Chapter 1, Configuring a Messaging Architecture, covers the core architecture of BizTalk, including publish/subscribe, context and content-based routing, Receive and Send Ports, and other administrative artifacts.

Chapter 2, Developing BizTalk Artifacts – Creating Schemas and Pipelines, covers creating rich and useful Schemas with restrictions and reusable types.

Chapter 3, Developing BizTalk Artifacts – Creating Maps, covers creating Maps and applying logic, such as conditional mapping, looping, scripting and external assemblies, and other map and Functoid logic.

Chapter 4, Developing BizTalk Artifacts – Creating Orchestrations, covers creating Orchestrations and working with messages, scopes, transactions, binding, correlation, and other shapes and processing logic.

Chapter 5, Testing, Debugging, and Exception Handling, covers handling exceptions in messaging and Orchestration scenarios and recovering from them using catch, compensation, and failed message routing.

Chapter 6, Deploying, Tracking, and Administrating a BizTalk Server 2010 Solution, covers performing administrative tasks, such as installing, configuring, tuning, deploying, maintaining, and troubleshooting BizTalk Server 2010 groups and solutions.

Chapter 7, Integrating Web Services and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Services, covers working with Web Services and WCF, exposing and consuming services, and applying custom configurations and behaviors.

Chapter 8, Implementing Extended Capabilities, covers using the additional features in BizTalk, such as Business Rules Engine (BRE), Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), and Business Activity Monitoring (BAM).

Chapter 9, Using Azure BizTalk Features, covers setting up and developing Windows Azure BizTalk Services (WABS) as well as using Windows Azure Virtual Machine Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) capability for BizTalk Server.

Chapter 10, Test-taking – Tips and Tricks, covers additional resources for learning tips, tricks, and strategies for preparing for and taking the certification.

Appendix A, Sample Certification Test Questions, contains additional sample certification questions to reinforce what you learned and provide training on the certification format.

Appendix B, Sample Certification Test Question – Answers, contains the answers and short explanations to the sample certification questions in Appendix A.

Appendix C, Testing Your Knowledge – Answers, contains the answers and short explanations to the questions in the Testing Your Knowledge section contained in each chapter.

This book comes with sample code to provide hands on and practical implementation of the theory provided in the book. In some cases, the code is meant to be viewed in Visual Studio, other times to be deployed to show the aspects of deployment, configuration, or runtime. For the second edition of the book, we have chosen to update all code samples to BizTalk Server 2013. All concepts and techniques shown are, however, equally usable for BizTalk Server 2010. To view, deploy, and run the code, the following requirements are needed:

The first edition of the book has sample code that works with BizTalk Server 2010 and Visual Studio 2010

This book is for anyone wanting to achieve the certification of Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS): Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010 by passing the 70-595: TS: Developing Business Process and Integration Solutions exam using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010 or a Microsoft Partner that wants to pass the Microsoft Partner Network Technical Assessment for Application Integration (BizTalk Server 2013) exam.

The target audience for this book is similar as for the exam. A typical reader is someone who works as a BizTalk developer today. You are familiar with the product and the technology in and around it, having had at least a year or so of exposure to developing BizTalk Server integration solutions primarily but perhaps not using all parts of the product.

Even senior BizTalk developers aiming to get certified will benefit from this book because of the refresh on important topics and targeted study that it provides.

This book is not for a beginner who wants to use it to learn the basics of BizTalk Server as it will start from a level and continue at a pace where you are assumed to be accustomed to those basics already.

The typical exam candidate listed on the certification web page suggests slightly more than the following message:

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "The state of a Receive Location is merely a flag inside the Receive Location table in the Management database of the BizTalk Group."

A block of code is set as follows:

<xs:schema xmlns="http://Chapter02_Example01.Schemas.SimplifiedCar" xmlns:b="http://schemas.microsoft.com/BizTalk/2003" targetNamespace="http://Chapter02_Example01.Schemas.SimplifiedCar" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <xs:element name="Car">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element name="RegistrationNo" type="xs:string" />
        <xs:element name="Make" type="xs:string" />
        <xs:element name="Model" type="xs:string" />
        <xs:element name="Color" type="xs:string" />
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
</xs:schema>

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

  <xs:annotation>
    <xs:appinfo>
      <b:schemaInfo is_envelope="yes" />
    </xs:appinfo>
    </xs:annotation>
    <xs:element name="ManufacturingReport">
    <xs:annotation>
    <xs:appinfo>
        <b:recordInfo body_XPath="/*[local-name()='ManufacturingReport' and namespace-uri()='http://Chapter02_Example03.Schemas.CarEnvelope']/*[local-name()='Cars' and namespace-uri()='']" />
      </xs:appinfo>
    </xs:annotation>

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

The 'RegistrationNo' element is invalid - The value 'RegistrationNo_0' is invalid according to its datatype 'String' - The Pattern constraint failed.
File 'Car02.xml' is not a valid instance of schema file 'Car02.xsd'.

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "The Group Hub window gives the user an overview of what is currently going on inside BizTalk".

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To send us general feedback, simply send an e-mail to <[email protected]>, and mention the book title via the subject of your message.

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