“You are making my point!”

I did a little experiment today with the GlobalTrackingOption switch on BizTalk. If you don’t know what the GlobalTrackingOption is, where to find it, or how to turn it on or off, please read the documentation here.

In any case, I turn off the GlobalTrackingOption on my BizTalk VPC, and observe that my Orchestration Debugger and HAT stop collecting tracking data. Using SQL Profiler with filter set on BizTalkDTADb database as well as BAMPrimaryImport database, I can clearly see that turning on or off GlobaTrackingOption in the BizTalkMgmtDb database, adm_group table, has no impact on the operations on the BAMPrimaryImport database where BAM data is collected. When the option is turned off, for each milestone the timestamps are still being written to the database through BAM stored procedures. On the contrary, in the BizTalkDTADb database, the stored procedures are very busy being executed when the option is turned on, but they completely go silent when the bit is turned off. As consequence, there is no data you can retrieve through HAT or Orchestration Debugger.

The other interesting fact is that the performance counter BizTalk:TDDS is also completely unaffected by the GlobalTrackingOption. Evidently TDDS (Tracking Data Decode Service), aka BAM Event Bus Service does NOT take tracking database operations into consideration. It only concerns with the BAM events.

Dynamics GP (Great Plains) comes with a component called eConnect. It includes BizTalk adapters, schemas, samples and documentations. Check out Wade Wegner’s blog entry.

This is a bit dated, but still very useful. In case you didn’t know, BizTalk can process non-XML data format with no problem. Here is a post from Jon Flanders on how to process binary data inside of orchestration. Instead of using some Pipeline component magic like everyone else would’ve done, he introduced the custom formatter approach that takes your binary serialized object right into orchestration execution, and skips the costly XML serialization of .NET object. It is pretty cool. Check it out!

If you want to expose SAP data to your SharePoint portal, here is a new tool that you should consider adding to your weaponry: BizTalk Server WCF-based SAP Adapter. Check out my MSDN article on this subject. BizTalk Adapter Pack: Connecting LOB Systems (SAP) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.

The following command will move all PDF files in a directory and its sub-directories to a different location:

PS C:\Temp1\gci . –recurse –include *.pdf | move-item –dest c:\Temp2