Darth Bundy

Just a quick pointer to a new offering from Microsoft which I've had a brief look at: BizTalk Services.

This offering is currently being described as "the first Internet Services Bus". From what I gather it is an extension of the Enterprise Service Bus model, extending the model to provide a single (public) repository and uniform authentication, security and relaying model across the services.

To quote one of the team members:

"your service opens at a URI on the connect.biztalk.net machines. Then a client connects to that URI and can start sending messages. We don’t want to be in the way of your app, so our relay will immediately try to establish a direct connection between clients"

The following services are currently either live or on the way:

• BizTalk Identity Services
• BizTalk Connectivity Services
• BizTalk ServiceBus Services
• BizTalk Workflow Services

Developers can also create their own services using WCF and the BizTalk Services SDK and then expose these on the Internet Service Bus. A plus point is it appears that your service does not actually need to be exposed via the BizTalk Server product, just WCF. BizTalk Services will handle the authentication requirements, after which the client and service will communicate directly.

You can have a look at the site / CTP here. Also take time to download the SDK and have a look at the samples and API documentation.

As I mentioned, this was just a brief excursion into BizTalk Services. I will hopefully get a chance to play with this and do a few more posts or correct any errors I've made in this post.

Useful links:

• BizTalk Server Team Blog
• BizTalk Services SDK