BizTalk Glossary

Here are the most common terms used in our BizTalk Server training classes.

A

adapter

A COM or .NET-based component that provides transport protocol or application connectivity operations for receiving and sending messages to or from BizTalk Server. The BizTalk Adapter Framework offers a stable, open interface for all adapters to work with the Biztalk Messaging Engine.

assembler

A send pipeline component that serializes (writes) messages to a file, and may combine individual messagess into a batch.

assembly

Regarding BizTalk, a dll file that contains a collection of BizTalk artifacts such as schemas, maps, orchestrations, or pipelines.

atomic transactions

DTC-style, COM+ transactions used in BizTalk orchestrations.

B

binding

An established mapping between a BizTalk service subscribing to messages, such as an orchestration or a send port, and physical adapter-specific endpoints (URIs).

BizTalk XML Schema Editor

A tool hosted within Visual Studio .NET, for constructing BizTalk Server schemas.

BizTalk Explorer

A tool hosted within Visual Studio .NET, that displays the contents of assemblies, ports, orchestrations, and parties in the BizTalk Configuration database.

BizTalk Explorer Object Model

The APIs used by BizTalk Explorer or custom tools to automate the post-deployment tasks such as creating ports, binding orchestrations, or managing party properties.

BizTalk group

A group that contains MessageBoxes, hosts, receive locations, send ports, send port groups, orchestrations, servers, and adapters.

BizTalk Mapper

A visual tool, hosted within Visual Studio .NET, for constructing BizTalk maps, which define data transformations.

BizTalk message queuing adapter

An adapter that enables exchange of messages between BizTalk Server and Microsoft Message Queue (MSMQ).

BizTalk project

A Visual Studio .NET project template containing specific reference libraries for a BizTalk project. Also refers to a development project utilizing Microsoft BizTalk Server.

BizTalk Server

Microsoft BizTalk Server is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. The term 'BizTalk Server' usually refers to the software package offered by Microsoft, but often refers to one specific physical machine where BizTalk Server is installed, and may or may not be one of many unique BizTalk Servers running standalone or in a BizTalk Server group.

BizTalk Server schema

An XML Schema Definition language (XSD)-based description of the structure of one or more BizTalk Server instance messages.

Business Activity Monitoring (BAM)

A BizTalk Server feature that gives business users a real-time view of their heterogeneous business processes, enabling them to make important business decisions.

Business Activity Services (BAS)

An optional BizTalk Server feature that allows business users to configure and interact with business processes and trading partners through a website hosted by Windows SharePoint Services.

Business Rules Composer

A graphical user interface tool used to compose Business Rules policies.

Business Rules Engine

A run-time inference engine that evaluates rules against facts and initiates actions based on the results of that evaluation.

Business Rules Engine Framework

All the service components and APIs used in creating and utilizing Business Rules in BizTalk Server.

C

compensation

A group of actions designed to undo or mitigate the effect of a committed transaction.

Configuration database

A Microsoft SQL Server database that stores the configuration information for resources in an organization. There is one Configuration database per organization.

Connector

A communications service used to exchange documents with your trading partners or your internal systems.

content-based routing

The routing of a document based on the information extracted from the payload of the document. In BizTalk Server, content-based routing is achieved by using document property promotion and filter expressions on send ports and orchestrations.

correlation

A technique for definining unique properties for a message known as a correlation type, used to associate it with a given instance of an orchestration, and the message's proper sequence as defined by a correlation set.

custom adapter

A custom piece of code that a developer writes and places before a receive pipeline or after a send pipeline to interface with adapters and/or applications.

D

default pipelines

The compiled and deployed BizTalk Server assemblies containing pipelines with preconfigured stages and pipeline components.

dehydrate

To save the state of a running orchestration to persistent storage and remove it from memory when the orchestration has been idle for a certain length of time.

delimited flat file

A type of file format used to represent business documents in which the records and fields within the records are delimited by specific characters or sequence of characters.

disassembler pipeline component

A pipeline component that divides messages in a batch into individual documents. The disassembler pipeline components provided in BizTalk Server are: Flat file disassembler, BizTalk Framework disassembler, and XML disassembler.

distinguished field

A .NET class member or XML Schema Definition language (XSD) schema field in a message that has been explicitly made available to an orchestration for use in expressions, filter expressions, and so on.

document type definition (DTD)

One of several ways in which the structure of an XML document can be described. BizTalk Server 2004 can open a schema described using a DTD, but converts it to XSD in the process.

dynamic binding

A port binding that is applied to the port at run time, typically derived from a message property such as a reply-to address.

dynamic port

A send port that does not have a destination address and adapter type associated with it. A dynamic send port allows the association of the destination address and adapter type with itself during runtime execution, thus providing flexibility in using the same port for sending messages to different destinations using different adapter types.

