Customer Reviews

Foundations of BizTalk Server 2006 (Expert's Voice)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When I was between projects I attented a BizTalk 2006 deep dive (a week long) training session. The training session was for intermediate to advanced users. I had no experience with BizTalk. Before the class I got this book on the weekend and did all the exercises in the book. 2 days were enough to go through this book and it gave me a solid understanding of BizTalk. The training session made so much sense to me because I read this book. Had I not read this book I would have not understood any of the training that assumed that everybody in the class know orchestrations well.
I highly recommend this as the first BizTalk book. This book will make you ready for the advanced level books.

If you don't know anything about BizTalk, this is a good starting point. The author's examples are clear, very easy to follow and, most importantly, they all work. But then again they're really simple and never go into anything complex. The book is also well organized: each new concept is introduced only at the point where it makes sense, and that's a very rare quality in programming books. If you are thrown into a BizTalk project without knowing anything about it this book will be a lifesaver, it will get you up to speed very quickly and I highly recommend it.

Be aware that the book is VERY elementary. If you've been "playing" with Biztalk for more than a month, you may already know more than half of the content. That of course depends on how fast you can learn a new tool. In my case, I started learning BizTalk by going over the Microsoft tutorials and reading a few blogs. Unfortunately, the tutorials only explain the how, not the why of things, and the blogs already assume you know the basics. A couple of weeks into this process this book was released and I ordered it with next day delivery, I was that desperate. I was able to go over the first half (about 120 pages) very quickly, as I already knew most of it (but I still worked the examples to make sure I had the concepts right). I found the material on the second half a lot more interesting, specially the chapters on Advanced Orchestrations and Business Rules, where the author did a great job explaining correlations, handling of failed messages and the mysterious Business Rule Engine. This is all good, but....

On the negative side (and the reason for the 3 star review), there is a very misleading statement on the back cover, where the author writes: "If you are like most developers, you enjoy learning by getting knee-deep in code and making things happen. And this book is geared for that style of instruction...". Imagine my disappointment when I opened the book and found that the number of "code pages" was exactly....zero. Yes, you read that right. No code at all, all the examples consists of creating an xml file or two (that's NOT code) and clicking through Visual Studio and some Biztalk utilities to set up and test toy applications. It's not like including some code would have made the book a lot more complicated, it's just too bad the author decided to stay clear of the one topic where the BizTalk documentation is severely lacking.

There isn't a lot of BizTalk 2006 litarature out there for beginners, this is the one to start with. I attended the MS BizTalk 2006 seminar as well, and still had no clue how it works. We were rushed through the labs with only a little time. Granted, you need to know XML (at least a little), SQL doesn't hurt, Web Services, SOAP, VB or C#...
This book opened my eyes and made me understand BizTalk a lot better. Don't look at the other BizTalk books without reading this one first if you are new to BizTalk 2006.

While a good overview of BizTalk, it does not provide the necessary detail to use much of the functionality. If you are already familiar with BizTalk and want a book to help you create working solutions, pick up a more advanced book.

I bought this book because my company cancelled my place on a BT2006 training class. Within a week I'd completed the book and the exercises and was feeling confident that I could tackle a simple BT project, but more importantly I also felt that I was adequately familiar with the core components of the product to further my knowledge using the available web resources and the Pro version of this book.

The book is well written, so reading it isn't a chore and whilst it's short, it delivers exactly what you need - the why and how of the major BizTalk components.

Thoroughly recommended for anyone that needs to get into BizTalk 2006 quickly.

This book does a good job of introducing the complete BizTalk novice to a number of the features and technologies that make up the BTS2006 platform. The examples are quite simplified but easy to follow. If you are new to BTS as I am, this will help to get you acquainted with many of the parts that make up BTS and simple BTS solutions. It doesn't go in depth into any one technology really, but then again, that wasn't the author's purpose.

I LOVE this short and lightweight book. It always keeps your interest and manages to provide a good overview of all the different parts of BizTalk. And this is very important, because BizTalk can be very confusing at first (with all of its different abstraction levels, tools, and different scenarios it can be used for). It will raise your confidence in BizTalk Server 2006 knowledge and help you on your road of becoming a BizTalk developer.

All the major and important parts of BizTalk are explained one chapter at a time. Everything is explained deep enough to give you a good feel for what BizTalk is capable of without being a boring reference that would just slow you down learning BizTalk. Simple examples demonstrate a particular topic and are very helpful in deepening your experience and give you a real feel for working with BizTalk. They are very easy to read or recreate by yourself without taking too much time or effort.

I believe that this is the perfect first book for anyone who wants to become a BizTalk developer. But you will still need a more detailed book in addition to this one. But by then you will know how it all makes sense and what specific information you are looking for to solve your particular task.

I did it all backwards by first suffering reading through BizTalk Server 2004 Unleashed last year before this book was released.

