Foundations of Biztalk Server (Expert's Voice)

When I was between projects I attented a BizTalk 2006 deep dive (a week long) training session. The training session was for intermediate to advanced users. I had no experience with BizTalk. Before the class I got this book on the weekend and did all the exercises in the book. 2 days were enough to go through this book and it gave me a solid understanding of BizTalk. The training session made so much sense to me because I read this book. Had I not read this book I would have not understood any of the training that assumed that everybody in the class know orchestrations well. I highly recommend this as the first BizTalk book. This book will make you ready for the advanced level books.

There isn't a lot of BizTalk 2006 litarature out there for beginners, this is the one to start with. I attended the MS BizTalk 2006 seminar as well, and still had no clue how it works. We were rushed through the labs with only a little time. Granted, you need to know XML (at least a little), SQL doesn't hurt, Web Services, SOAP, VB or C#... This book opened my eyes and made me understand BizTalk a lot better. Don't look at the other BizTalk books without reading this one first if you are new to BizTalk 2006.

Some of the reviews below concerned me and I thought I'd weigh in with my opinion. I'm giving this book 5 stars because I think it is perfect for someone that has not worked with BizTalk or just starting out and needs to understand how the parts work together. BizTalk is a complex product. I've taught BizTalk as a formal class for many years and through multiple versions since its release in 2000. The installation and configuration are not trivial and you will find whitepapers on MSDN with details for single and multi-box installs. I think Daniel did a great job explaining the fundamentals without veering into confusing territory for an introductory book. To become an expert at anything, I believe you have to have a very firm grasp of fundamental concepts and understand where things fit in the big picture. This is a very good starting point. Mark Dunn, Visual Basic MVP, Microsoft Regional Director, DUNN Training and Consulting, Inc.

I bought this book because my company cancelled my place on a BT2006 training class. Within a week I'd completed the book and the exercises and was feeling confident that I could tackle a simple BT project, but more importantly I also felt that I was adequately familiar with the core components of the product to further my knowledge using the available web resources and the Pro version of this book. The book is well written, so reading it isn't a chore and whilst it's short, it delivers exactly what you need - the why and how of the major BizTalk components. Thoroughly recommended for anyone that needs to get into BizTalk 2006 quickly.

I LOVE this short and lightweight book. It always keeps your interest and manages to provide a good overview of all the different parts of BizTalk. And this is very important, because BizTalk can be very confusing at first (with all of its different abstraction levels, tools, and different scenarios it can be used for). It will raise your confidence in BizTalk Server 2006 knowledge and help you on your road of becoming a BizTalk developer. All the major and important parts of BizTalk are explained one chapter at a time. Everything is explained deep enough to give you a good feel for what BizTalk is capable of without being a boring reference that would just slow you down learning BizTalk. Simple examples demonstrate a particular topic and are very helpful in deepening your experience and give you a real feel for working with BizTalk. They are very easy to read or recreate by yourself without taking too much time or effort. I believe that this is the perfect first book for anyone who wants to become a BizTalk developer. But you will still need a more detailed book in addition to this one. But by then you will know how it all makes sense and what specific information you are looking for to solve your particular task. I did it all backwards by first suffering reading through BizTalk Server 2004 Unleashed last year before this book was released.