Sergio Del Piccolo

On March 4th of this year the Heroes Happen {Here} passed through Vancouver. The day proved to be quite interesting from a technical point of view with different tracks for different audiences. A few items I wanted to bring to your attention were:

1. Mohammed Akif led a great presentation on Implementing Service Oriented Architecture in your organization. He mentioned that he would post his slides when he got a chance. Let’s hope he does it soon. In the meantime, he has a recording about Service Orientation on his blog (No Spin Architecture) that is worth viewing.
2. It was good to see Richard Baumet as a SQL Server Expert at the event. The experts were answering questions posed to them by some of the attendees. Richard is the Vancouver PASS chapter leader. VanPASS have arranged for Donald Farmer to present this month (March 26th) on Predictive Analytics with SQL Server Analysis Services and Excel 2007 Data Mining Add-ins. Make sure that you attend the event if you can or view their live meeting.
3. Finally, I was amused to find a link to a comic section on the Heroes Happen {Here} site.
   - http://www.microsoft.com/canada/heroeshappenhere/cool-stuff/default.mspx
   - http://www.itdevcomics.com/
   Talk about stereotyping people working in the IT industry! Ok, I do like comics, but still - the nerve! My personal favourite reaction to this is a post by Justice Gray entitled Microsoft: Heroes Happen Here…well, fat and ugly heroes anyway.

Heroes Happen Here, VanPASS, Mohammed Akif, SOA, Service Orientation

By now I’m sure you’ve all seen the BizTalk 2006 R2 posters (if not, see the links section below). Jim Bowyer of Microsoft Canada showed me the dynamic web version of the Capabilities poster which has links to descriptions of each section. Jim wrote the section on the Business Rule Engine.

Post Update: As per Jim’s comment - the web poster was built by Jon Flanders using Silverlight - see his post on Interactive BizTalk Capabilities Poster. Great work - its especially handy since getting a poster has proven difficult for a lot of people that I have spoken to.

Links:
BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Capabilities Web Poster
BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Capabilities Poster
BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Runtime Architecture Poster
BizTalk Server 2006 Legacy Modernization with HIS 2006 Poster

Jon Flanders’ Blog

Micosoft, BizTalk, Jim Bowyer, Jon Flanders, Silverlight 

It has been a while since I’ve managed to post to my blog. My readers have been sending me emails and calling me to let me know that I have been lacking in this regard. Ok, so my wife has been letting me know - but she counts as a reader. My lack of blogging has been for good reason though - I got together with a few ex-colleagues (Jame Healy, Stephanie Hayes and Daniel Gocsman) to form Vancouver’s newest Management and Integration consulting firm. Avantage Partners (our web site will be finalized next month) hit the ground running on January 2nd of this year specializing in Business Integration, Business Insight and Performance Management. We have a number of programs aimed at solving problems many businesses face in our market. Currently I am working on a program around Partner Integrated Workflow. I will be publishing an article on this topic within the next month. Watch this space.

For more information, feel free to contact us here or on 877-OUR-AVANTAGE (877-687-2826).

Vancouver, Business, Integration, Consulting, Avantage Partners, Jame Healy