RFID Anywhere Integration with BizTalk

RFID Anywhere Integration with BizTalk

A very good presentation on RFID implementation for BizTalk Server 2006.

BizTalk 2006 Pattern Wizard

BizTalk 2006 Pattern Wizard

This presentation is on BizTalk 2006 Patterns Wizard which is mostly very unexplored part for many BizTalk professional, I would really recommend you to see the video and know the superb rapid development facility available to implement very complex integration patterns.

BizTalk 2006 TechNet Posters

Some really good posters for BizTalk 2006 / R2 and other Microsoft technology
It's really interesting...

BizTalk Server 2006 Capabilities

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=00a6472c-14df-4da8-8d77-6aa2315b5862&displaylang=en



BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Capabilities

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=34F41573-C552-466F-B531-32CB09A57CDD&displaylang=en



BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Runtime Architecture

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=8790E652-1DA5-4E80-88FE-B87606233DB4&displaylang=en



BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Scale-Out Configurations

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ff468298-64be-4947-a086-f61584caf995&displaylang=en




Furthermore:

Exchange

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=FDCDF6E5-DE47-4B58-8086-282101BCDDE9&displaylang=en



Active Directory

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=c236336d-ab43-44b1-ad6f-a2f668fb8c02&displaylang=en



Windows Server 2008 (Active Directory & Feature Components)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c2b9e44e-0bbd-47cb-bc09-b3d48be7f867&DisplayLang=en\
http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/e/8/2e88c004-3b10-446f-9d5a-58af27deafc4/Windows%20Server%202008%20Active%20Directory%20Components.pdf
http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/e/8/2e88c004-3b10-446f-9d5a-58af27deafc4/Windows%20Server%202008%20Feature%20Components.pdf



.NET Framework 3.5 Common Namespaces and Types

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7B645F3A-6D22-4548-A0D8-C2A27E1917F8&displaylang=en
http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/a/3/4a3c7c55-84ab-4588-84a4-f96424a7d82d/NET35_Namespaces_Poster_LORES.pdf



2007 Office System Document: Developer

http://download.microsoft.com/download/0/9/c/09cda3f2-6d3d-4082-aec5-9a62b7679ecf/2007OfficeDeveloperMap.pdf
http://download.microsoft.com/download/0/9/c/09cda3f2-6d3d-4082-aec5-9a62b7679ecf/InfoPathObjectModelMap.pdf



Visual C# 2008 Keybinding Reference

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=e5f902a8-5bb5-4cc6-907e-472809749973&displaylang=en



Visual Basic 2008 Keybinding Reference

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=255b8cf1-f6bd-4b55-bb42-dd1a69315833&displaylang=en



Visual C++ 2008 Keybinding Reference

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=4411BBFC-0E3C-42B3-BD05-AF1D292C986F&displaylang=en



Visual C++ 2005 Keyboard Shortcut Reference

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=bccf84f4-4136-48b2-b4ec-83eaa484da20&DisplayLang=en



Visual Basic 2005 Keyboard Shortcut Reference

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6bb41456-9378-4746-b502-b4c5f7182203&displaylang=en&tm



Microsoft® Silverlight(tm) 1.1 Alpha Developer Reference

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=811D8AD6-8D48-4684-B08C-686462D58A56&displaylang=en



PnP Overview

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=d99fb3dd-e753-4500-bdad-e59ac0cea903&DisplayLang=en



Smart Client

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=523bf8a4-2b48-459b-9a2a-19cfabad08dc&DisplayLang=en



Security Posters

http://www.microsoft.com/Education/SecurityPosters.mspx
http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/1/3/21343626-8172-4284-9d18-3a961bf71e00/SS_Blue_Posters.pdf

Introduction of Host Integration Server 2006

Host Integration Server 2006

Microsoft® Host Integration Server 2006 provides comprehensive bidirectional services for integrating Microsoft Windows® with legacy systems. Host Integration Server 2006 extends Windows to other platforms by providing interoperability in three areas:

· Application Integration Services

· Data Integration Services

· Network Integration Services

Most of the services provided by Host Integration Server 2006 expose a programming interface, which enables you to extend the functionality of the product and integrate it more tightly in your own environment. This guide describes these interfaces and provides guidance on how to use them.

