Calling the API

Let's start by looking at a simple REST call to the BizTalk Services API. In this example, we'll query the BizTalk Services instances deployed for a given Azure subscription. We are going to see how you can execute this request using a very useful tool called Fiddler. You can download Fiddler for free from http://fiddler2.com/.

In order to execute these API calls against Azure, a mutual certificate exchange process is required in order for each party to authenticate one another. When your machine makes a request to the Windows Azure management endpoint, Azure returns the configured certificate and in return your client machine sends Azure its certificate to validate. Once complete, Azure executes the request and returns an acknowledgement. In order for this to work, we first need to create a client certificate and then upload it to Azure.

There are two options here. You can use a certificate you create yourself, which is known as a self-signed certificate. Such a certificate...