About the Authors

Kent Weare, born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, developed a love for Ice Hockey, Football and Technology. He attended the University of Regina where he obtained a Degree in Computer Science. After completing his undergrad degree, he spent time in India completing a Post Graduate diploma in Object Oriented Technology. He currently lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada but remains a die-hard Saskatchewan Roughrider football fan.

Kent began his career at a small Internet startup before taking on a Junior roll with the Saskatchewan Government. Since then he has worked on projects for the Canadian Federal Government, a multi-national bank in the United States, Health Care projects in Eastern and Western Canada and has spent the last five years employed by a large Electricity Distribution company in Calgary. Kent's current responsibilities involve managing a Microsoft Solutions team that supports BizTalk, Exchange, Office Communication Server (OCS), and System Center.

During Kent's time at the Federal Government, he had an opportunity to participate in his first BizTalk project. Seven years later he is still "hooked" on BizTalk, having worked with every BizTalk version released since. In 2008, Kent was awarded his first Microsoft MVP award for BizTalk Server. He continues to be active in the BizTalk community and recently received his fourth consecutive MVP award. Kent maintains an active blog at http://kentweare.blogspot.com and may be seen presenting BizTalk related material at local and international user groups.

I would first off like to thank my parents (Keith and Joyce) for their unconditional love, support, and direction growing up. They are strong proponents of working hard, treating others with respect, and taught me the difference between right and wrong. To my twin brother (Kurt), sister (Kim), and their families, thank you for your interest in the book and the encouragement to keep plugging away at it until it was completed. Throughout my career many people have seen something in me that I haven't necessarily seen in myself. I am convinced that without this support, I would have never been in a position get into the MVP program or write this book. Special thanks to Les Phillips, Dave Patel, Ron Naidu, Vasu Iyengar, Lucie Duval, Neal Nishikawa, Darren Jeffrey, Brian Dempsey, and Alan Skiffington for giving me an opportunity and then giving me the tools to be successful. I would also like to thank my mentors Nipa Chakravarti and Karl Smith for their insight and challenging me to grow as a Leader. Lastly, this book would not have been a reality without the support of my loving wife Melissa and daughter Brooke. Writing a book is a huge undertaking that consumed late nights, early mornings, and pretty much any spare time in-between. Thank you Melissa for your patience, support, and putting up with me sitting in front of the computer for hours on end while I worked on the book. Brooke, thank you for not hitting the blue (power) button too many times while I was writing. At times you really pushed the limits of Microsoft Word's auto-recovery feature.

Richard Seroter is a solutions architect for an industry-leading biotechnology company, a Microsoft MVP for BizTalk Server, and a Microsoft Connected Technology Advisor. He has spent the majority of his career consulting with customers as they planned and implemented their enterprise software solutions. Richard started his career working for two global IT consulting firms that gave him exposure to a diverse range of industries, technologies, and business challenges. Then, he joined Microsoft as a SOA/BPM technology specialist where his sole objective was to educate and collaborate with customers as they considered, designed, and architected BizTalk solutions. One of those customers liked Richard enough to bring him onboard full time as an architect after they committed to using BizTalk Server as their enterprise service bus. Once the BizTalk environment was successfully established, Richard transitioned into a solutions architect role where he now helps to identify enterprise best practices and apply good architectural principles to a wide set of IT initiatives.

Richard is the author of two books including Applied Architecture Patterns on the Microsoft Platform (Packt Publishing, 2010), which discusses where to use which part of Microsoft's platform technologies. He is also the author of SOA Patterns for BizTalk Server 2009 (Packt Publishing, 2009), which takes a look at how to apply good SOA principles to a wide variety of BizTalk scenarios.

I'd like to thank Kent for bringing me onto this interesting project and allowing me to contribute some chapters. I have a sick passion for enterprise integration and Kent provided me a perfect outlet for more research into the topic. Thanks to all of my co-workers who have inevitably influenced my thinking and made me a better architect and technologist. My manager, Nancy Lehrer, continues to be an exceptional mentor on my jagged path to superstardom. Finally, thanks to my family and my boys (Noah the human, Watson the dog) as they put up with late nights and absentmindedness.

Sergei Moukhnitski is a software architect with 15 years of experience developing software and systems. His area of professional interests is business process and integration technologies applied to ERP and CRM systems such as Microsoft Dynamics and SAP.

Thiago Almeida is a Senior Integrations Consultant for one of New Zealand's largest IT service providers. He has over eight years of experience working as a solutions architect and senior developer on projects for some of the country's largest companies.

Thiago has been awarded Most Valuable Professional in BizTalk from Microsoft in 2009 and 2010 to acknowledge his exceptional contributions to the BizTalk Server technical community. He runs the Auckland Connected Systems User Group, being a frequent speaker, and maintains a blog on BizTalk Server at http://connectedthoughts.wordpress.com

He is also a Microsoft Connected Technology Advisor and a Microsoft Virtual Technical Solution Professional in Integration, providing advanced technical input in BizTalk Server and associated integration technologies on client engagements with Microsoft.

I would like to thank my teammates for working on so many great projects and sharing real world BizTalk Server knowledge with me. I would also like to thank the Microsoft employees, fellow MVPs, and the co-authors for all the input and help. On a more personal note, I would like to thank my beautiful wife Karla for the encouragement and for putting up with the late nights and weekends spent working on this book. New Zealand's great scenery, beautiful beaches, and nice weather during such weekends are purposely not included in this acknowledgement.

Carl Darski is a software consultant who has diverse professional experience in sectors including telecommunications, oil and gas, power and mining. As an electrical engineer, Carl quickly recognized the growing importance of software integration technologies. He has assisted several clients in implementing BizTalk as an integration standard.

I would like to thank all my coworkers at Ideaca who have helped me both technically and professional over the past several years. A special thanks to Shane James whose BizTalk knowledge never ceases to amaze nor disappoint me.