BizTalk 2006 Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach [Paperback]

Mark Beckner (Author), Benjamin Goeltz (Author), Brandon Gross (Author), Brennan O'Reilly (Author), Stephen Roger (Author), Mark Smith (Author), Alexander West (Author)

Book Description

Series: A Problem-Solution Approach | Publication Date: September 22, 2006

BizTalk Server 2006 builds on the heritage and core architecture of BizTalk 2004 to provide a powerful tool that uses the latest Microsoft technologies and industry standards for automating and managing business processes.

BizTalk Server 2004 was a complete rewrite from its predecessor offering a much richer feature set, improved developer experience, as well as the ability to build and deploy scalable, enterprise solutions. BizTalk 2006 adds incremental value to BizTalk 2004 by improving administration, deployment, and other key areas of the product. Built upon .NET, this server product is Microsoft’s strategy to capture market share within the enterprise integration space, and is the fastest growing integration product. What this means is a doubling of previous market share for Microsoft, and the dramatic growth of BizTalk 2006 based integration architects, developers and administrators.

BizTalk 2006 Recipes is based on the experiences of many of the most prominent experts in the field.

Product Details

• Paperback: 560 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (September 22, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590597117
• ISBN-13: 978-1590597118
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #987,023 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for reference, great for learning BizTalk, October 4, 2006

By 

Philip Stevens "Media Monster" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: BizTalk 2006 Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (Paperback)

This is a piece of the review I wrote on my blog (putting the URL would be against the policies here so I'm leaving it out).

The book format: It is a recipe book so is written in a "Problem, Solution, How it works" style format with each chapter being given an introductory page or two preface. This book will be a great one to have around as a reference book, but I have to say that I also enjoyed reading it cover to cover (well almost... honestly I skimmed chapter 10, this chapter probably could have been done away with and the contents moved to other chapters).

The book is fairly comprehensive in covering BizTalk soup to nuts; there is a chapter on Schemas, one on Business Rules engine (more on this one later in the post), one on BAM and one talking about HAT. The writing styles of the various authors were not too apparent, but rather fairly subtle; sometimes in code samples they were apparent however; one chapter has code that uses both hungarian notation on variables, but also on function parameters. That should be done away with in this persnickety developers opinion. I have to say that from still fairly green knowledge of BizTalk, it appears that at least some of the authors have implemented a fair amount of BT solutions in their careers; to me this was evidenced by the "NOTE" sections that were lusciously littered throughout the text that included well thought out pitfulls and other tips to assist in your BizTalk solutions. In my opinion the one chapter that stuck out (and obviously I could be wrong) as one that wasn't written from experience but rather written from a "I just learned this" kind of perspective was the business rules engine chapter 5 (which ironically is available for free download from Apress).

Overall, I would give this book 3 tivo thumbs up, 4.5 stars out of 5 rating. Get this book if you need assistance with BizTalk 2006.

Other side notes, the authors created a blog site just for the book, but thus far only posted one comment and apparently aren't interested in doing much blogging, I'd love to see that change.

One other note I forgot to include; there was a couple spots that made reference to BizTalk 2004; one of the spots was more of a "if you are used to doing it this way, here is what you will have to do now" kind of reference; I found that appropriate; the other one was "here is how to do it in 2004 and here is how to do it in 2006". That one the book could do without. I don't recall where in the book they were; but for the authors knowledge it was the first 2004 reference in the book that could go and the 2nd one could stay :) I gave them the full 5 stars since they are first to market; I think 4.5 stars would be an appropriate rating on this book. Great job to the authors!

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BizTalk 2006 Recipes....Thank you!, September 25, 2006

By 

Jack H. Blalock (Redmond, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: BizTalk 2006 Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (Paperback)

Hats off to an excellent Biztalk Server 2006 reference! After many books that seem to rehash documentation, this book offers a fresher approach of giving BizTalk developers and admins a way to complete certain needed tasks without having to pour through mind-numbing chapters and still not find a solution to a needed problem.

Having worked in Product Support Services (PSS) for BizTalk, and currently working on multiple internal BizTalk 2006 projects in the Microsoft IT group, I can testify that this is a much needed and long awaited book for the BizTalk world. The book is very readable for all levels of BizTalk designers and admins, and is extremely easy to follow and apply the recipes to common solution scenarios.

Each recipe has a standard template of Problem, Solution, and How It Works and does a good job of covering the new pieces of BizTalk such as MSI deployments and new integrated adapters as well as in-depth solutions to mapping, orchestrations, and schema editoring. This is also the first book I have read that gives good examples of how to use BAM and the Rules Engine, 2 topics that BizTalk users desperately search for in the printed world.

This book is a must have for any serious BizTalk user!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good how-to reference, BAM and BRE can be addressed more, February 17, 2007

By 

Michael Jang "Michael Jang" (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: BizTalk 2006 Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (Paperback)

Though this book covers basics, it is a good reference book to learn what some of the real world scenarios are and how to solve them.

However, if you assume this a 1-2-3 type "recipes", you may find challenges in following the instructions. To name a few, just try out Recipe 5-2 from the Sample Chapter of this book, I wonder how many people can get it working. You will also need good enough of background to jump right into some topics such as BRE and BAM, or you will be left with a lot of "Why" and "How" while reading some talk-through descriptions (Yes, you are reading right, not step 1-2-3 at all). "Related Activities" in Recipe 9-1 is one of many examples.

You may be questioning yourself and try to look for sample codes/project download from the publisher Apress official site. You will be very disappointed how many key subjects out there. This may be the nature of the BizTalk implementation, unlike other subjects such as C# coding sample which author can just zip and ship the sample codes out for download.

Overall, this book is fine. To me, it seems this book came out rush. More proof-reading can make this book better.