Concepts

The following figure illustrates a basic integration flow from an FTP source to a LOB destination. BizTalk Services, represented by the middle box, is a sequence of processing steps.

Role of BizTalk Services

BizTalk Services introduces several key concepts to facilitate building integration solutions on Azure:

• Bridge: A bridge is a unit of processing in BizTalk Services that can address impedance mismatch. It contains three units: one or more source locations (for example, FTP) to read messages from, a pipeline to process the message, and one or more destinations (for example, Queue) to write the processed messages. The pipeline is divided into distinct processing units called stages, each with its own function (for example, a stage in a pipeline can validate a message against a schema). A series of stages represents the bridge pattern or bridge template. Out of the-box, BizTalk Services v1 ships with three templates: XML, EDI, and AS2.

• Adapter: An adapter is the transport medium that can send messages (to a destination) or receive messages (from a source) and pass them to the pipeline in a bridge; for example, Line-of-Business adapters such as SAP and Oracle EBS or transport adapters such as FTP and SFTP.

• Transform: A transform converts a message from one format into another, aiding structural conversion. Transforms contain operations that can perform commonly used transformations like string operations, loop constructs, list operations, and arithmetic and logical expressions.

• Application protocol: A protocol defines the message format and processing semantics such as the requirement to send and correlate acknowledgements of messages.

• Route: A route defines the destination endpoint where the message will be sent based on the specified criteria. The route criteria are evaluated based on SQL-92 expression syntax.

• Batching: The aggregation of messages based on selection criteria is termed batching. The release (sending) of a batch is governed by size, count, or time, or a combination of these parameters.

• Promoted properties: Promoted properties are name-value pairs, where the name is user-defined and the value is derived from the message header, message body, or from the context within the bridge. Promoted properties are commonly used in batching and routing to specify their criteria.

• Artifact: An artifact is anything that aids in the processing of the message in the bridge. XML schemas, maps, custom assemblies, and certificates are the artifacts used in XML and EDI bridges. In BizTalk Services, each artifact is stored in the artifact store and is addressable by a unique URL.