BizTalk 2004 Naming Conventions

This document covers proposed naming conventions for describing BizTalk artifacts.
One of the primary benefits of the BizTalk Orchestration model is the great transparency you can get when a software implementation is pictorial.

Regardless of how well a developer comments code, there will always be a need to maintain a separate set of artifacts (UML diagrams, Visio diagrams with random shapes of your choosing, prose documents, whiteboard discussions, etc.) that are used to convey what the code is actually doing especially when working with a business audience. This is true if for no other reason than that a discussion of interesting functionality will often take place at a different level of granularity than raw code can support.

Round-trip engineering tools - that attempt to keep code in sync with diagrams - often seem to suffer from a lack of fidelity that renders them ineffective.

With BizTalk Orchestration, the diagram is the implementation (at least at a particular level) of a piece of functionality. Yes, you can disappear into components and lose sight of what might happen. Yes, there is a code representation (xlang/s) underneath the orchestration but it seems to be completely isomorphic with the diagram.

For more information, http://www.traceofthought.net/misc/BizTalk%20Naming%20Conventions.htm

XLANG - XML Business Process Language

XLANG is the XML business process language used in BizTalk Server. This proven language provides a way to orchestrate applications and XML Web services into larger-scale, federated applications by enabling developers to aggregate even the largest applications as components in a long-lived business process.

To see the XLANG Specification, http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/xml_wsspecs/xlang-c/default.htm

BIzTalk Certification (74-135)

Exam 74-135 Developing E-Business Solutions Using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 is available form January 2005.

Microsoft has specified that the target audience should contain the following,
- Requires end-to-end visibility into an organization's business processes
- Integrates existing business processes within an organization
- Develops scalable integration solutions to enable communication between disparate systems (as well as between partners)

Also has 2 courses for this exam,
Course 2157: Developing E-Business Solutions Using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004
Course 2158: Deploying and Managing E-Business Solutions Using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004

More info http://www.microsoft.com/learning/exams/74-135.asp

Configuration - Just after the Installation

Use the ConfigFramework.exe command in VS.NET 2003 command prompt to configure your Biztalk Server.

Then follow the graphical wizard to configure Biztalk.

Most of you may stuck in the screen where BAS Sharepoint Site configuration. To continue you must have enabled with WSS (Windows Sharepoint Services). If you don't have installed WSS, please install it from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/techinfo/sharepoint/wss.mspx. Then specify the new WSS site which is not existing now.

Continue the configuration wizard as usual. (Next Next -->)

Biztalk components from its software requirements

I will explain that how to get the Biztalk components out of its software requirements.

You must have .NET framework 1.1 to install and configure the Biztalk server. You also need MDAC 2.8(Microsoft Data Access Components), MSXML 4.0 SP2 and IE6 SP1 to work with Biztalk installation. Above software components are very much essential for Biztalk 2004.

Visual Studio.NET 2003 is required to the Biztalk development tools such as SDK.

WSS(Windows Sharepoint Services) are needed to work with BAS (Business Activity Services).

If you are using Business Activity Monitoring, ensure that SQL Client Tools are installed.