BrizTalk Events

Next Event - 27th August 2008, 5:30pm

This month it is back to mainstream BizTalk with a talk by special guest Rahul Garg from Microsoft. Rahul is set to enlighten us about Radio Frequency Identifiers:

What is RFID? What is Microsoft doing in this space? What’s the vision?
The Promise & the Pains
Industry Adoption
Real world scenarios with BizTalk RFID – case studies & discussions of what some real customers are doing with BizTalk RFID

Check out both Rahul's blog and Mick Badran's blog to find out how RFID will be a central feature of TechEd Australia in Sydney next month!

Last Event - 30th July 2008, 5:30pm

We wrapped up our series of presentations on the WAVE Launch products with a demonstration by Dean Robertson (Shared Information Solutions) of how server-side applications can take advantage of the new features within Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET 3.5 framework.

After that, we broke out the video camera and wound up with our final round of contestants for the Heroes Community Demo Competition, including a great demo of PowerShell and Windows Server 2008 by Ray Trattles.

26th Event - 25th June 2008, 5:30pm

We featured Microsoft's Application Platform Specialist Geoff Clarke in a discussion about Business Intelligence (BI). Geoff has been behind the scenes of BrizTalk for years, providing essential support for the group - it was high time we get him up in front for a change! In this session, Geoff gave an overview of the various Microsoft BI products and how they come together to deliver strategic, tactical and operational decisions. Those products include SQL Server, SharePoint, Excel and Performance Point Server.

25th Event - 28th May 2008, 5:30 pm

We continued our Heroes Happen Events with a marathon double-header! First up, Peter Fitzsimon from Microsoft gave us a fantastic presentation on Virtualisation Technologies, highlighting HyperV functionality and showing how to manage virtual servers in Windows Server 2008. After that, Clayton James from Systech demonstrated how to build document centric solutions on the Microsoft Office 2007 platform that took us through custom Office ribbon's, task panes, Outlook regions, Visual Studio workflows and LOB integration, teaching us how to leverage the end users platform using the developers platform in Visual Studio 2008. It's all about integration and collaboration!

24th Event - 30th April 2008, 5:30pm

The Launch WAVE 2008 topics continued with this presentation by Avanade's Steven van Bodegraven on Creating Messaging Systems using WCF and Visual Studio 2008. Steve's interesting demos of WCF sparked some lively discussion amongst the present members.

23rd Event - 2nd April 2008, 5:30pm

This session marked the first of a series of presentations centred around the Microsoft Launch 2008 products that BrizTalk is hosting this year. To kick things off, Ray Trattles of Renardisa Pty Ltd gave us a preview of Windows Server 2008. Following that, Marty Gnanananthan from Data#3 showed us some of the exciting new features built into Visual Studio 2008 including office client development, AJAX, Windows workflow and web application development.

Check out both Marty's & Ray's slides on the Resources page.

22nd Event - 07 February 2008, 5:30pm

Eddie Tse from Simient led a discussion on Microsoft Office SharePoint Services (MOSS) and how it integrates with BizTalk. This was followed by a demonstration of BizUnit by Dean Robertson, showing how it can manage and improve BizTalk unit testing.

21st Event - 30 January 2007, 5:30pm

Mark Daunt gave a terrific discourse on the RFID Services included in BizTalk Server 2006 R2, including a live demo using Phidget!

Check out Mark's slides on the Resources page.

read more...

20th Event - 28 November 2007, 5:30pm

A fun-filled end-of-year evening at Strike Bowling Bar, kicked off with two short presentations by Tim Goodsell and Adrian Royce and followed by snooker, tenpin bowling and drinks!

19th Event - 24 October 2007, 5:30pm

Michal Postula and Joseph Plant joined us from the MSDN User Group to tell us all about Windows Workflow Foundation, including how to use and what pitfalls to watch out for.

Check out Michal & Joseph's slides on the Resources page.

read more...

18th Event - 26 September 2007, 5:30pm

Nivesh Jaiswal again joined us with a stirring presentation centred around a real-life case study. Through a process and implementation of policies (rules) embedded in Microsoft Word documents to the Business Rules Engine (BRE), the business was able to provide the "Tick with no Click". Nivesh showed how the solution has transformed the business process and why it was worth investing in BizTalk.

