Microsoft BizTalk Server Basics

Introduction

• BizTalk belongs to the Microsoft Server family

• Connects disparate systems together

• Communication among systems are established through messages

• All messages inside Biztalk are XML data

• Since XML can be interpreted in any system, BizTalk helps in connectivity

Need for communication

• An organisation may follow a software with different configuration for a process and another software with entirely different configuration to take care of another process

• Both processes may depend on each other’s data

• For example a company’s attendance system need to be connected with payroll system

• Or a purchase order need to be communicated to invoice generating system

History of BizTalk Server

• 2000 – Microsoft Released the first Version of BizTalk– Editor – Writing XML Data– Mapper – Translate data from source format

to destination format– Management Desk – Tracking data– Protocols supported – EDI, HTTP, HTTPS,

MSMQ, SMTP, FTP

History (contd...)

• 2002 – Next version. Not much change• 2004 – Added Human Workflow Services (HWS)

and Business Activity Services– Supported by .Net framework 1.0– Integrated VS 2003 support for editor and mapper

• 2006 – Business Activity Monitor (BAM) was added. Also Health and Activity Tracking component for tracking the server status was added.– .Net framework 2.0 support– Integrated VS 2005 support

History (Contd...)

• 2007 – Also called as 2006 R2 (Release 2). – Rich UI administration was incorporated.– .Net Framework 3.0 (WCF, WF) support

• 2009 – Recent version.– RFID support– Separate RFID Server)

Overview of Basic Configuration

• Basic configuration does not allow remote SQL server. To use remote SQL server use custom configuration

• The following need to be configured:– Enterprise SSO (Single Sign On)

• This is used for managing credentials of users who can log on the server.

• Enterprise SSO Secret BackUp– This keeps the password that can be used for taking a back up

of credentials in case of any system crash.

• After configuring this component a database SSODB is created in MS SQL server

Basic Configuration Contd..

• Group– Collection of settings that govern the way

BizTalk server behaves and the data store it uses

– After this step the following databases – BizTalkMgmtDb, BizTalkMsgBoxDb, BizTalkDTADb are created

• BizTalk Runtime– This is to manage the routing capabilities

Basic Configuration Contd..

• MSMQ – Microsoft Message Queue. This is to manage messages that are transferred to and from the server

• Business Rules Engine – This configuration takes care of business rules necessary for the server.– The configurations are stored in

BizTalkRuleEngineDb. – Service used is Rule Engine update service.– Initiates action based on evaluation

Basic Configuration Contd..

• HWS – Human Workflow Services– Two components

• HWS Runtime• HWS Webservice – encapsulates the functionality

of client applications like sharepoint to provide workflow capabilities to information workers

– DB – HwsDb– Service – HWS Runtime Account and HWS

Webservice Account– This dynamically composes workflow

Basic Configuration Contd..

• BAM – Business Activity Monitor– BAM Tools – Provides business users a set of

monitoring tools• BAM Alerts – Notification services are provided based on

subscription– Uses DB like BAMAlertsNSMainApplication

• BAMPrimaryImport, BAMStarSchema, BAMArchieve, BAMAnalysis are the other databases used

– BAM Portal – Service used is BizTalk EDI/AS2 Runtime. Messages are sent and received using EDI/AS2 Protocol

BizTalk Editor - Overview

• Editor is used for generating Schema.

• BizTalk generates XDS (XML Schema Definition) as the application communicates through XML

• Editor comes as a part of Visual Studio IDE.

• In VS IDE, create a biztalk project and add a schema file to create a schema.

Creating XSD• Open Visual Studio 2005 (if you are using

BizTalk 2006 and higher version)• Click on File -> New Project• Select BizTalk Projects and click on Empty

BizTalk Application• Give a name and click OK• In the solution explorer, right click on the project

and select Add -> New Item• Select Schema Files on the left pane and select

Flat File Schema Wizard.• Refer to the screen shots for further processes.

Editor Overview

Flat File Schema Wizard

• Refer to notes page for explanation

Generating XML from the XSD

• Right click on the Project and select Validate Schema

• Once the validation is over, click on Generate Instance Message.

• An empty XML file with sample data entry in accordance to the schema will be generated.

• This XML file can be modified and used with any application that supports XML.

BizTalk Mapper - Overview

• Mapper is a tool that is used for mapping data• The source data is mapped with the destination

data• Since BizTalk involves with connecting disparate

systems, the source data need to be transformed to another format acceptable by the destination.

• Hence Mapper plays a vital role.• Mapper too comes integrated with VS IDE.

Creating Maps

• Open BizTalk Project containing the XSDs• Right click on the project and select Add -> New

Item.• Select Maps in the left pane and Empty Map in

the right pane• Give a name for the map and click OK• It will open a GUI where we can select the

source and the destination schema and map accordingly.

• Refer to the screen shots for more details.

Functoids

• Functoids are functions that can be used with mapper.

• The source data can be applied with functoids and transformed to destination friendly data.

• Many functions for manipulating strings (concat, uppercase conversion etc), numbers (add,multiply etc), scientific functions (log, exponent etc), database are available.

• Refer to the tool bar, the violet color box in the grid in the previous picture.

BizTalk Administration Console

• Administration console is used for performing administrative tasks like– Starting and stopping an application– Taking reports concerned with messages

transferred, application usage etc– Configuring send and receiving ports– Adding resources to the application– Managing Orchestration, Maps, Schemas,

Pipelines for the application

BizTalk Application

• Feature of biz talk server that helps in deployment, management, trouble shooting of biz talk server solutions

• Logical grouping of artifacts– Biztalk and .Net assemblies– Send ports, groups– Receive ports, locations– Policies– Certificates, scripts, COM Components– BizTalk specific resources (schema, map,

orchestration, pipeline)

Orchestrations

• To add orchestration for a biz talk project, right click on the project and select Add -> New Item

• Select Orchestration from the left pane and empty orchestration from the right pane

• Give a name for the orchestration and click OK• A new orchestration designer with a file

extension odx is opened.• Use the tool bar to add components that we

want.

Pipelines

• To add pipelines for a biz talk project, right click on the project and select Add -> New Item

• Select Pipelines from the left pane and either send pipeline or receive pipeline from the right pane

• Give a name for the pipeline selected and click OK

• A new pipeline designer is opened.• Use the tool bar to add components that we

want.

Receive Pipeline

• This is for transforming data at the receiving end• It has

– Decoder – to decode the incoming data (MIME decoder)

– Disassembler – to convert data (flat file or any) to XML

– Validator – to validate the generated XML against a schema (XSD)

– Party Resolver – To determine identity of party from who the message is received.

Send Pipeline

• This is present at the sending end for transforming the outgoing message

• It has– Pre assembler – optional component

containing custom tools– Assembler – Converting XML data to

destination data– Encoder – To encode the outgoing data

Human Workflow Services

• This is for dynamically configuring workflow

• We can define constraints and lot of other condtions and design the workflow.

• HwsDb stores details about workflow.

• Refer to screen shots in the following slides for more details about Human Workflow Services

Business Rule Composer

• This is used for composing business rules

• We can set an action to be performed upon an occurrence of an event

• Actions are evaluated based on the facts (rules)

• We can compose vocabulary (definitions) or policy (logical grouping of rules) using business rule composer.