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Acessing Event Hubs with Confluent Kafka Library

A while ago, I was involved in a project that needed to push messages to a Kafka topic. I found that while the .NET code required for that implementation was relatively straight-forward – thanks to the Confluent’s .NET client for Kafka – configuring the server was a nightmare. The IT team at the client site was supposed to get the kafka cluster sorted and dragged the issue for a month or so. And I understood why when I tried to setup a cluster myself – configuring a kafka cluster is not a walk in the park. If only we had a managed, one click solution to implement a event streaming solution, based on kafka protocol… 😀

When Microsoft announced last month Event Hubs support for the Kafka protocol – I thought that a great way to prove that this was really interoperable, was to use part of the original code I wrote and see if I could connect to Event Hubs without any significant changes. And I was pleasantly surprised! The only changes required was some additions to the producer/consumer configuration. This post shows how I managed to get this working, and show one of the main gotchas I found along the way. Continue reading “Acessing Event Hubs with Confluent Kafka Library”

Logic Apps x Microsoft Flow – which one should I choose?

Recently I’ve presented at Directions ASIA 2018 with my good friend and MVP Tharanga Chandrasekara, and I’ve been exposed to a “new world” – the Business Solutions world! Coming from and enterprise integration background, I usually tend to gravitate around the enterprise integration tools and lately iPaaS offering, so my initial reaction to integration will always be BizTalk Server / Logic Apps. But Microsoft Flow had evolved to be quite a reasonable option – and I would say probably the first option for integration within the Office 365 / Dynamics 365 consultants, since it gives you almost the same level of functionality that Logic Apps would give – no surprises here, since behind the scenes they are actually the same engine. Continue reading “Logic Apps x Microsoft Flow – which one should I choose?”

Global Integration Bootcamp 2018 – Auckland Recap

Last Saturday, 24/03/2018, the second edition of the Global Integration Bootcamp (GIB) was on full swing around the globe, with 15 locations across 10 countries sharing a full day of hands on labs and breakout sessions, highlighting the latest and greatest that Microsoft integration technologies have to offer.

As in the first edition, Auckland kicked off the show. And we did it justice! There was around 35 or so people sharing our experiences and learning from each other in the new Datacom facilities at Gaunt Street. The breakout sessions covered a wide range of topics, from Event Grid to Data Factory. We had also a great line-up of presenters, a mix of recurring ACSUG presenters and new faces, which made the event even more special. Continue reading “Global Integration Bootcamp 2018 – Auckland Recap”

Integration Down Under

Integration Down Under is a brand new Microsoft Integration & Azure webcast, in an APAC friendly time zone! And that is an idea that have been simmering for a long time.

We all love Integration Monday, one of the most successful MS Integration webcasts ever, but it was always a recurring joke between the AU/NZ integration professionals who would have to wake up the earliest to be able to watch. So, for a while now, we’ve been discussing how nice would be to have a similar webcast in a time slot that didn’t require lots of caffeine and an alarm clock setup to early in the morning, just to enjoy live…

Then earlier this year Bill Chesnut rallied the troops and brought together a group of Microsoft Azure MVPs – Daniel Toomey, Martin Abbot, Rene Brawuers and myself – to start this project. After a couple of crazy nights furiously discussing details and logistics – social media, logo, topics, among lots of other things – we’ve settled for an inaugural meeting on the 8th Feb, which will kick off the webcast with a series of lightning talks. Here is a taste of what you can expect on the first webcast:

Bill Chesnut – API Management REST to SOAP
Martin Abbott – Azure Data Factory v2.
Wagner Silveira – Azure Functions Proxy
Dan Toomey – Azure Event Grid
Rene Brauwers – A reactive integration primer

You can register for the webinar here, thanks to SixPivot, which is kindly providing the Webinar facility.

So please join us on the 8th, and let us know what you think, what topics you are interested in hearing more next and how can we improve more and more!

Enable/disable all logic apps in a resource group

Have you ever wanted to stop all logic apps in a resource group in one go – either for production maintenance, or maybe because that set of logic apps in a resource group is eating all your resources? If so, welcome to the club… What you probably found is that there is no way to do this in the portal. Coming from a BizTalk background where you can stop all orchestration – or even the whole application) with a right click, in some cases you will ask “Why?”, while in others you might shout “Khaaaannn!” (I know I probably did both). Continue reading “Enable/disable all logic apps in a resource group”

2017 – a year of firsts

It is Saturday, the last Saturday of my Christmas holiday, and the weather is not exactly “friendly”, so instead of playing in a beach, I am home getting ready for work on Monday.

That reminded me that although I wanted, I didn’t wrote the classic “year in review post” for 2017 – and by classic I mean, the first ever for this blog… 😀 Continue reading “2017 – a year of firsts”

Hour of Code 2017

It has been a while since the last post. Between work and a bit of author’s block (hey it is a good excuse as any), a month or so went by and no posts.

But there is something that was not exactly technical that I would like to share – I had an awesome experience running an Hour of Code event at the kids’ school. What started with a conversation with Andrea Howard, the Learning Support Teacher at Arahoe School, end up being a big event at school with all year 3, 4, 5 and 6 participating over two days. Continue reading “Hour of Code 2017”

Unlocking Azure Hybrid Integration with BizTalk Server

Last June I was one of the presenters at Integrate 2017. And man, I had a blast! Can’t thank enough Theta for sponsoring me going to the event, and Biztalk360 for having me as presenter. It was an amazing experience…

Today the video of my presentation has been published. So go check it out and also check out the amazing presentations on this year’s edition.

Putting theory into Practice

Continue reading “Unlocking Azure Hybrid Integration with BizTalk Server”

Developing Logic Apps in the Portal

When it comes to developing Logic Apps, everyone has a preference. Some people like to develop in the portal, while others like to start development directly from Visual Studio. I am in the first group mainly because a lot of my logic apps involves integration with the Dynamics 365 CRM connector, which doesn’t play well with the Logic Apps editor after I apply the required parameterization (which reminds me that I have to blog about that – will write something about it soon). I also like the simplicity of just opening the browser and be able to develop, debug all in one go.

Continue reading “Developing Logic Apps in the Portal”

API Management Gotcha – Empty Body Definition

A while ago I saw a question in the forums where someone was trying to use a POST operation using the API Management action in Logic Apps and the action card didn’t have any way to input the body object.

To replicate the issue I’ve create a very simple logic app, so simple in fact that I didn’t even bother to define a trigger schema. After creating a new API using that logic app, to my surprise I also couldn’t find any input for the message body. Continue reading “API Management Gotcha – Empty Body Definition”