biztalk

Pro BizTalk 2009
$54.99
The book is a good detailed overview of BizTalk 2009 and it definitely is for people who want to be professional users of the product. The content was fine grained enough for people who want to understand the inner workings of BizTalk 2009. It contains plenty of information for out-the-box usage as well as how to create custom extensions, adapters, etc.

However, one big downside for me is that the code samples in the book are all in VB.NET which I find annoying as a C# developer. So, I skipped all of those. Also, I wish Amazon explained this fact before I purchased the book so I could have made a better decision.

Pro Mapping in BizTalk Server 2009 (Expert's Voice in BizTalk)
$49.99
This is is a great book to have for mapping reference and to help crack some hard mapping nuts, especially if you are mapping difficult schemas like EDI. Unfortunately it does not cover the new unit testing features in BizTalk 2009 and some of the screenshots are from BizTalk 2006. But don't be fooled - the book has great guidance, best practices, and examples of BizTalk mapping and there is no other book out there with so much info on the topic.

Foundations of BizTalk Server 2006
$39.99
BizTalk is an application that has a lot of buzz words associated with it: map, pipeline, functoid, schema, orchestration, and so on. For a confused newbie, it can be overwhelming.

"Foundations of BizTalk Server 2006" does quite a good job of explaining the terms, and showing you in simple examples how each component of the product can be used. I read through the book from beginning to end, without working any of the examples. By the time I was finished, I felt that I had a pretty good handle on maps and functoids and pipelines and orchestrations.

Then I went back to actually do the tutorials. It was at this point that I began to see that there is a subtle problem with the book. The tutorials follow the "do this, now do this, now do this. See, it works!" format that is common to a lot of training manuals (and a lot of training classes). The instructions are broken down into simple steps, there are a lot of screen shots to help you along, and if you follow the instructions step-by-step, you can't fail.

That's the problem. I had done about four chapters' worth of exercises when one of them didn't work the way it was supposed to. I started to troubleshoot the problem but it quickly became apparent that I didn't know where to begin. I found myself saying, "You know, I don't really know what I'm doing, or why I'm doing it."

The job of a book like this one, as I see it, is to explain to the newbie how a particular system works. This usually involves a combination of theory -- "this is the idea behind this part of the system" -- and practice -- "okay, now try it yourself, and see what you've learned." This book is chock-full of practice, but very skimpy on theory. You're told >what< to do in great detail, but not much attention is given to >why< you're doing it. It all goes along very smoothly until, as I did, you get to the point where something doesn't work the way it says it should in the book. Then you're stuck.

So, buy this book if you're looking for a quick overview of BizTalk Server 2006 and what the buzz words mean. But if you want a good understanding of the application, such as you might need in order to get, or hang onto, a job, I would recommend looking elsewhere.

First Steps: Developing BizTalk Applications
$19.99
I purchased this book to get an overview of BizTalk. The book is project based, and the author does not claim to be an expert. He simply tells you how to build the sample project he designed for the book from start to finish.

I purchased several books on BizTalk at the same time, so I didn't take the time to build the project as yet. However, from what I've read on BizTalk todate, I found even an average BizTalk project can become quite technical, and as such; I will certainly start with this books project if I do decide BizTalk is the way to go.