The whitepaper I wrote on the new WCF adapters in BizTalk Server 2006 R2 is now available on MSDN. Abstract:
Microsoft® BizTalk® Server has long supported Web services as a primary communication technique but the support has been fairly limited to date. For example, developers working with BizTalk Server 2006 can use the built-in SOAP adapter to achieve “basic profile” service integration or the downloadable Web Services Enhancements (WSE) 2.0 adapter when support for the various WS-Security specifications is required. But that’s as far as these existing adapters can take you in today’s maturing service-oriented landscape. Developers working in more modern service-oriented environments, which build on the various WS-* protocols, have been unable to fully utilize BizTalk Server 2006 in such environments since the product lacked support for Windows® Communication Foundation (WCF) within the messaging layer.
Fortunately, with the release of BizTalk Server 2006 R2, developers will find a set of new WCF adapters that offer full integration with the advanced WS-* specifications supported by the WCF runtime. These adapters target the most common WCF communication scenarios and make them easy to tackle. As with the earlier SOAP/WSE adapters, developers can use the tools provided with the WCF adapters to publish WCF services from orchestrations or schemas and to consume external services using a variety of different transport, encoding, and protocol options, offering unparalleled service-oriented flexibility. This whitepaper provides in-depth coverage on using the new WCF adapters.
Many thanks to Sarathy Sakshi, Jon Flanders, and Matt Milner for their valuable feedback.