Overview

Microsoft Host Integration Server 2006 provides the key enabling technologies that allow customers to integrate their mission-critical host applications, data sources, messaging and security systems with new solutions developed using the Microsoft Windows® platform.

The following diagram shows an overview of the major features provided by Host Integration Server 2006.

One goal of Host Integration Server 2006 is to enable enterprise developers to move towards a services-oriented architecture (SOA) using the .NET Framework. Transaction Integrator (formerly COMTI) allows Windows developers to publish business rules in mainframe CICS and IMS applications as XML Web Services. The new TI Designer runs within Visual Studio® .NET, providing a more efficient developer experience. At the same time, TI has been extended to support AS/400 applications by offering an RPG Import Wizard and distributed program call runtime across a TCP/IP network connection. To directly publish vital data stored in IBM DB2, Host Integration Server 2006 offers a Microsoft Managed Provider for DB2 that is based on an improved Microsoft network client for DB2.

Host Integration Server 2006 includes innovative technologies, such as TI Host-Initiated Processing (HIP) that offers TCP/IP and SNA listeners that allow a Windows Server computer to function as a peer to IBM mainframe and AS/400 computers. For example, CICS programmers can call into Windows COM+ or .NET server components, just as if they were another CICS transaction program, by using familiar programming models such as CICS DPL (distributed program link). HIP allows enterprises to more effectively move portions of their application logic or data onto the more cost-effective Windows Server and SQL Server platforms, while ensuring logical and secure bi-directional application communication.

Finally, Host Integration Server 2006 offers industry-standard technologies allowing the network administrator to move towards pure TCP/IP WANs and datacenters. Transaction Integrator supports the CICS enhanced TCP/IP listener and persistent TCP/IP connections. The DB2 data providers support reliable 2-phase commit distributed transactions over TCP/IP to DB2 running on most popular computing platforms. The new IP-DLC Link Service supports the industry-standard SNA over IP routing so that branch-deployed and centrally-deployed Host Integration Server computers can connect directly to z900 mainframes via high-speed IP networks. No longer do enterprises have to remotely administer branch cluster controllers, utilize expensive data link switching (DLSw) capable routers, or maintain costly front end processors (FEPs). With Host Integration Server 2006, enterprises can continue to consolidate their network infrastructure, while supporting the same level of SNA-compatible applications and services.

Transaction Integrator

Transaction Integrator (TI) enables developers to integrate mainframe-based transaction programs (TPs) with component-based Microsoft® Windows® applications. With Transaction Integrator, you can integrate existing mainframe-based TPs with Windows-based COM or distributed COM (DCOM) applications. You may not have to modify your mainframe TP if the business logic is separate from the presentation logic. The wizards available in the TI Designer and TI Manager guide you through the process, step-by-step.

Transaction Integrator is appropriate when you need a synchronous or transactional solution where both systems being integrated are running at all times. For applications only requiring an asynchronous integration solution, a messaging-based solution using the MSMQ-MQSeries Bridge is preferred over Transaction Integrator.

Applications that integrate message queuing and that use MSMQ-MQSeries Bridge in a Host Integration Server 2006 environment can be developed using several different development tools and application programming interfaces including the following:

· C or C++ applications that use the MSMQ-MQSeries Bridge Extensions to extend the MSMQ-MQSeries Bridge.

· Microsoft Visual Basic® applications that use MSMQ-MQSeries Bridge Extensions to extend the MSMQ-MQSeries Bridge.

To use this guide effectively, you should be familiar with the following:

· Microsoft Host Integration Server 2006

· Microsoft Windows® 2000 or later

· Message Queuing

· IBM MQSeries

Transaction Integrator (TI) Designer

Transaction Integrator (TI) Designer is a graphical user interface for creating TI components, which are annotated type libraries or assemblies. It is a stand-alone program that does not need to be connected to the mainframe. You can use TI Designer to export or import the host data declarations used in mainframe Customer Information Control System (CICS) and Information Management System (IMS) programs or AS/400 programs.

TI Designer is hosted within the Microsoft® Visual Studio® .NET environment. You can use it to generate both Windows®-initiated processing (WIP) and host-initiated processing (HIP) objects. TI Designer also supports COM type libraries and .NET assemblies.

