BizTalk Server General - RE: If I have the possibility to go back in time, 3 months ago, what w

Author

RE: If I have the possibility to go back in time, 3 months ago, what w

Rajesh Sharma

2004-12-01, 5:51 pm

Dear Unknown,
I am working on BizTalk Server since BizTalk Server 2000 release and have
worked on real world complex applications. I find the product really good.
BizTalk Server 2004 is a major step forward and it takes it to the next
level. The whole EAI application development and deployment process becomes
very simple after you learn it, provided you use BizTalk Server the right
way. I don't agree with you on the performance and many of the other problems
you have raised in your post. I have deployed application on BizTalk 2002
that can really handle large volumes of messages very efficiently and the
server still very stable.
Your frustration is result of three things - Improper use of BizTalk Server,
poor documentation by Microsoft and the problems with some tools in BizTalk
Server 2004. If you design and architect your application right, most of your
complains with go away. Setting up a development environment with multiple
developers can be quite tricky but it can be done. You have to setup and
follow right development processes for few activities and others can be
automated. Coming to the help and the broken tools - help is getting better
as initially it was really annoying. I would say that on these two things, I
am equally frustrated as you are. But you have to realize that tools and
wizards are not the sole of the server. They are there to help you. The core
server is stable and powerful. I suggest my clients to write your own
webservice than to use the Web Publishing wizard. It is easy and quick and
gives you better control. It has many advantages and I would have suggested
that even if the wizard worked perfectly. I agree that the product is not in
great shape but let's not call it junk. Come on, you can't say that the
product is $%^#*Q# or it is +_++_)$)(_ because few wizards break in some
cases. It is a great EAI intiative and will mature in the best EAI Server in
the market soon. I can say that because I understand the complexity of the
product, the complexity of EAI problem and the complexity of market. I have
used BizTalk Server extensively and can compare it with other products in the
market. Use the right resource and right approach and you would want to go
back in time to use BizTalk Server for your other EAI projects where you
didn't use it!! I am glad you raised these points. Best of luck!!
"Unknown" wrote:

> Now it is too late, but if I had the chance to go back in time and to change something, the first thing that I would have done is not to use Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 in that project.
>
> I am sorry Microsoft, but that bloody product was never designed to be used in a real development environment.
>
> Did you ever tried to have 5 developers in 5 different computers developing for the same BizTalk project? And I don’t mean check in, check out, I mean real time development, installation, debugging, etc.
>
> To make it harder, try to use InfoPath and BizTalk ports published as web services for the input, output.
>
> I know, the Microsoft folks love to talk about in the web casts, but did any of them ever used it in a real world scenario?
>
> Not to talk about the database system, why there is an SQL adapter in BizTalk, what is it for? If I can’t use it for any real world solution?
>
> And what about the speed? It is killing me, the system is designed to run as slow as possible, the database adapter is designed to consume the CPU speed, the orchestration and messages are designed to consume the CPU speed, …. Etc.
>
> If I don’t like it, I can buy more processors, then instead of paying 7 or 8$ for a license, I must pay 25K$ for each CPU, about 200K$ for 2 servers, these server will be powerful as a laptop running as a server, with normal web services (with no BizT
alk).
>
> In the real tests the normal web services are running way faster than the BizTalk web services (that if you find a way to publish them either), and when I say faster I don’t mean 1 to 3, I mean 1 to 100, or even 100000000000000000000000 :-(
>
> The web publishing wizard is broken, and publishing a complicated orchestration require tons of scripts to make it work correctly :-(
>
> The bloody SSO service keeps losing its master secret key, and I must call the guy in infrastructure once weekly to fix those BizTalk problems.
>
> I tried so many different installations, more than 20 in 3 month period, and each of them had it’s own unique problems.
>
> Congratulations Microsoft, BizTalk 2004, is the most broken, nonsense, #$@%#$%#$% software you ever designed, the most complicated from a dev point of view too, for no reason, like it could been done way simpler, and way more easy to use.
>
> And that bloody service keeps crashing (yes the BizTalk one).
>
>
> If I can only go back in time, just 3 month back, if I can send a warning letter to my self, I would never had used it, ever, at least until BizTalk 2010
>
> I also realized that the best way to use BizTalk is not to user BizTalk, starting from tomorrow morning I will stop creating any new orchestrations, I am moving to components, and when I have all the components, I will just link them manually, and unins
tall BizTalk before the project goes live.
>
> Don’t understand me wrong, Microsoft VS.NET 2003 is the best development environments, Microsoft SQL Server 2000 is the best database ever designed, .NET and C# itself are the best development platforms ever, InfoPath 2003, and SharePoint v2 are good
but need more improvements; but Microsoft BizTalk 2004 does not deserve to use the name Microsoft in front of it.
>
>
> Don’t believe me, simple, hire 5 developers, give them the software, computers, network, and ask them to develop a software with InfoPath, SharePoint, BizTalk, SQL Server (for data store), give them a complicate task, not a simple one, a real world on
e, and record their actions for 3 months, imagine they are a dev group not from Microsoft. You will be surprised!