17th Event - 29 August 2007, 5:30pm

Today's competitive business demands typically require High Availability architectures. But how do you achieve failover with an integration solution? With BizTalk's many diverse components (service hosts, adaptors, databases, etc), ensuring uninterrupted service can seem like a daunting task. Daniel Toomey and Patrick Hood helped to unravel the mystery by discussing some of the important considerations, whilst bringing to light some of their own experience in implementing a high availability integration architecture at a prominent government client.

Check out Dan & Patrick's slides on the Resources page.

read more...

16th Event - 27 June 2007, 5:30pm

The recent proliferation of Software as a Service (SaaS) introduces a new set of challenges for established integration servers like BizTalk Server. In this session, Nivesh Jaiswal from Data#3 explored architecture challenges and design considerations for integrating BizTalk Server with SaaS providers, demonstrating real integration scenarios involving leading SaaS providers such as Salesforce.com, and Amazon.com.

Check out Nivesh's slides on the Resources page.

15th Event - 02 May 2007, 5:30pm

Microsoft MVP Bill Chesnut demonstrated the BizTalk Server Pattern Wizard. Available for download at http://www.codeplex.com/PatternWizard, the BizTalk Pattern Wizard is an extensible tool to help you capture, share, and reuse your orchestration best practices. Bill showed us how the Wizard enables you to capture a best practice, turn it into a generalized and configurable pattern, and share that pattern with the rest of your team or the entire BizTalk community.

14th Event - 28 March 2007, 5:30pm

Mark Daunt followed up his previous lecture with a terrific presentation on the new Custom Adapter Framework that will be incorporated into the .NET 3.0 framework.

13th Event - 28 February 2007, 5:30pm

Well, maybe it was because this was our [unlucky] 13th session, but we had some unavoidable last minute cancellations that left us without two of our presenters.

However, Daniel Toomey and Patrick Hood saved the day by shedding some insight into a current integration project that will allow one agency to join a Whole-of-Government cross-agency network for sharing information and transactions. At the core of the system is MS BizTalk Server 2006 supported by a foundation which includes the MS Enterprise Library.

We hope to reschedule the other presenters again sometime in the near future.

12th Event - 07 February 2007, 5:30pm

To kick off 2007, local BizTalk guru Mark Daunt enlightened us about the new WCF adapters that will ship with R2, including:

WsHttp Adapter – provides the WS-* standards support over HTTP transport.
NetTcp Adapter – provides the WS-* standards support over TCP transport.
WCF-NetMsmq Adapter – provides queued messaging using MSMQ transport.

Mark demo'd the BizTalk R2 WCF Adapters using several distinct cases.

Watch for his follow-up session in a few months, covering the new adapter framework!

Check out Mark's slides on the Resources page.

read more...

11th Event - 29 November 2006, 5:30pm

A stray from our recent trend of technical topics, this session delved more into strategy, architecture, and how Microsoft technologies align with the Business Process Management (BPM) framework. It targeted Solution Architects, IT Managers, CIOs, Business Analysts, and Business Managers (50% of the talk will be business oriented).

Nivesh Jaiswail from Data#3 exploited the knowledge gained from his recent visit to Seattle by leading a discussion around the current use of BizTalk and how it should be used in order to deliver BPM solutions (i.e. how to architect real world BPM Solutions). In his talk he covered Organisation Maturity Model with regards to BPM and how it aligns with MS APIO, with an aim to help in understanding the value of investment in BPM technologies.

Check out Nivesh's slides on the Resources page.

read more...

10th Event - 25 October 2006, 5:30pm

"Orchestrations & Performance"

Orchestration performance seems a much neglected topic of discussion in the BizTalk world. This presentation by Marcus Rosen provided an overview of the orchestration engine's hydration/dehydration mechanism and forced persistence inside orchestrations (persistence points). The presentation gave a demonstration of minimising persistence in relation to performance using a simple orchestration demo and discussing alternatives to using orchestrations in the first place.

