All about BizTalk Server, WF, WCF, Cloud Computing: January, 2007

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January 20

Tools for BizTalk Server

It’s long time since I last wrote for my space. So I thought just to carry on the tradition, here are some list of BizTalk Tools. You can definitely find these tools on internet.J

But this will provide a consolidate view of various tools which a BTS developer will love to have.

Starting with the one of the most complex parts of the BTS, yes you guessed it right…..

Deployments in BTS

BDF ( BizTalk Deployment Framework from Scott Colestock)

BDF is a framework build by Scott Colestock for automating the process of deployment of BizTalk artifacts both on Developer machine and Server Machines.

It uses NAnt for Deployment Scripts and WiX Tool Set for creating MSI.

I found it really help full for the deployments for both BTS 2004/2006.

Solutions Build Framework (SBF)

Easy method for scripting automated or ad-hock BizTalk builds and deployments using MSBuild.

Documentor for BTS

UK SDC BizTalk 2006 Documentor

• Provides a nice compiled .chm help file

BizTalk Documentor From Eric

• It produces an html based help.

• Provides information about maps, Orchestrations, receive locations etc

• Does not provide the Orchestration viewer.

• Can be invoked from command line as well as from GUI

BizTalkPictureExporter

Snapshots of BizTalk Orchestration

A great tool to have for documentation for BTS Applications.

Some other Tools for BTS

SchemaDetector from Saravana Kumar

This toll is used to find schemas with same (TargetNamespace+RootName) in the BTS.

If a specified schema with RootName and TargetNamespaces matches, it then list the schemas.

BTSHostManager2004

The tool help to quickly start/stop host instances.

QuickCountersSetup

QuickCounters.net is a shared source library for managing the rapid creation of custom Windows performance counters for use in performance tests and operational monitoring. Scott Colestock has used these for BTS.

http://www.codeplex.com/quickcounters/Wiki/View.aspx?title=Getting%20Started

Embedded Resource Cache

Messages from Scratch with Embedded Resources

Cache the loaded resources in a hash table for performance sake, and allow you to load resources as both strings and XmlDocuments (Used with BDF)

Context Adder

Tool to add some custom properties to the context at any stage of the receive/send pipeline

Debug viewer

Used to see logged information from orchestration using logDotNet, EIF or Enterprise library framework

Microsoft BizTalk Server Best Practices Analyzer.exe

Good to have a tool for analyzing the deployments.

It generates a list of issues which according to some are not Best Practices. J

BizUnit from Kevin B Smith

Testing tool for BizTalk

Helped a lot to do end to end testing of BizTalk Applications.

It can also be integrated with BDF from Scott Colestock.

Load Generator from Microsoft

This tool can be used to test performance of BizTalk application.

It is used by many IT professionals for doing stress testing of there BizTalk applications.

Pipeline Component Wizard

Pipeline Component Wizard, can be used to make Pipeline components for any stage of receive or send Pipeline.

BTS 2006 Orchestration Designer for Business Analysts

It provides Visio Add-ins for BizTalk Orchestrations Designer.

DTC Test Tools

Tools to test whether the DTC is running or not.

10:09 PM | Permalink | Blog it | BizTalk

January 04

I passed 70-235 (MCTS BTS 2006)

Yesterday I gave 70-235 i.e. “MCTS: BizTalk Server 2006”. The paper contained 50 questions.

About 10 question each on BRE and BAM. So BRE and BAM are important parts of the exam.

Rests of the question were not that difficult; if you have worked on BizTalk 2004/2006 then you can certainly take a chance.

But now there are lots of questions which are either multiple choice or “Drag and Drop and arrange in sequence” type.

Great……

9:06 AM | Permalink | Blog it | BizTalk