My team has recently been doing a lot of work with the SQL Adapter and BizTalk Mapper in BizTalk Server 2006. At first, this seems like a very rational and tenable choice for performing these trivial mapping chores. The primary concern with this choice is the strong coupling that results from binding the persistence (SQL) layer to the business services layer (BTS and .NET) by way of XSD schema. The promise of using these tools despite the design concerns just mentioned lies in the RAD possibilities for getting significant velocity out of these mapping tasks while still delivering on the design goals of the system. If generating maps and schema is trivial, then so too is the impact of change.
I won't go into the details of how to use these tools. There is an excellent article by Mauricio Ritter here that describes exactly how to use the the SQL Adapter to generate an XSD schema (and corresponding maps) from a stored procedure result (provided it returns XML). Instead, in the next few posts, I will share some of the gotchas and corresponding solutions that we have encountered thus far.
- FOR XML AUTO is Ideal.
- The Pros and Cons of FOR XML EXPLICIT
- Element and Attribute Qualification Matters!
- Testing Your Maps and Schemas' Before You Deploy Saves Lives. I Promise!