It’s great to see, for some time now I’ve been a huge advocate of how BizTalk and
WF *can* work together.
In the past the message that has been sent by MS has been an either/or message – never
together. (e.g. small things WF….enterprise SAP/Siebel etc. = BizTalk)
Well my good friend Paul Andrew is all over this with the release of a BTS WF Host
Tool that:
1. Takes a WF Workflow
2. WCF is used for the underlying communications between BTS and WF – seeing that
BTS06 R2 is now WCF capable, it’s a perfect synergy!!
3. WCF Message Contracts defined in the WF Workflow
4. The tool runs over the WF workflow to produce the ‘stub/proxy’ Wrapper Orchestration
so that (and this is the most exciting piece of news) BizTalk will serialise
the idle executing Workflows when needed AND the wrapper orchestration automatically
handles all the correlation to locate the appropriate WF within the WF Runtime, via
a WF Host class called _WFHost (also automagically generated)
For me the most exciting thing is that – now you dont need to write wrapper Orchestrations
etc. and do a bunch of work within BizTalk to get the communications to happen.
We can use CBR to route to our Workflows etc…..very very coool
Available to the public BY THE END OF THIS MONTH 🙂
—————— FROM PAUL ANDREWS BLOG ————————-
(bless his cotton socks 🙂
BizTalk
Adapter for Windows Workflow Foundation sample (June 2007 CTP)
Just announced today at TechEd 2007 in Orlando Florida. We are developing a new SDK
Sample that lets software developers build workflow models in Windows Workflow Foundation
and then host then in BizTalk Server 2006.
The BizTalk Adapter for Windows Workflow Foundation SDK Sample (June 2007 CTP) is
a preview of some new technology for business logic and process developers. It provides
for workflow models developed using Windows Workflow Foundation from the .NET Framework
3.0 to be hosted in BizTalk Server 2006. By doing this the workflow gains access to
services from BizTalk Server 2006 including scalability, reliability, manageability,
and access to messaging with BizTalk Server ports. The next major version of BizTalk
Server is planned to be built on Windows Workflow Foundation and this CTP provides
an option for customers to do this with current technologies. A release date has not
yet been planned and will depend on customer feedback and the sample is currently
not planned to be Microsoft supported. The CTP is suitable for software developers
familiar with Windows Workflow Foundation and is provided as an SDK sample with source
code.
The sample provides a tool that evaluates an existing WF workflow model and creates
a BizTalk orchestration project as a proxy for that WF workflow model. The orchestration
can then be deployed to BizTalk Server and the WF model is used.
Watch a Demo Video
Jon Flanders has recorded a 45 minute video demo of using the CTP to host a WF workflow
model in BizTalk Server 2006 and he shows it running. Watch here.