With the growing world of connectivity reaching epic proportions, the demand on business to share data and interface with other businesses is now more than ever and becoming vital for future business success. This growing market is called application integration and BizTalk Server is Microsoft's toolset to solve this need.

Microsoft's Biztalk is built around the framework of five key processes: document transport and routing, data transformation, application integration, process automation, and scalability and manageability services. Each process is achieved through receive functions, channels, ports, schedules, and tools.

• Receive functions are the starting point for documents submitted to BizTalk Server.
  
  
• Channels modify the structure of these documents as well as manage encryption, digital signatures, and logging.
  
  
• Messaging ports send documents to schedules or to external organizations and trading partners.
  
  
• Schedules orchestrate business processes.
  
  
• BizTalk Server tools enable the receive functions, channels, messaging ports, and schedules to run.
  

BizTalk Server provides a set of sophisticated graphical tools that businesses can use to build, transform, manage, track, and analyze business documents. The BizTalk Server tools were designed to simplify the common tasks required to integrate applications and business systems, and ensure the desired functionality is achieved.

BizTalk Server includes the following graphical tools:

• Orchestration Designer enables users to visually define and build robust, distributed business processes.
  
  
• Editor enables users to define schema for XML, EDI, and flat files.
  
  
• The Mapper enables users to link disparate schemas and define steps for successful document transformations.
  
  
• Messaging Manager is a wizard-based tool that enables users to manage the details of business-process transactions.
  
  
• Server Administration enables administrators to perform common administrative tasks such as adding and removing servers.
  
  
• Document Tracking enables users to track documents as they move through various stages of the business process.
  
  
• BizTalk SEED Wizard enables rapid partner enablement through the creation and use of SEED packages.
  
  

We would be happy to discuss your integration needs or any questions you have with this exciting tool biztalk@j3technology.com