using Biztalk script functoid

I have been trying to use Biztalk maps to create xsl transforms. The biggest challenge seems to be finding resources that talk about its capabilities and limitations. Here is my little contribution.

My transform involves a lot of repeating structures. In particiular a bunch of addresses attached to different entities that needs to be mapped to another address structure.

xxx
yyy
www
...



...

...
...



...


In some cases the address entries are blanks but the destination does not allow blanks so the nodes have to be skipped.

Most of these tasks can be done with various functoids. But if you have to repeat a good few times the biztalk map gets hairy.

So my solution is to use the scripting functoid and write an xslt template. Luckily every has an id so I can use that as a parameter. The other parameter would be the node (a, b, c, or d) so that I can construct the xpath inside my template. Then it's normal xsl stuff and you can control your output.

I can construct an example if there is interest.

Questions and issues with Home systems using RAID

I bought a new home computer a few months ago. For the past few weeks I was trying to set up a RAID-1 array at home and ran into a bunch of issues and questions. The Motherboard is an ASUS M4A88TD-V which has a RAID support on the motherboard via a SB850 chipset.

• There is no way to create a RAID volume from an existing disk. You have to create a new volume from scratch and re-image.


• There seem to be a need to special drivers. When I boot up Linux with the RAID volume defined it still shows 2 disks!


• Does the controller (or controlling software) verifies the write? If it doesn't and an error is discovered at read time it is too late.


• If you have a corrupted file due to a software glitch for example you still need a backup. Otherwise you have a mirror of corrupted files.


• If the motherboard dies can we take the disks and boot up from another computer with potentially a different chipset - RAID or regular?

Due to the above questions and issues I ended up using the secondary disk for backups.