BizTalk Add-on For Data Publication

The free BizTalk 2002 Server Publish-Subscribe Toolkit makes it easier for a company to publish key data (e.g., product sales) from the application where it gets created to other applications that need it. The toolkit will interest organizations that are using BizTalk Server, Microsoft’s application integration “hub” product, to pass application data to many other enterprise applications.

The toolkit delivers a set of BizTalk Server extensions that support a “publish-subscribe” model for distributing data among applications in a “loosely coupled” fashion. With the extensions, a company can define application data sets, called “publications,” that BizTalk Server will automatically distribute to any applications that have “subscribed” to them. For example, an organization might set up its e-commerce application to publish all purchases as a BizTalk publication, without knowing the applications that will use the data. Other applications, such as the enterprise resource planning (ERP), shipping, and customer resource management (CRM) applications, can then send a “subscribe” message (in XML) to BizTalk Server, requesting information about purchases, without knowing the details of the source application. Now changes can be made to the path of each application without upsetting the linkage with the others. For instance, the e-commerce application’s database name could be changed without subscribers having to change anything in their subscription. (For background on how BizTalk Server works, see “BizTalk Server’s Architecture” on page 3 of the Apr. 2002 Update.)