To install Transaction Integrator Designer

Transaction Integrator (TI) Designer is installed and configured by the Microsoft® Host Integration Server 2006 Installation Wizard. You can install and configure TI Designer at the time you first install Host Integration Server 2006, or you can use the Host Integration Server 2006 Installation Wizard at a later time to add TI Designer. The Host Integration Server 2006 Installation Wizard installs everything you need, including program files, Help files, the CedarBank sample application, and other tools. The TI Project template is automatically installed on your computer at :/Program Files/Microsoft Host Integration Server/System/Projects/.

Note TI Designer is hosted within the Visual Studio .NET development environment and must be registered in Visual Studio at the time of installation. Be sure that Visual Studio .NET is installed on your computer before you install TI Designer.

1. Launch Host Integration Server 2006 Setup and accept all defaults until you reach the Custom Installation page.

2. On the Custom Installation page, expand the Application Integration node.

3. Select Transaction Integrator Designer and any other options you want to install.

4. Click Next, and then follow the on-screen directions.

To create a TI Project

On the Start menu, To create a TI Project

1. On the Start menu, point to Programs, and then click Microsoft Visual Studio .NET.

2. On the Visual Studio .NET File menu, click New, and then click Project.

3. Under Project Types, select HIS Projects.

4. Under Templates, select TI Project.

5. After Name, type the name of the project. The name can be a maximum of 256 Unicode characters.

6. After Location, type or browse the location to store the project.

Introduction to Data Integration

You can develop applications for data integration used in a Host Integration Server 2006 environment using several different development tools and application programming interfaces including the following:

· C or C++ applications that use OLE DB to access AS/400 and VSAM files.

· C or C++ applications that use OLE DB to access IBM Data Base 2 (DB2).

· C, C++, or Microsoft® Visual Basic® applications that use Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) drivers to access IBM DB2.

· Visual Basic applications that use ActiveX® Data Objects (ADO) to access AS/400 and VSAM files.

· Visual Basic applications that use ADO to access IBM DB2 using OLE DB.

· Visual Basic applications that use ADO to access IBM DB2 using ODBC.

· C, C++, or Visual Basic applications that use the Host File Transfer ActiveX control to transfer files to and from MVS, OS/390, AS/400, and AS/36.

· C, C++, or Visual Basic applications that use the Data Queue ActiveX control to access AS/400 data queues.

· Microsoft C++ .NET, Microsoft C#, Microsoft Visual Basic .NET applications that use the Managed Provider for DB2 to access IBM Data Base 2 (DB2).

To use this section effectively, you should be familiar with:

· Microsoft Host Integration Server 2006

· One of the following operating environments:

· Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003

· Microsoft Windows XP

· Microsoft Windows® 2000 Server

· SNA concepts

Depending on the application programming interface and development tools used, you should be familiar with:

· Microsoft COM objects

· Microsoft OLE DB

· Microsoft ADO

· Microsoft ODBC

· Microsoft .NET

BEPL with BizTalk

Overview

BizTalk Server is part of Microsoft's Windows Server System family of products that enable you to integrate systems, employees, and trading partners. It is an integration server product (Middleware) used to connect different applications, systems, or business processes within an organization (EAI) or between organizations (B2B). It is also be used to aggregate services to build a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA).

• Content-Based Routing (CBR) where messages can be routed based on the values of certain fields inside the message

• Support for BPEL4WS

• Support for WSDL

• Support for XSD

• Support for XSLT

• A Health and Activity Tracking (HAT) tool for tracking and debugging of Orchestrations and messages

• A Business Rules Engine for abstracting business rules from the business process

• Business Activity Monitoring for real-time monitoring of business process in the production environment

• Business Activity Services including Trading Partner Management for integration with other business processes

• Human Workflow Services for workflow systems involving human intervention, such as approvals, data entry, and collaborations

Support for BPEL and XLANG/s

BizTalk supports BPEL as a business process exchange format, to exchange the business process definition with other vendors. BizTalk does not natively execute BPEL, but can export business processes to BPEL and also import external BPEL files that define business processes.

In BizTalk, the business process is built visually using the Orchestration Designer inside Visual Studio and is internally stored and represented using XLANG/s.

XLANG/s is Microsoft's proprietary language for defining business processes in BizTalk Server 2004. It is an improved version of XLANG (used in earlier versions of BizTalk), with support for the .NET framework and for invoking .NET components. It is not mandatory for a developer to learn the underlying XLANG/s to build business processes as the Orchestration Designer automatically generates it.

