Getting Started with Microsoft Azure API Management

Just recently I presented “Getting Started with Microsoft Azure API Management” at TechFuse 2015 at the Minneapolis Convention Center.  Thanks to all those who attended!  For those who may just be interested, you may find my PowerPoint slides from the presentation here

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Code Campin’ on April 27!

On Saturday, April 27, I’ll be presenting “Developing a Messaging Solution with BizTalk 2013” at the University of Minnesota campus as part of Twin Cities Code Camp.  It’s always fun to attend and present in this venue.  If you’re in the Twin Cities that day, I’d highly recommend checking out mine and as many of the other presentations as you can.  And it’s FREE!

Here’s the abstract for my bit:

Service Oriented Architectures and Message-Based solutions have been a mainstay in enterprise development over the past few years. This session will show how to use Microsoft BizTalk Server 2013 to implement a messaging solution using service-oriented principles. Topics include an overview of Microsoft BizTalk Server, creating a schema, configuring the messaging solution, and what’s new with BizTalk 2013.

Be sure to check out a list of all the sessions on the schedule.  You can register here.  See you at Camp!

See You at TechFuse 2013!

I’ve been honored with the opportunity to present a session at TechFuse 2013.  I’ll be presenting “Getting Started with WCF 4.5“.

Here’s the abstract:

With the newly released Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) 4.5, Microsoft has done much to simplify the creation of services. In this session, we’ll show you how to create a service using WCF 4.5 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2012. Some of topics we’ll discuss are service oriented architecture (SOA) considerations, creating service and data contracts, hosting the service, consuming WCF services and an overview of some of the new features of WCF 4.5.

Thanks to Benchmark Learning for hosting such a great event.  If you’re in the Twin Cities and have the time, I hope to see you at the Minneapolis Convention Center on March 21!

http://www.benchmarklearning.com/Event/TechFuse/Default.aspx

Getting Started with WCF 4.5 – Twin Cities Code Camp

Saturday (Oct 6) I got to present  Getting Started with WCF 4.5 to a great group of coders at the Twin Cities Code Camp.  For those who attended the session, thank you so much for taking time out of your weekend to see our WCF presentation.  I hope it was valuable for you.

You can find the powerpoint slides, code, and a backup of the SQL Server 2012 database here.  Please feel free to leave questions or comments.

Book Review: BizTalk 2010 Recipes-A Problem-Solution Approach

BizTalk 2010 Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach by Mark Beckner is a great book for the BizTalk developer who would like a basic step-by-step instruction list or a reference book on how to perform most tasks in the BizTalk environment. BizTalk is a large and difficult product to learn and master and Beckner’s book provides a great resource for the beginning to intermediate level BizTalk developer to do just that.

The layout of the book is very straightforward. A standard BizTalk task is presented, step by step instructions are provided to complete the task and then an explanation of some of the major technical points is given. I found the first section of the book on the new features of BizTalk 2010 to be particularly useful and recommend it for any user of previous BizTalk versions to get up to speed.

Beckner writes in a very accessible style. The book is an incredibly easy read. The examples are appropriate and “real world” enough to be useful and the explanations are technically sound and understandable. It is also covers all the basic functionality within BizTalk–schemas, maps, orchestration, BRE, etc. as well as some of the less-used features such as EDI.

Although I really liked Beckner’s writing style and the step-by-step approach to performing BizTalk tasks, I felt that the book does in some ways falls short of the goal provided in the title. While I was looking for a resource for discussion and insight into solving more Business or Architectural oriented problems, I found the approach in BizTalk 2010 Recipes to be more of a run-down of BizTalk features and a description of how to use them.

That is a valuable service all in itself, and I highly recommend this book for that use. However, if you’re really looking for something to help with BizTalk “recipes” from a business problem or architectural patterns point of view, another book such as Seroter’s BizTalk SOA book might serve that purpose better.