9th Event - 27 September 2006, 5:30pm

"Workflow'ing .NET and SharePoint Integration"

This month's meeting was another double-header, featuring presentations by:

Jey Srikantha from SourceCode (www.k2workflow.com), showing how the latest product offerings of K2.NET (including the upcoming release, code named BlackPearl) is making implementing and integrating workflow solutions exciting for .NET.
Alok Singh from SpecTeck demonstrating SharePoint Services integration with BizTalk using BizTalk 2006, InfoPath, Office 2003 and Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO).

Check out Jey's PowerPoint Presentation on the Resources page.
read more...

8th Event - 30 August 2006, 5:30pm

"BizTalk, DSML, & Workflow Patterns"

We had presentations by two of Brisbane's local BizTalk gurus:

Marcus Rosen from Data#3 talked about an Identity Migration Solution utilising BizTalk Server 2004 and DSML (Directory Service Markup Language) to interact with Active Directory.
Andrew Cox from Avanade discussed the topic of Workflow Patterns in BizTalk 2006

7th Event - 28 June 2006, 5:30pm

"BizTalk Best Practices Analyser"

Recently released, the BizTalk Best Practices Analyser is a great tool which allows you to ensure your BizTalk implementation is in line with global best practices. Microsoft Technology Specialist Paul Woods ran through the tool and illustrated how to use it.

In addition, Paul ran through what to expect from BizTalk Server 2006 R2, due for release in the first half of 2007.

Finally, BrizTalk coordinator Dan Toomey gave a project synopsis of the current BizTalk implementation at the Dept. of Justice and how it supports a critical interface with Queensland Police.

Check out Paul's PowerPoint Presentation on the Resources page.

6th Event - 31 May 2006, 5:30pm

"On-the-Fly Configuration in BizTalk"

Local BizTalk guru Mark Daunt from Data Cogs showed us how to build agile and configurable solutions using BRE, role links, and dynamic ports. These powerful features in BizTalk enable an application to adapt to dynamic rules and conditions without the cost of re-development.

5th Event - 19 April 2006, 5:30pm

"Creating Custom Adapters in BizTalk"

Perhaps our most exciting BrizTalk session yet, Mike Lipscombe (a senior BizTalk trainer/consultant from Sydney) showed us how easy it is to create custom BizTalk adapters. Mike walked us through the path of creating a simple adapter, and then extending it to afford more complex features. He demonstrated an example adapter he built for playing iTunes.

Check out Mike's PPT Presentation on the Resources page.

4th Event - 23 March 2006, 5:30pm

"BizTalk Projects in Brisbane"

Chris Hampson gave us some insight into his experience with the Dept. of Primary Industries and Fisheries, while Nivesh Jaiswal talked about his work with the National Heart Foundation. Finally, Amarjeet Sihota gave a brief summary of the gateway work he performed on the Access Queensland project. Despite some "hardware" issues, it was an informative evening for all.

3rd Event - 8 Feb 2006, 5:30pm

"What's New in BizTalk 2006"

With the long-awaited RTM of BizTalk Server 2006 on the horizon, Microsoft MVP Bill Chesnut (aka “BizTalk Bill”) gave us a well-timed expert presentation on all the new features of the new release, including the new management console, real-time BAM notification, support for Windows 64 bit, the 7-click easy upgrade process, and more.

Check out Bill's PPT Presentation on the Resources page.

2nd Event - 12 December 2005, 5:30pm

"Beneath BAM: Implementing BAM and the BAM API"

After an market update from Katie Macintosh and a few words on BPI from Paul Woods, Sydney's Microsoft MVP Mick Badran gave us a great presentation on what BAM is used for, how to implement BAM and allow your external processes (e.g. Web Services etc)

Our First Event - 20 July 2005, 5:30pm

"Integration Competency Centres"

What a great evening! A superb turnout - standing room only! We not only got to meet each other and hear about what’s happening with BizTalk in Brisbane and the rest of Australia, but also got to learn about the Integration Competency Centres that HP helps to build within organizations. Jason Grant gave us a great tip regarding a book about Enterprise Integration Patterns. And a few lucky folks went home with some prizes, thanks to Chris Vidotto!