BizTalk References ‘Gotch’yas

BizTalk Application References

Ever deployed something with biztalk, and got

Inner exception: Could not load file or assembly <assembly info> or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.

When you know you installed it to the gac? 

BizTalk Orchestration References

Or when you are developing in Visual Studio, update a reference library, and then try to access something you changed?  Only to see that it isn’t an even an option in the auto assist?

Solution 

Well i have found that VS Biztalk Solutions do not* update references after you change them. As a result when you deploy it uses old assembly info, and when you are auto-assiting it does not populate with the new assembly info.   A quick/easy, yet really annoying, way around this is to unload your BizTalk solution that contains your orchestrations, and then reload.

 

Once you have done this, redeploy, and restart the biztalk host instance, and VOLIA!  Error gone.

BizTalk BRE Custom Functions

Creating Custom Functions

The other day i was using BusinessRules Composer and i needed to do something simple.  I needed to concatenate two strings.  I looked at the out of the box Functions provided saw an add, threw it in there dragged over my xsd string elements and BOOM!

My object wasn’t numeric so i couldn’t add.  You would think* you could be able to add any primative type, but you can’t.  So what i decided to do was add a .NET class to do it for me.  So i did and i used the static method below to accomplish my goal

public static string concatenate(string a, string b){ return a + b; }

Pretty simple huh ?

So i built my C# class library deployed it to the GAC.

So you would thing i could switch over Business Rules Composer(BRC) and see my newly created assembly.  WRONG.  Everytime you make changes to your library and re install to GAC you have to restart BRC.  Which really stinks.

Anyways, once i restarted i simply dragged my concatinate function into my rule, and then the strings… no errors … time to test.

BRE Static Code Execution

Well i went to test it and nothing happened.. WT*! so after about 30 mins went by trying to debug, write to the event log, or even write to a file i decided it really wasn’t executing my code.  So with some research i found that BRE will not execute Static Code unless

Either assert an instance of the class into the working memory of the BRE or enable invoking static methods without requiring an object instance by setting the value of the following registry key to 1 or 2: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\BusinessRules\3.0\StaticSupport (DWORD)

So obviously the easiest is to flip a bit in the registry, BUT you really dont want other people having to muck with the registry to execute your code?   So i investigated what “assert an instance of the class” one. 

I was executing these rules in a BizTalkOrchestration and here is what you have to do to accomplish the assert.  What i found was basically any variable type passed to the .Execute call in the RulesEngine will end up being statically asserted.  Knowing this i created a variable in my orchestration of the .net class type that i want to be asserted.  I then went back and edited my call rules shape and added at the end of my parameter list the variable i just created.

 

Volia!  It worked and executed my code phew!.  Anywho i just wanted to share those nuggets with you because there is a major lack of documentation about BRE customizations.

 

 

Take care.

Microsoft vs Yahoo

There is a reason I put them in that order, because Microsoft can exist in the absence of Yahoo, unfortunately Yahoo cannot say the same. The great debate continues, with a new plot twist, can Icahn convince the share holders that the current board at Yahoo needs to be replaced? Before I go to far, let me give those who aren’t up to date with the current situation some background.

February 1, 2008: Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo

In a deal worth around 45 BILLION dollars, about $31/share MS offered to buy Yahoo. Prior to the announcement January 31 2008, Yahoo’s stock was worth $19.81/share, with a little simple math MS offered right around a 60% more than the current value of Yahoo’s stock.

SO why would they offer to buy?

MS envisions that a joint company would bring together two important synergies the advertising realm and, what I believe is really important to them, “innovation in user experiences such as video and mobile.” Two other synergies they site are combining talent, and reducing redundancies between the two companies. The latter two I believe are minor.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/feb08/02-01corpnewspr.mspx

So what happened? Ultimately the offer was not accepted, MS retracted the offer and decided that taking the offer to the share holders would not be a good idea.

Its all over right? No. MS has now said that if Icahn, a very powerful investor who is upset at the board for not accepting the deal,  is successful in his battle to convince the shareholders that they need a new board of directors then the talks could be back on. If Icahn submits his proxy the vote would occur during the shareholders meeting on August 1^st.

So what do I think ?

Yahoo is a fool to not accept this deal. Days before the deal was announced around Jan 28, a 4^th quarter earnings that had declined 23%!, and was going to cut 7% of its work force. 3 Days later MS offers a 60% premium on their stock, and they claim that they are undervaluing the value of their company! That is outrageous.

Both companies when compared to Google, are behind in the state of the art Online Marketplace. All of us can think back to the AOL, and Hotmail dominated web, and we all know now AOL is barely alive, and Gmail is now the goto for email.  They have a better user interface and are constantly adding new features.

Yahoo can cling to fame with its YahooJobs and it does have a better online platform then MS, but Google trumps search,  excels in advertising, and is growing in all other areas, and haven’t been around nearly as long.

Google has investing power, they have more money laying around then they know what to do with. The have developers sitting around thinking, how can we do this better, what do people want… MS can provide Yahoo with money for R&D. Which is exactly what they need to compete with Google.

It all comes down to the fact that if Yahoo or MS wants to compete with Google they need to combine synergies. Obviously MS can help (donate money) Yahoos advertising compete with Google. MS has a respectable Finance site which with a little yahoo spice could instantly set them mile ahead of Google’s finance site(which needs a lot of work, they just added a stock screener)

MS’s true vision is for integration with their OS.  I honestly think MS is looking toward integrating OS and other their technologies to an online platform. They want fully integrate their OS to the web, and need a better, more complete, platform.  With out a proper online framework they can not achieve their Windows anywhere dream.

They want to plug into more “social” network sites, they want to produce a more integrated Picture, Video, and Music online marketplace.

If you join MS and Yahoos online platform they will be much more powerful and after a lot of painful integration might stand a chance to be a thorn in Google’s side.

I think MS can survive without yahoo but they need to do something about their online platform.  Its weak, their os is advancing, and it is very user friendly, but they can not take the next step in computing OS’s until they have a proper online framework to build into.  Yahoo has the subject matter expertise to develop the framework MS needs.

Do i think Icahn will be successful ?  Maybe yea i took the high ground, but i think the large investors, would be interested because they have already seen the huge jump in the stock based on talks* about MS buying Yahoo.  I think the people still left to convince are the small town peeps.  The ones who fear big business, who fear MS, and who would be the ones to “say” they would jump ship but who probably wouldn’t do a thing if MS purchased Yahoo.

I am interested to hear some thoughts about this…. i wrote this blog up pretty quickly, so i am sure i will spark some debate.!