The CRM 4 and CRM 2011 Online services are now WCF based. For connecting to the WCF service de CRM SDK for 4.0 or CRM 2011 can be used for retrieving the schema’s which are needed.

You will find the schema’s in the directory \schemas\crmbiztalkintegration

Tou can also use Online Discovery for CRM 2011 Online, but this needs some futher knowledge.

Above solution is the most simple.

A collague of me, Magnus Ohlsson, at Capgemini wrote a blogpost how to use BizTalk and WIF. Great post! Points out that BizTalk needs a Claim Based injection so it can be coupled to Sharepoint 2010 and CRM2011 for passing identities throughtout the solutions.

Link to the blog

found a paper from Microsoft for a Solution Architect for getting the information they need for implemting of advising CRM 2011 to customers. Mainly self-study.

Link : https://partner.microsoft.com/us/40158359

Downside, the solution architecture part is not ready But enough other information for a good understading about CRM 2011

Ronald Lokers added a really nice post of handling excel files in a BizTalk Adapter

This week i enrolled for the IASA CITA-P certified architect program. Starting in may with the CITA-P Prep and a lot of pre-work for getting up 2 speed with the 5 pillars of IASA. I’m really excited to start with this program. Before this program started, i was already interested in hte Microsoft Certified Architect program. This has stopped a few months ago and Microsoft supports this certification now.

I wilk keep posting my findings for this certification and the path i will be taking.

Ok, just found out. There’s no State Machine in the first version of Workflow Foundation 4.  It has been announced since april but just found out

Use the following link to get the CTP, http://wf.codeplex.com/releases/view/43586

Some userfull links:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=bd94c260-b5e0-4d12-93ec-53567505e685&displaylang=en

When working software is not enough: death of an agile project.

 This session was about how at the end why projects will go wrong. How things will break your project when the customer will ask the project team to make business decisions. How decisions made by the client was hold accountable by team without involving the team.

 In other words, typical project problems what is encountered daily. But how to fix it J Think of time what is needed for meetings etc (this will cost you working on the project).

 Baselined: The client thought waterfall, project team went agile. The customer didn’t know what was happening and showed lesser involved. And then it went wrong.

 Active Directory Federation Services – How do they really work

 This session was about how to use ADFSv2. In this session in the beginning the concepts of federated identity was explained. After this the demo begin. The demo was about how to give a partner access to your SharePoint Server without having to know the users from the partner. You don’t want to import partner users in your own AD. So ADFSv2 is used.

And overall it works! Great Session.

 Cloud security: The practical meaning of security,  identity and access revealed

 One of the better, maybe well the best session of this week. In this session the different security issues around security from the cloud was discussed. Of course, it started with the normal Federated Identity talk, but that was short. The demo was great. First of all, the shown how easy it was to get someone’s password through the use of Fiddler. Next step was using identities with SharePoint server. But also the issues around ADFSv2 were shown. No bugs, but things that need the necessary attention for configuration.

 BizTalk Server, What is it, What’s new, What’s next

 Standard BizTalk session about what BizTalk is and what it does. Next was the ‘What’s new’ in BizTalk part. Like that the mapper,  is improved, FTPS an Trading Partners and off course the new dashboard. AppFabric Connect (beautiful J)

 Mainly I was here to see the part of ‘What’s next. ’ AppFabric will be the new Middle-Tier

Using Workflow and Windows Server AppFabric in your Applications

 The session started what WF4 is. Going into the new things, differences with version 3.5.
Some information why WF4 is in runtime, etc. Why WF, it is used for example for Human workflows, processing large files and background processing.

Ok normal presentation material and with Demo’s! And a good demo indeed. See link below.

 Disappointing is that WF4 isn’t ready. Statemachine is not in the current version, but will be in a later version. It can be downloaded from CodePlex. In other words, wait for the next version for the full experience.

 Next was Workflow services. This is what is getting interesting. WF with WCF as endpoints. And all in AppFabric J

 Demo had some nice features with VS2010 regarding to deployment. Demo source:  http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/WF4ContosoHR

 Future talk: AppFabric Server(very cool) ,AppFabric Container, AppFabric Management & Composition Tools

 Architecting Claims-Aware Applications

 Nice presentation about how to implement Federated Authentication. The presentation started with saying that the book ClaimBased Indentity from Patterns & Practices is a must read ( http://tinyurl.com/claimsguide ).

