I hope you all had a great Star Wars day, May the 4th be with you. b.

The BizTalk Server Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007 is a management pack for discovery and monitoring of BizTalk Server components and applications. This new management pack includes monitoring for most of the new R2 Features Suspended Message Alerts Alert Suppression Policy Native EDI BAM Technical …

Burley Kawasaki has just announced at the Microsoft Insight 2008 conference that in BizTalk 2006 R3 that Microsoft has Acquired from Covast some of their advanced B2B functionality specifically around new vertical industries ( details to come ) , this will be a no cost addition to BizTalk 2006 R3. b.

Matt Deacon (Microsoft) runs a significant set of Architecture events certainly in the UK. Over the last two days several of the Black Marble architects and seniors have been at the Microsoft Insight Conference 2008. There has been a great range of topics split roughly into Infrastructure , Solutions , SaaS and …

To coincide with the release of SQL Server 2008 Microsoft plans to release an updated version of BizTalk Server. The update will cover compatibility with Windows Server 2008, .NET Framework 3.5, Visual Studio 2008 , and SQL Server 2008. This allows BizTalk Server users to improve on: scalability for mission-critical …

Microsoft have made a series of training packs available for free for developers wanting to skill up to .NET 2.0 and Visual Studio. Sign up for the free training packs here when you have finished Microsoft will give you discounts on exams and further training. b.

I am sat in the departure lounge at Schipol (Amsterdam) waiting to head for the sunny north of England. I have had a great week at the MVP summit and best yet I already know I can go next year :) ( ray for all the April MVP's ). Seattle has provided us with what can only be described as "mixed" weather , High …

On Sunday I bumped into the Dalai Lama in my Hotel. When I say bumped into the Dalai Lama , I mean bumped into a solid wall of Seattle's finest motorcycle cops who were stood in front of the Dalai Lama. He obviously was sad that we did not have time for a chat but I had to head off with Rob Miles to get some food ( …

I am currently attending the Microsoft Connected Systems Divisions , Olso Software Design Review and I am looking at the future and it is so bright it hurts, not to mention the amazing talent in the room , Juval Lowy, Sam Gentile, Brian Loesgen, Brian Noyes, Michele Leroux Bustamante, Roman Kiss, Don Box, Chris …

I am attending a set of "Open Space" sessions, I think the idea of getting people together on like minded topics is great. But the "Philosophy of Open Space" suffers from the same problems of any other "Purist" self help/focus/delivery solutions i.e. it works great if the mediator is …