Biztalk Adapter for Messaging Overview

The BizTalk Utilities Adapter is aimed at providing BizTalk Server 2004 the ability to talk to the following Messaging Applications:

•   Java Messaging Services (JMS)
•   IBM MQ Series

Redesigned and developed to allow for integration into the new BizTalk Server 2004 BizTalk Utilities Adapter Framework.

The BizTalk Utilities Adapter incorporates new interface to the Java Messaging Service API, and is no longer COM based as with the previous version of the BizTalk Utilities Messaging Adapter.

Developed in C#.NET it provides a fast optimized mechanism for communicating with Messaging Application from BizTalk Server 2004.

The BizTalk Utilities Adapters are fully integrated into the Visual Studio .NET environment providing Developers with an enhanced Visual Studio .NET Experience when configuring.

The BizTalk Utilities Adapter is extremely easy to install and configure. All tasks performed when configuring the BizTalk Utilities Adapter is Wizard Driven.

System Requirements

The following are the minimum software requirements for the BizTalk Utilities Adapter:

•   Microsoft Enterprise Instrumentation Framework
•   Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004

Enterprise Instrumentation Framework (EIF)

The BizTalk Utilities Adapter utilizes EIF for writing event and tracing information to the Application Event Log and Windows Trace Files.

The Microsoft Enterprise Instrumentation framework provides unified management, eventing, and diagnostic tracing services for enterprise applications in a production environment. Enterprise Instrumentation enables developers to consistently instrument enterprise applications, which are increasingly decoupled and distributed, and enables support staff to use a "white-box" approach to monitoring and diagnosing application health, faults, or other internal conditions.

Every released software application, regardless of size or complexity, imposes a common requirement on the business that the application serves: it must be managed to ensure that the application provides its services correctly and reliably during its operational lifetime. Instrumentation plays a key role in application manageability, allowing a particular software or hardware element to publish — or be queried for — relevant information. Examples of common instrumentation mechanisms include performance counters, event logs, Windows 2000 Event Trace, and Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). These mechanisms are often complementary, as in the example of querying an event log through a WMI provider.

Achieving consistent instrumentation across all enterprise applications is a difficult task. Today, enterprises that build applications on Microsoft platforms must instrument their applications by directly writing to event logs, performance counters, third-party instrumentation APIs, or their own common instrumentation wrappers and libraries. Implementing and supporting the various forms of instrumentation brings additional challenges, given the distributed nature of today's n-tier, Web-enabled applications.

Operations staff must be able to trace specific paths through the system, not just monitor individual events and event sources. Logically related events from physically different servers need to be correlated. The instrumentation itself must be suitable for a production application; instrumentation overhead must minimally affect application throughput. Finally, organizations must be able to leverage as many existing management tools and infrastructure as possible, to monitor and troubleshoot the enterprise applications they support.

Key features of this framework are:

•  Unified programming model, suitable for both enterprise developers and system developers.
•  Structured WMI event schema, which acts as a supportability contract between Development, Test, and Operations teams.
•  Scriptable configuration layer, allowing operations teams to configure how events are raised or logged from an application.
•  Support for raising or logging events through WMI, Windows Event Log, and Windows Event Tracing, a high-speed kernel-mode tracing system.
•  Correlation of events to business processes or operations with Request Tracing, which allows operations staff to troubleshoot requests across a distributed application.

In Addition, the Adapter incorporates the following enhancements to EIF:

•  The Level of Tracing and Eventing for the Adapter can be set by running a Wizard in Administration Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Snap-In. Levels that can currently be set is for Production, Testing/QA and Development.
•  Tracing Sessions can be enabled or disabled from the MMC Snap-In.
•  Trace Files can be viewed and exported from the MMC Snap-In.

Performance Monitors

The BizTalk Utilities Adapters feature an extensive set of Windows Performance Counters with which the BizTalk Utilities  Adapters can be monitored and Fine Tuned.

Administration Snap-In

The Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Administration Snap-In is used to perform the following tasks:

•   Updating of the License File for the BizTalk Utilities Adapters.
•   Configuration of Enterprise Instrumentation Settings for the BizTalk Utilities Adapters.
•   The Viewing of Trace Sessions and Files.
•   Configuration of the preferred Java Virtual Machine for JMS.
•   Creation, Deletion and Updating of JMS Provider Settings used within the JMS BizTalk Utilities Adapters.
•   Viewing of Performance Counters for the BizTalk Utilities Adapters.

Archiving

As standard within all of the BizTalk Utilities Adapters, inbound messages can be archived to a File Location or Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ). Support for Archiving to BizTalk Server 2004 will be added in Future.

Java Messaging Service (JMS) Support

JMS Providers

JMS Providers define the connection parameters for connecting to a specified JMS Queue or Topic.

JMS Providers are defined within the BizTalk Utilities Adapter for Messaging MMC Snap-In. The Adapter installs a set of sample Providers for Swift MQ, EA Server, Fiorano MQ, JBoss MQ, Open JMS and Sonic MQ.

With this version the User and Password can also be set.

JMS Receiver

The JMS Receiver is responsible for receiving Messages from either Queues or Topics and submitting them to BizTalk Server.

The following Properties can bet set within the Receiver:

•     Messaging Domain

This can be either Point To Point or Publish-Subscribe.

•      Provider

Here you select a JMS Provider as defined in the Administration Snap-In.

•      Queue

Specify the name of the JMS Queue from which you want to receive Messages.

•      Topic

Specify the JMS Topic from which you want to retrieve Messages.

•      Archiving

Specify how you want to Archive Messages received.

•      Message Selector

Specify Filter Criteria for the Message.

•      Transactional

Specify if you want to retrieve Messages within a Transaction.

JMS Transmitter

The JMS Transmitter is responsible for sending Messages to JMS Queues and Topics. It can be defined statically or invoked dynamically by setting the Uri of a Port within your Orchestration to jms://<Provider>/<Messaging Domain>/<Queue/Topic>.

When defining it dynamically other properties can also be set.

The following Properties can bet set within the Transmitter:

•     Messaging Domain

This can be either Point To Point or Publish-Subscribe.

•      Provider

Here you select a JMS Provider as defined in the Administration Snap-In.

•      Queue

Specify the name of the JMS Queue to which you want to send Messages.

•      Topic

Specify the JMS Topic to which you want to send Messages.

•      Batch Size

Specify the Size of Message Batches. A Value of 0 switches Batching off.

•      Include Symbols

When this option is selected Message Context Properties are sent as Message Properties.

•      Properties

Define any other Message Properties.

•      Correlation ID

Specify the JMS Correlation ID Property.

•      Delivery Mode

Specify the JMS Delivery Mode Property.

•      Expiration

Specify the JMS Expiration Property.

•      Message ID

Specify the JMS Message ID Property.

•      Priority

Specify the JMS Priority Property.

•      Redelivered

Specify the JMS Redelivered Property.

•      Type

Specify the JMS Type Property.

•      Transactional

Specify if Messages should be sent within a Transaction.

To learn more about these and other features, download an evaluation copy of BizTalk Utilities