404 O.M.F.G.

2007-11-08T14:52:00Z

The pictures below again show what self-teaching can do!

The BizTalk expert who produced this pre-processor kept getting dehydrated orchestrations (a couple of thousands a day).

So he decided to fix it by doing the following :-S, did the guy ever listen?

Service Pack 2 for BizTalk Server 2004

2006-11-02T02:31:00Z

For all those still using it :: BizTalk Server 2004 SP2.

And for the fixlist of the Service Pack.

Just Not In Time

2006-03-14T05:57:00Z

Yesterday I saw a great phenomenon on one of our client's production servers. They ran into some trouble using BizTalk and a custom build adapter.

The adapter wouldn't send a message to the application, but BizTalk’s Health and Activity Tracking was telling me otherwise.

My theory on the non delivery is the following:

The dll for this BizTalk custom adapter was being Just-In-Time compiled in the "Local Settings\Temp" folder of the account running the BizTalk Server service. Due to the fact that this folder at that time was holding over 400K files the BizTalk Server process was not able to find this file. This resulting in an abrupt ending of the file sent process.

Please correct me in any way if you have better ideas.

How a company can make life suck

2006-02-03T04:45:00Z

It's surprising how life sucks sometimes. Some company can just create something that will make your day miserable, makes you cry, feel awful and creates the urge to hit back. Thanks Dennis for the input on this ;-).

Today I was trying to send e-mail via my local SMTP server (XP Professional SP2) using BizTalk 2004. But nothing, I couldn't get it to work. Thanks to Robert I was able to get it working. Due to the new virus scanner - McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 8.0.0 - calls to my local SMTP server are blocked. So what I needed to do is disable the scanner while testing :-( and there I found my mail in C:\Inetpub\mailroot\Drop\.

Talking to the Commerce Gateway 4.0

2006-01-12T10:53:00Z

One of the Microsoft propositions is using Navision 3.70, Commerce Gateway 4.0 and BizTalk Server 2004 for B2B integration. Trying to get this to work is not documented (yet). So I decided to put my experience to "blog".

Let's say we have two Navision companies on a single server and u want to have them communicating with each other. No problem because there is the Microsoft demo, which does the trick for you. But now do it without the pre-installed environment.

A few tips:

Be sure to use the Navision 3.70 B database; the 3.70 A database does not facilitate the BizTalk connection.

Don't use the Commerce Gateway Broker; when stressed most of the messages will go into retry. Causing the event log to blow up. Many BizTalk retries are needed to post high message volumes to Navision.

Install the Commerce Gateway logged in as a user with enough BizTalk rights. Otherwise the Adapter cannot be installed.

Be sure to set ISAPI Extensions to "allow" in IIS. The Application Pool should run under an account with BizTalk Server rights.

The Commerce Gateway Request Server service should run under a user with rights to BizTalk Server.

After this you can install the sample using the setup.bat in the Commerce Gateway directory.

For debugging you can set "dumpdocuments" to yes in the TCPCOM_config.xml file (Navision from the manual).

When you want to use BizTalk Server 2002 (don't know why, but you might), be sure to install the BizTalkIntegration2004.dll. This dll is not installed when you install the Commerce Gateway to communicate to BizTalk 2002, but is needed badly.

Futhermore you should create a NAS for every Company in Navision you want to talk to, but this might be an "open deur" (dutch for : only logical).

Never to young to...

2005-09-25T06:52:00Z

Maybe I have to get my four year old son to learn this KPL stuff. So by the time I get back home from Kuwait he can do my work.

BizTalk 2004 SP1 - FTP connections are left open - Part II

2005-06-21T00:10:00Z

March this year I posted about this phenomenon.

The real problem is that now, after installing SP1, also the dynamic send connections are left open (they are closed after the session timeout). As it is a dynamic port a new connection is opened with every file send. Due to the limited amount of connections getting into trouble is inevitable. So now the whole concept of a dynamic FTP port becomes rather useless when only limited connections are available.

Recently Microsoft came with the hotfix for this issue. for this issue.