Some of the reviews below concerned me and I thought I'd weigh in with my opinion. I'm giving this book 5 stars because I think it is perfect for someone that has not worked with BizTalk or just starting out and needs to understand how the parts work together. BizTalk is a complex product. I've taught BizTalk as a formal class for many years and through multiple versions since its release in 2000. The installation and configuration are not trivial and you will find whitepapers on MSDN with details for single and multi-box installs. I think Daniel did a great job explaining the fundamentals without veering into confusing territory for an introductory book. To become an expert at anything, I believe you have to have a very firm grasp of fundamental concepts and understand where things fit in the big picture. This is a very good starting point.

Mark Dunn, Visual Basic MVP, Microsoft Regional Director, DUNN Training and Consulting, Inc.

BizTalk is an application that has a lot of buzz words associated with it: map, pipeline, functoid, schema, orchestration, and so on. For a confused newbie, it can be overwhelming.

"Foundations of BizTalk Server 2006" does quite a good job of explaining the terms, and showing you in simple examples how each component of the product can be used. I read through the book from beginning to end, without working any of the examples. By the time I was finished, I felt that I had a pretty good handle on maps and functoids and pipelines and orchestrations.

Then I went back to actually do the tutorials. It was at this point that I began to see that there is a subtle problem with the book. The tutorials follow the "do this, now do this, now do this. See, it works!" format that is common to a lot of training manuals (and a lot of training classes). The instructions are broken down into simple steps, there are a lot of screen shots to help you along, and if you follow the instructions step-by-step, you can't fail.

That's the problem. I had done about four chapters' worth of exercises when one of them didn't work the way it was supposed to. I started to troubleshoot the problem but it quickly became apparent that I didn't know where to begin. I found myself saying, "You know, I don't really know what I'm doing, or why I'm doing it."

The job of a book like this one, as I see it, is to explain to the newbie how a particular system works. This usually involves a combination of theory -- "this is the idea behind this part of the system" -- and practice -- "okay, now try it yourself, and see what you've learned." This book is chock-full of practice, but very skimpy on theory. You're told >what< to do in great detail, but not much attention is given to >why< you're doing it. It all goes along very smoothly until, as I did, you get to the point where something doesn't work the way it says it should in the book. Then you're stuck.

So, buy this book if you're looking for a quick overview of BizTalk Server 2006 and what the buzz words mean. But if you want a good understanding of the application, such as you might need in order to get, or hang onto, a job, I would recommend looking elsewhere.

Ah, BizTalk Server.... one of those Microsoft products that, watched from afar, always appeared so frighteningly towering. Training to climb Mount Everest would probably be a less strenuous endeavour. My previous experience with it was just the 2002 version's installation procedure, and that totally left me perceiving it like learning diving in the open sea - going about alone can get pretty scary without the instruction and guidance of a master diver. It quickly became one of those "if I ever have too much free time" items that I never acted upon for years.

Now the situation is different. Now it has become my job to learn the latest incarnation of 2006 R2 and use its capabilities to demonstrate its worth in a lucrative government POC. Now, I need to learn it _fast_. I needed to climb Mount Everest before the season closes. How does one get familiar and comfortable with the concepts of this monstrous product? In fact, I never truly understood what BizTalk does exactly. I am one of those who cannot absorb useful information from vague marketing overviews; I needed someone experienced to talk me through to using its features. That someone is Daniel Woolston.

This author has managed to compress most of BizTalk Server's core concepts and features into 14 chapters, spanning a mere 262 pages. Using concise language and short practicals, he takes apprehensive beginners (e.g. me) through an eye-opening tour of BizTalk Server. Taking things a step at a time, the practicals continuously build on previous experience and incrementally introducing more features to accomplish more and more feats. Daniel Woolston's style of tutelage quickly demystifies BizTalk Server operations and reveals that getting into it is not quite as insurmountable as it seems from the outside. On completing the last chapter I felt that grasping the foundations of BizTalk Server was definitely not a lofty goal of this book.

But of course, the key word of this book is really just "foundations". Daniel Woolston has targetted this material at newbies, sticking with the simplest of demonstrations. He does not even teach the usage of other adapters for Receiving and Sending; only the File-based adapter is demonstrated. It certainly is debatable; keeping practicals simple enables speedy progress, no doubt; but at the same time I cannot help but feel "we're done already? how about this, how about that..." as I paced through the chapters.

If you ever wanted to learn anything deep, or even just intermediate, about BizTalk, you will be left with _many_ unanswered questions. You would then be reminded on several pages to refer to [Pro BizTalk 2006] for that. If you want a quick _introductory_functional_ tour of BizTalk Server, however, look no further and grab this book.

Overall rating: 8/10
Good - Lightning fast practicals; concepts quick and easy to follow
Bad - Purely beginner basics; only File-based inputs and outputs