E

electronic data interchange (EDI)

The electronic exchange of structured and normalized documents between two computer applications, using a set of standards to control the transfer of documents, such as purchase orders and invoices, between computers.

enlist/enlisted/unenlisted

The process of associating an orchestration with the physical environment in which it will run including, the adapters needed to transport messages to and from the orchestration, the application process in which the orchestration is hosted, and creating the MessageBox subscriptions indicated by the routing.

enterprise application integration (EAI)

The process of bringing data or a function from an enterprise application together with that of another application.

Enterprise Single Sign-On System (ESSO)

A Credential database, a master secret server, and one or more Enterprise Single Sign-On (SSO) servers. These servers do the mapping between the Windows and non-Windows credentials, look up the credentials in the Credential database, and are used for administering the SSO system. The Credential database is also used as a configuration store to hold custom configuration data for adapters.

envelope schema

A special type of schema that specifies the structure of an envelope, using several extra properties that are specific to envelopes and which specify information such as identifying the envelope contents in an enveloped data stream.

envelope

A structured set of information that wraps and accompanies an instance message, often describing delivery and processing information. Envelopes can be nested.

Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT)

Evolved from the early Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) standard. XSL specifies a language definition for XML data presentation and data transformations. Data presentation means displaying data in some format and/or medium, and concerns style. Data transformation refers to parsing an input XML document into a tree of nodes, and then converting the source tree into a result tree. Transformation concerns data exchange.

F

file adapter

An adapter that can read messages from the file system and submit them to the server, as well as write messages from the server to a file on the file system.

Filter Expression property

A property of a Receive shape that determines which messages can be received. The Receive shape must have the Activate property set to True to have a filter expression.

FTP adapter

An adapter that enables exchange of files between BizTalk Server and FTP servers.

functoid

An executable module that performs a specific calculation or data manipulation, and that is used graphically when constructing BizTalk Server maps to provide the basis for richer transformations than what is provided by XSLT on its own.

G

global assembly cache (GAC)

A container on a BizTalk server for a group that holds the same assemblies that are deployed to the configuration database for that group.

H

handler

An instance of a BizTalk Sever Host on which an adapter is running.

Health and Activity Tracking (HAT)

A user interface that enables specified data to be tracked. This UI can be used to monitor the health of the BizTalk server farm and to track and view specific events and messages.

host

A logical container representing one or more BizTalk Server run-time (host) instances. This is the process space within which information about items resides (that is, all items such as orchestrations, schemas, receive locations, and adapters reside within a host). The host also serves as a security domain within Windows - it represents a virtual process boundary within which host instances run on one or more servers.

HTTP adapter

An adapter that enables exchange of messages between BizTalk Server and any application using the HTTP or HTTPS protocol.

Human Workflow Services (HWS)

A set of workflow services consisting of actors that create or participate in an action, an activity flow, or an activity model that performs some process for an actor.

I

In-process host

A host type that operates within the BizTalk Server process space. Any orchestration can be enlisted to an In-process host, and any send handler can be hosted by it. In-process hosts can only host receive handlers for In-process hosts (File and MSMQT).

instance message

A discrete unit of run-time data flowing through BizTalk Server, usually representing a particular business document such as a purchase order, and as differentiated from the BizTalk Server schema that defines its structure.

Isolated host

A host type that operates outside of the BizTalk Server installation. An Isolated host cannot have orchestrations enlisted to it, host a send handler, use host tracking, or be used as the default host for the group. Only those receive handlers for Isolated hosts (HTTP, SOAP) can be hosted by an Isolated host.

isolated receive adapter

The receive adapter that is hosted in a process other than a BizTalk Server process. This adapter is created and controlled by external process and it registers with BizTalk server at run time to submit messages.

L

long-running transaction

A collection of actions treated as a unit, typically used to maintain an appropriate state in a robust and predictable fashion. The transaction can take place over an indefinite period of time and contain several nested transactions.

looping record

A structure that can have more than one occurrence in an instance message.

M

map

An Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT)-based transformation used to convert instance messages that conform to one BizTalk Server schema into instance messages that conform to another BizTalk Server schema.

message

An electronic instance of data, as typically exchanged between two running business processes or applications.

message body part

The main part of a BizTalk Server message, which contains the actual payload, and in most cases an XML blob. All messages must have at most one body part. Typically the data read from the stream corresponding to the BizTalk Server message body part is used for promoting message context properties. Hence the routing, publication, or subscription that is based on promoted properties is generally done based on the body part.

message context

A distinguished part of a message that includes information about the message apart from its contents, such as system and transport properties.

MessageBox binding

A port binding that directly interacts with the MessageBox.

