2022… back to normality! Yes and no. Nothing will ever be exactly the same as before the COVID‑19 pandemic. The pandemic brought many negative aspects that we all know. However, like everything in life, there are always two sides to the coin. In fact, it forced us to rethink how we live and work. As a result, good things also emerged, such as permanent remote work and more flexible working hours. Even so, 2022 was the year when we slowly recovered much of our normality and freedom.
It was a year when I finally returned to live events. And once again, I had the chance to be at my favorite one: INTEGRATE 2022 London + Remote. Of course, this doesn’t diminish the value of other events — I enjoy them all. However, this one is special because I helped create it from day one, more than 11–12 years ago.
and see so many friends I’ve made over the years!
It was also the year I released my SECOND book! This time, alongside my dear friends Tom Canter and Lex Hegt, Migrating to BizTalk Server 2020
And it was a year, I decided to do more online training courses about Microsoft Enterprise Integration, which means:
- BizTalk Server on Administration or development topics
- and Azure Integration Services (Logic Apps Standard and Consumption, API Management, Azure Service Bus, and Functions)
One of these examples is this short, intense BizTalk Server training course that I run alongside my friends Stephen W. Thomas and Lex Hegt.
My Blog has solid numbers and is growing every year…
The number of my blog kept solid in terms of visitors and new content, and 2022 was again a very productive year:
- Publish 70 new posts on my blog;
- More than 364,107 visits to my blog.
- Coming from 212 countries across the world in the past year (and more than 15,191 cities).
- And the countries that visited my blog the most are once again the top 3: the United States, followed by India and the United Kingdom. This time, Canada is in fourth position.
- Among cities, Hyderabad ranked first, followed closely by London and Bengaluru.
For me, this is amazing, especially considering that I decided to do things differently this year. In fact, I dedicated almost 70% of my community time to activities outside the blog — something I had never done at this scale in 12 years. Even so, when we compare the numbers to previous years, the result remains quite impressive. Not bad at all.
- 2021: 375,328 visits, 210 countries, 77 new posts.
- 2020: 392,535 visits, 214 countries, 92 new posts.
- 2019: 431,000 visits, 207countries, 43 new posts.
- 2018: 246,381 visits, 194 countries, 70 new posts.
- 2017: 210,000 visits, 167 countries, 63 new posts (migrated to a new blog).
- 2016: 318,576 visits, 190 countries, 50 new posts.
- 2015: 350,000 visits, 184 countries, 79 new posts.
- 2014: 310,000 visits, 183 countries, 52 new posts.
- 2013: 200,000 visits, 176 countries, 79 new posts.
- 2012: 170,000 visits, 171 countries, 102 new posts.
- 2011: 91,000 visits, 61 new posts.
I want to say thanks to all my readers. I appreciate all the visits to my blog, and thanks for your support.
Attractions in 2022
I’m always surprised by this analysis because my estimates never come out right to what the community consumes, but I always like to do this. So, these are the top 10 posts that got the most views in 2022:
- Microsoft Integration and Azure Stencils Pack for Visio: New Azure and Dataverse Logos with 14,482 views – note to myself to do more Dynamics 365-oriented posts!
- A fish out of water: How to Add connector points on Visio Stencils with 12,621 views – this is for all my friends who make fun of me for writing from time to time about Visio (I’ve been a proud Visio MVP for a year)
- SQL Server detected a logical consistency-based I/O error: incorrect pageid in BizTalkMsgBoxDb database with 11,574 views
- Logic Apps: How to send a well-formatted HTML Email notification with Office 365 Outlook connector, with 10,297 views – this is already a classic one, and I definitely need to come back to this topic!
- A fish out of water: PowerShell – The term ‘Invoke-Sqlcmd’ is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. with 7,121 views
- Azure Breakthroughs: Finding the Azure VM administrator username with 7,121 views – This is a timesaver tip!
