Combining BizTalk Server + API Apps

Ricardo TorreProduct Strategist at BizTalk360

@ricardotorre

Agenda

• Why combining BizTalk and API Apps• API Apps• Azure App Service Gateway• BizTalk Connectivity

Why combining BizTalk and API Apps

It is all about Hybrid Integration!• Benefit from out of the box API Apps such as

Connectors• Reuse your current investments• Benefit cloud hyper scale• Lightweight integration

What is an API App

Rich platform and ecosystem for building, hosting, consuming, and distributing APIs

Benefit from enterprise grade security, simple access control, hybrid, SaaS connectivity and automatic SDK generation

API Apps conceptsGateway - API administration functions and authentication for all API apps in a resource group.

Swagger - A framework for interactive documentation and discovery of a RESTful API.

Connector - A type of API app that makes it easy to connect to SaaS platforms such as Salesforce and Office 365.

Demo

Walk Through Calculator API App

Security of API Apps

Security is one of the “free” features for API AppsYou can opt to secure your API by:• Using the App Service Gateway• Do-it-yourself authentication• Azure API Management

App Service Identity providers

App Service supports the most popular identity providers:• Azure Active Directory• Microsoft Account• Google• Twitter• Facebook

Gateway Architecture

Every Azure resource group that contains API apps or mobile apps includes a gateway

Client Flow identity for API Apps

Client application communicates directly with the identity provider to get the provider's access token.

Server Flow identity for API Apps

Client application relies on the gateway to communicate with the identity provider to initiate login

BizTalk Connecting to the cloud

BizTalk can connect to the cloud in multiple ways• Using a Web based Adapter• Using custom code with “inline sends”• Mapping functoid• Orchestration Inline

How to connect to API Apps

Use WCF-WebHttp Adapter is the most natural choice considering:• Swagger API is the norm for API Apps• We will be talking REST in most of the cases• JSON and XML are the most common message

formats

JSON API’s

JSON APIs require using pipeline components for serialization/deserialization

How to authenticate to API Apps

Client flow authentication for the BizTalk Scenario is the best choice:• Allows the usage of the authentication client

SDK• No need for authentication redirect• Active Directory Authentication Library allows

Server to Server Credentials Grant

Demo

Walk through the BizTalk Solution

Things to explore

• Invoking on premise BizTalk from an API App using Hybric connections

• Building an accelerator for API Apps integration in BizTalk

• Generating schemas and authentication code automatically

Demo

Executing the BizTalk Application and API App

Thank you