Rene Brauwers – Blog Archive

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Today Microsoft made the Logic Apps Integration Services Environment (ISE) available to the broader public by announcing its Public Preview!

Whilst ISE was in private preview I was able to battle test it and my initial findings proofed it to be resilient, reliable and above all performant. This of course is to be expected as the ISE environment is a completely isolated environment which uses dedicated storage and other resources and as such the days are gone of having to share an environment with a noisy neighbour 😊

Tips & Tricks: Cost savings using Logic Apps

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

We all love Logic Apps

Logic apps literally allows us to solve an integration challenge within minutes. This however does not prevent us from making unintentional expensive decisions when it comes to determining the total costs of running our solution.

The decisions which we, integration specialists as well as integration architects have to deal with no longer merely focus on implementing patterns, ensuring re-usability, allowing for scalability, ensuring resilience and rigidity, loos coupling and so on. The biggest challenge we are facing nowadays in my humble opinion consist of delivering awesome integration solutions whilst keeping the total operational costs within reason without sacrificing on quality

Integration Magic – End-to-End Scenario part 2

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In our previous post, I guided you through setting up a WCF service and protecting it using URL Authentication. Although a lengthy post you would have noticed that setting up url-authentication is actually quite simple and only involving a few steps.

Anyways, in this post we will be focusing on adding the integration magic, without adding a single line of custom code, using Azure Logic Apps.

The integration magic which we will be adding will take care of the following functionality within our end-to-end scenario.

No more excuses; protect your (Azure) Soap/rest API, ALWAYS! – End-to-End Scenario part 1

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Intro

you don't want to know, how many times I’ve encountered web apps / API’s which are publically accessible and as such don't use any form of authentication whatsoever. So please do me a favour. From now on please protect your APIs.

Azure really makes this easy, especially with the recent (preview) release of URL Authorization and having the Azure Active Directory management functionality available in the new portal.

This blogpost will detail an simple but effective end to end scenario in which we will be leveraging

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hey you, yes you! I reckon you ended up reading this blogpost due to the enticing title. Well awesome, now that I have your attention.

Like all things in nature, things evolve. Well they either evolve or get instinct. By sharing this post I hope you as an Integration Specialist want to evolve as well and don’t get extinct.

So how would you know if your existence as an Integration Specialist is not about to get obliviated from this world? Well keep on reading..

PowerShell issue: Account with name ‘True’ does not exist

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Whilst I was scripting out some azure deployment stuff, I suddenly was getting this error whenever I tried to invoke

Get-AzureSqlDatabaseServer or Get-AzureSqlDatabaseServerFirewallRule

Account with name ‘True’ does not exist

So I ended up looking at my different subscriptions and I noticed the following (see screenshot)

As you can see, 2 subscriptions contain the value True for DefaultAccount, so obviously this was causing the issue (as the account I was querying against was my Default one)

PowerApps– Are you ready to power UP?

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

I still remember when I first I heard Microsoft was working on Project Siena (which later became PowerApps), the first thing which popped up in my mind was Visual Studio Lightswitch, which allows us to easily create business applications. Anyways I am digressing J … I might blog about Lightswitch vs PowerApps in the near future, otherwise just attend the upcoming Global Azure Bootcamp in Sydney, and ask me in person.

Howto: Split a FlatFile into multiple files and ensure the files are grouped based on content from the source file using out of the box BizTalk functionality

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

First of all…

…a belated Happy New Year! I know it has been quiet on this blog for quiet some time, but I’ll clear this up in the near future once things are certain for a 100% ;-)

Well let’s get to it.

Recently a colleague of mine, André Ruiter @AndreRuiter67 , asked my view on a particular challenge involving flatfiles. This challenge in short consisted of:

How would one based on a flatfile output x files, where the files would contain grouped data based on a specific value in the original flatfile.

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

Microsoft released a new service to Azure, called API Management. This service was released on May the 12^th 2014.

Currently the Azure API Management is still in Preview, but already it enables us to easily create an API façade over a diverse set of currently available Azure services like Cloud Services, Mobile Services, Service bus as well as on premise web-services.

Instead of listing all the features and write an extensive introduction about Azure API Management I’d rather supply you with a few links which contains more information about the Azure API Management service:

Resolved issue: Sending message from Windows Azure BizTalk Services Bridge to another Bridge

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Next week I will be doing a talk on Windows Azure BizTalk Services with regards on how one can add BAM functionality. During this talk a demo will be the ‘Pièce de résistance’. this demo is based on an article I have written earlier and which can be found on TechNet. Well to cut to the chase… I would not be who I am if I would have not taken this article to the next level and while doing so I encountered a nice challenge.

How to: BizTalk Server 2013 Sysprep Development Image

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

So you want to sysprep your BizTalk Server 2013 Development Environment? Well this might just be your lucky day. This post will detail the steps required in order for you to create your sysprep BizTalk Server 2013 Development environment.

