BizTalk and Databases

Regardless of the business logic behind automation solutions, just about every requirement relates to back to a body of data. Nothing, therefore, is quite as important as being able to effectively integrate and communicate with contemporary database platforms. To accomplish this type of enterprise-level interoperability with BizTalk Server typically requires some serious programming. And, since you need to ensure that the components developed for this purpose are sufficiently robust, these solution endpoints often need to be subjected to rigorous testing.

BizTalk Utilities has taken care of all this for you. The suite of components supplied by BizTalk Utilities Adapters for Databases reduces the task of enabling database communication down to the installation and configuration of user-friendly adapter components.

How it Works

BizTalk Utilities adapters bridge the communications gap between the BizTalk Server environment and numerous different database platforms by leveraging existing Microsoft data providers and APIs. Adapter components essentially act as messaging translators, dynamically converting data formats between BizTalk Messaging and respective data sources.

Typical BizTalk Utilities adapters consist of the following three core components:

1.      A specialized Application Integration Component capable of performing Insert, Update, and Delete SQL statements, as well as executing stored procedures. A Mapper Configuration utility generally allows SQL statements to be mapped to source documents, as shown below.

2.      Another AIC that complements the first by providing functionality for the execution of single SQL statements. These AICs are able to launch stored procedures and perform standard data access tasks, but they also introduce the ability for databases to be queried. They can therefore return query results to BizTalk Server in the format of XML documents.

3.      A full-featured receive function. Typical features include the ability to poll databases and predefined intervals (ranging from seconds to days), and runtime processing logic that is applied to returned results (so that larger data sets are broken down into multiple messages, when necessary).

Each adapter component is accompanied by its own configuration Wizard. These utilities truly ease deployment by providing intuitive user-interfaces that step you through each configuration setting. Below are some sample screen shots from different Wizards.

It is also worth noting that most adapters are further supplemented with Import and Output Configuration Wizards that allow for configuration settings to be stored and retrieved from XML documents.

Summary

BizTalk Utilities provides adapters for ODBC, OLEDB, SQL Server, and Oracle (including Oracle Pipes), as well as specialized adapter components designed to interface with SQL Server Notification Services and SQLXML Templates. All components are built with enterprise-level processing in mind, providing you with the opportunity to efficiently strengthen your solution by safely extending it to encompass new data sources.

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