Integrating Business Processes with BizTalk Server 2004


Microsoft BizTalk Server provides an out-of-the-box solution for integrating people (workflow), internal systems (EAIEnterprise Application Integration), and external trading partners (B2BBusiness to Business). BizTalk Server 2004 is in its third generation, succeeding BizTalk Server 2000 and 2002. It provides a set of tools for visual design, development, deployment, and management of business processes. It utilizes SQL Server 2000 as the repository for various BizTalk databasesAdministration, Tracking, MessageBox, Rules Engine, Single Sign-on, BAM Analysis, and so on. These databases are created using the BizTalk Server Installation program.

BizTalk 2004 also represents the first release of Jupiter vision, which represents an ongoing effort to combine the various e-business technologies, particularly Content Management Server, Commerce Server, and BizTalk Server, into a common architecture or toolset.

Key highlights of BizTalk Server 2004 include the following:

  • Built on top of .NET Framework and Web services standards.

  • Unified development environment based on Visual Studio .NET 2003 for developing orchestrations and defining and mapping documents.

  • Support for XML Schemas for modeling transactional messages, using a visual tool through BizTalk Editor (integrated with Visual Studio .NET). BizTalk Server can also be used to work with non-XML flat files.

  • Support for visual data transformation through BizTalk Mapper (integrated with Visual Studio .NET).

  • Uses Microsoft SQL Server 2000 as the transactional and message storage.

  • A business rules composer to model and manage a set of dynamically changing business rules.

  • Business activity monitoring to get a real-time view of the various executing business processes. Business activity monitoring capability utilizes Windows SharePoint Services and Microsoft Office System products for analysis and reporting.

  • Integration with Microsoft InfoPath for XML electronic forms-based workflow.

  • Support for Web Services industry standards including BPEL (Business Process Execution Language, http://www.oasis- open .org/ committees /tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=wsbpel).

  • An adapter framework and a set of Microsoft-provided and third-party adapters for integration with enterprise and legacy applications. Microsoft provides adapters for SAP, MQ Series, and SQL Server, and the rest are provided by several third parties.

  • Support for EDI (Electronic Document Interchange) for integration with trading partners.

  • Support for industry-specific standardization initiatives through a set of AcceleratorsRosettaNet, CIDX (Chemical Industry Data Exchange), PIDX (Petroleum Industry Data Exchange), HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act legislature), Financial Services (SWIFT, ISITC, for example), suppliers, and so on.

  • SEED Wizard for rapid partner enablement.

  • Security using standard PKI-based Digital Certificates for encryption and signing.

  • Alert system integrated with Operations Manager for exception handling.

SHOP TALK : EDI: THE LEGACY OF WEB SERVICES!

With a discussion of integration, comes automatically a topic of EDI (Electronic Data Interchange). EDI has long been utilized as a key technology by large companies for integrating applications across corporate boundaries. Wait, isn't Web Services created for the same goal? Well yes, EDI and Web Services can be used to achieve the same business purpose, however, in totally different ways from a technology perspective. Whereas the value of EDI lies in its proprietary VAN providers (Value Added Networks), which facilitate the integration, the value in Web Services lies in the standards-based architecture that allows companies to securely utilize the ubiquitous Internet as the communication mechanism. However, there is one benefit that EDI has accomplished over these years that Web Servicesbased technologies are still struggling with. It is to agree on a common set of semantics, a common set of document structures that companies can utilize as representations of business documents. We still have yet to see a commonly accepted standard such as EDI transaction 850, which represents a purchase order. It is not that there aren't efforts to standardize such vocabularies; in fact, there are several, and this proliferation is in some sense a problem as well. It is really the fact that Web Services haven't yet been around for a good period of time to get maturity and the level of acceptance that EDI has.


Understanding Key Concepts in BizTalk Server 2004

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

  • Receive Locations are starting points for integration. Currently BizTalk Server supports the following transportsFile, HTTP, SOAP Web service, SQL, and Message Queue. For instance, a File Receive Location is configured 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, you can use an API to initiate integrations.

  • Pipelines provide the transformation, security, and messaging capability to incoming documents. Corresponding to whether the pipeline is used to send or receive data, it is called Receive Pipeline or Send Pipeline. (For example, after you've received the document from your trading partners, chances are that you would like to transform it into your own internal vocabulary.) Pipelines enable management of data encoding, encryption/decryption, signing, and logging features through a series of connected .NET components .