Update2! Due to several requests; I’ve created a zip file containing all required script files and a document highlighting the required steps in order to sysprep an BizTalk Server 2013 (Standalone) image. You can download it here

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

So you need a multi-server BizTalk Environment, and you want it automagically provisioned in one click?

What will you get?

A zip file with some powershell scripts which will perform the following tasks for you (all in one click) 🙂

1.Basic configured Virtual Network
    includes creation of an affinity group if not available
    includes creation of storage if not available
2. Configured Domain Controller
    includes Active Directory Installation
    includes BizTalk Service Accounts
    includes BizTalk Groups
3. Configured SQL Server joined to the domain
    includes firewall changes
    includes msdtc changes
    includes sql protocol changes
    ensures domain admin to be added to the sql-server sysadmin role
4. Fully Configured! BizTalk Server joined to the domain
    includes all BizTalk Features with exception of BAM Alerts
    includes firewall changes
    includes msdtc changes
    includes configuration of hosts / host instances and adding them to the adapters

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

So you want to send Toast-Notification to the Windows Azure Service Bus Notification Hub using BizTalk Server 2013?

Well here’s the bad news

You can’t use the SB-Messaging adapter. You might wonder why? The answer is quite simple: The SB-Messaging adapter (Microsoft.BizTalk.Adapter.ServiceBus.dll) contains a reference to the Microsoft.Servicebus.dll (1.8 version) and this version does not include the Notification Hub bits and pieces. This is of course not strange at all, as the Windows Azure Service Bus Notification Hubs functionality is currently still in preview and therefore not part of the 1.8 version.

How to: Store LinkedIn profile info in CRM2011 using BizTalk 2013 and Windows Azure Service Bus

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Note: Please be advised, this post most likely contains grammar mistakes I am sorry for that but I was in a hurry and wanted to share this with you all. Anyway; enjoy…

Once upon a time…

there was this BizTalk Integrator who was wondering how hard it would be to get LinkedIn profile information and store this in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011. He didn’t waste a lot of time and within no time he produced a diagram showing on a high level how he intended to tackle this issue.

BizTalk 2013 RTM – Installation and configuration issues I encountered and how to fix them

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

As most of you, I downloaded the final pieces of BizTalk Server 2013 as soon as it was available on MSDN. Once I downloaded it, I decided to setup a clean BizTalk 2013 Development Machine. This post will highlight the issues I encountered during installation and configuration and how I resolved them.

First of a brief highlight of my machine (Single-Server) configuration

Windows Server 2012
SQL Server 2013
One instance for BizTalk MessageBoxDb
One instance for all other BizTalk databases
Visual Studio 2012
BizTalk Server 2013
Server Memory 8GB
Disk Space 40Gb

Below the issues I encountered and how I resolved them.

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In my previous post I promised that my next blog post would be a follow up on the CRM2011 integration example.

Covering a rewrite of the CRM Workflow Component such that it incorporates functionality which uses the Windows Azure Service Bus Relay Services to send over the CRM data to BizTalk.

Well something kind of, came in between.. But no worries, I am still working on putting it all down in a blogpost and I hope to publish it pretty soon.

How to: Microsoft CRM 2011 Integration example (Part 2 – Get data out of CRM 2011)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

First things first, at this point in time I assume

you’ve read the previous post
downloaded and installed the CRM2011 SDK
have a working CRM2011 environment to your proposal.
you have an account for CRM2011 with sufficient rights (I’d recommend System Administrator)
have visual studio 2010 installed.
downloaded and extract my visual studio example solution

So you’ve met all the requirements mentioned above? Good; let’s get started.

Note: all code should be used for Demo/Test purposes only! I did not intent it to be Production Grade. So, if you decide to use it, don’t use it for Production Purposes!

Building your Custom Workflow Activity for CRM2011

Once you’ve downloaded and extracted my visual studio example solution, it is time to open it and fix some issues.

How to: Microsoft CRM 2011 Integration example (Part 1–Introduction)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Well it has been a while since my last post; however as I stated in my first post. “I’ll only try to blog whenever I have something which in my opinion adds value”, and well the topic I want to discuss today might just add that additional value.

Please note: This post will supply you with background information, the actual implementation of the solution will be covered in the next blog posts. However the sample files which are mentioned in this post can already be downloaded.

First-Look:Installing & Configuration of BizTalk Server 2010 on Windows 8 Developer Preview

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Last week during the BUILD conference a developer preview of Both Windows 8 and Windows Server 8 was released. Once released I’ve decided to give it a go and install and perform a basic configuration (without BAM / EDI) of BizTalk Server 2010 on Windows 8 (note: not Windows Server 8).

Below a list of issues I encountered and how to resolve these issues.

