Kent Weare - (MCTS) Microsoft BizTalk Server (70-595) Certification and Assessment Guide

Johan Hedberg is based in Stockholm, Sweden, where he does consultancy, solution architecture, training, mentoring, speaking, and authoring. Johan has 15 years of experience architecting and developing enterprise-grade solutions based on Microsoft technologies. He works closely with Microsoft as a Virtual Technology Solution Professional (V-TSP) and with the community as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP), and is one of the founders of the BizTalk User Group Sweden. He blogs irregularly at http://blogical.se/blogs/johan and can be found as @JoHed on Twitter.

I would like to say thanks to the people at Microsoft for encouraging a second edition that would otherwise not have come to pass and to my fellow authors, Kent and Morten, for again sharing the work. A special thanks to my family, Maria and the boys, for their patience as work takes up weeknights and weekends and for keeping me balanced. To Max for the struggle still ahead.

Morten la Cour has worked with the MS BizTalk Server platform for nine years. Besides designing and developing Integration solution for customers, he has also worked on deployment and maintenance of BizTalk applications and BizTalk Server environments.

Starting in 2011, he is also working with Windows Azure, Azure Service Bus, and the new Windows Azure BizTalk Services.

He has taught several BizTalk Server courses in development, deployment, and management.

Besides working with MS BizTalk Server, Morten has 15 years of experience on the Microsoft development platform, including the .NET Framework and SQL Server. Other experiences include XML, XSLT, XPATH, and Oracle databases.

I would like to thank my daughter (Clara) and girlfriend (Daniela) for their patience during all the writing weekends, thus leading up to this book.

Kent Weare was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. He developed a love for ice hockey, football, and technology. He attended the University of Regina, where he obtained a Degree in Computer Science. After completing his undergraduate degree, he spent time in India completing a Post Graduate diploma in Object Oriented Technology. Recently, Kent has decided to pursue a Master's Degree in Information Management from Arizona State University. He currently lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada but remains a die-hard Saskatchewan Roughrider football fan.

Kent began his career at a small Internet startup before taking on a junior role with the Saskatchewan Government. Since then, he has worked on projects for the Canadian Federal Government, a multinational bank in the United States, health care projects in Eastern and Western Canada, and has spent the last eight years employed in the Energy/Utilities sector in Calgary. Kent's current role as a senior enterprise architect involves setting the technical direction for the organization and is very involved in cross-domain disciplines such as Integration and Mobility.

During Kent's time at the Federal Government, he had an opportunity to participate in his first BizTalk project. Ten years later, he is still "hooked" on BizTalk, having worked with every BizTalk version released since then.

In 2008, Kent was awarded his first Microsoft MVP award for BizTalk Server. He continues to be active in the BizTalk community and recently, received his sixth consecutive MVP award. Kent maintains active blogs at http://kentweare.blogspot.com and http://www.MiddlewareInTheCloud.com. He may also be seen presenting BizTalk-related material at local and international user groups.

Recently, Kent has co-authored two BizTalk books: Microsoft BizTalk 2010: Line of Business Systems Integration and (MCTS) and BizTalk Server 2010 (70-595) Certification Guide .

Writing a book is a very demanding activity. Writing a book while working full time makes a person question his or her sanity. Writing a book while working full time and pursuing a Master's degree confirms one's sanity or lack thereof. I would not have been able to contribute to this book without the support of my wife, Melissa, and my two kids, Brooke and Paige. So, thank you for putting up with this activity once again. I can't say this will be the last time I do this but at least while pursuing a Master's degree, it will be.

During the period in which I contributed to this book, I also joined a new organization. While at this organization, I introduced BizTalk and could not have done so without the tremendous support from Nipa Chakravarti and Nguyen Tran. The two of you are true professionals, and I have benefitted so much by working with you.

Lastly, I want to thank the BizTalk community and more specifically, the Microsoft Integration MVPs. Never in my life have I been associated with such a quality group of individuals. Every time we meet up, it is like a family reunion, so SKOL to Mikael, Johan, Mick, Steef-Jan, Richard, Stephen, Saravana, Tord, Nino, Sandro, Michael, Dan, Ben, Leonid, Bill, Rick, Dwight, Jon, and Matt.

Jan Eliasen has a Master's degree in Computer Science and has nine years of experience using BizTalk Server, starting from BizTalk Server 2002. Jan is a five-time and current Microsoft MVP in BizTalk Server, and he has passed all the five existing exams in BizTalk.