What is new in BizTalk 2013

     BizTalk 2013 includes many new features that make developing and deploying for BizTalk much more efficient.  There are also many new features which expand on the already huge capabilities of a BizTalk Solution.

New Adapters
     It has set of new adapters which allow for connectivity to other applications and protocols, such as Windows Azure and RESTful services.

• SB-Messaging Adapter: The SB-Messaging adapter allows BizTalk to send and receive messages form the Queues, Topics and Relays of a Service Bus such as Windows Azure.
• WCF-BasicHttpRelay Adapter: Allows BizTalk to communicate with an ASMX Web services using the WCF protocol.
• NetTcpRelay Adapater: Send and receive WCF calls using the secure NetTcpRelayBinding.
• WCF-WebHttp Adapter: The WCF-WebHttp adapter allows BizTalk to send and receive, or expose BizTalk artifacts using REST.
• SharePoint Services Adapter: Sends and Receives messages to SharePoint Services
• SFTP Adapter: Enables Biztalk to securely send and receive messages to FTP servers using SSH.

     WCF-WebHttp, SFTP, SB-Messaging, WCF-BasicHttpRelay and the WCF-NetTcpRelay adapters allow for easy communication with Azure.

Configurable Dynamic Send Port

     In BizTalk Server 2010 and previous versions, dynamic send ports used the default host instance, without the ability to change the host instance handler used by the dynamic send port. 

Scenario

     There are two ESB itineraries in an application. Itinerary1 uses a Dynamic Send Port to send data to a File share. Itinerary2 uses a Dynamic Send Port to send e-mail. In the past, Dynamic send ports execute in the adapter's default host. Itinerary1 is designed to target a low volume - big message size scenario. Itinerary2 targets a high volume - small message size scenario. Since there is only one default host for an adapter, all messages are routed using the same host, decreasing the performance.

The Change

To improve the performance of Dynamic Send Ports, an adapter Send Handler is configurable to use any host. In the ESB scenario, Itinerary1 uses HostA to send data to a File share. Itinerary2 uses HostB Port to send e-mail.

     

With BizTalk Server 2013, a new feature will be added allowing a send handler to be assigned for each dynamic send port, bringing it in line with the functionality of static send.

Viewing the Artifact Dependencies

     A possible cause of frustration when dealing with larger BizTalk applications, or applications with a large number of artifacts, is determining what dependencies exists between artifacts.  For example which ports an orchestration depends on, or which maps a port is using the transform messages.

      With BizTalk 2013, a new feature has been added to easily show all of the dependencies between artifacts.

     A BizTalk Server application may contain a bunch of artifacts such as send ports, receive locations, orchestrations, schemas, transforms, etc. Moreover, sometimes these artifacts can be shared between more than one BizTalk Server application. So, it becomes very difficult for BizTalk Server admins to come up with a “dependency tree” that provides information on both the aspects of dependencies, which are:

• How a given artifact “uses” other artifacts.
• How a given artifact is “used by” other artifacts.

Pick an artifact in the BizTalk Server Administration console, for example, a receive location. Right-click the artifact, and select View Dependencies.

There’s a new Dependency Statistics pane at the bottom of the page that now lists the dependencies, categorizing it as Used by (which artifacts use this receive location) and Using (which artifacts are used by this receive location). This is how the pane looks like

The Dependency Pane shows that the ReceiveOppNotification receive location is used by one Receive Port and receive location in uses two pipeline components.  Notice that the numbers are links, so you can click those to see the dependent/dependent on artifacts. So, if I click on the number 1 above, the top pane will refresh to show the receive port that uses the ReceiveOppNotification receive location. Similarly, if I click on 2, the top pane refreshes to list the two pipelines that are used by the receive location.

     This feature should really be helpful for BizTalk Server Admins in tracking what other artifacts might get affected if they update a schema, for example. All this while the admins had to manually document all these dependencies but with this enhancement, hopefully it should become much simpler for them.

ESB Toolkit included ‘Out of the Box’

     In previous versions of BizTalk Server, the Microsoft BizTalk ESB Toolkit has been a separate installation and required its own  configuration procedure that took a considerable effort in order to correctly install and configure.  In BizTalk 2013, the ESB Toolkit installer is contained within the BizTalk 2013 installation media, and can be installed from the start menu.   Most of the remaining configuration is the same as in the previous version, however some of the ESB Toolkit configuration steps have been streamlined.