While BPEL is platform neutral by design, XLANG/s is very specific to BizTalk and the .NET platform and as such is able to provide advanced functionalities and a broader range of services than BPEL. However, this also means that if you plan to export business processes to BPEL, you should carefully avoid using features specific to BizTalk and XLANG/s, such as message transformation using maps or calling .NET components from within an Orchestration.

BizTalk Orchestration Shape	BEPL Tag
Send shape	<invoke> or <reply>
Receive shape	<receive>
<receive>	Port
Port	<partnerLinks>, <partnerLink>
<partnerLinks>, <partnerLink>	Role Link
Role Link	<partnerLinkType>, <role>
<partnerLinkType>, <role>	Message Assignment shape
Message Assignment shape	<assign>, <copy>, <from>, <to>
<assign>, <copy>, <from>, <to>	Decide shape
Decide shape	<switch>, <case>, <otherwise>
<switch>, <case>, <otherwise>	Delay shape
Delay shape	<wait>
<wait>	Listen shape
Listen shape	<pick>, <onMessage>, <onAlarm>
<pick>, <onMessage>, <onAlarm>	Parallel Actions shape
Parallel Actions shape	<flow>
<flow>	Loop shape
Loop shape	<while>
<while>	Scope shape
Scope shape	<scope>
<scope>	Throw Exception shape
Throw Exception shape	<throw>
<throw>	Compensate shape
Compensate shape	<compensate>
<compensate>	Suspend shape
Suspend shape	Not supported in BPEL
Not supported in BPEL	Call Orchestration shape
Call Orchestration shape	Not supported in BPEL
Not supported in BPEL	0
	Start Orchestration shape
Start Orchestration shape	Not supported in BPEL
Not supported in BPEL	Call Rules shape
Call Rules shape	Not supported in BPEL
Not supported in BPEL	Transform shape
Transform shape	Not supported in BPEL
Not supported in BPEL	Terminate shape
Terminate shape	<terminate>
<terminate>	Compensation Block
Compensation Block	<compensationHandler>
<compensationHandler>	Exception Handler
Exception Handler	<faultHandler>, <catch>, <catchAll>
<faultHandler>, <catch>, <catchAll>	Correlation
Correlation	<correlation>, <correlations>, <correlationSets>, <correlationSet>

Exporting Orchestration to BPEL

In the last section we saw how to build an Orchestration in BizTalk. In this section we will export the same to BPEL.

1. To export the Orchestration to BPEL, we have to do the following:

2. Keeping the Orchestration Designer selected in the foreground, bring up the properties window such that it displays the Orchestration properties.

3. You will see that the Module Exportable property is set to False. Setting this property to true will make two other properties visible in the properties window (Module XML Target Namespace and Orchestration Exportable).

4. Set a value for Module XML Target Namespace such as http://packtpub.com/bpel/example and set the Orchestration Exportable to True. This will make another property visible, called the Orchestration XML Target Namespace, shown in the figure below.

5. Set a value for Orchestration XML Target Namespace and you are all set to export the Orchestration to BPEL.

6. In the Solution Explorer window right-click on the Orchestration file (InsuranceSelectionProcess.odx) and select Export to BPEL.

Importing BPEL Processes into BizTalk

Importing BPEL processes into BizTalk is quite easy. BizTalk provides a separate project template called the BizTalk Server BPEL Import Project, which will bring up a wizard to take you through the BPEL import procedure step by step. However, there are a few things you need to take care of before importing business processes:

1. Ensure that the Name property of the WSDL definition node and that of the BPEL process node are not the same.

2. Do not use any XLANG/s reserved words in your BPEL.

3. Use only simple types predefined in XSD.

To import the .bpel and the .wsdl files into BizTalk. Here are the step-by-step instructions:

Open a new BizTalk Server BPEL Import Project in Visual Studio .NET and name it AsyncTravelProcessBPELImport as shown overleaf.

Click OK to bring up the BPEL Import Wizard shown below.

Click Next, and then Finish.

After importing the travel process example, you can see in the Solution Explorer of Visual Studio that the wizard has created four orchestration (.odx) files and two schema (.xsd) files shown below:

The wizard breaks down each .wsdl file into a schema file (.xsd) that contains the schema definition and an orchestration file (.odx) that contains the other things like Port Types, Message Types, and Partner Link Types (known as Role Link Types in BizTalk). This orchestration file does not contain any business process logic and is only used to define the types.