- The job failed. Unable to determine if the owner (domain\username) of job job-name has server access (reason: Could not obtain information about Windows NT group/user) with 6,890 views
- Note to myself: How to perform a CTRL+ALT+DEL inside an Azure Virtual Machine? with 6,357 views
- The source was not found, but some or all event logs could not be searched. Inaccessible logs: Security with 5,627 views
- Power Automate Best Practices, Tips and Tricks: #6 Error Handling… configure run after settings with 5,425 views – The only blog from 2022 on the top 10!
And these are some of my 2022 favorite posts:
- How to get the Error Message with Logic App Try-Catch (Part I) and How to get the Error Message with Logic App Try-Catch (Part II) – Using an Azure Function – Because this is so critical and important and not simple to do in Logic Apps.
- Logic App Best Practices, Tips and Tricks: #1 Logic App Naming Convention – It is in my nature, it is the way I am, and for me, naming conventions in Azure are critical to have.
- BizTalk Server Void Adapter – A classic that got another life!
- How to schedule Power BI Reports on Microsoft Teams – It was amazing to write this blog alongside my fellow coworkers at DevScope
My 2022 Contributions
I mentioned earlier that I dedicated around 70% of my community time to activities outside my blog. However, the reality is that I simply spent that time doing different things than in previous years. This also means I wrote less and participated in fewer online events. And to be honest, I needed that pause — after delivering 21 virtual sessions last year, I was feeling a bit tired.
So, I shifted my focus toward writing whitepapers, contributing outside my blog, getting back into coding, and delivering more resources to the community.
More Open Source Contributions…
Continue to improve the existing GitHub contributions and add new ones. Here are some samples:
- BizTalk Server:
- BizTalk Server: Get Tracked Message tool: A classic BizTalk Server tool created by my friend Thiago Almeida that I got back to life!
- BizTalk Server SSO Application Configuration Web Tool: A web version of my BizTalk Server SSO Application Configuration tool.
- BizTalk Business Activity Monitoring Management Utility Tool: This is a Windows application that sits on top of BM.exe to modernize and simplify its use. It is the equivalent of the BAM Management utility (BM.exe) tool with a GUI.
- ODBC File Decoder Pipeline Component: This is, as the name suggests, a decode component that you can use in a receive pipeline to process DBF or Excel files. Still, it can be possible to process other ODBC types (maybe requiring minor adjustments). The component uses basic ADO.NET to parse the incoming DBF or Excel files into an XML document.
- BizTalk PDF2Xml Pipeline Component: This is, as the name suggests, a decode component that transforms the content of a PDF document to an XML message that BizTalk can understand and process.
- Receive Location Name Property Promotion Pipeline Component: This is a simple pipeline component to promote the Receive Location Name (ReceiveLocationName) property to the context of the message. Several BizTalk Server context properties are not promoted by default, so they are not available for routing.
- Message Archive Pipeline Component: This pipeline component archives incoming and outgoing messages from any adapters to a local or shared folder.
- XML Complete Validator Pipeline Component for BizTalk Server: This is a component to be used on the Validate stage of a pipeline and to be used as a substitution for the out-of-the-box XML validator component.
- Archive Pipeline Component for BizTalk Server: This is based on Randy Paulo’s initial work on the BizTalk Archiving SQL and File component, which my team and I adjusted and migrated to Microsoft BizTalk Server 2020.
- PDF Decoder Pipeline Component for BizTalk Server: This is, as the name suggests, a decode component that transforms the content of a PDF document into an XML message that BizTalk can understand and process. The component uses the iTextSharp library to extract the PDF content.
- SQL Archive Pipeline Component: This was created initially by Johan Hedberg, and I decided to migrate it to Microsoft BizTalk Server 2020.
- Azure Blob Storage Archive Pipeline Component for BizTalk Server: This component, as the name suggests, enables you to archive incoming/outgoing messages from any adapters to an Azure Blob Storage account.
- BizTalk Server Void Adapter: This is a simple way to easily discard all unwanted messages from your BizTalk Server environments, instead of getting suspended or sent to a hard drive support folder.
