What a great event - BizTalk, BizTalk and more Biztalk.

It was great to see all those who attended and especially those from the user groups (Sydney, Brisbane and Melb)

I personally had a great day - the weather was great. It was sunny, it hailed and then in true fashion the sun was out again.

So this means that BizTalk 2006 R2 is now RTM - grab it from here

Scott (another BizTalk super hero) & I put together a great RFID Demo (I can say *great* being not too bias).

Come 2am the morning before the launch Scott & I were wondering 'was there going to be a demo?'. In true show style it all came off on the day :)
I'll blog about the demo shortly....it went down a treat

There were some great sessions (I wasn't able to get to them as I was a 'booth babe' for the day).

The thing that I was most impressed about on the day......was the amount of support from the Corp BizTalk team. Well done guys!!!
The team had been on the road launching R2 in 3 world wide locations (in Taipei they were treated almost like rock star status!).

We had Oliver Sharp (BizTalk PM) and major figures in his team - the guys were great and always willing to lend an ear. (Some of them were off surfing at Bondi the following day - that's the way it's done !! :)

In mentioning the team I can't fail to mention MR. RFID of MS - Anush Kumar. What a great genuine guy. He's always got a brilliant story to tell around Microsoft RFID Services. RFID, Integration, surfacing, WCF, BizTalk, BAM, TagEvent data - these are all words he uses. This is a huge Microsoft story - and what the RFID team has achieved it the last 3-4 years both on the hardware/software space is amazing. Standardising readers (c.f. ODBC and ODBC drivers) and providing momentum to standards bodies on various tags and their formats.

R2 here we come....time to update some VPCs.

I got an interesting piece of BizTalk trivia for you all from folks at Corp........

Factoid	Source
12 of the 15 largest Retailers in the World run Microsoft BizTalk	Elsevier Food International, September 2006 (sourced from PlanetRetail database)
5 of 10 largest Hotel Chains in the World with over 2 Million rooms use Microsoft BizTalk	Hotels Magazine, July 2007
6 of the 8 largest U.S. Pharmacuetical Companies use Microsoft BizTalk	Fortune 1000 by Industry, April 30, 2007
4 of the 5 largest U.S. Electronics Parts Manufacturers use Microsoft BizTalk	Fortune 1000 by Industry, April 30, 2007
9 of 10 largest U.S. Telecommunications Companies use Microsoft BizTalk	Fortune 1000 by Industry, April 30, 2007
9 of the 10 largest Aerospace and Defense Companies in the U.S. run Microsoft BizTalk	Fortune 1000 by Industry, April 30, 2007
5 of the 8 largest U.S. Chemical Companies run Microsoft BizTalk	Fortune 1000 by Industry, April 30, 2007
4 of the 5 largest Railroads in the U.S. run Microsoft BizTalk	Fortune 1000 by Industry, April 30, 2007
9 of the 10 largest Insurance Companies in the World run Microsoft BizTalk	Insurance Information Institute (from Fortune Global 500 data)
23 of 27 EU member governments use Microsoft BizTalk to provide more efficient government services	European Union web site

The only thing I say is ...... "What am I doing wrong" :)

Some information I got just recently is that MS will be locked down for during APEC.

So I guess......there's no user group there this week......

BUT......we've moved it

At the R2 Launch(14th Sept) we'll having a *special session* at the end of the day in Darling Harbour - with members of the product team.

See you there for a great Q&A Session with the Product team.
 

Some information I got just recently is that MS will be locked down for during APEC.

So I guess......there's no user group there this week......

BUT......we've moved it

At the R2 Launch we'll having a *special session* at the end of the day in Darling Harbour - with members of the product team.

 

The ever vibrant Andrew Coates pinged me an email yesterday asking for my involvement in becoming a TechTalk Blogger........

I'm currently on this Island called 'Hamilton' at a 'Partner' Conference (yeah right!!! :)) so naturally I said 'yes!' (not too many people are saying 'no' around here)

I've got some great stories around RFID, BizTalk R2 and obvious integration into WSS/MOSS and what that means.

Hope you're going to join me on a great journey together! Gotta dash the scuba diving boat is waiting for me... (erm...the next 'partner activity')

Mick. 

I'm currently kicking back at the partner conf. here on Hamilton Island - I have to kick myself to remind me that I am on a conference. Beautiful scenery and temperature....I'm sure you get the classic sunset palm tree over a beach image in your mind........no more need to be said.

What I did want to share - I'm currently listening to Ian Polangio (MS Sharepoint TS) where he brought up a couple of great (beta) Search sites.

1. http://mrsdewey.com/ - here's a talking person who acts and 'shows' parts of your search results.
(She has a bit of attitude to boot as well)
 

2. http://www.tafiti.com/ - silverlight based search site. Builds trees and it's quite interactive.
I did a search on my name 'Mick Badran' and some interesting results came up

Very interactive in Silverlight - lots of things spinning and moving and pinning

BizTalk 2006 R2 when installing the EDI/AS2 component (or when re-installing), sometimes there are some SSIS packages/jobs left that need to be manually deleted

My good mate Rahul has entered the world of blogging!!! and has blogged about this very issue and what he did to get around it.

Well done Rahul!!!!

Also I might add upon  a reinstall of BTS 2006/R2 sometimes there are the BAM Alerts notification service instance left over as well - that typically needs to be manually removed from within the Sql Workbench.

Enjoy

The other day I came across a great MSDN article that explains how to do this across all the BTS Services from SSO through to the rules engine.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa561505.aspx

The launch has been set and I couldn't have it better as the BizTalk World Wide launch is based in Sydney!!! Cool.

The Event is Free and would be a great chance for you to come on down and talk to members from the BizTalk Product Group that are flying over.

We'll all be there and looking forward to the event.

Remember that an upgrade path exists from 2004, 2006 and 2006 R2 B2 to the release of BTS.

Register here - R2 Event

What a great relase of a new WSS/MOSS SDK (couldn't have come at a better time for me .

In this latest release we have some goodies packed in to the SDK - the BDC Tool - which allows you to visually create a BDC Application Config file (.xml) that is based on both OLEDB/ODBC and Web Service data sources.

This was one of the major complaints from business when looking into the BDC (BDCMan did do a great job)

Sharepoint SDK Refresh (175MB!!)

BDC TOOL

Brief Summary of What's included (taken from the Sharepoint page above):
-ECM Start kit also included
-updated workflow samples
-SSO provider samples (to use SSO to access your own people stores)
-BDC Tool + further BDC samples (SAP, custom etc)
-Document Inspector custom sample
-Document Converter custom sample
...and the list goes on.....

either which way - this release is BIG!

Enjoy

Folks, I know we're all interested in the next and latest release of BizTalk R2.

The big question is - "What will happen to my existing setup?".

The answer is - "R2 has a 'Wizard based upgrade' that will upgrade from 2004/2006/2006R2 Beta 2".....so things going to plan all bases will be covered :)

We'll have to wait and see....