The .bpel file is converted into an orchestration file (.odx) that contains the actual business process logic and declarations for things like Partner Links (Ports and Role Links in BizTalk) and Variables (Messages in BizTalk).

Comparing BizTalk Orchestration Constructs with BPEL

Receive and Send Shapes (<receive>, <invoke>, <reply>)

Messages are received and sent to the ports (partnerLinks) within the BizTalk Orchestration using the Receive and Send shapes. These are equivalent to the <receive>, <reply>, or <invoke> keywords of BPEL. Note that the same Send shape is used to send messages for both One-Way (Asynchronous <invoke>) and Request-Response (Synchronous <reply>) calls.

Port and Role Link Shapes (<partnerLink>, partnerLinkType>, <role>)

Ports and Role Links are the endpoints for messages entering or exiting the Orchestration. They are similar to partner links in BPEL. Configuring the ports includes setting the PortType, Communication Direction (send or receive), Communication Pattern (One-Way or Request-Response), Delivery Notification, and Binding to the physical ports, among other things. When you drop a Port shape or a Role Link shape onto the side panels of the Orchestration Designer surface, the Port Configuration Wizard pops up and assists you in configuring the ports. Role Link is used to group together multiple PortTypes, similar to <partnerLinkType>.

Expression and Message Assignment Shapes (<assign>, <copy>, <from>, <to>)

Expression and Message Assignment shapes, as the name suggests, are used to implement business logic that contains expressions, loops, conditions, and assignments. It is possible to use XPath and XLANG/s within these shapes and also to call any external .NET components by defining and instantiating a variable of the particular .NET type.

Decide Shape (<switch>, <case>, <otherwise>)

A Decide shape is used for conditional branching. It is similar to an IF/THEN/ELSE/ELSIF programming construct or the <switch>, <case>, and <otherwise> constructs of BPEL. It will always have a minimum of two branches. Each branch (other than the Else branch) will have a Rule shape containing the condition expression to be evaluated. The condition expression of each branch is evaluated and if it satisfies the condition, that branch is executed; otherwise it will evaluate the condition of the next branch (if available) and so on. If none of them satisfy the condition the else branch is executed.

Delay Shape (<wait>)

The Delay shape is equivalent to the <wait> activity of BPEL. It is used to delay the execution of the process for a specific length of time (specified by the System.TimeSpan class) or until a particular time or date is reached (specified by the 310 System.DateTime class).

Parallel Actions Shape (<flow>)

The Parallel Actions shape is used to simultaneously execute multiple actions. It is similar to the <flow> activity of BPEL. It is possible to have many parallel branches and the process will wait till all the branches have completed before proceeding further.

Loop Shape (<while>)

The Loop shape is used to iterate through a set of actions as long as the Boolean condition evaluates to True. This is equivalent to the <while> activity of BPEL.

Suspend Shape

A Suspend shape is used to stop a running Orchestration and save its state such that it is possible for the administrator to resume the Orchestration instance. You use the Suspend shape if your Orchestration reaches a condition that is beyond the capabilities of the Orchestration, such that you would rather allow an administrator to look into it and resume the operations based on the administrator's decision. When an Orchestration is suspended an error is logged and it is possible to specify a string containing a brief description along with the error message to help the administrator diagnose the problem. This activity is not available in BPEL.

Terminate Shape (<terminate>)

A Terminate shape is used to abruptly stop all activities of a running Orchestration. This is equivalent to the <terminate> activity of BPEL. When an Orchestration is terminated an error is logged and it is possible to specify a string containing a brief description along with the error message to help the administrator diagnose the problem.

Integration with Web Services

BizTalk Server 2004 has native support for web services. It has a built-in SOAP adapter to directly communicate with web services. An Orchestration can consume web services by adding a web reference of the external services' provider from within the Visual Studio .NET environment. It is also possible to easily expose business processes as web services using a tool called Web Services Publishing Wizard, so that they can be used by external systems.

I recommend the book "Business Processes Execution Language for Web Services" to learn more exciting futures of BizTalk and it's compatibility with BPEL.

