Pro RFID in BizTalk Server 2009 (eBook)

Mark Simms is a cofounder of Cathexis Innovations, a mobile RFID solutions company, and the inventor of the world's first Bluetooth-enabled mobile RFID reader, IDBlue. He holds a bachelor's degree in computer engineering, and as the vice president of research and development at Cathexis, he is responsible for overseeing the technical direction of a wide variety of RFID projects. Representing one of the first hardware vendors involved with Microsoft BizTalk RFID, Mark has been deeply involved with the product since the early beta days, and enjoys writing about it on his blog at www.rfidsimulator.net/blogs/msimms.

Contents at a Glance 5
Contents 6
Foreword 12
About the Authors 14
About the Technical Reviewer 15
Acknowledgments 16
Introduction 17
How This Book Is Structured 17
Prerequisities 18
Downloading the Code 18
Contacting the Authors 18
RFID Background Primer 19
Tracking Stuff: Eyeballs and Lasers 19
Introducing Radio Frequency Identification 21
Cutting Through the Hype 31
Electronic Product Code Class 1 Generation 2 32
Applying RFID 33
Conclusion 34
BizTalk RFID Architecture and Installation 36
The BizTalk RFID Process Architecture 36
The BizTalk RFID Device Model 40
The BizTalk RFID Device Model for Applications 45
Installing BizTalk RFID 48
Conclusion 56
The RFID “Hello World” Application 57
Overview 57
Using the Device Simulator 58
Creating a Device in BizTalk RFID 64
Conclusion 75
Using RFID Manager 77
Overview of RFID Manager 77
Managing Providers 82
Managing Device Groups 88
Managing Devices 92
Managing Processes 99
Conclusion 104
Asynchronous Event Processing in BizTalk RFID 105
What Is a BizTalk RFID Process? 105
Hands-On Exercises 109
Event Processing Application Model 130
Executing RFID Processes 140
Conclusion 144
Command Processing 145
Connecting BizTalk RFID to Your Application 149
Device Management 154
Vendor Commands 164
Common Tasks 169
Conclusion 178
BizTalk RFID Mobile 179
BizTalk RFID Mobile Architecture 180
Installing BizTalk RFID Mobile 182
Creating a BizTalk RFID Mobile Application 183
Asynchronous Event Notification 193
Integration with BizTalk RFID Server 196
Tag Data Encoding and Translation 199
Conclusion 200
Integrating with BizTalk Server 202
Publishing Events to BizTalk Server 202
Calling the BizTalk BRE 216
Calling a BizTalk RFID Web Service Proxy from an Orchestration 221
Conclusion 224
Direct Communication with Enterprise Applications 226
Integrating with SQL Server Reporting Services 226
Connecting to BizTalk RFID via Remote Machines 236
Integrating with SharePoint 2007 238
Conclusion 248
Diagnostics and Troubleshooting 250
Setting the Stage: Tools and Techniques 250
Peeking Inside a BizTalk RFID Application 260
Troubleshooting BizTalk RFID 267
Conclusion 275
Enterprise Planning and Deployment 277
From Development to Production 277
Planning for Disaster Recovery 282
Enterprise Deployment 287
Enterprise Monitoring 289
Conclusion 294
BizTalk RFID Recipes 296
12.1. Transport Protocols Within Event Handlers 296
12.2. RFID Data, XML, and SQL Server 299
12.3. Debugging Tips 302
12.4. Integration with BizTalk EDI Functionality 306
12.5. Creating an XSD Based on BizTalk RFID XML 312
Conclusion 314
Index 316