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No BizTalk Experience Required

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This is for .NET developers who are trying out Windows Workflow Foundation and want a server environment to host workflows. The idea is that you create a workflow model in Visual Studio using WCF constructs to specify messaging to and from the workflow. You run a tool which generates a matching BizTalk orchestration wrapper and you can deploy the workflow and the wrapper into BizTalk Server. Thus gaining lots of great xability features from BizTalk Server for your workflow.

Today we have released the BizTalk Server 2006 extensions for Windows Workflow Foundation (June CTP) SDK Sample. To try it out head to the Connect Site for this project, complete the survey, download the sample code and do the walk through.

Prerequisites for the walkthrough:

  1. To complete the walkthrough you should first have Visual Studio 2005 professional or greater installed.
  2. You also need BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Beta 2 which is available on it's own connect site here.
  3. SQL Server 2005 SP1 express or greater is also required and you can get that here.
  4. Lastly you'll need the BizTalk extensions for WF from Connect.

The walkthrough will take about an hour and it starts with a WF workflow model and steps you through how to run this workflow inside the BizTalk Server managed server environment. No BizTalk experience is required for the walkthrough.

This is just a CTP of an SDK Sample so it's certainly unsupported at this time. We have lots of ideas for making the tool easier to use and easier to access from within Visual Studio and we'll be working on this some more before the release of BizTalk Server 2006 R2. We'd really like to get your feedback as well and that's why this sample is up on a Connect site. It allows for bug and feature submissions and also requests a survey before you download.

Previously I posted about this and linked to a video of the solution here.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    June 27, 2007
    This is for .NET developers who are trying out Windows Workflow Foundation and want a server environment

  • Anonymous
    June 27, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    June 28, 2007
    If you are a .NET Developer and want to create workflows, but have no where to host them then this may

  • Anonymous
    June 28, 2007
    Very interesting, Paul. At U2U, we already haved decided to upgrade  our workflow foundation course with this technology next week (hosting in Sharepoint & in Biztalk)

  • Anonymous
    June 28, 2007
    Got to watch Jon Flanders' demo this sample today at the Microsoft office in LA - very cool - hosting

  • Anonymous
    June 28, 2007
    I have the good fortune of watching the author of this SDK (John Flanders' - blog here http://www.masteringbiztalk.com/blogs/jon/PermaLink,guid,01a499d4-9aa3-4902-bafd-fae03cb89d13.aspx) presenting a live demo of it today.  Living in LA does have it's advantages!

  • Anonymous
    June 28, 2007
    Before joining Microsoft, I did spend a fair amount of time in the BizTalk world, and to this day, it

  • Anonymous
    June 28, 2007
    Via Paul This is for .NET developers who are trying out Windows Workflow Foundation and want a server

  • Anonymous
    June 28, 2007
    Microsoft ESB Guidance 2006年10月微软发布的ESB Guidance CTP1，近日6月的CTP版本发表，更多的改进似乎是放在对Biztalk Server R2 的支持和最新的文档上面，其中比较引人注目的是比如基于Biztalk

  • Anonymous
    June 29, 2007
    TGIF!! I am super busy right now designing a multi-CPU/multi-threaded Parallel Calculation Engine and

  • Anonymous
    June 30, 2007
    This video shows how to use this sample to integrate BizTalk and WF today. From Paul Andrew's blog

  • Anonymous
    June 30, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    July 02, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    July 06, 2007
    Hi McGeeky, Yes the workflow model built using this sample has full integration with BizTalk dehydration. We actually have a custom persistence service for WF which persists to an Orchestration member variable. When the orchestration dehydrates it takes the WF persisteded state with it. Messaging is also aligned between WF and BizTalk Orchestraiton to facilitate the intrgration. Cheers, Paul

  • Anonymous
    July 22, 2007
    Seems like there's no shortage of new and exciting topics to stay up to date on! John Udel has just posted

  • Anonymous
    July 22, 2007
    Seems like there's no shortage of new and exciting topics to stay up to date on! John Udel has just

  • Anonymous
    July 23, 2007
    As we know WF and Biztalk are related and both have their strenghts and weaknesses: Windows Workflow

  • Anonymous
    July 23, 2007
    As we know WF and Biztalk are related and both have their strenghts and weaknesses: Windows Workflow

  • Anonymous
    July 24, 2007
    I have seen the new CTP (Community Technichal Preview) for the BizTalk Server 2006 extensions for Windows

  • Anonymous
    July 24, 2007
    Recent release: the BizTalk Server 2006 extensions for Windows Workflow Foundation (June CTP) SDK Sample

  • Anonymous
    July 31, 2007
    I am getting a Page Not Found on the Connect site, can someone please point me to the correct link?

  • Anonymous
    September 10, 2007
    I've been having some fun playing around with Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5, and wanted

  • Anonymous
    December 02, 2008
    TGIF!! I am super busy right now designing a multi-CPU/multi-threaded Parallel Calculation Engine and diving into the science of Parallel Computing. I'll have some links when I get a chance. Windows Workflow Tomas talks about Silver , the integration