Mark Wilson I am the creator of TopXML. I am available for international and local (Australia) contracts. I am a Solution Architect/Business Analyst. I have worked in IT in several countries (NZ, Australia, South Africa, UK) building and training teams for government and very large non-governmental organizations. I am ex-Microsoft Consulting Services. I wrote the first book on Microsoft XML published in 2000 called XML Programming with VB and ASP. Most recently I have been building tools for the SEO industry. Ask me for a 37 point SEO health-checkup for your website.
In the Introduction, we discussed how BizTalk Server enables you
to integrate separate applications together to create a larger
system. Whether the applications are your own, or those of your
business partners, BizTalk Server allows you to keep integration code
on a central server rather than writing integration code into the
applications themselves. This chapter will provide you with a general
overview of the application integration process, and the benefits of
BizTalk Server in regard to this process. We will start by looking at
some common situations that require application integration, and
identify some common problems that BizTalk Server can solve for us.
We'll survey the major features and tools made available to us by
BizTalk Server, and orient ourselves for the rest of our journey
through this book.
When you have finished this chapter, you will have an
understanding of the role and features of BizTalk Server. In
particular, you will appreciate the following:
The increasing need for application integration tools in
corporate development
The role that open standards for information interchange can
play in application integration
The features and scope of Microsoft BizTalk Server
How BizTalk Server uses a data-driven mechanism for
coordinating application integration
The interprocess and internetworking protocols that are
essential to application integration with BizTalk Server