 After a short introduction, 5 scenario’s were shown how you could use Federated Authentication in different scenario’s. From an internal domain to, offcourse, the cloud.Good talk, good demo’s. See the online presentation when available!

Advanced Threat Detection and Removal with FEP2010

 Ok,  not a normal session for me. But more like an new eye-opener about this topic. Normally I only look at the application/solution architecture way of life. But security is becoming more important than ever. But this was not my piece of cookie.

 How frameworks can kill your projects, and how patterns can prevent you from getting killed

Session by Sander Hoogendoorn about what you have to keep in mind if you’re making decisions to use frameworks in your solution. It’s essential that you know what the pro’s and cons are of an framework before implementing it in your project. When not done correctly, you will be f……

 Windows Identity Foundation and Windows Azure for Developers

 Sort of the same presentation as yesterday, but now with the name developers at the end. Ok, after a few slides is was a big demo how WIF works with Windows Azure.

 The only difference with yesterday was that some code was shown how a developer can make a connection with a federated service. And how easily it is to connect to another authentication service.

 At last a part was shown how you can use more authentication methods as Facebook of Live to authenticate with a service.

SharePoint and Windows Server AppFabric: How to connect them

 Ok, I was really thrilled to get into this session. Thinking to see much how Appfabric could be used with SharePoint Server and what the possibilities are.But sadly the presentation had no extra’s for me. This is the first time that I saw a presentation of Jon that was a bad as this one. Hopefully the rest will be beter.

 And that was day 2…

The first day was a blast. Learnend and heart overall new things. So go to the MSTechEd site and download the presentatios and watch for yourself for optimal experience. Below i described the presentations which were on my agenda for today.

IT Pro view of Windows Azure

 The first session was an overall view how Azure will be implemented. Nice about this session was that the difference between the On-Premises and Cloud version was handled. Futher more the topics as Monitoring, Security where touched.

 BizTalk Server Performance: Configuring BizTalk Server for performance

 Good session how to optimize your BizTalk environment by using the Performance guidelines which can be found on the Microsoft Website. By using the Benchmark Wizard for BizTalk a good estimation can be made about how your BizTalk server performing. In the first test it was ok, but after implementing some Best Practice settings for getting higher performance, the overall test was much beter. So a further look at these best practice is absolutely recommended

 Developing SaaS Solutions with the Windows Azure Platform

 Not really impressive, not because of the presenter, but of the overlap of the different sessions that are held on the TechEd. But more from a Developer point of view, there was a session what can be done. Mainly it discussed the possibilities over the Azure platform.

 Cloud Computing – A Crash course for architects

 Ok, not being negative about the speaker, but Microsoft is telling over and over the same stories but with other sessions names and levels. From 200 up to 400, all the talks are te same. What’s the deal with that.

 But overall good presentation from an architect point of view. What the benefits of azure is and why too use it.

 Windows server AppFabric Caching: What it is and when should you use it?

 Talk by Jon Flanders. Looking at the first samples that where released this session was great.

Looking at Windows Server AppFabric caching.  But the most interesting was how it can be implemented for HTTP cache and local cache. And that in combination with Distributed cache, WOW.

 Best Practices for building High-performance web applications

 Interactive sessions. Great concept, but noisy hall since there are a total of 6 area’s/rooms where this is held.

 The idea was how to build performance web applications, but it was more a IE9 talk. But still heard some things like minify javascript, images sprites and a few handy programming tips for webapps. Afterall a nice session

The past 2 days i was attending SharePoint Connections 2o10 in the Hague. The whole congres was about SharePoint. Being a more integration minded person, this was a good experience what is possible with SharePoint. I Attended the following sessions: 

•  Creating a Rich Business Application with the Managed Client Object Models in SharePoint 2010
• Designing Governance: How Information Management and Security Must Drive Your Design
• Using the OSI Model for Securing Your SharePoint 2010
• Integrating SharePoint 2010 & Windows Azure
•  Remote Data Access in SharePoint 2010
• Incorporating Managed Metadata in Custom Solutions
• Developing a Custom Claims Provider
• Information Architecture and the Managed Metadata Service: A to Z
• Service Applications and Farm Topologies

 All good sessions with good speakers. Especially the session from Richard Taylor (OSI Model) was just brilliant

 Next stop : TechEd 2010 Berlin.