Product Description

Since Microsoft's release of BizTalk Server 2006, there is a serious need for more documentation on this product. Foundations of BizTalk Server 2006 fills that void. The book will take you from novice to professional, equipping you with the tools you'll need to get started in the world of BizTalk server integration. From installation to deployment, you will grow increasingly more comfortable with the product as you work through a multitude of hands-on examples and demo applications. This book will demystify the product and emphasize the new 2006 BizTalk Server features. So even if you're a reluctant reader at first, you'll gain full confidence in the product by book's end.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #143086 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 264 pages

About the Author
Daniel Woolston is the president and senior developer for
Integrated Coding of Grand Rapids, Michigan. His work efforts have ranged
from Fortune 500 enterprise application development to pattern-driven
project implementations on various corporate levels. He has years of
experience designing and distributing JavaScript/.NET components as well as
numerous VB/VB .NET/C# development projects. Daniel is the author of Pro
Ajax and the .NET 2.0 Platform and Foundations of BizTalk Server 2006, both
published by Apress.

Customer Reviews

Good hands-on introduction
On the back page the author states that the purpose of the book is to introduce you to the technology by example rather than by lecture. In this the book succeeds.
Having no previous knowledge of BizTalk 2006, and very little idea of what it could actually do, I picked up this book as my manager was talking about using BizTalk in a future project. It would be fair to say that having read this book I now have a feel for how it could be used, although I suspect that I've barely scratched the surface regarding the power of the product, or the difficulties that would be encountered on a real project.
The book is designed as a hands-on tutorial that the reader should work through whilst sitting at a PC with BizTalk installed. Unfortunately, my only chance to read books is during my commute, and the only PC I had was in my head. However, the steps are sufficiently well described and illustrated with screen shots, that I was able to follow along. It is likely that I would have got even more out of the book if I had actually carried out the various exercises, and I do plan to re-visit the book at a later date and actually try out some of the tutorials.
On the downside, it was clear that the author had attempted to deliberately keep the dependencies within the tutorials to an absolute minimum. This meant that each example was rather too simple for my tastes and did not do justice to the potential of BizTalk. For example, I would have liked to have seen examples connecting to web services. In particular, at one point he describes the exact scenario that I would be dealing with - receiving files via FTP. I was therefore hopeful that the example following would illustrate this scenario, but instead it was simplified to just pick up files from a directory on the C: drive, and move them to another directory. It illustrated important points, but was not very inspiring.
Throughout the book, the author makes it clear that the book is only an introduction, and constantly refers the reader to the follow-on book "Pro BizTalk 2006". Although sometimes annoying, this did serve to remind the reader that this book was only intended to introduce the subject, and that further reading must be undertaken before attempting to produce a real-world solution.

Great introduction to BizTalk
If you are a newbie into BizTalk development or just someone that wants to learn some more about what BizTalk 2006 is a how the basics works, then this is the book for you. If you allready know how to setup a recieve port, make a simple orchestration and use a send port, then this is not the book for you!

I started with very lillte knowledge about developing solutions in BizTalk, but after going through the book I felt much more "at home" in the product.

The language is easy to understand and best of all, the tutorials in the book works!! This means that all things that may be trival for a experienced developer i BizTalk is described.

The size of the book, makes it possible for you to work through the text and cases in about a week (if you read in the evening only).