This book provides insight into how industry experts have successfully architected, developed, and maintained Microsoft BizTalk Server in mission-critical environments. Authored by highly-regarded consultants with a wealth of knowledge on designing, building, and operating enterprise applications using BizTalk, this comprehensive guide gives you the techniques and best practices you'll need to develop effective projects.

Darren Jefford is a Principal Consultant with the Microsoft UK Application Development Consulting (ADC) team who has extensive real-world experience with BizTalk Server and the broader Microsoft platform. Kevin B. Smith formerly worked as a Technical Lead Software Design Engineer for the BizTalk Server Product Team and helped ship three versions of BizTalk Server. Ewan Fairweather works as a Premier Field Engineer for Microsoft, providing onsite support to enterprise customers, including maintaining and optimizing their BizTalk Server solutions.

Achitects, developers, testers, and administrators will achieve instant success when they apply the deep technical information covered in this book. They will better appreciate the internal workings of BizTalk Server and will understand detailed solutions for challenges often experienced with BizTalk-based systems.

What you will learn from this book

* How the BizTalk Engine works and how to develop effective pipeline components
* How to develop BizTalk orchestrations that achieve maximum performance
* Methods for using Business Activity Monitoring within your solution for enterprise-wide instrumentation
* How to utilize the rules engine within your solutions to produce quality and reliability
* Techniques for conducting performance and scalability tests to identify bottlenecks
* Ways to minimize the latency of your solution to meet challenging low latency requirements
* How system administrators can proactively manage and maintain mission-critical BizTalk solutions
* Features for BizTalk Server 2006 R2, such as the BAM Interceptor for Windows® Workflow

Who this book is for: Architects, developers, testers, and administrators involved in the development of a BizTalk Server 2004 or 2006 solution.

Wrox Professional guides are planned and written by working programmers to meet the real-world needs of programmers, developers, and IT professionals. Focused and relevant, they address the issues technology professionals face every day. They provide examples, practical solutions, and expert education in new technologies, all designed to help programmers do a better job.