SAAS: Linking enterprise applications to managed BizTalk Services

This article describes the following:

BizTalk Services as an ESB service

BizTalk Services-based WCF applications

Relay Connectivity Options

Identify service and token providers this article is based on a pre-release version of BizTalk Services. All information contained in this article is likely to change.

This article uses the following techniques:

BizTalk Services,. NET Framework 3.0

Directory

Software is a service

Internet Service Bus

BizTalk Services

BizTalk Services SDK

A typical WCF application

Relay Connectivity Options

Through relayedhttp through the firewall

Configuring the Identity Service

Custom token Provider

How to get Started

Today's enterprises need to be able to quickly develop, deploy new applications, and integrate them into their existing environments, compared with the past. The growing demand for dynamic, loosely coupled applications is one of the main reasons many enterprises are moving to, or are currently moving to, a service-oriented architecture (SOA) as their application base.

As companies move towards SOA, there is a growing emphasis on composite systems of various applications within the enterprise. In this new environment, developers are responsible for organizing business processes in the various application services mentioned above that may be developed and published to the network by other teams and organizations, which may use different implementation technologies or line-of-business applications, thereby increasing the complexity of the entire system. Although SOA simplifies each point-to-point connection, composite applications are more difficult to handle and more vulnerable because the total number of service connections The application requires will grow over time (see Figure 1).

Figure 1 managing point-to-point connections in a composite application

This reality has prompted many companies to start using a more loosely coupled and sustainable service model (often called an enterprise service Bus (ESB)). An ESB model is becoming more common because it helps manage multiple service connections through a central bus, which provides an abstraction layer over basic messaging details. For example, an ESB can help agents differentiate between services in terms of naming conventions, identity management, message formats, and communication protocols. Once the service arrives at the bus, any other service on the bus can be connected to it, even if it is not normally communicated directly to the service (see Figure 2).

Figure 2 Building a composite application with an ESB