The BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0, formerly known as the ESB Guidance 2.0 - is being released June 9th to the web on the new ESB page in the BizTalk Developer Center on MSDN.

This toolkit is a collection of tools and libraries that extends BizTalk Server 2009 capabilities of supporting a loosely coupled and dynamic messaging architecture. It functions as middleware that provides tools for rapid mediation between services and their consumers. Enabling maximum flexibility at run time, the BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0 simplifies loosely coupled composition of service endpoints and management of service interactions.

Reason for Name Change

With the release of the BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0 and the associated renaming from “ESB Guidance,” the goal is to provide the toolkit as a BizTalk Server 2009 value-add with a better support model that results in a broader customer adoption. This will hopefully help customers develop mature ESB implementations that will be ready for enterprise-wide deployments.

The BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0 provides both architectural enhancements and new capabilities over the previous ESB Guidance. For more information, see SOA and Web Services section in the New Features in BizTalk 2009 Web page.

Additional Details/Resources

What Is an Enterprise Service Bus?

An Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) is an architectural pattern and a key enabler in implementing the infrastructure for a service-oriented architecture (SOA). Real-world experience has demonstrated that an ESB is only one of many components required to build a comprehensive service-oriented infrastructure (SOI). The term "ESB" has various interpretations in the market, which have evolved over time; however, the basic challenge it addresses is the same.

Namely, the increasing adoption of SOA and the proliferation of Web services have revealed an ever growing need to provide a managed layer between services and their consumers. There must be support for interaction between heterogeneous services and interfaces that might be mismatched, or that might change over time.

An ESB addresses such integration problems in a way that maximizes the re-use of services and that maintains the flexibility to easily change the solution.

What does the BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0 provide?

The BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0 provides key building blocks that are required for implementing a comprehensive service-oriented infrastructure (SOI) including:

·         Endpoint run-time discovery and virtualization. The service consumer does not need to be aware of the service provider location and endpoint details; a new or modified service provider can be added to the ESB, without interruptions to the service consumer.

·         Loosely coupled service composition. The service provider and service consumer do not need to be aware of service interaction style.

·         Dynamic message transformation and translation. The mapping definition between distinct message structure and semantics is resolved at run time.

·         Dynamic routing. Run-time content-based, itinerary-based, or context-based message routing.

·         Centralized exception management. Exception management framework, services, and infrastructure elements that make it possible to create, repair, resubmit, and compensate fault messages that service consumers or BizTalk components submit.

·         Quality of service. An asynchronous publish/subscribe engine resolves different levels of service availability and provides high availability, scalability, and message traceability for ESB implementations.

·         Protocol transformation. Providing the ability for service provider and service consumer to interact via different protocols including WS-* standards for Web Services. For example, a service provider can send an HTTP Web Service request, which will result in sending a message via Message Queuing.

·         Extensibility. Provides multiple extensibility points to extend functionality for endpoint discovery, message routing, and additional BizTalk Server adapters for run time and design time.

ESB Page on the BizTalk Developer Center (MSDN)

A dedicated ESB page for developers and architects who are interested in ESB has been created on the BizTalk Developer Center. This ESB page provides basic information about the BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0 and useful links to relevant resources.

Downloads

You can download the BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0 from the Microsoft Download Center with a standard stand-alone, free software end-user license agreement (EULA). The toolkit is packaged as binaries and samples in a Windows Installer. The source code for signed binaries will be available as a separate download (date to be determined).

Documentation

Documentation for the BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0 is available just below the BizTalk Server 2009 product documentation in the MSDN Library. It is also available on the Download Center.

Community and Support

The BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0 Connect site has been created to log bugs with the BizTalk ESB Toolkit Team and to provide updates to additional tools over time. Once you log a bug, someone from the BizTalk ESB Toolkit team will respond to you within five days with an acknowledgment and status. Any future updates or tools will be provided through the Microsoft Download Center.

In addition, an ESB Toolkit Forum is provided on MSDN. These forums target online communities—in particular BizTalk MVPs and other BizTalk community lists. Best-effort assistance will be offered through a closely managed forum. That is, any fixes and responses to questions in the forums are best effort.