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BizTalk Services Gets Connected


Microsoft pieces together a firewall-friendly Internet Service Bus

By David Worthington
June 1, 2007 — 
Microsoft’s BizTalk Services offering has gotten more concrete for its foundation. BizTalk Connectivity Services surfaced in the BizTalk Labs’ May preview, introducing firewall traversal and eventing capabilities. The larger part of the story is that BizTalk Services is not exclusively about the BizTalk server integration platform, but is integral to Microsoft’s SaaS strategy.

BizTalk Connectivity Services offer two ways for developers to expose a service behind a firewall or across network boundaries: direct connection and publish-and-subscribe.

Microsoft distinguished engineer John Shewchuk explained that BizTalk Connectivity Services have hybrid connection capabilities that dynamically adjust between relayed and direct communications. “What was originally a relayed channel can then switch to direct connection, if it can be established. It connects directly between two end points,” he said.

“This helps with speed and reliability. Most Web messaging today is fire-and-forget [unverified transmissions],” said Steven Martin, director of product management in Microsoft’s connected systems division.

“This [enabling direct connections] is inconceivable to developers on their own. Direct connect overcomes the challenges of peer-to-peer; it’s an Internet startup in a box,” Shewchuk remarked. “Naming, security and firewall traversal are a huge economic barrier to produce a product, even before providing features. We change the economics of connected, distributed applications by providing all of that.”

Shewchuk explained that publish-and-subscribe eventing provides URI multicast capabilities, on top of messaging, enabling developers to broadcast events to a specific endpoint, based on the content of the message. The updated BizTalk Services SDK shows how to use the new features.

BizTalk Services in its entirety is composed of the aforementioned Connectivity Services, as well as identity and workflow components that form the makings of what Microsoft calls an Internet Service Bus (ISB).

The BizTalk Identity Services handle all identity and access control requirements, and are built on Microsoft’s WS-*-based Windows CardSpace framework. Shewchuk noted that Microsoft was trying to improve the services’ claims-based access model, used for group creation and capability-based access control.

With this infrastructure in place, it is possible to have workflow functionality, explained Martin. BizTalk Services’ Workflow Services component, a hosted instance of Windows Workflow Foundation, provides that functionality.

Microsoft claims that the BizTalk ISB is really a true ESB (enterprise service bus) because it forms an infrastructure for applications. An ISB, unlike an ESB, is firewall-friendly and does not require a significant footprint within an organization, claimed Martin, who added that using an ISB leads to more rapid deployments and keeps intact developers’ local infrastructure. Each of the BizTalk services is WS-*-based, uses HTTP for messaging, SOAP for data management, and RSS for moving data.

“Developers tell us that the ESB model is the right answer. We are taking our ESB and providing [it] to developers as hosted services,” said Shewchuk.

“Most ESBs are proprietary,” he continued. “We did this amazing thing and instead of plumbing a proprietary service bus, we use Internet protocols like RSS and HTTP.”

THE BIGGER PICTURE
Microsoft has recast the meaning of software as a service (SaaS) to software and a service. Now, its true purpose—for enterprise developers—is gradually being unveiled.

During his keynote at MIX07 in Las Vegas, chief software architect Ray Ozzie outlined Microsoft’s new Web services strategy, saying that the best solutions integrated software and services.

Martin explained, “Today the developer has to pick one versus the other.”

The BizTalk services are some of the building blocks of Microsoft’s “software and a service” topology, said Shewchuk. In a recent BizTalk team blog post, Microsoft’s Marjan Kalantar described these building blocks as the “capabilities to enable developers to build interesting services and composite applications.”

According to Kalantar, the other two categories of SaaS are attached services that feed into on-premise software such as Exchange Hosted Services and Windows Update, and finished services such as Dynamic CRM Live, that are delivered over the Internet.

“We see BizTalk Services as a complement to ‘traditional’ BizTalk Server uses on-premise. Over time, we want to ensure that BizTalk Server customers will be able to easily use the [BizTalk] cloud services in conjunction with their premise technology,” Martin wrote in his MSDN blog.

“In general,” explained Rob Helm, an analyst with research firm Directions on Microsoft, “the services Microsoft is providing are the kinds of things that are necessary for any business-to-business commerce system. The businesses in the system have to be able to check one another’s identities, deliver business documents between their internal applications across firewalls, and keep track of the status of business processes that might run for days or weeks.”


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