Kent Weare - (MCTS) : Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010 (70-595) Certification Guide

Johan Hedberg is based in Stockholm where he works as a consultant, solutions architect, and certified trainer. His employer, Enfo Zystems, is one of the largest consultancy firms in Sweden and the Nordic region that's solely dedicated to integration. Johan has over 10 years of experience in architecting and developing enterprise-grade solutions based on Microsoft technologies. He works closely with Microsoft through the Business Platform Technology Advisory and Virtual Technology Solution Professional programs, and with the community as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional and one of the founders of the BizTalk User Group Sweden. He blogs at http://blogical.se/blogs/johan. You can follow Johan on Twitter: @JoHed

I would like to say thanks to the people at Packt Publishing for the opportunity, and to my fellow authors, Kent and Morten, for sharing the work.

An extra mention of Mikael Hkansson; partner in crime in much I do professionally.

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.

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. 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 multi-national bank in the United States, healthcare projects in Eastern and Western Canada, and has spent the last five years employed by a large electricity distribution company in Calgary. Kent's current responsibilities involve managing a Middleware team and architecting integrated solutions for the energy sector.

During Kent's time at the Federal Government, he had an opportunity to participate in his first BizTalk project. Seven 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 fourth 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.

Previous Publications by Packt Publishing:

Book name:Microsoft BizTalk 2010: Line of Business Systems Integration

ISBN:1849681902

Role:Lead Author

Being involved in two BizTalk book projects in less than 18 months takes a tremendous amount of commitment, determination, and perseverance. I would not have been able to participate, let alone fulfill my commitment, on these projects without the support of others.

I would like to thank my colleagues for their interest and support in this and the other projects that I get involved in. I would also like to thank the Directors that I report to; Rob Tisdale and Brian Dempsey for giving me the opportunity to get involved in such interesting projects, and then providing me the support to be successful.

The group of current and former BizTalk MVPs is second to none. I have learned so much through this group and am continually blown away every time we have a chance to sit down at events such as the MVP summit or the Swedish BizTalk User group. It is people like you who make these types of side projects fun and rewarding.

Finally, I would like to thank my family for their support with this initiative, especially my wife, Melissa, daughter, Brooke, and newborn daughter, Paige. Without your loving support, there is no way I would have been able to contribute to this initiative.

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

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

Besides working with MS BizTalk Server, Morten has 13 years of experience on the Microsoft development platform, including the .NET Framework and SQL Server. Other experience includes XML, XSLT, XPATH, and Oracle databases.

I would like to thank my daughter and girlfriend for their patience during all the writing weekends leading up to this book.

Jan Eliasen is a Master of Science 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 five existing exams in BizTalk.

Jan is a co-author of "Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010 Unleashed", Sams Technical Publishing book.

Mikael Hkansson is employed by Enfo Zystems, and is currently engaged in the Integration Delivery Center to provide customers with a scalable and elastic offering of Microsoft BizTalk Servers and related technologies.