Biztalk 2009 R2

Cant wait to get my hands on BizTalk 2009 R2 after the demo video from PDC .
See here

The mappergets a complete overhaul with help from MSR

Top Features
- Relevance Tree
- Auto Scroll
- Gray out out of focus links ( reduce clutter )
- Move to Page
- Search
- VS 2010 integration

Returning Data from SAP Tables.

After spending a few frustrating hours on why my SAP RFC call was not returning data and the call was successful . We founf this little gem here from the LOB adapter team blog




If you're sending messages using the channel model instead of using a .NET proxy (for example, in BizTalk) - if the table node is missing from the input XML, we interpret that as if you're not interested in that table. If you do want the rows from that table in the response message, you should pass in the node in the input XML (0 rows, just the starting and ending parameter tag).

DTC

I find myself referring to these mostly trying to analyze SQL issues with BizTalk using DTCPING.I thought I will bookmark these links


INFO: Configuring Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (DTC) to
Work Through a Firewall
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/250367/EN-US/

How to configure RPC dynamic port allocation to work with firewalls
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/154596/

How to troubleshoot RPC Endpoint Mapper errors
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=839880

Bing..

I have not been excited on anything related to search from Microsoft in a long time . But I am really excited about Wolfarm Alpha the new decision engine from Microsoft . Now named Bing. The site is not up yet and has a video on it's capabilities for now . I cant wait to get my hands on the real thing .

It is pretty cool actually. Check it out... www.bing.com and see the video here

SAP mapping and XSLT fun

If you are on a BizTalk , SAP project , Your XSLT skills can come real handy .
For e.g. here I needed to set a flag to true based on the existence of value in a  node. Normally this is  easy but in this case that node happens to be in a repeatable group node which can occur n number of times where n is unknown .

It would be a mapping nightmare or a custom Xml manipulation if not for XSLT

<xsl:for-each select="//*[local-name()='Receive' and namespace-uri()='http://Idoc/3/DEBMAS06//700/Receive']/*[local-name()='idocData' and namespace-uri()='http://Idoc/3/DEBMAS06//700/Receive']/*[local-name()='E2KNA1M005GRP' and namespace-uri()='http://Idoc/3/DEBMAS06//700']/*[local-name()='E2KNVVM007GRP' and namespace-uri()='http://Idoc/3/DEBMAS06//700']/*[local-name()='E2KNVPM002' and namespace-uri()='http://Idoc/3/DEBMAS06//700']/*[local-name()='PARVW' and namespace-uri()='http://Idoc/3/DEBMAS06//700']">

<xsl:variable name="nodeType"><xsl:value-of select="."/></xsl:variable>
<xsl:if test="$nodeType ='WE'">

<xsl:element name="shipToFlag">
Y
</xsl:element>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:for-each>

Visual Studio 2010

There are some cool channel 9 videos on Visual Studio 2010 out there .
Check them here here

BizTalk and Dublin

Where is Biztalk going Post OSLO , Have heard this being talked about in many forums lot of FUD out there .

For all those I say read Charles Youngs post on Biztalk and Dublin. Highly recommended read .