All About BizTalk Server 2010

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Today's featured article:

BizTalk Server 2010

 

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Introduction

BizTalk Server is a server product produced by Microsoft and offers scalability and reliability. It is simply unrivaled on the Windows platform or for that matter any platform (see Magic Quadrant for Application Infrastructure for Systematic Application Integration Projects).  It is currently in its seventh version (2010) and has grown more robust and feature-rich with each release.  It scales both up and out and is designed to meet the needs of even the most demanding enterprises, but it is also designed to work well for medium-sized organizations.

BizTalk Server 2010 is tightly integrated with Visual Studio, Team Foundation Server, and its AppFabric offering. According to Gartner BizTalk Server 2010 has the following strong points:

  • Brand recognition, global reach, mind share and a huge installed base of products that is leveraged for BizTalk Server sales, and results in the availability of skills, services and add-ins that fit within the environment. There are many BizTalk user group globally and there is a
    strong community.
  • BizTalk Server installed base of more than 10,000 customers — two-thirds are estimated to be BizTalk Server 2006 Enterprise Edition or newer versions, establishing a broad base of mature and stable products with proven track records. Currently estimate is that more than 12.000 customer have BizTalk Server.
  • Microsoft will offer AppFabric Connect to integrate BizTalk Server 2010 with Window Server AppFabric, making it easier to leverage Windows Workflow Foundation and Windows Communication Foundation. This is delivered out of the box through BizTalk Server Adapter Pack 2010 and separate download of Appfabric Connect for Services Feature.
  • While Microsoft plans slight price increases for all BizTalk Server 2010 editions, its per-processor pricing, combined with the ability to run virtual instances at no additional charge, makes it the least-expensive perpetual license of commercial offerings that Gartner analyzed. BizTalk Server is very suitable for virtualization and easy to run on Hyper-V.

What is New?

With BizTalk 2010 new feature are present and these are:

Understanding BizTalk Server 2010

Capabilities

With BizTalk Server 2010, you can…
Integrate EnterpriseApplications Easily Simplify SolutionManageability Improve EnterpriseInteroperability
Easy-to-use BizTalk data map andline-of-business (LOB) Connectivity Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) activitiesfor .NET developers Single, comprehensive parametersettings dashboard for efficient performance tuning to streamline deploymentsacross environments Efficient B2B integration withscalable Trading Partner Management (TPM) and advance capabilities for complexdata mapping
Seamless ability to use BizTalkcapabilities from SharePoint 2010 Business Connectivity Service to access LOBsystems New BizTalk Server Management Packto provide enhanced visual monitoring and diagnostics Secure FTP with a new FTPS Adapterand an improved FTP adapter
New intuitive and intelligent datamap and transformation tools Streamlined setup and liveupdates Adapter support for latestapplication versions: SAP 7, Oracle EBS 12.1, JD Edwards 9.0, SQL Server 2008R2, SharePoint 2010
Improved Visual Studio project andwizard-driven tools to build integration solutions with IBM mainframe andmidrange systems Support for SQL Server backupcompression Updated industry protocolaccelerators
Built-in components for rapiddevelopment of RFID solutions Support for transparent dataencryption Enhancements to Host IntegrationServer (HIS)

Pricing and Licensing

BizTalk Server 2010 Enterprise Edition, Standard Edition, and Branch Edition are all licensed on a per processor basis. A processor license is required for each processor on which you install any component of BizTalk Server (for example, BizTalk Server Rules Engine). However, certain tools and components may be installed on a separate device without acquiring a processor license.

Managing BizTalk Server

Maintaining a healthy BizTalk environment is vital if it need to be up and running 24/7 and is a critical part in an enterprise infrastructure. Key in a healthy BizTalk environment are the database. The health of the databases are very important for a successful BizTalk Server messaging environment.

BizTalk Server Adapter Pack 2010

BizTalk Server Adapter Pack 2010 is a part of BizTalk Server 2010 Product and no longer a separate component. Adapter Pack provides connectivity to latest versions of SAP, Oracle E-Business Suite, Siebel and SQL and Oracle Databases.

BizTalk Server ESB Toolkit 2.1

An Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) is an architectural pattern and a key enabler in implementing the infrastructure for a service-oriented architecture (SOA). The BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.1 is a collection of tools and libraries that extend BizTalk Server 2010 capabilities of supporting a loosely coupled and dynamic messaging architecture. It functions as middleware that provides tools for rapid mediation between services and their consumers. Enabling maximum flexibility at run time, the BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.1 simplifies loosely coupled composition of service endpoints and management of service interactions.

AppFabric Connect Feature

The BizTalk Server 2010 AppFabric Connect feature accommodates development of WF applications that can communicate directly with Line of Business (LOB) systems. The AppFabric Connect feature provides WF developers access to both the BizTalk Mapper and the BizTalk Adapter
Pack 2010. Besides development of WF, the BizTalk Server 2010 AppFabric Connect for Services feature now allows BizTalk users also to expose their on-premise BizTalk Applications as WCF Services on the cloud, by adding Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus endpoints.

Host Integration Server 2010

Host Integration Server 2010 offers technologies and tools for enterprise organizations to integrate existing IBM host systems, programs, messages and data with new Microsoft server applications. HIS 2010 is included with BizTalk Server 2010 Enterprise, and Standard and Branch Edition.

BizTalk RFID

Microsoft BizTalk RFID is an innovative device management and event processing platform at the edge of the enterprise. It is designed to provide a scalable, extensible, platform for development, deployment, and management of rich RFID and sensor solutions.

BizTalk Server 2010 and EDI

Microsoft continues support for EDI in BizTalk Server 2010 with new feature Trading Partner Management:

BizTalk Accelerators

BizTalk Server accelerators include a combination of:

  • Industry-specific parsers
  • BizTalk XML schema
  • Implementation guide
  • Orchestration samples
  • Reference materials

BizTalk offers the following accelerators:

  • BizTalk Accelerator for HIPAA

    Empower your organization to meet Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) requirements today and in the future. BizTalk Accelerator for HIPAA provides a rapid, reliable, and fiscally sound path to HIPAA transaction compliance.

  • BizTalk Accelerator for HL7

    Rapidly integrate applications and share patient information within and between healthcare organizations with this comprehensive Health Level 7 (HL7) messaging solution.

  • BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet

    Accelerate the implementation of supply chain solutions meeting the rigorous requirements for RosettaNet Integration. BizTalk Server, combined with RosettaNet-specific tools, provides complete support for the RosettaNet e-business standards for supply chain integration.

  • BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT

    Integrate financial applications and networks, rapidly deploy straight-through-processing solutions, and reduce the total cost of ownership and implementation time with this accelerator.

BizTalk Forums

For questions on issue with BizTalk Server see BizTalk Server Forums:

BizTalk Server 2010 Books

Currently the following books have been released for BizTalk Server 2010:

See Also

Community Resources

Credit

Originally written by Steef-Jan Wiggers.

 

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Find an updated version of this article here:

BizTalk Server 2010

 

 

Enjoy!

   - User Ed