Prerequisites Obtain the Windows 8 developer preview build Obtain Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010 Ensure that you have a dedicated server available with SQL Server 2008R2. Hook up your Windows 8 to machine to your Active Directory (this way you can use your AD BizTalk service accounts etc.)

To read or not to read, BizTalk Server 2010 Patterns Book By Dan Rosanova, that’s the question.

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Disclaimer: Yes I am plugging a book ;-)

Almost every day new (technical) books are released and each and every day we as developers, administrators, architects, managers and/or mere mortals are burdened with the decision ‘to read or not to read’ a particular book.

Well as of this October we as BizTalk-ers will be facing one of the toughest decisions ever since the release of BizTalk Server 2006 (I simply love exaggerating it a bit) as PACKT publishing will be releasing Dan Rosanova’s book BizTalk Server 2010 Patterns

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In our previous post we’ve setup a Network Load Balancing solution for BizTalk Server 2010; this solution ensures that ‘Web Traffic’ is balanced between two dedicated BizTalk Servers.

Well one of the caveats of a software NLB solution is the fact that it’s main role is to balance network traffic to 2 or more servers and it will not check if the ‘Traffic Destination Service (endpoint)’ is available, it will only check that the NLB nodes (servers) are available.

Okay one more: Adding Network Load balancing to our High Availability Environment

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In the previous parts we set up our BizTalk High Availability environment; using an Active <-> Passive scenario. Well in this post I’ll describe how to extend our High Availability environment with NLB functionality. In order to so so we will need to add one additional server which will function as Network Load Balancer.

Our end result will be a mix between active <-> active and active <–> passive. Huh? You might think, well okay let me try to explain what I mean 🙂

Part 7 – BizTalk High Availability Server Environment –BizTalk 2010 Installation, Configuration and Clustering

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

So, finally we’ve reached the part in which we will actually install, configure and cluster BizTalk Server 2010. As mentioned in my previous posts; I assume you’ve followed all steps mentioned in the previous posts. Okay let’s get started!

Verify that MSDTC is configured

Before we can go ahead with the actual installation, we need to make sure that we’ve configured our MSDTC correctly. In order to do so we will need the following tool dtcping.exe, which can be downloaded here. Once you’ve downloaded dtcping, copy it over to all servers involved, in my case that would be

SQL001
SQL002
BTS001
BTS002

Time Saver Tip: Locally install dtcping.exe (it’s actually an self-extracting archive) and copy only the dtcping.exe application to your servers

Next we will start pinging all servers, and we will do this using the following matrix

Main Server	Partner DTC Server
BTS001	SQL001	Ensure that BizTalk node one is Active and SQL node one is Active
BTS001	SQL002	Ensure that BizTalk node one is Active and SQL node two is Active (perform a failover)
BTS002	SQL002	Ensure that BizTalk node two (perform a failover) is Active and SQL node one is Active
BTS002	SQL001	Ensure that BizTalk node one is Active and SQL node two is Active (perform a failover)

BTS001 vs SQL001

Logon to your main BizTalk node (in my case BTS001) and open the ‘Failover Cluster Manager’ do this by going to start and in the search box type ‘Failover Cluster Manager’ then hit ‘enter’

Ensure that your main BizTalk node is currently the owner

Part 6: BizTalk High Availability Server Environment–BizTalk 2010 Failover Cluster Creation

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Part 5 covered setting up our SQL-Server Cluster, so now it’s time to do the same but this time for our BizTalk 2010 Server environment.

Once again this post assumes you’ve followed all steps mentioned in the previous posts. All right let’s get on with it

Please note the following with regards to MSMQ: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc730960.aspx

In case you’ve already installed the MSMQ feature as instructed in part 4, please uninstall the MSMQ feature and then apply the AD modifications as mentioned here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc730960.aspx . . Once done, add the MSMQ feature again as mentioned in part 4. Sorry for the inconvenience, but this part was unintended left out in the original part 4 (The current version of Part 4 has been updated)

Part 5: BizTalk High Availability Server Environment – SQL Server 2008r2 Failover Cluster

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In Part 4 we’ve prepped our SQL & BizTalk Servers so that they can be used as a basis for setting up our actual Failover Clusters.

This post will assume that you’ve followed all steps as mentioned in Part 1 through 4. Well let’s get started with installing and configuring our SQL Server 2008 R2 Cluster

Installing SQL Server 2008 R2

One of the most crucial parts when installing SQL Server in combination with BizTalk, is to ensure that you’ve made the proper firewall configurations and at least configured the local Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator.

Part 4: BizTalk High Availability Server Environment – Prepping our SQL & BizTalk Failover Clusters

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In our previous posts we’ve set up our Domain controller. This post will focus on prepping our other Servers which will be used and include:

BizTalk Failover Servers
SQL Server Failover Servers
File Server

This posts will assume that you’ve already pre-installed 5 servers with Windows Server 2008R2, named your servers, assigned Fixed IP’s and hooked them up to your Domain.

