Microsoft BizTalk Server

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Microsoft BizTalk Server
Developer(s)Microsoft
Initial release19 December 2000; 23 years ago (2000-12-19)[1]
Stable release
2020 / 13 February 2020; 4 years ago (2020-02-13)[2]
x64[3]
Available in9 languages[4]
List of languages
English, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish
TypeApplication server
LicenseProprietary
Websitedocs.microsoft.com/en-us/biztalk/

Microsoft BizTalk Server is an inter-organizational middleware system (IOMS)[5] that automates business processes through the use of adapters which are tailored to communicate with different software systems used in an enterprise. Created by Microsoft, it provides enterprise application integration, business process automation, business-to-business communication, message broker and business activity monitoring.

BizTalk Server was previously positioned as both an application server and an application integration server[clarify]. Microsoft changed this strategy when they released the AppFabric server which became their official application server. Research firm Gartner consider Microsoft's offering one of their 'Leaders' for Application Integration Suites. The latest release of Biztalk (Biztalk Server 2020) was released on 15 January 2020.

In a common scenario, BizTalk integrates before going out and manages automated business processes by exchanging business documents such as purchase orders and invoices between disparate applications, within or across organizational boundaries.

Development for BizTalk Server is done through

xLANG. Schemas, maps, pipelines and orchestrations are created visually using graphical tools within Microsoft Visual Studio. The additional functionality can be delivered by .NET
assemblies that can be called from existing modules—including, for instance, orchestrations, maps, pipelines, business rules.

Version history

Starting in 2000, the following versions were released:[6][7][8]

  • 2000-12-01 BizTalk Server 2000
  • 2002-02-04 BizTalk Server 2002[9]
  • 2004-03-02 BizTalk Server 2004 (First version to run on
    Microsoft .NET
    1.0)
  • 2006-03-27 BizTalk Server 2006 (First version to run on Microsoft .NET 2.0)
  • 2007-10-02 BizTalk Server 2006 R2 (First version to utilize the new Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) via native adapter – (Release date 2 October 2007))
  • 2010-04-27 BizTalk Server 2009 (First version to work with Visual Studio 2008)
  • 2010-10-01 BizTalk Server 2010[10] (First version to work with Visual Studio 2010 and Microsoft .NET 4.0)
  • 2013-03-21 BizTalk 2013 (First version to work with Visual Studio 2012 and Microsoft .NET 4.5)[11]
  • 2014-06-23 BizTalk 2013 R2 (First version to work with Visual Studio 2013 and Microsoft .NET 4.5.1)[12]
  • 2016-09-30 BizTalk Server 2016[13]
  • 2017-04-26 BizTalk Server 2016 Feature Pack 1 (Application Insights and
    Power BI integration; Swagger-compatible REST Management APIs)[14][15]
  • 2017-11-21 BizTalk Server 2016 Feature Pack 2 (Azure integration)[16]
  • 2018-06-26 BizTalk Server 2016 Feature Pack 3 (
    Office 365 integration)[17]
  • 2020-01-15 BizTalk Server 2020[18] (First version to work with Visual Studio 2019 and Microsoft .NET 4.7)

Features

The following is an incomplete list of the technical features in the BizTalk Server:

  • The use of adapters to simplify integration to
    Java EE)[19]
  • Accelerators offer support for enterprise standards like .
  • Business rules engine (BRE). This is a Rete algorithm rule engine.
  • PivotTable
    ) view on how the Business Processes are doing and how messages are processed.
  • A unified administration console for deployment, monitoring and operations of solutions on BizTalk servers in environment.
  • Built-in electronic data interchange (EDI) functionality supporting X12 and EDIFACT, as of BizTalk 2006 R2.
  • Ability to do graphical modelling of business processes in Visual Studio, model documents with XML schemas, graphically mapping (with the assistance of functoids) between different schemas, and building pipelines to decrypt, verify, parse messages as they enter or exit the system via adapters.
  • Users can automate business management processes via
    Orchestrations
    .
  • BizTalk integrates with other Microsoft products like Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft SQL Server, and SharePoint to allow interaction with a user participating in a workflow process.
  • Extensive support for web services (consuming and exposing)
  • RFID
    support, as of BizTalk 2006 R2. Deprecated in the 2016 release
  • Support for Application Insight, as of BizTalk Server 2016 Feature Pack 1
  • Automatic deployment through Visual Studio Team Service, as of BizTalk Server 2016 Feature Pack 1
  • Exposed management REST APIs with full Swagger support, as of BizTalk Server 2016 Feature Pack 1
  • Exposed operational data with Power BI support, as of BizTalk Server 2016 Feature Pack 1

Human-centric processes cannot be implemented directly with BizTalk Server and need additional applications like

Microsoft SharePoint server.[citation needed
]

Architecture

The BizTalk Server runtime is built on a

publish/subscribe architecture, sometimes called "content-based publish/subscribe". Messages are published into BizTalk, transformed to the desired format, and then routed to one or more subscribers.[20]

BizTalk makes processing safe by serialization (called "dehydration" in Biztalk's terminology) – placing messages into a database while waiting for external events, thus preventing data loss. This architecture binds BizTalk with Microsoft SQL Server. Processing flow can be tracked by administrators using an Administration Console. BizTalk supports the transaction flow through the whole line from one customer to another. BizTalk orchestrations also implement long-running transactions.

Adapters

BizTalk uses adapters for communications with different protocols, message formats, and specific software products. Some of the adapters are:

WebSphere MQ adapters.[21]

The WCF Adapter set

.

Additional adapters[19] (for Active Directory, for example) are available from third party Microsoft BizTalk core partners.

References

  1. Penton Media. Archived from the original
    on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 26 July 2013.
  2. ^ "Introducing BizTalk Server 2020". Microsoft. 13 February 2020. Retrieved 8 August 2020.
  3. ^ a b "Hardware and Software Requirements for BizTalk Server 2020". Microsoft. 7 April 2020. Retrieved 8 August 2020.
  4. ^ "BizTalk Server 2016 General Availability". Download Center. Microsoft. 1 December 2016. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
  5. S2CID 7893911. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on 12 October 2016.
  6. Self-published
    . Retrieved 27 July 2013.
  7. . Retrieved 26 July 2013.
  8. ^ "BizTalk Server: Versions – TechNet Articles – United States (English) – TechNet Wiki". social.technet.microsoft.com. Retrieved 6 February 2019.
  9. ^ "Microsoft Announces General Availability of BizTalk Server 2002". Stories. 4 February 2002. Retrieved 6 February 2019.
  10. ZDNet
    . Retrieved 27 July 2013.
  11. MSDN. Microsoft
    . Retrieved 27 July 2013.
  12. . Retrieved 22 May 2014.
  13. . Retrieved 19 December 2016.
  14. ^ "BizTalk Server 2016 Feature Pack 1". Azure. Microsoft. Retrieved 26 April 2016.
  15. ^ "BizTalk Server 2016 Feature Pack 1 is live – BizTalk Team Blog". blogs.msdn.microsoft.com. 26 April 2017. Retrieved 6 February 2019.
  16. ^ "Microsoft BizTalk Server 2016 Feature Pack 2 – BizTalk Team Blog". blogs.msdn.microsoft.com. 21 November 2017. Retrieved 6 February 2019.
  17. ^ "BizTalk Team Blog". blogs.msdn.microsoft.com. 26 June 2018. Retrieved 6 February 2019.
  18. MSDN. Microsoft
    . Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  19. ^ . Retrieved 12 August 2015.
  20. . Retrieved 27 July 2013.
  21. ^ "BizTalk Adapters". Microsoft.
  22. MSDN. Microsoft
    . Retrieved 27 July 2013.

External links