Bringing back the good old days

2005-06-09T21:12:00Z

This evening we had a fun meeting. After many years we came together to have some good old (Logica)CMG fun. So we went to play paintball in Dordrecht. So teams were made and we had a few games of shoot out for real.

Some of us where less fortunate, having a shiny bold head, making easy target or ending up with a hicky look-a-like. All I can say is: "gelukkig hebben we de foto's nog!" (Dutch for: lucky we've still got the pictures)

Dennis and Manon many thanks for organizing!!

Because I always end up trying to see which is correct.

2005-05-07T19:16:00Z

String literals in BizTalk port filters

Send port filters have no quotes.
Receive port (in orchestrations) filters have quotes.

With thanks to Ben Cops.

BizTalk Server and "Indigo", they will work together!!

2005-05-05T18:37:00Z

Scott Woodgate shows a glimpse into the future with a working prototype demo illustrating BizTalk Server and "Indigo" working together.

BizTalk 2004 SP1 - FTP connections are left open

2005-03-25T09:33:00Z

Because of the limited FTP connections I can use, I came across a change in functionality after installing SP1 for BizTalk Server 2004. The pre-SP1 FTP adapter used to close its connection after sending a file. It would just send the FTP - QUIT command.

The BizTalk product Group changed this in order to make a static FTP send port quicker (the logon procedure isn't started every time a file is send). This is of course better, as the connection is now only disconnected when the FTP server closes the connection due to an idleness timeout.

In my current project we send files by FTP using a dynamic send port and I'm only aloud to use 100 FTP connections, so that's an unfortunate limit I have to cope with.

The real problem is that now, after installing SP1, also the dynamic send connections are left open (they are closed after the session timeout). As it is a dynamic port a new connection is opened with every file send. Due to the limited amount of connections getting into trouble is inevitable. So now the whole concept of a dynamic FTP port becomes rather useless when only limited connections are available.

Pick up files from a UNIX server

2005-03-08T14:37:00Z

Ask a UNIX professional which is best to pickup files on a UNIX machine by a windows file adapter, for instance BizTalk, and the answer will most probably be: "You can easily use Samba". SaMBa uses the Server Message Block Protocol to share files and printers with a Windows machine. But unfortunately most ICT security officers will not allow this option, because Samba run under the root-account of the UNIX machine.

Therefore you can better use FTP when picking up files from a UNIX machine using BizTalk.

Which BizTalk version to buy

2005-02-22T11:54:00Z

As project-managers try to be smart (and cheap) when it comes to buying software used in fixed price projects, I feel the need post the following:

BizTalk Server is sold in 4 different editions as you can read on microsoft.com/biztalk. But note that you cannot use a Partner Edition (approx. 1K Euro) without a Enterprise Edition. This Partner Edition is only for partners of a company which has an Enterprise Edition.
I know, it's not mentioned anywhere on the BizTalk pages, but I heard it from a Microsoft employee myself. So the cheapest you can get is a Standard Edition (approx. 6K Euro). See the 5K profit gap in the project calculation.

from microsoft.com/biztalk:
Enterprise, Standard, and Partner Editions
BizTalk Server 2004 Enterprise Edition is designed for customers who require high volume and high availability, and scalability to an unlimited number of CPUs. This edition supports integration with an unlimited number of internal applications and external trading partners. BizTalk Server 2004 Standard and Partner Editions are intended for small-to-medium deployments, and are limited to a single CPU. BizTalk Server 2004 Standard Edition supports integration with up to 10 applications and 20 trading partners. BizTalk Server 2004 Partner Edition supports integration with up to three applications and three trading partners.
Developer Edition
BizTalk Server 2004 Developer Edition is limited solely to designing, developing, and testing purposes. You may not use it as a passive failover server or for disaster recovery.

Have a look inside!

2005-01-29T19:04:00Z

Want to have a closer look at what BizTalk really does, read the temporary C# source code files generated by BizTalk during compilation.

This is how it's done.

BizTalk Server 2004 SP1 fix list

2005-01-27T08:46:00Z

The BizTalk Server 2004 SP1 fix list came be found here. I don't know if it's official but it at least is something, as there is none supplied with SP1.