Eight new BizTalk adapters purchased by Microsoft from iWay Software will provide application integration and business-to-business integration for several popular business applications, such as JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, Siebel, and TIBCO's Rendezvous. Having Microsoft-branded adapters could appeal to customers creating BizTalk-based solutions involving these applications, since the core technology involved in the solution (including the adapters) will be provided and supported by a single company—Microsoft. However, the move reminds partners that Microsoft will compete in the BizTalk Server add-in market where the company sees a strategic advantage.

Adapters Link BizTalk to Other Systems

BizTalk Server is a business-logic processing platform that is used for enterprise application integration and business-to-business integration. For example, a BizTalk solution could coordinate the exchange of data between a Web-based application used to capture online purchase orders and a back-end financial application that processes and tracks those orders. BizTalk Server uses modular connection components called adapters to exchange data messages with the systems being integrated. The adapters work by converting data between application-native formats and BizTalk's XML schema, which allows BizTalk Server to mediate transactions among the applications.

BizTalk ships with a base set of adapters that support well-known messaging and communication standards, such as Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), and common Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) standards, such as UN/EDIFACT and X12. Microsoft also offers (at additional cost) BizTalk adapters for widely used proprietary protocols, such as IBM's MQSeries message queuing protocol, and applications, such as SAP. For most other systems and protocols, however, developers must create custom adapters or purchase them separately from third parties, such as iWay Software. A BizTalk API called the Adapter Framework aids adapter development.

Integration Strategy for Widely Adopted Applications

For the most part, Microsoft has left the creation of BizTalk adapters and other BizTalk add-ons to partners. However, if the company deems that providing a particular set of BizTalk add-ons could drive significant product adoption, it will do so.

The purchase of the iWay adapters continues this trend: with the move, Microsoft instantly gains BizTalk connectivity solutions for some of the most broadly adopted business applications and systems, including Amdocs' CRM application, Oracle applications (such as PeopleSoft and JD Edwards), Oracle databases, Siebel, and TIBCO's Rendezvous and EMS applications. Microsoft likely feels that prospective customers running these applications will be more inclined to move forward with a BizTalk-based solution if the core technology involved (including the adapters) is provided and supported by a single company—Microsoft.

In general, the new adapters provide developers a fast mechanism for integrating the supported applications in BizTalk-based solutions, saving them from writing and maintaining custom adapters. For example, developers could use BizTalk Server to connect a company's PeopleSoft installation with a Web application that gathers employee time and attendance information. Here, individual time and attendance records are collected by the Web application and passed to BizTalk Server in the form of messages. BizTalk then uses the PeopleSoft adapter to translate those messages into PeopleSoft's data format and pass them to the PeopleSoft application.

Resources

The purchased adapters will be available from Microsoft in early 2006. Pricing for the Microsoft-branded adapters has not been announced, but BizTalk customers with Software Assurance who have licensed one or more of the iWay adapters will receive licenses for the Microsoft-branded versions of those adapters. The Microsoft-purchased adapters represent a small fraction of iWay's adapter portfolio, which contains more than 200 adapters for a variety of business applications, database systems, and communications protocols.

The BizTalk Web site is www.microsoft.com/biztalk/default.mspx.

The iWay Web site is www.iwaysoftware.com/.

For more on BizTalk's architecture and tools, see "BizTalk Server Engine Reworked" on page 3 of the Apr. 2004 Update and "New Tools for BizTalk Development" on page 13 of the July 2004 Update.

For a table of important BizTalk adapters, see the chart "Accelerators and Adapters for BizTalk Server 2004" on page 20 of the Oct. 2004 Update.