BizTalk project estimation for man-hours or person-days
One of our client's representative, purportedly deemed to be an Architect, stated that BizTalk projects involve only configuration efforts and minimal coding efforts. I could not provide my counter justification, although I highly disagree with the statement, only because I do not know about how to go about estimating a BizTalk project. Being a member of this forum for over a year and contributing nearly 290 posts (with nearly 90 answers), I feel that if one gets stuck up somewhere, one's life tends to become difficult. Do you have a suitable suggestion for me. By the way, I have pursuaded the management to start BizTalk initiative for ongoing EAI efforts in the enterprise.
March 22nd, 2011 2:13pm

Hi Amber,

I recently gave an answer to similar question. What is important are requirements (functionality) for your BizTalk project. Scoping out the requirements for a BizTalk project is much the same as any other development project. It takes experience, judgement and know-how to be able to estimate how many man-hours (effort) will be required for a given set of BizTalk tasks and I don't know of any automated tools which will help (other than BizUnit, Team-Foundation). Approach for integration projects can be by using waterfall, (semi) agile and scrum methodologies. An important factor is discipline within development on way the work on project, their skill and how they work together. Those are important for having a controlled lead-time, and budget. In the end it really depends upon what the project is trying to accomplish and how requirements are going to be met (satisfying the business). Since there are many factors and dependencies involved estimation is hard. Having a project team that has done many BizTalk projects, has discipline and is skilled does make estimation easier.

HTH

Regards,

Steef-Jan Wiggers
MVP & MCTS BizTalk Server
http://soa-thoughts.blogspot.com/

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March 22nd, 2011 2:54pm

Ambar, like you said : definitely NOT only configuration efforts and minimal coding!

It all depends on the team, whether they're confortable with Biztalk or not (and have they done integration projects - really different from doing a web site).

What we're doing is defining patterns (publisher, subscriber, service, etc.) and for each one the tasks necessary. Then, learn from our mistakes and experience. Our estimates much better now (but also a lot higher than what we initially thought ;p ).

Regards,

March 22nd, 2011 3:29pm

Shouldn't it be a mathematical function based on number of interfaces and average message size, with an empirical constant applied which takes care of the past recorded experiences.
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March 23rd, 2011 9:31am

Hi Ambar,

 

definitely a mathematical equation is possible. Just base lining it.

effort = 

{

(number of orchestrations * average size and complexity of orchestration * orchestration_complexity_weightage

+

number of schemas * average size of schema * schema_complexity_weightage

+

number of business rules * average size of business rule * business rule_complexity_weightage

+

number of maps * average size of map * map_complexity_weightage

+

number of custom pipeline components * average size of custom pipeline components * custom_pipeline_components _complexity_weightage

+

number of custom adapters * average size of custom adapter  * custom_adapter_complexity_weightage

 

+

..

) *

(number of dependencies between artifacts (orchestrations, schemas, rules, ..)  *

(number of interfacing applications_factor) *

(non functional requirements_weightage) *

...

}

/

{

// effort reducing factors are below

average_biztalk_experienceandskill * average_domain_knowledge * architect (s)_skill_rating *

 

client_requirementsClarity_rating * clientside_architect_cooperation :) (if he feels that biztalk is all about settings and compositions, it can demoralize)

...

}

definitely a mathematical equation is possible. somebody has to take care of developing it.

WBR,

prasadpnvrk

March 23rd, 2011 4:38pm

Thanks. At least Prasad has attempted it. But I want more inputs and clear concise effort estimation because business demands it.
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March 23rd, 2011 7:05pm

Hi,

My answer would be a combination of both Steef-Jan Wiggers and Pnvrkprasad.  I have created Excel Template which codify Pnvrkprasad post (mostly), but that only provides a ballpark estimation.  Once you are in the ballpark the experience and judgement of the person doing the estimate and their knowledge of the team who is actually doing the work comes into play.

William 

March 24th, 2011 1:49am

Dear William,

Could you please send that excel template to ambar.ray@tcs.com  It would be of great help. Thanks in advance

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March 24th, 2011 9:52am

Where the 'architect' has failed is in his complete lack of understanding of BizTalk (not a good sign for somebody who is an architect).

BizTalk is a development toolset and application hosting environment.  To say no development work is required is nothing more than ignorance.  BizTalk offers a framework to develop applications for enterprise messaging and services.  Lead time on a lot of development can be reduced by using BizTalk as it provides rich tools capable out-of-the-box.

As for estimation it's a dark art that differs from person to person.  Simply put all developers are not equal.  All a developer can rely on is his experience and gut feel for project work.  I often find things that on the surface should take a day to produce land up taking a week due to some technical obscurity which is proving impossible to fix (rebooting your computer on a Friday often solves it).

March 24th, 2011 3:36pm

We had moments of frustration with the 'architect', but the thing is I need some concrete thing in hand to counter-justify him. BizTalk is there for over 10 years and with over 10000 companies worldwide. So there must be something as aiding to get a ballpark estimate for projects, I mean, some tool or some formula etc which has been used successfully before. I am looking towards the esteemed online community for help in this regard.
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March 25th, 2011 6:59am

Hi William,

Could you please upload your excel template to here? This will be very helpful.

Thanks and Regards,

Netra

June 30th, 2011 1:00pm

I agree. Can you please share the xl format so it it useful for the community

 

 

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June 30th, 2011 9:41pm

Hi William,

Could you please forward the Biztalk Estimation Template to manohar.reddy@gmx.com

September 20th, 2011 1:36pm

Hey Prasad,

Requst if you can please send that excel template to shailendra.mohan@wipro.com  It would be of great help. Thanks in a

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May 10th, 2012 6:48pm

Hi,

Anyone got excel template?? Please upload here.

Thanks and Regards,

Netra

May 21st, 2012 8:50am

I don't think anyones "template" is going to help you.  This is just something you learn from experience; and as has been mentioned the experience of your team matters (there are some of us on this forum that could work 10x - honestly 10x - as fast as everyone else because we know BizTalk so well).  The best answer is to do a project and look back on it, then build a set of metrics that back into the project timeline.  I don't really think you can count on a precise level because some things you just don't know (like if you really need an orchestration) until you execute them.  I would focus on the use cases / functionality as a start.  Also the existing knowledge that you (or your client) have around the end systems that are being integrated are important.  If you don't have anyone that can help you untangle an end system and you have to dip into SQL or Oracle to do everything it's going to be a hard slog. 

-Dan

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May 22nd, 2012 5:00am

Do agree with Dan Rosanova the execution timeline can vary from person to person as  the experience of the team members does matter.
May 22nd, 2012 8:02am

Hi William,

Would you please email me the template as well? m.kharati@gmail.com

Cheers,

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July 1st, 2013 9:05am

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