nodes, Field Attribute nodes, or Record nodes with mixed or simple content can be promoted as Property Fields or Distinguished Fields.

5. Make sure the XPath expression syntax of promoted/distinguished property, after you edit.

What is the difference between distinguished and promoted fields?

2005-11-03T12:02:00.000+05:30

Please refer this link

http://www.netologi.se/default.aspx?Contents=BizTalkFAQ&Row=4#4

What is Biztalk Message ?

2005-10-27T10:37:00.000+05:30

Message

The magic term 'Messgae' would confuse the begginners of EAI and XML sometime.
Its is a collection of data sent / received together between software applications. You must be heard about email message and SMS message.

Why are we using XML Message while we integrate applications?. There are reasons that

Loose coupling,
Multipart messaging,
Easy message transformation and routing.

Mulipart Message

A multipart message contains one or more different messages within its structure.

Here is a sample of multipart message, has two format.First one is XML message contains a collection of US Cities and second is Binary data (Image) embeds picture of newyork city.

Sample Multipart Message

Biztalk Message.

Each message in biztalk 2004 is considered as multi-part message. See sample multipart message above. All messages in biztalk are immutable. You can alter message by creating a new instance of it inside the Construction group of an orchestartion.

Data Type is charecteristic of defining variables that says what type of values they can store in all Mordern programming language. Like that each Biztalk defines Messagetype to message has its own namespace to diffrentiate from others.

for example my Orders message looks like below

Then my Message Type would be

http://MycompanyURI.org/OrderProcess/OrderType#Orders.

Biztalk appends # sybmol and root element of the message after namespace. Assume that Message type = Namespace of Message + # + Root element of message. Message type is stored in Biztalk database for reference and tracking message.

Lets talk about Biztalk Message in detail tommorow.

Cheers .. Have a nice Day.

Selvan.

Folks ! Its a rainy morning

2005-10-25T11:05:00.000+05:30

Hi Folks,

Well, Its again a rainy morning for me !!. Ahh.. I'm watching rain through my office window. A girl is crossing myoffice lane under an umberla... lots of rose buds printed on top of it...
must be beautiful :). forget it !!.

I am starting here a new blog to share my biztalk 2004 and .net experiences.
Hope i get time to update once in two days.

Cheers... Have a good day !!