Improving BizTalk Server throughput and identifying bottlenecks

An interesting Blog on how BizTalk performance can be examined.

Source: Improving BizTalk Server throughput and identifying bottlenecks « Integration Experts – Dipesh Avlani

BizTalk Training Resources

Where to start learning Biztalk?
First of all here's an interesting post that explains the way Biztalk works by Steef-Jan Wiggers.

A more detailed picture of the BizTalk architecture:

Or if you're interested in some more detailed Biztalk architecture posters:
http://www.biztalk247.com/posters.aspx

Here's another great reference, here you can find a list of tutorial video's, books, virtual labs, and more: http://sandroaspbiztalkblog.wordpress.com/2011/07/13/biztalk-training-resources-virtual-labs-tutorials-virtual-machine-and-more/

The future of BizTalk

Last couple of days the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference took place in Los Angeles. It appeared that there was some discussion on the future for Biztalk Server, but I couldn't figure out exactly what it was.

Today I found some Blogs which summarizes the presentation given by Microsoft’s Tony Meleg. It seems that BizTalk as product/brand name may go away after few years but the integration concepts are going to remain. As I understood, no new features would be released anymore, only some maintenance releases.

Presentation video: AP03 - The Future of Middleware and the BizTalk Roadmap
Presentation slides: Download Session Presentation

Summarizing blogs:

• Is BizTalk Server Going Away At Some Point? Yes. Dead? Nope. « Richard Seroter's Architecture Musings
• The Future of Middleware and the BizTalk Roadmap - Recap
• Microsoft BizTalk's future is cloudy (no pun intended)

Released: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 and SQL Server Denali CTP3

This week is packed with big announcements: Microsoft released SQL Server Code Name “Denali” Community Technology Preview 3 (CTP3) with breakthrough innovations that will help our customers to shape their Business Intelligence (BI) future; and Microsoft also released SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 with important improvements of our existing technologies.

Also PowerPivot for Microsoft Excel 2010 was updated as a separate download.

Source: Released: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 - Analysis Services and PowerPivot Team Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

Dependency service or group failed to start

I got following error when I tried to start the SQL Server service:

My SQL service is running on my domain user account, and this is the reason I got the error. To be able to run any services using a domain account, the Netlogon service must be started.
For some reason (I blame the windows updates that were installed) this services startup type was changed to Disabled. Reconfiguring the Netlogon service to automatic and start the service solved the problem.

info
Netlogon: Maintains a secure channel between this computer and the domain controller for authenticating users

Microsoft Lightswitch coming on July 26

Microsoft’s LightSwitch to Launch on July 26. This program will give developers a simpler and faster way to create high-quality business applications for the desktop and the cloud. LightSwitch is a new addition to the Visual Studio family.

I've already been playing with Lightswitch some time ago + I've seen the presentation on Techdays 2011 in Belgium. The new Visual Studio addition definitely has some promising features, and is easy to use. It could get quite handy for some (smaller) projects.

Lightswitch makes sure you'll get a working program fast with pre-configured screen templates, prewritten code and other reusable components to handle routine application tasks, along with helpful step-by-step guidance.

And afterwards you can of course customize it all in Visual Basic .NET or C#. To finalize, you can deploy to the desktop, browser, or cloud to share your application with others more easily without the cumbersome installation processes.

More info: Lightswitch, a developers tool, will launch on July 26
Videos and tutorials: http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/lightswitch

Free E-book: SQL Server Execution Plans

Execution plans show you what's going on behind the scenes in SQL Server. They can provide you with a wealth of information on how your queries are being executed by SQL Server, including:

Which indexes are getting used and where no indexes are being used at all.
How the data is being retrieved, and joined, from the tables defined in your query.
How aggregations in GROUP BY queries are put together.
The anticipated load, and the estimated cost, that all these operations place upon the system.
All this information makes the execution plan a fairly important tool in the tool belt of database administrator, database developers, report writers, developers, and pretty much anyone who writes TSQL to access data in a SQL Server database.

Download link: http://downloads.sqlservercentral.com/Books/dissecting_complete.pdf?utm_source=ssc&utm_medium=weblink&utm_content=Grant&utm_campaign=sqltoolbelt
Source: SQL Server Execution Plans - SQLServerCentral