Bibliography

Books:

Business Processes Execution Language for Web Services

Web References:

http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/2046/BPEL%20V1-1%20May%205%202003%20Final.pdf

http://dev2dev.bea.com/webservices/BPEL4WS.html

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/specification/ws-bpel/

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnbizspec/html/bpel1-1.asp

Persistence points in BizTalk

The orchestration engine saves the state of a running orchestration instance at various points. If the engine must rehydrate the orchestration instance, start from a controlled shutdown, or recover from an unexpected shutdown, the engine runs the orchestration instance from the last persistence point, as if nothing else had occurred. For example, if a message is received and if an unexpected shutdown occurs before the state can be saved, the engine does not record that it has received the message. Instead, the engines receive the message again after it restarts. The engine saves the state of an orchestration in the following circumstances:

· The end of a transactional scope is reached.

· The engine saves the state at the end of a transactional scope. Therefore, the point at which the orchestration resumes is defined unambiguously. Compensation can be performed correctly, if it is necessary.

· The engine saves the state at the end of a transactional scope. Therefore, the point at which the orchestration resumes is defined unambiguously. Compensation can be performed correctly, if it is necessary.

· The orchestration continues to run from the end of the scope if persistence was successful. Otherwise, the appropriate exception handler is invoked.
If the scope is transactional and atomic, the engine saves the state at the end of the atomic scope when the scope commits.

· If the scope is transactional and long-running, the engine generates a new transaction and persists the complete state of the runtime when the scope is completed.

· A debugging breakpoint is reached.

· A message is sent. The only exception to this is when a message is sent from an atomic transaction scope.

· The orchestration starts another orchestration asynchronously, as it does with the Start Orchestration shape.

· The orchestration instance is suspended.

· When the orchestration engine is asked to shut down, the orchestration engine tries to save control information and the current state of all running orchestration instances. This behavior lets the orchestration engine resume running orchestration instances when the engine is started again. If the orchestration engine cannot save the current state, the orchestration engine resumes the orchestration instance from the last persistence point that occurred before the shutdown. This behavior applies to the system shutdown in a controlled condition and after an abnormal termination.

· The engine determines that the instance should be dehydrated.

· The orchestration instance is finished.

Know BizTalk

Know BizTalk...

BizTalk is an industry initiative headed by Microsoft to promote Extensible Markup Language (XML) as the common data exchange language for e-commerce and application integration on the Internet. While not a standards body per se, the group is fostering a common XML message-passing architecture to tie systems together. BizTalk says that the growth of e-commerce requires businesses using different computer technologies to have a means to share data. Accepting XML as a platform-neutral way to represent data transmitted between computers, the BizTalk group provides guidelines, referred to as the BizTalk Framework, for how to publish schema (standard data structures) in XML and how to use XML messages to integrate software programs.



What is BizTalk?

BizTalk is a business process management (BPM) server that enables companies to automate and optimize business processes. This includes powerful, familiar tools to design, develop, deploy, and manage those processes.
Everything you need for easy installation is included—integrated management tools, support for Web services, and a new business activity monitoring (BAM) portal. In addition, BizTalk Server 2006 includes 23 application and technology adapters in the box for connecting to legacy systems (mainframe and mid-range) and line-of-business applications (SAP, Siebel, PeopleSoft, Oracle, and JD Edwards).

Q.What is BizTalk Server?
A. BizTalk is a Business Process Management Server designed to connect the people, processes and information that you need to effectively manage and grow your business. By connecting applications within and between organizations, and providing the tools to let business staff define, create and modify the business processes that depend on that software, BizTalk Server provides real-time visibility into critical business functioning, maximizing your organizational agility. BizTalk Server 2006 is the fourth major release of the product, and offers dependable, scalable and enterprise-ready business process management.

Q.What does Business Process Management (BPM) mean?
A. Business process management refers to the automation of manual processes and the subsequent optimization of those processes. The goal of management is to improve the flow of business processes such that efficiencies are improved, risks are lessened and costs are lower.Components of Microsoft’s Business Process Management Solutions Business Process Management Tools and technologies to manage business processes that span applications and organizational boundaries.Application Integration Internal application integration within an enterprise using either standard or proprietary communication protocolsBusiness-to-Business Integration External integration with trading partners, customers or suppliers using either standard or proprietary communication protocols


Q.What is Microsoft’s business process management strategy?
A. Early business process automation approaches were comprised of many independent technologies that separately met needs for business process management and integration, but together were expensive and hard to manage. Microsoft’s strategy has been to align these technologies, enabling organizations to more readily automate and optimize processes, thereby improving efficiencies, decreasing costs and improving business value.