Please be aware; this is a long blog-post; read it carefully and I recommend to follow the steps in the order as mentioned.

Part 3: BizTalk High Availability Server Environment – SQL & BizTalk Active Directory Accounts

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In our previous part we’ve installed our Domain Controller and not to say the least one of the most vital servers within our to set up Server Environment.

This post will mainly focus on setting up the Active Directory Accounts which will be used throughout the other upcoming parts.

So let’s get started.

Planning security groups, user accounts and service accounts

Like every installation and configuration it is essential to have an overview of the things you would like to accomplish before implementing them, well the same rules apply here; therefore below an overview of the required Security groups, user accounts and service accounts.

Security Groups

BizTalk Application Users

BizTalk Isolated Host Users
BizTalk Server Administrators
BizTalk Server B2B Operators
BizTalk Server Operators
BizTalk Bam Portal Users
SSO Administrators
SSO Affiliate Administrators
IIS_IUSRS

Service Accounts

srvc-bts-trusted_{[Service account used to run BizTalk Isolated host instance (HTTP/SOAP)]}
srvc-bts-untrusted _{[Service account used to run BizTalk In-Process host instance which access In-Process BizTalk host instance (BTNTSVC)]}
srvc-bts-sso _{[Service account used to run Enterprise Single Sign-On Service which accesses the SSO database]}
srvc-bts-rule-engine _{[Service account used to run Rule Engine Update Service which receives notifications to deployment/undeployment policies from the Rule engine database]}
srvc-bts-bam-ns _{[Service account used to run BAM Notification Services which accesses the BAM databases]}
srvc-bts-bam-ap _{[Application pool account for BAMAppPool which hosts BAM Portal Web site]}
srvc-sql-agent
srvc-sql-engine
srvc-sql-analysis
srvc-sql-reporting
srvc-sql-integration

User Accounts

usr-bts-install
usr-bts-bam
usr-bts-admin
usr-bts-operator
usr-bts-b2b-operator
usr-bts-sso-admin
usr-bts-sso-affiliate

Accounts – Security Group mapping

BizTalk Application Users

Contains service accounts for the BizTalk In-Process host instance in the host that the BizTalk Host Group is designated for.

Accounts

srvc-bts-untrusted

BizTalk Isolated Host Users

Contains service accounts for the BizTalk Isolated host instance in the host that the Isolated BizTalk Host Group is designated for.

Accounts

srvc-bts-trusted

BizTalk Server Administrators

Contains users/groups that need to be able to configure and administer BizTalk Server.

Accounts

Domain Admin
usr-bts-admin

BizTalk Server B2B Operators

Contains user/groups that will perform all party management operations

Accounts

Domain Admin
usr-bts-b2b-operator

BizTalk Server Operators

Contains user/groups that will monitor solutions.

Accounts

Domain Admin
usr-bts-operator

BizTalk Bam Portal Users

Everyone group is used for this role by default.

Accounts

Domain Users

SSO Administrators

Contains service accounts for Enterprise Single Sign-On service.

Contains users/groups that need to be able to configure and administer BizTalk Server and SSO service.

Part 2: BizTalk High Availability Server Environment–Domain Controller Installation

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Welcome to the second part of in s multi-series post with regards to the A-Z on how to setup a BizTalk Server 2010 High Availability scenario in a lab environment.

In this part we will start with an essential server installation being the basic installation of your Windows Server 2008 r2 Domain Controller, without this server you will not be able to setup your Multi-Server BizTalk High Availability Lab environment.

Part 1: BizTalk High Availability Server Environment – Preparations

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

FOREWORD

Welcome! Most likely you’ve googled, binged, yahoo-ed in an attempt to find some more information with regards on how to setup a BizTalk High Availability environment. Probably you have run into the same issue, being; not finding a complete walkthrough covering prepping, installing and configuring the complete environment which includes

The actual required servers
- Domain Controller
- File Server
- Clustered Servers for SQL
- Clustered Servers for BizTalk2010

Well this is your lucky day; during the next few weeks I’ll be posting a multi-part series covering just all of the above and more. However please be aware that the walkthrough I’ll be posting is intended for a Lab Environment and is not intended to be used one-on-one while setting up your Acceptance or Production environment. Although you will find that most of the walkthroughs will assist you with doing so. So let’s get started with the first Part!

Back into business

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Whenever you get into a position where you are blogging about a subject matter just because you have a blog; you actually know it is time to quit. Well exactly this happened with my previous blog, I simply did not have anything to add to the community as a result the blog posts where mediocre and of no real value (at least not to me).

But hey, you might think; why are you blogging now? Well simple I actually have something to share again, and what precisely you will discover over the next few weeks and months.

Link no longer available

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

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