I recently came across this great article that covers:

• Microsoft's internal BizTalk 04 - 06 upgrade
• discusses biztalk 32-bit vs 64-bit performance gains

Grab it here - http://www.microsoft.com/technet/itshowcase/content/biztlk06upgtwp.mspx
(dont forget to grab the 'technical whitepaper' download on the RHS)

Here's a snippet from the document

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Each of the 32-bit servers that ran BizTalk Server 2004 had a total processing power of 19,661 MIPS. Generally, the e*BIS group did not experience any performance or reliability issues with its BizTalk Server 2004 configuration. The 32-bit servers provided a robust and reliable platform upon which to run BizTalk Server 2004. One of the limitations that the group thought might affect its BizTalk Server environment is that in a 32-bit environment, a single process cannot consume more than 1.5 gigabytes (GB) of RAM. This limitation could cause problems in the future, as BizTalk Server hosts consume and process an increasing number of transactions within the same CPU cycle. This limitation does not exist in a 64-bit computing environment. Therefore, the group expected to achieve better throughput and better performance by running BizTalk Server 2006 on a 64-bit server. Because of the support for 64-bit computing that is included with BizTalk Server 2006, the group determined that it could not only consolidate all of its business feeds into a single BizTalk Server 2006 environment but also greatly reduce the overall number of servers in that environment.

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After upgrading a BTS 2006 B1 R2 vpc image to Win2003 R2 all was not good.

Services were not starting and erroring all over the place (worked fine before Win2003 R2) and they seemed to be centered around SQL.

So I thought I'd 're-apply' SQL 2005 SP1....and this fixed some of the problems....others still remained.

I was getting "Event ID 7000: Sql Server Integration Services did not start or respond to a control message in a timely fashion"

(I was also getting this with Analysis Services)

After much research here's the circumstances that cause the problem:

(1) machine running sql is not directly connect to the internet (data centers etc.) SSIS wants to go out to the internet to check the status of a certificate or two (crl.microsoft.com...) when it starts up.

(2) SQL 2005 SP1 applied.

Solution: There are alternatives but my good buddy AB came up trumps with Some SQL Hotfixes to apply 

(at the bottom of his article)

I'm on the road at the moment and when looking at the post SP1 SQL Hotfixes - the first one of a SQL Server 'hotfix' of 25MB scared my and my GPRS phone off :)

Thanks AB.

Direct link to HOTFIX HERE

I've been doing those 'getting round to it' things over the break and I had an interesting couple of questions with this exam.
I'm in the (never ending) process of updating my qualification to MCSD.NET 2.0...TS

The exam http://www.microsoft.com/learning/exams/70-553.mspx was pretty hard - 4 hours, 3 sections of around 30 questions each. Testing Web, Winforms and 'all other'.

A got a great question which went something like....
You drop an ASP.NET 2.0 Membership Control on to a web page....

The only problem with this question is - that there is NO ASP.NET 2.0 Membership control within normal ASP.NET 2.0. (not sure on 3.0)
There are however Membership Providers but no Membership Controls.

I did a quick search and bingo! Here's the control which I think was being referenced in the question
ASP.NET 2.0 Membership Control

Talk about upping the ante on exams

Off to do some more.... :)

Lee Graber (the man behind all things SQL and LOTS of other areas within Biztalk) has posted some great tips around the BTS Message box - interacting with and what's 'changeable'.

Check it out - thanks Lee (one for the bookmarks folks)

It's going around and a bit like a 'who dunnit' (sort of). In short - someone 'tags' you and you then have to reveal 5 things about yourself you normally wouldn't.

VSTS Guru Anthony Borton did me the honours and now I'm tagged. (thanks!)

So here goes:
1. I won $300 dollars when I was 15 on a radio competition for the longest toe(5.5cms) in Wollongong (where I grew up) - the comp. was on for the day and you had to go into the radio station for them to measure. My record stood from 10.30am onwards.

2. During my school holidays I used to sell Watermellons on Bondi beach in the mornings - had something going there.....

3. When I was 7 my dad dressed me up as a girl with a wig (we have a womens fashion shop in the family) etc. and took my sister and I to the local circus - as girls got in for free. (My therapist says I'm doing well now and nearly over it)

4. I'm left handed - "left handers are the only ones in their right mind" (something like that - I had a t-shirt when I was 5 with this. Yes using right handed scissors all your life is tough)

5. For my very last exam at Uni I studied for nearly 4 weeks for this last exam. Rode my push bike into the exam - panicked as the exam room was locked and no one else was there. I was 1hr early!! Got into the exam and during reading time didnt recognise one question (it was going to be tough I thought).

I discussed the exam with one of the supervisors only to be told that my lecturer in this subject stream DIDNT HAVE FINAL EXAMS!! We were assessed during the term.........I was back riding my bike again at 9.30am!

Now which island did my friends go to....

My five people I've decided to tag

1. David McGhee - great guy now with Microsoft with a passion for just about anything.
2. Chris Vidotto - Microsoft Technical Specialist - BizTalk. He's whooping me on xbox live at the moment.
3. Mark Daunt - fellow BizTalk/MOSS/SQL expert - found sleeping in some bizzar places.
4. Clayton James - Loving Sharepoint and being a MCT
5. Mark Burch - Biztalk Support Engineer, and co-founder of the Sydney BizTalk User Group.

Looking forward in seeing what you've got folks.

All full up, eaten several families out of house and home and we all slept under the tree waiting for Santa...early mornings.....:|

Best wishes and see you all in 2007 for an even better year!

Making some headway with this issue I'm experiencing.

I can now go into the BizTalk Application and configure most of the resources found within the Application. I've ventured into Microsoft.BizTalk.ApplicationDeployment.Engine.dll (found in the GAC) and was able to enumerate all the resources etc.

The only thing I havent been able to do is 'an update' to the resource properties (metadata).
I can re-add the resource and overwrite the existing ones, this time with the correct settings, but the problem here is that resources that have dependenies fail. e.g. schemas, maps....

For better of for worse right now I've located the two tables in the BizTalkMgmtDB and modified those directly - all looks good.

The interesting thing is I used %BTAD_InstallDir% extensively throughout the DestinationLocation.

Setting that at deploy time use:
msiexec /i <package.msi> /quiet /log <logfile> TARGETDIR=<your location>

Somewhere within the MSI Installer component within the Package - TARGETDIR=%BTAD_InstallDir%
(Even though all the documentation talks about %BTAD_InstallDir% being an environment variable)

using System;

class MyClassy<T, U>
    where T : class
    where U : struct
{
}

The where clause is used to specify constraints on the types that can be used as arguments for a type parameter defined in a generic declaration. For example, you can declare a generic class, MyGenericClass, such that the type parameter T implements the IComparable<T> interface:

public class MyGenericClass<T> where T:IComparable { }

I recently came across an interesting page - http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/BTS06CoreDocs/html/ea7038dc-4740-4c0a-b6a1-08bc22f42bc2.asp

That talks about what is allowed/not-allowed when consuming (and ultimately exposing) WebServices for use with BizTalk.

A handy reference - the interesting one is the 'Any' element not being allowed.
I suppose the alternative is to look at the BizTalk generated WSDL for WebServices that expose messages of Type XmlDocument and see what is in the actual WSDL.

Have fun - 6 more sleeps till Christmas!

Yay!