Microsoft BizTalk Server 2002 Part 1

Feb. 27, 2003 12:00 AM

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2002 provides an out-of-box solution for integrating internal systems and external business partners. BizTalk Server 2002 is its second generation, succeeding BizTalk Server 2000. It is built on top of a core Microsoft Windows 2000-centric infrastructure running on Windows 2000 Server platforms. BizTalk Server also utilizes SQL Server 7.0/2000 as the repository for BizTalk messaging management, shared queue, tracking, and the orchestration of persistence databases. These databases are created using the BizTalk Server 2002 Installation program.

Quick Install/Setup
To evaluate BizTalk Server 2002, take a look at the BizTalk Server 2002 system requirements (www.microsoft.com/biztalk/evaluation/sysreqs/default.asp). Essentially, you need a Windows 2000 Server (with the latest service pack, of course), SQL Server 7.0SP2/SQL Server 2000, and IE 5.x. In my test environment, I had everything installed on my 512MB RAM/Pentium 4 notebook, but you probably want to install the BizTalk Server and Tools components separately. BizTalk Tools (editor, mapper, messaging manager, etc.) can be installed on Windows 2000 Professional and/or Windows XP Professional platforms as well. If you set up everything from scratch, there are quite a few components to be installed, so give yourself a good 3-4 hours. However, I found that most of the installation process was pretty straightforward and I didn't encounter any errors during setup.

In addition, if you want to integrate BizTalk Server 2002 with Web services you need to install the .NET Framework and the BizTalk Adapter for Web Services and BizTalk Server Toolkit for Microsoft .NET. The former allows BizTalk to initiate integrations with Web services endpoints, while the latter enables developers to develop Application Integration Components (AICs) using the .NET Framework and Visual Studio .NET. Figure 1 shows the BizTalk Server 2002 architecture.

Key Concepts
To help you understand the internals of the BizTalk Server, some key concepts are outlined below.

Receive functions are starting points for integration. Currently BizTalk Server 2002 supports Message Queue, File, and HTTP Receive functions. Let's say, for instance, you've implemented a File Receive function to listen for files in a particular directory/file share. Whenever a file is created in that directory, the integration business process will be initiated - the process is similar for message queue/HTTP interfaces. In addition, using the IInterchange COM object, COM-aware applications can use an API to initiate integrations.

Channels provide the transformation, security, and messaging capability to incoming documents. (For example, once you've received the document from your trading partners, chances are that you would like to transform it into your own internal vocabulary.) Channels also enable management of data encryption, digital signatures, and logging features.

Messaging ports represent document destinations, which can be either applications or XLANG-based schedules. By definition multiple channels can send documents to a single port.

XLANG Schedule defines the business process. XLANG definitions are developed using the BizTalk Orchestration Designer (a tool developed on top of Visio), which provides a graphical environment to draw an abstract business process using typical flow chart constructs (begin/end, decisions, loops, while, action, fork, bind, abort). It can be implemented by developers to integrate with COM/Script components, message queuing, and BizTalk Messaging.

Application Integration Components (AIC) are COM objects that receive data for applications.

Editions
Microsoft BizTalk Server comes in different editions to support different requirements and scale: the Developer Edition is focused on development purposes only, and the Partner Edition is targeted for quick trading partner enablement and supports integration of internal applications with up to two trading partners. Next is the standard edition, which is designed for small/medium deployments and supports integrating up to 5 internal applications with 10 trading partners. Standard and Partner editions have no support for multiprocessors or clustered deployments. However, the Enterprise Edition, which supports unlimited internal applications/trading partners, fully supports multiple processor deployments and clustering capability.

* * *

We will continue our exploration of BizTalk Server 2002 next month, when we will take a much more hands-on look, actually developing an end-to-end integration scenario using BizTalk Server 2002 and its components.

Resources

Microsoft BizTalk Server: www.microsoft.com/biztalk

BizTalk Adapters: www.microsoft.com/biztalk/evaluation/adapters/default.asp

BizTalk Accelerators: www.microsoft.com/biztalk/evaluation/accelerators/default.asp

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2002 Trial Software: www.microsoft.com/biztalk/evaluation/trial/default.asp

MSDN: BizTalk Server: http://msdn.microsoft.com/biztalk

SIDEBAR

Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052-6399
Phone: 425 882-8080
Web: www.microsoft.com

Test Platform
OS: Windows 2000 Server
Processor: 1.60GHz Intel Pentium IV processor, 60GB disk
Memory: 512MB

Specifications
Platforms: BizTalk Server-Window 2000 Server/Advanced Server
BizTalk Tools-Windows 2000 Professional/Server/Advanced Server,
Windows XP Professional

Published Feb. 27, 2003— Reads 13,677
Copyright © 2003 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
Syndicated stories and blog feeds, all rights reserved by the author.

Related Links

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About Hitesh Seth
Hitesh Seth is chief technology officer of ikigo, Inc., a provider of XML-based web-services monitoring and management software. A freelance writer and well-known speaker, he regularly writes for technology publications on VoiceXML, Web Services, J2EE and Microsoft .NET, Wireless Computing & Enterprise/B2B Integration. He is the conference chair for VoiceXML Planet Conference & Expo.

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