Recommended Article: Developing Integration Solutions with BizTalk Server 2004

There's a very good article and extensive (88 pages!) on MSDN that covers a lot of the problems and issues that you will encounter when you are developing using BizTalk Server 2004. A must-read for anyone who is working with BizTalk! Some of the discussed topics:

• MSF and BizTalk development
• Team development
• Organizing VS.NET projects and solutions
• Naming guidelines
• HAT
• Debugging and trouble-shooting
• Deployment

This guide contains examples of team approaches for developing with BizTalk Server 2004, and illustrates techniques that can increase development efficiency. It also provides hints and tips that can decrease the time and effort spent debugging and testing. It emphasizes the team development process and team development setup.

This guide focuses on projects that use the core messaging and orchestration functionality of BizTalk Server. It does not cover in detail additional areas such as Business Activity Services (BAS), Business Activity Monitoring (BAM), Human Workflow Services (HWS), XREF, or the Business Rules Engine (BRE).