Biztalk Server

Biztalk 2006 Hands On Labs

Miguel Jiménez — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 14:29:00 GMT

We are delivering three Biztalk Server 2006 HOLs together with MSDN Spain. This labs cover the following topics:

Biztalk Messaging Lab: Schemas, Messaging, Mapping, Ports, Pipelines and Deployment.
Biztalk Business Processes Lab: Orchestrations, Correlations, Transactions, Web Services, HAT Diagnosis and Debugging.
Biztalk Advanced Lab: Business Rules, BAM and Sharepoint Integration.

Each lab will be held in Madrid and consists of 6 hours instructor-led training by a certified and experienced instructor from ilitia technologies, course materials and access to our internal knowledge base. A individual The price for each lab is set at 90€, although it's quite cheap it doesn't impact quality.

So if you are nearby Madrid and you're interested, have a look to the MSDN Spain HOLs and use the registration form you can find there (through Informatica64) or you can contact me for further information, details or assistance.

Passed Biztalk 2004 Partner Competency Exam aka 74-135

Miguel Jiménez — Wed, 25 May 2005 18:19:00 GMT

After the week I spend in Sophia Antipolis at the Biztalk 2004 Deep Dive Training I decided to register as soon as possible to take the 74-135 Developing E-Business Solutions Using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 Partner Competency Exam

The exam was today... I've passed!

My first impression is that the exam is not what I would call easy, it's quite tricky and tought... Actually, lot of the questions had to be answered from a good hands-on experience perspective rather than a more theoretical perspective. Therefore, you should look at the hands-on labs provided by Microsoft as a good activity to complete your MOC training.

Check my list of Quickstart resources for Biztalk 2004 training

Biztalk 2004 Training in France with Quicklearn

Miguel Jiménez — Fri, 20 May 2005 16:02:00 GMT

Wow... I've been really busy during the last weeks, therefore, it's been a lot of time since the last post.

During the last week I've spend my time in Sophia Antipolis, France (by the sea, near Cannes and Nice) with QuickLearn guys, Greg Bulette and John Callaway, and the so useful Biztalk 2004. I previously said I was attending to this course, thanks to a post on Scott Woodgate's blog, and here I am to tell what I've learned

So... let's make a brief description of what we've seen during this course:

We had a look to mapping and schemas with special focus on non-commonly used features of Biztalk such as Flat File schems, Flat File Schema Generator and nested schemas (delimited inside positional schemas and viceversa)
We had an intense look at Convoys, one of the other unknow Biztalk patterns; paying special attention to parallel convoys in a good planned hands-on lab
Other interesting thing during the course was the creation of interchange schemas and envelopes. They are automatically supported by Biztalk if you are using XML schemas, but if you relay on flat file schemas you have to create your own pipeline component to dissasemble the whole message into the body and envelope.
Adapters had their own training unit. We've looked in detail to lot of adapters, some of the really common while others were completely new to me. We looked at File, Sql, Soap, Wse, Sharepoint and MQ Series adapters.

And finally, making honor to the name of the training course (Deep Dive) have a look to how the team looked like in our classroom:

Biztalk 2004 Deep Dive Courses

Miguel Jiménez — Sun, 03 Apr 2005 18:09:00 GMT

Back in February, Scott Woodgate published a Biztalk 2004 training offer for partners. The course seems amazing, as it is a 5 days long and is taught by the Biztalk team. All the seats where rapidly sold, just because the price of the course was *free*...

Fortunately, I had a seat and passed the entrance exam... so I will be in Nice from 16th to 23rd of May 2005 (why Nice, it was the nearest location where deep dive courses where available) to receive such a great deep training on Biztalk 2004

Updated Biztalk 2004 Documentation + guides and papers

Miguel Jiménez — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 12:14:00 GMT

The Biztalk team has updated the product documentation and the installation guide of Biztalk Server 2004. New guides has also been posted where the most relevant (to me) are: BizTalk Server 2004 Technical Guide for Certificate Management and BizTalk Server 2004 and IPSec Deployment Guide

Check the Luke Nyswonger's post Biztalk Server 2004 Product Documentation Updates about the release

Single Sign-On failure when configuring Biztalk Server 2004

Miguel Jiménez — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 16:02:00 GMT

Just a quick note on a couple of workarounds the "Failed to enable the Single Sign-On (SSO) Service (error code 0X800706BA)" error thrown when configuring a Biztalk Server 2004 installation. Try to disable your firewall and/or antivirus when configuring Biztalk Server 2004 and if the error persists add a line to your drivers\etc\host file pointing your IP to the machine name.

The Bloggers Guide to BizTalk v1.3: great resources on a single file

Miguel Jiménez — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 22:26:00 GMT

I guess that I did not paid enough attention or importance to The Bloggers Guide to BizTalk in my last post about Biztalk 2004 Resources. This guide is quite impressive itself. It contains a huge amount of information that people have posted on their blogs; but it's categorized and ordered in a simple and easy to use CHM file.

But Alan Smith explains what is the aim of the guide better than me [excerpt of the guide]:

"The aim of The Bloggers Guide to BizTalk is to provide the best of the online content produced by the BizTalk blogging community in an easily accessible format. All the content in the guide has been created by BizTalk developers who wish to share their knowledge and ideas with others in the developer community. The subjects of these contributions and the level of their complexity are varied, so there is information available for those who are new to BizTalk, as well as for advanced developers"

Btw, you can also have a look to all the blogs of the authors, where all the content what extracted from.

Biztalk Server 2004 Resources - Quickstart training material

Miguel Jiménez — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 22:14:00 GMT

Biztalk 2004 is getting hot, at least in my company. We have some Biztalk projects that can't wait and we have to start to work with Biztalk in more serious way. For this reason, I've been training for the last week and I'm know working with some "hand on labs" to get on speed with Biztalk.

I've searched the web for resources to learn faster and better. This is just a list of what I've found interesting and useful for my learning.

Microsoft Site
Biztalk Server 2004 Home
Biztalk Server 2004 Downloads
Biztalk Server 2004 Adapters by Microsoft
Biztalk Server 2004 Adapters by Partners
Biztalk Server 2004 Whitepapers

Books & Courses
Biztalk Server 2004 Unleashed by Scott Woodgate
MOC 2157 - Developing E-Business Solutions Using Microsoft Biztalk Server 2004
MOC 2158 - Deploying and Managing E-Business Solutions Using Microsoft Biztalk Server

Blogs
http://blogs.msdn.com/scottwoo/
http://geekswithblogs.net/ajames/
http://weblogs.asp.net/gzunino/category/5287.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/Biztalk_Core_Engine

Guides
The Bloggers Guide to Biztalk
QuickStart Guide to Installing & Configuring BizTalk Server 2004 for Windows Server 2003 Multi-Box Installation

Hands On Labs
Biztalk Labs @ MSDN VS Hosted Experience, that include 14 guided tutorials on a hosted environment.

Well, and this is all I have found to start with Biztalk... I still have to finish watching the webcasts, but this list is a good start point to Biztalk. Enjoy it and if you have any other resource that you think must be in this list, please don't hesitate to contact me.