- BizTalk Schema Validation: DateTime Restrictions sample: This is a BizTalk Server Project that provides samples on how to apply restrictions to date and Time formats using regular expression (RegEx) patterns.
- How to implement Property Demotion in BizTalk Server sample: This topic/sample provides step-by-step instructions for Property Demotion.
- How to promote properties from the body of the messages sample: This topic/sample provides step-by-step instructions for promoting properties as Property Fields.
- 8 BizTalk Server SQL Query
- 8 BizTalk Server PowerShell scripts
- Azure:
- How to get the Error Message with Logic App Try-Catch Using an Azure Function: This sample shows us how we can retrieve the proper Error Message using an Azure Function.
- How to retrieve Azure Key Vault Secrets using Azure Functions: This sample shows us how we can retrieve a secret or a list of secrets using an Azure Function
- Logic App (Standard) Schemas Validations – Handle Restrictions on Date sample: This is a Logic App (standard) Project that provides samples on how to enforce restrictions on Date and Time formats using RegEx patterns.
- Microsoft Integration, Azure, Power Platform, Office 365, and much more Stencils Pack continues to be updated with new releases and receives some contributions from the community.
More whitepapers…
I was able to publish 10 whitepapers:
- How to Install and Configure Host Integration Server 2016
- How to Install and Configure Host Integration Server 2020
- How to Expose and Protect Logic App Using Azure API Management
- Logic App CI/CD from zero to hero
- BizTalk Server CI/CD from zero to hero
- Your Guide to BizTalk Message Context Properties
- BizTalk Server Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) classes
- BizTalk Server 2020: Step-by-Step WCF-ORACLE Adapter Installation Guide
- Azure Function App CI/CD from Zero to Hero
- Logic App Standard CI/CD from zero to hero
Don’t forget that I also published a new book!
Posting outside my blog…
This year was also the year that I started publishing more blogs and more constantly on other sites, and my major partner in crime is Saravana Kumar:
- Publish 19 guest blog posts on Serveless360 about Azure Integration Services on topics like Logic Apps, API Management, Azure App Configuration, and Power Automate.
- Publish 20 guest blog posts on BizTalk360 about BizTalk Server.
Speaking engagements…
However, that is not all! I was still able to deliver 11 sessions (on-prem and remote) in several conferences and User Groups worldwide on topics like BizTalk Server, Logic Apps, and Power Automate:
- M365 Below in Chicago! | January 14, 2022 | Power Automation: A new set of Best practices, tips, and tricks
- Global Automation Bootcamp | February 4, 2022 | How to monitor your integration solutions with Automation Account
- Azure Integration Bootcamp | February 5, 2022 | Logic Apps: New set of Best practices, Tips and Tricks
- Global Power Platform Bootcamp 2022 – Münsterland | February 19, 2022 | How to create robust monitor solutions with PowerShell, Azure Functions & Power Automate
- aMS Lausanne 2022 | April 19, 2022 | LogicApps: New set of Best practices, Tips and Tricks
- Microsoft 365 Virtual Marathon | May 4, 2022 | Power Automation: Best practices, tips, and tricks
- Global Azure 2022 – Spain | May 6, 2022 | Logic Apps: New set of Best practices, Tips and Tricks
- Global Azure Bootcamp 2022 Lüdinghausen | May 7, 2022 | Logic Apps: New set of Best practices, Tips, and Tricks
- INTEGRATE 2022 | June 13-15, 2022 | Building Hybrid Integration Solutions with BizTalk Server
- CONNECTED Conference 2022 | November 11, 2022 | Logic Apps: The good, the bad, and the ugly
- Porto.Data | December 20, 2022 | Logic Apps: Error Handling
For all of you…
Once again, thanks for following me and reading my blog, and I promise I will continue to share my knowledge in 2023.
Hope you find this helpful! If you liked the content or found it useful and would like to support me in writing more, consider buying (or helping to buy) a Star Wars Lego set for my son.