  • Ports represent destinations, which can be either applications or orchestrations. By definition, multiple pipelines can send documents to a single port enabling the classical hub-and-spoke integration model.

  • Orchestrations define the business process represented by the integration. Orchestrations are developed using Visual Studio .NET, 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 Web services, message queuing, and BizTalk Messaging.

  • Adapters are components that integrate with enterprise applications using their API (Application Provider Interfaces).

Installing BizTalk Server 2004

To install BizTalk Server 2004 (which was available in its Beta 1 release at the time of writing this book), you should first review system requirements at http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk. Essentially, you need a Windows 2000/2003 server (with the latest service pack, of course) and SQL Server 2000. Windows 2003 Server is required for Business Activity Monitoring capabilities, which need Windows SharePoint Services. Visual Studio .NET 2003 is required for installing BizTalk 2004 development tools.

SETTING UP A BIZTALK SERVER 2004 DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT

In my test environment, I had everything installed on my single computer. You can always do that; however, if you have access to a server class machine and a workstation, I would recommend installing the BizTalk Server and tools components separately. Remember, for installing BizTalk tools, you do need Visual Studio .NET 2003 installed as well.


A typical multiserver deployment topology is shown in Figure 13.6.

Figure 13.6. BizTalk Server 2004 topology.

Developing Business Processes Using Visual Studio .NET

Developing a business process using BizTalk Server 2004 involves a series of steps. To understand how a simple business process is developed, tested , and executed, you'll develop a simple business process that accepts an input order and, depending on the Order Quantity, rejects or accepts the order.

This example can be extended to represent a real-world scenario, to actually fulfill the order by integrating with an Enterprise Resource Planning system such as SAP R/3.

Creating Message Schemas

After you have installed the BizTalk Server 2004 development tools on your workstation (which had Visual Studio .NET 2003), create a blank solution. Next, add an empty BizTalk project. To this project, add the Order Schema. Here is what a simple Order Schema looks like:

 
 <?xml version="1.0" ?> <xs:schema xmlns:b="http://schemas.microsoft.com/BizTalk/2003"     xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">    <xs:element name="Order">       <xs:complexType>          <xs:sequence>             <xs:element name="Customer" type="xs:string" />             <xs:element name="Item" type="xs:string" />             <xs:element name="Quantity" type="xs:unsignedInt" />             <xs:element name="Price" type="xs:decimal" />          </xs:sequence>       </xs:complexType>    </xs:element> </xs:schema> 
Developing Orchestrations

To develop the orchestration that represents the overall automated business process, create a new project, call it Orchestrations, and add a new orchestration (.odx file). To build up the orchestration as shown in Figure 13.7, follow these steps:

  • Add a reference to the Schemas so that you can use the messages defined in that project.

  • In the Orchestration Variables, create variables that represent the OrderRequest, AcceptedOrder, and DeniedOrder Instance.

  • Create a Receive Port to receive an incoming Order instance populating the OrderRequest. For this example, the Receive Port should be configured for receiving files from a particular directory (such as C:\MyIntegration\In\*.xml ).

  • Similarly, create and configure the Send Ports to send the accepted and denied Order messages to C:\MyIntegration\Out\%MessageID%.xml and C:\MyIntegration\Error\%MessageID%.xml , respectively.

  • Create the simple identity transformations for transforming the OrderRequest instance into AcceptedOrder and DeniedOrder instances, respectively.

  • Set up the expression for the acceptance or denial of orders (for example, OrderRequest.Quantity > 10 ).

Figure 13.7. Orchestration developed using Visual Studio .NET.

Deploying the Assemblies and Testing the Integration

Use the Deployment Wizard to deploy both Schemas and Integrations assemblies. Next use the BizTalk Explorer to enlist the orchestration so that the necessary subscriptions are created, and the incoming orders port starts receiving messages. To run the orchestration, copy a sample instance of the Order file into the incoming directory (BizTalk Editor can be used to create sample instances), and, depending on the Quantity, the order must be sent to the accepted or denied folder.



Microsoft.Net Kick Start
Microsoft .NET Kick Start
ISBN: 0672325748
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 195
Authors: Hitesh Seth

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