Thoughts on Biztalk-architecture

I’m new to
the forum, thought I would take this opportunity to present to you my idea for
an SOA-based EAI and maybe get some feedback.

I’m new to
Biztalk, but have worked within the SOA-based EAI for about 6 years now (java) and I
would be very greatful for some views on this, if what I am planning is
something that works just fine in Biztalk or not. Please, if i don’t use the
correct Biztalk-name for the different objects and such, thats cause I’m not
use to that lingo yet   bear with me 🙂

 I am going
to work in BizTalk 2013, but I don’t think that there is any big difference in
these cases between the 2010 and 2013-versions.

My organisation
has Biztalk as middleware, they got at least 40-60 systems that has integration
needs both internal and external, synchronous as asynchronous so there is a
lot of work that I am beginning here (fresh start). So even more important than to get a good architecture to make it easy to build, educate/streamline developers and
also for the people that is going to do the system/server maintaining-work.

My plan:

For each
system (lets call them Order-system, Billing-system, CRM-System) I want a FROM-
and a TO-application to start with.

In the
FROM-application I gather all the orchestrations, XML-parsings that revolves
the exports from that system. FromBilling, FromOrder etc.  Every orchestration/job ends up with an
internal_order that I send to the receiver: the TO-application.

 In the
TO-application I parse the internal-scheme (of an order for example) and remake
it to the structure and protocol that the receiver wants it to be.

Example)

A
billing-scenario

 FromBilling
– triggers by export of an Invoice.xml-file, parse . Maybe makes an API-call to
the Billing-system gather some address that lacks from the Invoice.xml and then
creates an Internal_Billing.xml and sends that content (might be a file or
something else?) to ToPrintshop. ToPrinshop reads by many things Internal_Billing.xml
and creates the type of file that the printshop wants and sends it by http(s)
to them.

Extras

I create an
enterprise resource holder where I can store schemes that I use in more than
one application

I create one
STATUS-application that can read internal_status-messages and deal with them
(send mail, SMS, etc) depending on the type of error and which system it evolves
– example: FromBilling Error, send mail to Mr X with decription-text in Body.

Benefits
with this architecture is that I can re-use a lot from the internal_formats and
To-applications. I can reuse endpoints, destinations and also keep everything
revolving a specific system in one application/visual studio project making it
easy to develop and maintain. If we change the Printshop I only have to change
1 application and not several, as it can be if you have a point-to-point
integration way of doing things.  If/when
errors occure I can also pinpoint the location more direct without any of the
more fancier features of the software and create easy notifications.

Cons is
that there is going to be some extra processing, but since there is not really
that much data and little time for processing I cant say thats a real big
point.

Stuff i’m
wondering about

1. Whats
the best way to transfer data as internal_formats between 2
BizTalk-applications (XMl-file, MSMQ, ?)?

2. I see
Microsoft use global resourcesets as a good way to store resources, like
schemes, in. Thats what i’m used to do so thats suits me fine – but do you use
this technique and what do you store there?

3. What
kinds of errors you usually catch and use for notications and how you usually build
the architecture for that?

4. General
feedback?  You like the idea or is it not
a good way to do this in Biztalk  -and how´s that?  I would really not like to do point-to-point integration that is not re-usable in any way.

Thank you
for reading, and I would be glad to hear your thoughts about it.