BizTalk Server News

I read this great news in Steven Martin's blog, Once SQL Server 2008 becomes generally available, Miscrosoft will follow with an updated version of BizTalk Server designed for the latest versions of Windows Server, the .NET Framework, Visual Studio, and SQL Server. This will mean that BizTalk Server customers will continue to take full advantage of the platform’s latest improvements including: scalability for mission-critical workloads, improved support for next-generation web and service oriented applications, improved virtualization support and better business insight through Office.

Micrososft will also taking the opportunity as part of this BizTalk Server release to deliver additional customer-requested capabilities for our core SOA infrastructure. Microsoft will give more updates on specific features in the coming months, but at a high level they are planning some new investments in the release that includes:

1. New web service registry capabilities with support for UDDI (Universal Description Discovery and Integration) version 3.0
2. Enhanced service enablement of applications (through new and enhanced adapters for LOB applications, databases, and legacy/host systems)
3. Enhanced service enablement of “edge” devices through BizTalk RFID Mobile
4. Enhanced interoperability and connectivity support for B2B protocols (like SWIFT, EDI, etc)
5. SOA patterns and best practices guidance to assist our customer’s implementations
   

To ensure existing BTS applications continue to run without changes, Microsoft are taking an incremental approach and limiting the changes to the items listed above. Because this release build on existing bits, the name of this release will be BizTalk Server 2006 R3. Refreshing the bits (instead of applying a large Service Pack) provides for the best update experience. You should expect to see a CTP of BizTalk Server 2006 R3 later this year (with an RTM planned in H1 CY09).

for more details please visite http://blogs.msdn.com/stevemar/archive/2008/04/23/biztalk-server-platform-updates.aspx

N-Tier Architecture

What N-tier archeture means?
This refers to the architecture of an application that has 3 to N logical layer each layer is responsible for specific function and interacts with only the layer directly below.
Why N-Tier architecture?
You can easily scale out your application by deploying each layer on separate server. As each layer is totally separate and encpsulated from other layer so you can easily update/modify any layer without affection other layer or need to recompile them all. Here is the power of the n-tier as any additional features or change to a layer can be done without redeploying the whole application. Before we go further let’s have a look on this image

An n-Tier application usually has three tiers, and they are called the presentation tier, the business tier and the data tier. Let's have a look at what each tier is responsible for.

Data Tier: The data layer can usually be split into two separate layers. The first will consist of the set of stored procedures implemented directly within the database. These stored procedures will run on the server and provide basic data only. Not only are they pre-compiled and pre-optimized, but they can also be tested separately, Second layer will consist of set of classes which handle the stored procedure we call it CRUD operation (Create, Read, Update, Delete).
If your database changes for any reason, you can easily modify your data layer to handle them without affecting any other layers. This considerably simplifies maintenance.

Business Layer: this layer will encapsulate your busniss rule and logical validation; here we find classes which implement your business functionality. They neither access data (except through the data layer) nor do they bother with the display or presentation of this data to the user. All we are interested in at this point are the complexities of the business itself. By isolating this functionality, we are able to concentrate on the guts of our system without the worry of design, workflow, or database access and related concurrency problems. If the business changes, only the business layer is affected, again considerably simplifying future maintenance and/or enhancements.

Workflow Layer: This is one of the optional layers and deals with data flow to and from your system. It may or may not interact directly with the user interface, but always deals with external data sources. For instance, if you send or receive messages from a messaging queue, use a web service for extra information, send or receive information to another system, the code to handle this would be in this layer. You may wish to wrap your whole application in XML so that the choice of presentation layer can be expanded. This would also be handled in the Workflow Layer.
Presentation Layer: This layer handles everything to do with the presentation of your system. This does not just include your windows or web forms (or your user interface), but also all the classes which will help you present your data.


I hope this quick preview will help you

Biztalk 2006 R2 First look

As most of the organizations continue to move toward a service-oriented world, for effective business processes that unite disparate systems into a coherent whole. from this the usefulness of Biztalk comes.

BizTalk Server connecting diverse applications, then creating, executing, and monitoring process logic that uses those applications. The objective is to help organizations create better automated business process.

• What is BizTalk doing?
  
  • Connecting applications within a single organization, commonly referred to as enterprise application integration (EAI). As more organizations move toward service-oriented architecture (SOA), the approach to doing this also becomes increasingly service-oriented.
  
  
  • Connecting applications in different organizations, typically referred to as business-to-business (B2B) integration.
  
  
  • Supporting the holistic approach to working with automated business processes that’s defined by business process management (BPM).

those are just to address the problems and challenges which BizTalk solve in my next post i will focus on each challenge and explain how BizTalk solves them.

Web Service software Factory Hands on lab

Service Factory Hands on Labs are now available you can download it here

http://www.codeplex.com/servicefactory/Wiki/View.aspx?title=HandsOnLab&referringTitle=Home

What Is the Service Factory?
software factories represent a collection of guidance that helps architects and developers build a specific kind of application. Therefore, the Service Factory helps developers and architects build Web service applications. Web service applications are more than just the technologies that send and receive SOAP messages and expose WSDL contracts—they also include the functionality that is needed to fulfill the service's behavior. Figure below illustrates the parts of the application, and their relationship with one another, the Service Factory will help you build.

Structure of a service built with the Service Factory

Shrink the transaction log file in SQL Server 2005

I face a problem where i use database to store application session the problem is that the ASP state database log file size is 50 GB so i need to shrink the log file after googling I found the solution

first you need to backup the log file using this command
BACKUP LOG TestDB TO DISK='C:\TestDB1.bak'
Second you run the following command to shrink the log file
DBCC SHRINKFILE (, ) WITH NO_INFOMSGS

For more information check this link on
Microsfot support http://support.microsoft.com/kb/907511

.NET Framework source code

From now on you can debug .NET Framework source code...

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/10/03/releasing-the-source-code-for-the-net-framework-libraries.aspx

No reflector from today you can access to the code written in .net framework classes.

Web Service Software Factory

The Web Service Software Factory, also referred to as the Service Factory, provides a set of proven practices for building service-oriented applications. The Service Factory provides developers guidance in the form of guidance packages, reference implementations, patterns, and How-to topics. Building services is difficult because it spans many areas, including the following:

• Security
• Interoperability
• Messaging Validation
• Exception handling

The Service Factory addresses these areas. By building services with the factory, developers can concentrate on higher-value activities; this decreases the overall development time and cost, and it improves consistency and quality. This version of the Service Factory also leverages the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) included with the .NET Framework 3.0.

For further information please visit this link

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa480534.aspx