(EBZ239) Building and Mapping XML Schemas Using Microsoft® BizTalk® Server 2004 Michael Woods [email protected] Sr. Technical Product Manager eBusiness Server Group.
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(EBZ239) Building and Mapping XML Schemas Using Microsoft® BizTalk® Server 2004 Michael Woods [email protected] Sr. Technical Product Manager eBusiness Server Group Agenda Session goals XML and schema languages BizTalk Server 2004 and schemas Tools User Experience and Features Demo (most of our time spent here) Discussion, feedback, heckling, etc. Session Goals Provide background on schemas and their effect on tools Introduce you to the newest Editor and Mapper, hosted in Visual Studio Non-goal Teach XSD, XSLT (for that, go to… http://www.w3c.org/XML) XML And XML Schema XML Is Just XML, Right? BizTalk Server 2004: XSD complete BizTalk Server has always been XML centric, and can certainly process XML data streams XML is described by a schema The various schema languages have conceptual intersections Other Schema Languages DTD (Document Type Definitions) Pro: Came first; Cons: Non-XML syntax; not strongly typed XDR (XML Data Reduced) Pros: XML syntax; XSD subset; Cons: Not W3C rec; global typedef scope XSD (XML Schema) Pros: W3C rec; powerful OM alignment; Cons: Newer; business applicability? BizTalk Server 2004 And XML Schema BizTalk Schema Support XSD (XML Schema) Tools, Engine, OM, and Data: Namespaces, element groups, inheritance, scoping, runtime type overrides, the works Other Supported Schema XSD generators for DTD, XDR, and well-formed XML instance data Schema And Tools Design Tree-based instance view great fit for describing business messages Common terminology like “record” and “field” can appeal to the broadest selection of disciplines Challenge: XSD shows through Attributes, elements, element groups Tree limitation: Hard to show some intra-schema relationships (e.g., keys) Editor And XSD And Demo <Schema> node as container now supports many root nodes Omnipresent <sequence> group hidden for the most part Complex concepts like equivalence (e.g., inheritance) show through No editing capability for key/keyref and substitution groups XSD commonality with Visual Studio .NET Mapper And XSD And Demo Underlying schema less of a concern to many mapping scenarios Mapper aware of some XSD (e.g., <choice> only has 1 child) Wildcard structures like <any> and <anyAttribute> have limitations Tool does not care where the XSD came from XML Tools User Experience Development Environment XML Tools (and all BizTalk dev tools) hosted in Visual Studio IDE Great integration with Project system – file properties and source control Property Browser – better at-a-glance, multiselection intersect, extensibility Toolbox – Mapper Functoid container Output Window, Task List, etc. More On Project System All file-level tasks managed here Schema Editor edits *.xsd Mapper edits *.btm (BizTalk Map) Create new and open existing schemas and maps by adding files to a project Access schema generators Generate, validate, and test instance data against schemas and maps 2004 Versus 2002 And Older More windows in Visual Studio Schema and map properties relocated Many features reorganized for better fit to Visual Studio experience More schema and map connectedness Better reuse = rapid development Some risk of unintended side-effects Stability Amid The Changes All the old features are still there Editor Still about defining structure using an instance-based tree view Mapper Still about defining transformations using graphical links, and “Functoids” Great support for migration (maps and schemas) from earlier versions Usability Feedback Cycle Extensive usability studies already added many features, refined others Better recognition of the “personas” or customer roles and responsibilities Technical preview and several training events in the last 6 months General Beta announced in June! Participate at http://www.microsoft.com/BizTalk/Beta Editor Focus And Features Editor Focus Support XML Schema (XSD) while also abstracting it Integrate with Visual Studio .NET Enable rapid schema development Type reuse Multi-selection: Eliminate steps Make Tool Extensible API for custom schema generators API for custom annotations and views Editor Feature Highlights Easy-to-use XSD support Schema generators and migration for jumpstarting development More visual cues (icons), at-a-glance features, and Search Interactive schema views for learning XSD, sight debugging, etc. Problem abstraction: One tool to model any kind of data Editor And Non-XML “Flat file” support spun off to extension module: only see it when you need it Several improvements to support for datalevel issues Nested positional records Multi-character delimiters Unlimited delimiter depth Variable ambiguity resolution control Mapper Focus And Features Mapper Focus Left-to-right (source-to-target) mapping metaphor continued Functoid architecture Use W3C-approved mechanism for XSLT call-out (i.e., the Functoids) Give user control over multiple implementation options (.NET, script) Buffer users from XSLT 98% of the time Mapper Feature Highlights XSD support (incidental) Compiler improvements (other than XSDrelated) Integrated testing, errors and warnings, task list management More ways to reuse Scriptor Functoid implementation Mapper Feature Highlights Power user: Can write inline XSLT Map development accelerants Auto-map New Functoid: Bulk Copy Functoid (required to map <any>) The other new Functoid: Table Looping Functoid – targets hard-coded output looping demo Actual Demo: The Award-Winning XML Tools! More BizTalk Server 2004 Sessions EBZ302 EBZ303 EBZ304 EBZ306 EBZ327 EBZ329 EBZ330 EBZ342 EBZ343 Orchestration Human Workflow Services Admin, Deploy, and Secure Advanced Orchestration InfoPath & BizTalk Server XML Tools EAI End-to-End Sample Rules Engine Business Activity Monitoring Community Resources http://www.microsoft.com/BizTalk/community BizTalk Server 2002 Newsgroups http://www.microsoft.com/BizTalk/community/newsgroups BizTalk Server 2004 Beta Newsgroups http://www.microsoft.com/BizTalk/Beta User Groups: http://www.biztalkug.com/ Sites of Interest http://www.topxml.com/b2b/ http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/entservers/ Ask The Experts Get Your Questions Answered I will be at the booth: directly after this session various other times during the week If you: miss me at the booth, want to set a time to meet, or just want to keep in touch… :^) Email:[email protected] IM:[email protected] evaluations © 2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This presentation is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.