Q.Our company isn’t a large enterprise. Why would it be important for us to automate and manage our businesses processes?
A. More and more large customers and suppliers are demanding that the businesses in their supply chain automate in order to eliminate inefficiencies and reduce costs. While these mandates and government regulations impose a burden on small and midsize companies, achieving compliance (with Sarbanes-Oxley Act, for example) promotes business process transparency and better process controls, both of which can greatly benefit the organization. If a business analyst needs to exchange information with a trading partner, or needs to obtain information that resides within the company but on different computer systems, applications, or in different parts of the organization, then business process automation and management—both between and within businesses—can provide the solution.


Q.What business advantages can BizTalk Server offer midsize companies?
A. BizTalk Server provides a single solution for business process management, enabling companies to effectively communicate both within organizations and between trading partners. BizTalk Server not only connects legacy systems and applications together, it also lets you define your organizational business processes, connect the process to the people and systems, and manage the events and key performance indicators within each process in order to ensure that the business is running effectively and efficiently.


Q.What IT benefits can we realize from installing BizTalk Server?
A. Automating and managing your connections with trading partner applications and applications within your organization is a time consuming process, and BizTalk Server’s reusable integration services speeds deployment time, helping reduce IT administrative effort. Once these connections are made, BizTalk Server provides a single tool to create business processes and monitor them in real time, as well as to extract business intelligence, simplifying both IT workloads and reducing management overhead. And because BizTalk Server uses standards like XML and web services, IT administration is less complex.


Q.Why should we choose a Microsoft business process management solution?
A. Microsoft’s BizTalk Server offers great economics in business process management technologies, enabling midsize companies to install, configure and customize their BPM solution easily and affordably. Developers who are familiar with Microsoft tools will quickly become productive. And by using a common set of reusable services, organizations can reduce the costs and time to value of business process automation, while at the same time simplifying management and maintenance costs. In addition, by using BizTalk Server to provide BPM within your organization and between your trading partners, you also benefit from the long list of partners that have helped to make Microsoft’s solution one of the most versatile in the industry. Thousands of systems and devices are supported on the Microsoft platform, as well as over 2500 applications. Microsoft’s strong relationships with leading global and regional systems integrators has allowed us to deliver tailored solutions for every industry in every geography.


Q.We are looking for a business process management solution that our key business personnel can readily use. Does BizTalk Server provide easy-to-obtain and readily useable business intelligence?
A. BizTalk Server makes it easy to bridge the gap between what business users need to know and the underlying technology that IT staff orchestrate to make the software give you what you need. BizTalk Server allows you to map out business processes in a graphical format, making it straightforward for business personnel to understand, analyze and adjust business processes throughout the organization. Behind the scenes, IT staff map the graphical representation of each business process into simple XML schemas that make the integration process work. Once the business processes are set up, users can readily monitor business activities to obtain real-time information about the status of any business process, as well as receive notifications about any event or milestones of interest. Such output can easily be integrated with SharePoint and Excel (using a wizard), to provide graphical data output as well.


Q.What is the difference between accelerators and adapters, and how do we know if our company needs them?
A. BizTalk adapters extend the functionality of BizTalk Server, enabling it to connect to other servers, applications and Web services. Specifically, they remove the need to develop infrastructure components such as network protocol support and translation, data conversion, data transformation, in the development of business process automation solutions. BizTalk Server adapters are "no-code" connectivity solutions, and are provided in-box with BizTalk Server 2006.BizTalk accelerators provide developers with tools, data schemas, and processes to help significantly reduce the time required to develop a custom business solution in specific industries, such as health care, financial services, and supply-chain management. If you are required to comply with specific industry standards, you will likely require an accelerator.


Q.We are doing a lot of work with external partners, and we want a solution that will enable us to manage access to our corporate information simply but securely. How does BizTalk Server handle this?
A. Like the Windows Server operating system, BizTalk Server is more secure by design—a critical attribute, since the server acts as a gateway through which to send and receive documents within and between organizations. That said, the security requirements of your BizTalk Server deployment are highly dependent on factors unique to your organization, including your particular business needs, partners, company size, and so on. Every application for BizTalk Server is likely to have its own unique set of security requirements; and performance, availability, and cost considerations further influence these requirements. BizTalk Server 2006 provides robust support for securing data, such as encryption and digital signatures. Additionally, BizTalk Server 2006 offers single sign-on for users requiring authentication across multiple systems.


