Friday, July 8, 2016

BizTalk Server 2016 - Adapters

I've been testing some of the new capabilities announced in the CTPs of the BizTalk Server 2016, so, taking advantage that CTP 2 is now available I want to share with you some of this new capabilities that caught my attention, specifically, those related with adapters.

The FILE adapter supports connecting to Azure File Share


For those who don't know it, Azure File Share is a storage service that offers file shares in the Microsoft's cloud using the SMB protocol (Server Message Block). The configuration steps to connect BizTalk File Adapter with an Azure File Share are very simple:

  • Enter the Network Share value in the “Receive Folder” or “Destination Location” text box with the following format: “\\storagename.file.core.windows.net\filesharename”


  • Set the Storage Account Name and Primary Access Key as client credentials.


The SQL Server adapter supports connecting to Azure SQL Database


The new version of WCF-SQL Adapter for BizTalk Server will allow the messaging interchange with Azure SQL Database, the relational database engine based on Microsoft SQL Server that offers the Microsoft's cloud as a managed service. Luckily, this new feature of the adapter will allow us to work in the same way with Microsoft SQL Server and Azure SQL Database. The only difference when it comes to work with an Azure SQL Database is the property "UseAmbientTransaction", because its value must always be "false", this means that we cannot to use the transactional context.

Support for Always On Availability Groups


The WCF-SQL Adapter has also evolved to allow connecting to databases hosted by an Availability Group. To perform the connection at database we must set some special properties for this connection type:

  • Server: To connect to the database we will have to establish the name of the listener for the availability group, in this way the listener will connect us transparently to the appropriate replica (primary or secondary) from among all the active replicas in the Availability Group.
  • ApplicationIndent: This property accept the values "ReadOnly" and "ReadWrite" and It will allow us indicate the workload type when connecting to database so that the listener can to route to the appropriate replica. The default value of this property is "ReadWrite", so that we will be routed to the primary replica of the group. if we're execute a query statement to retrieve rows from a database it's appropriate to change the value of this property to "ReadOnly" for offloading readonly workload from primary replica to a secondary replicas.
  • MultiSubnetFailover: Allows optimize the failover process for single and multi-subnet AlwaysOn topologies, reducing significantly the failover time. Microsoft suggests set the value of this property to "True", even for single subnet topologies.

SAS (Shared Access Signature) Authentication Support


In the new version of BizTalk, BasicHttp, BasicHttpRelay, NetTcpRelay and WebHttp adapters will support Shared Access Signature authentication when connect to Azure Service Bus.


Once selected the "Shared Access Signature" option, we have to specify the "Shared Access Key" and "Shared Access Name" as credentials of the Azure Service Bus namespace that we want to connect to establish the connection.

Support for SAP Connector for .NET (NCo)


On March 31, 2016, SAP stopped to support the classic communication model based on the RFC Library and that has been used by all versions of the SAP adapter included in BizTalk Server. The new communication model between .NET platform and SAP systems is based on SAP NetWeaver RFC Library via a component called "SAP Connector for Microsoft .NET" (NCo).

This new component is available for download at SAP Service Marketplace (https://websmp210.sap-ag.de/public/connectors) and its installation process is considerably easier than that of its predecessor. We just have to remember during the installation select the option "Install assemblies to GAC" in the dialog box "Optional Setup Steps" in order to be used in runtime by BizTalk Server.


BizTalk Server 2016 will be the first version of the product that support this component out-of-the-box since its predecessors (2013 & 2013R2) require a "Commulative Update" to enable it.

To be able to use "SAP Connector for .NET" component in our BizTalk ports, we just need to establish the value of the property "ConnectorType" to "NCo".


Summary


It seems that the trend announced by Microsoft at Integrate 2016 to facilitate the hybrid scenarios is confirmed. In the absence of the new version of the adapter for Logic Apps be released, many of evolutions included in the new product version related to adapters are oriented to facilitate the connection between adapters and Azure cloud services. Generally, good news...

1 comment: