Host your WF inside BizTalk

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I am very excited to see the next step of process modelingsystems. It is just a middle step till we get the next version of BizTalk wherewe will have Orchestrations built directly on top of WF.

This is a video for how + Requirements to host your WF in BizTalk: https://download.microsoft.com/download/3/e/4/3e4e9f14-1f9d-4e03-a86a-03955aaff73c/biztalkhosting.wmv

And this is the SDK that allows you do that: https://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=437

So are we unifying all workflows in one place in BizTalk now?  NOOOOOO

So what are our options for hosting workflows at the moment?

Any host system for WF has to provide an implementation forthe following services:

a.      Transaction

b.      Persistence

c.      Scheduler

d.      Tracking

1-    BizTalk Orchestrations will be one type ofimplementation for this framework hosting the workflows and providingimplementations for THE 4 services

2-    SharePoint is another type of implementation of thoseservices.

3-    K2.NET Server for hosting our WF Workflows is anothergreat example

So thequestion is not anymore : where do I host my workflows ?

the questionis : what type of services my workflow requires ?

Issue : what happens if my workflow needs diverse services from different hostingsystems ? example : BizTalk (Scalability and TPM) and collaboration platform inMOSS ?

More requirements might be:

is it a system process, is it a human workflow interactionprocess, scalability, analysis/BI on tracked data ,Trading Partner Support,rich Collaboration support, SMTP support, event system , etc……

and the answer will decide which server we are going to usefor hosting.

 

This solution scenario from my point of view will be theultimate:

1-    One Server (MS WF Host Server) for hosting, executingany WF built on WF

2-    Using adapter/provider pattern to provide services fromdifferent platforms and products to these workflows. Example: I need oneworkflow that requires BizTalk scalability and SharePoint collaborationfeatures. So the “MS WF Host Server” will only provide abstractAPIs and the actual implementation is left for the providers like BTS and MOSS.