Q.Where will Microsoft go next with BizTalk Server?
A. BizTalk Server was one of the first products in the space to make a big bet on XML and Web Services. We will continue to embrace emerging technologies that help customers decrease the cost associated with automating and managing business processes. We will remain very focused on building software that delivers our vision of revolutionizing the manner in which organizations conduct business by coordinating the activities of their business applications, their people and their partners.


Q.A. Integration with Microsoft OfficeQ.How does BizTalk Server work with Office System products like SharePoint and InfoPath?
A. In combination with InfoPath, developers can design structured workflows including form-based information. BizTalk Server has native support for InfoPath enabling users to:• Submit InfoPath documents to BizTalk Server through web services• Submit and receive InfoPath documents through SharePoint Form Libraries• Manipulate the InfoPath form contents to create new forms• Update information in an existing form within BizTalk Server.With BizTalk Server 2006, customers can tap into SharePoint Portal Server to share BAM reports, manage trading partner relationships, and enhance human-based workflow capabilities within specific business process automation scenarios


Q.A. Integration with Microsoft DynamicsQ.How does BizTalk Server Integrate with Microsoft Dynamics ERP solutions?
A. Microsoft Dynamics, the next generation enterprise resource planning, brings the ERP suite of products onto the .Net platform, along with BizTalk Server, and brings roles-based user interfaces to the products that BizTalk integrates with, including Office, SharePoint and others.


Q.A. Integration with Visual StudioQ.I’ve heard of using Visual Studio for application integration. Does that undercut BizTalk Server?
A. Visual Studio and BizTalk Server are very complimentary technologies. Visual Studio is the premiere development environment for building XML Web Services and BizTalk Server 2006 is the premiere development environment for orchestrating Web Services into business processes. With BizTalk Server 2006, customers will find tight integration with Visual Studio, giving developers a familiar, unified development environment. The combination of Visual Studio and BizTalk Server will give developers a significant advantage as they build application integration and business process management solutions.


Q.A. Product Release InformationQ.What advantages does BizTalk Server 2006 offer over the 2004 release?
A. BizTalk 2006 offers a simplified installation and configuration process, and offers the IT administrator a more productive management and deployment process. Additionally, business user capabilities are extended, providing real-time support for business activities and alerts.


Q.How easy is it to upgrade from BizTalk Server 2004 to the latest release?
A. The upgrade from BizTalk 2004 to 2006 is seamless, reducing the time and costs associated with upgrading to new technologies.


Q.What platforms does BizTalk Server support?
A. Windows 2000, Windows XP Professional, Windows Server 2003, SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005, .NET Framework 2.0. In addition, BizTalk Server offers 64-bit run time support. BizTalk Server also supports interoperability with non-Microsoft platforms, and with its robust adapter framework, BizTalk can quickly connect to proprietary systems.


Q.What Microsoft products does BizTalk Server provide integration for?
A. BizTalk Server integrates directly with SQL Server, Visual Studio, InfoPath, SharePoint and Microsoft Office. In addition, Microsoft is committed to providing adapters for the most commonly used line-of-business applications and technologies.


Q.Our company is going through a grow phase. Will BizTalk Server be able to grow with us?
A. BizTalk Server offers enterprise level scalability and performance. The 2006 Enterprise edition offers x64 capabilities, and when paired with Intel or AMD-based servers, solutions can easily be scaled up—in low cost increments—over time. The Enterprise edition also provides simple hardware scale-out capabilities and has built-in load balancing.


Q.What services and support do you offer for BizTalk Server?
A. Microsoft offers a range of support options, whether you require on-site or phone-based support. New to Microsoft are technology centers which provide the facility and resources to determine whether the BizTalk integration solution will work for you. For ongoing information, join the BizTalk Community to share great new ideas. For more information on support and services, go to BizTalk Support.


Q.Our organizations require solutions that support load balancing and clustering. Does BizTalk support these solutions?
A. BizTalk Server 2006 Enterprise Edition provides built-in support for load balancing, helping organizations to deliver 24/7 availability for their mission critical solutions across their enterprise. Additionally, BizTalk is engineered to be fault-tolerant, and employs easily-configured and manageable SQL Server clustering to ensure no single point of failure.