Getting Started with BizTalk

Part of deploying BizTalk within a given environment is understanding the BizTalk Server suite of tools, how to prepare your system, and how to apply BizTalk within an enterprise (that is, what problems it solves). Over the next few pages we will cover all these topics.

The BizTalk Server Suite of Tools

When you first heard of BizTalk Server you probably thought it was strictly a server product, possibly like Exchange Server, whose sole purpose is to message and coordinate the exchanging of BizTalk-compatible documents. For those of you who have done your homework and researched BizTalk Server, you know this is not true. In addition to the server portion of the application, BizTalk Server comes with several other tools that will help you do everything from creating your data models to describing your messaging workflow.

Although we have already covered two of these tools in Chapter 7 and we will be covering three others in this chapter, we have included the list of applications present in the BizTalk Server product here.

• BizTalk Administration Tool: This tool is used to manage multiple BizTalk Servers, allowing you to load balance processing between them.
• BizTalk Messaging Manager: Covered in Chapter 7, this application allows you to set up the proper ports and channels to route documents through your system.
• BizTalk Document Tracking: Also covered in Chapter 7, this Web-based tool allows you to obtain up-to-date reports and status on messages going through the system.
• BizTalk Editor: Allows you to create BizTalk-compatible models of the data you plan on exchanging within your system, such as purchase or shipping orders.
• BizTalk Mapper: Because your system will most likely have to support a variety of different representations of data (that is, you might support a <Company> element and a partner might support <CompanyName>), this application can be used to map one schema to another. Additionally, it contains functoids, which allow you to perform operations, such as mathematical or string manipulation, while transforming data.
• BizTalk Orchestration Designer: This tool is used to outline and define the entire work flow for documents entering the system, such as how they are processed and by what other applications, if any.

Preparing Your System

Before we dive into the BizTalk Server and the accompanying suite of tools, we want to point out that BizTalk Server has some specific installation requirements. Unlike some of the other Windows .NET products, BizTalk Server has several important dependencies that must be addressed before installing the product. Failure to properly equip your system with these applications will prevent installation. The requirements are

• Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional, Server, or Advanced Server with Service Pack 1 or higher
• Microsoft Visio Standard Edition SR-1 (to use Orchestration Designer)
• Microsoft SQL Server 7 with Service Pack 2 or Microsoft SQL Server 2000

For those of you working to understand BizTalk Server and related applications that do not meet these requirements, Microsoft has made evaluation versions of the necessary software available so you can perform a proper trial. The following locations show you where you can obtain these evaluation copies:

• Windows 2000 Advanced Server (must order CD): http://microsoft.order-1.com/Win2kEDK
• Windows 2000 Service Pack 1 (to update your version of Windows 2000 Professional or Server): http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/downloads/servicepacks/sp1
• BizTalk Server: http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/evaluation/trial
• SQL Server 2000: http://www.microsoft.com/sql/evaluation/trial/2000
• Visio: http://www.microsoft.com/office/visio/evaluation

Want to avoid downloading hundreds of megabytes to obtain the trials of these products? You can follow the link to order the Microsoft E-Commerce Evaluation Kit from http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/evaluation/trial. It's less than $10 U.S. This kit contains 120-day trial versions of Windows 2000 Advanced Server, BizTalk Server 2000, Microsoft Commerce Server 2000, SQL Server, and Visio 2000.

Finally, if you simply don't have the time to install and test the software yourself, you can contact Microsoft's Professional Consultation team or a Certified Partner to pay for a pilot. They estimate roughly two weeks to get you installed, configured, and up and running so that you can demo the application in a real-world environment.

Now that we have a full understanding of what is needed to get BizTalk Server off the ground, let's talk about the problems it solves. These will affect your planning and implementation of the product, as well as expose you to some of its abilities.

Applying BizTalk

Unless you are working for a purely dot-com business, you probably have data residing in some older databases, within flat files, or some other kind of resource. If this is the case, and you still have a need to access, update, and utilize this data, you might find yourself faced with performance and flexibility issues. The systems simply might not have the proper methods of accessing and using the data that today's applications or design approaches desire.

Over the next few sections we will discuss the applications of BizTalk and how it can be used to solve these problems. We are going to talk about enterprise application integration, business-to-business integration, and business process automation.

Want to read some real-world case studies of how BizTalk has been used to implement and solve these various instances? Check out http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/evaluation/casestudies for a list of companies and documents on their implementation.

Enterprise Application Integration

In a technical world where many of the programming youth assume Java, C#, or some scripting language represents all coding methods and that the oldest systems are Windows 98 or Windows NT 4, those who have been around know this is not always the case. Finding COBOL, mainframes, a Virtual Memory System (VMS), running on a Virtual Address extension (VAX), and text-based screens acting as the backbone to entire businesses can be common, especially in large corporations. These legacy systems are still widely used, deployed, and depended on for ongoing business activities. So, how is a company supposed to stay abreast of the latest technology and systems needed to survive if the core and heart behind it is a 20-year-old system?

Above all else, the BizTalk Server suite of applications is designed for ease of integration. It uses industry standards heavily, like XML, SOAP, and the BizTalk Framework. It provides the tools, which we covered earlier, that allow you to create XML representations of your legacy data and coordinate the access and use of that data. This reduces your integration into the legacy system to simply supporting some basic XML features, and BizTalk will take it from that point.

Legacy data, however, is not the only data with which BizTalk can communicate and integrate. In fact, for those of you creating XML-based Web Services such as those covered in this book, you might find BizTalk Server to be the perfect system to handle the processing of messages.

Business-to-Business Integration

Integrating with internal applications is only one type of implementation you will find useful for BizTalk Server. Many businesses are building XML-based systems or interfaces that allow them to automate their communication and exchanges with customer and partner companies. For instance, a retail company might obtain product descriptions and pricing in an XML format. Using BizTalk Server's ability to map one schema to another, you can feel confident that you can design your own schemas to be true to your business, and yet not limit your integration with partners.

The BizTalk Mapper literally allows you to draw lines between elements and attributes of two schemas, with the result being an XSLT style sheet that will transform your partner's data into a format native to your system. This capability allows you to build an XML-based solution within your company, yet give it a long lifetime because supporting new data models involves nothing more than sitting down and drawing out the mapping.

Business Process Automation

Business process automation has moved to the forefront in today's economy. If a company is able to reduce the time and costs associated with a particular task, such as checking inventory, its revenue might not increase, but it has decreased its bottom line costs and thus increased profits. Automation can be an extremely important and cost-saving move for the company, especially when finances are a major concern.

What the BizTalk Orchestration Designer, along with the Messaging Manager, brings to the table is a visually-based method for designing, improving, and automating these business process. With these tools you are able to design entire processes for handling incoming requests or documents and create schedule files that can be processed and tracked.