MessageBox database

A group of Microsoft SQL Server databases that contain subscription and tracking information for a MessageBox group.

metadata

Information, such as location, time, message size, and/or exception information, often accessed as a promoted property of a message context.

multi-part message type

A definition of the structure of a message, including the data types of its elements. A multi-part message type can contain a single part or many parts.

N

native adapter

The adapters supplied by BizTalk Server 2004, which includes Base EDI, BizTalk Message Queuing (MSMQT), File, FTP, HTTP, SMTP, SOAP, and SQL adapters.

node

Each entry in a schema tree displayed within BizTalk Editor and BizTalk Mapper. Sometimes called a schema node, but not to be confused with the Schema node, which is the outermost node in all BizTalk schemas.

O

orchestration

A BizTalk artifact representing an arbitrary portion of a business process, and compiled into a .NET assembly containing logic for processing BizTalk messaging interchanges. An orchestration instance is also referred to as a BizTalk service that subscribes to messages. The underlying technology is based upon Microsoft's proprietary XLANG/s specification, which is partly based on SOAP, WSDL, WSFL, and BPEL specifications.

orchestration binding

An orchestration port that does not connect to a fixed endpoint, but instead connects to the MessageBox directly.

Orchestration Designer

A graphical user-interface tool used to design and implement BizTalk orchestrations.

orchestration instance

A running instance of a specific BizTalk orchestration process.

P

party

All of the entities outside of BizTalk Server that interact with an orchestration. All of the partners your organization deals with are considered parties, and your organization may have several has several thousands partners. BizTalk Explorer includes a user interface that can be used to manage parties, but managing thousands of parties can be unmanageable in a user interface. In this case. you can use the BizTalk Explorer object model to write scripts to add parties, remove parties, add a party and automatically enlist to a role, or copy a party from a legacy system.

party enlistment

The mechanism that ties a party to a role. In BizTalk Explorer, you can enlist a party in a role, and that enables the orchestration to interact with the party.

pass-through

A configuration of BizTalk Server ports such that a receive port is directly connected to a send port by using only one filter expression on a send port. The filter expression should take the form BTS.ReceivePortName == "Name or receive port". In this configuration, any message that is received by the receive port is directly routed to a send port. The meaning of pass-through execution in BizTalk 2004 is different from the meaning of pass-through execution in BizTalk Server 2000 or 2002. In BizTalk Server 2004, the pass-through execution message is still processed in pipelines and may be transformed in ports as well.

performance monitoring

The process of watching BizTalk performance counters such as message process/receive rate, number of running orchestrations, number of cache hits, memory usage over time, and so on.

physical (early) binding

Information that is carried in the assembly and used by the deployment process to create send and receive ports.

pipeline

A software infrastructure that defines and links one or more processing stages, running them in prescribed order to complete a specific task. Pipelines divide processing into stages, abstractions that describe a category of work. They also determine the sequence in which each category of work is performed.

pipeline component

A COM or .NET-based component that can be placed into a pipeline to perform some processing action on the messages going through that pipeline.

Pipeline Designer

A graphical user-interface tool used to create and configure pipelines in BizTalk Server.

policy

A versioned collection of business rules.

port type

A property that defines the set of message interaction patterns called operations that are permitted at that end point. An operation can be one-way, in which case one message is sent or received, or it could be request-response in which case a message is sent (or received) and a response is received (or sent).

positional flat file

A type of file format used to represent business documents in which the records and fields have a fixed length, eliminating the need for delimiters.

property promotion

The mechanism through which specific instance message content is elevated (copied) to the message context container for easier access by a wide variety of BizTalk Server components.

publishing

Storing a message instance in the MessageBox database so it can be matched to a subscription from a consuming application. Also refers to publishing (storing) Business Rules policies and vocabularies in the Business Rule Store database.

R

receive handler

An instance of a BizTalk Server Host on which a receive adapter is running. A receive handler is a logical container for a receive adapter component.

receive location

The physical, design-time notion of a location (such as a URL) and an adapter type. A receive location in the Host node in the BizTalk Server Administration console, defines the receive functionality.

receive pipeline

A pipeline that is executed on messages after they have been received by an adapter and before they are published into the Message Box database.

receive port

A logical grouping of similar receive locations.

rehydrate

To activate an idle orchestration in memory from persistent storage as a result of some event taking place, such as a message being received.

request-response adapter

A request-response receive adapter receives a request message from the client, submits it to the server, waits for a response, and then sends the response back to the client.

role

A collection of port types that either uses a service or implements a service. The means by which parties interact with orchestration(s). For example, an orchestration might use the role of a Shipper. The Shipper would have one or two parties associated with it. When the orchestration decides which shipping company to use to ship an item, it compares the prices of the parties in the Shipper role.

role link

The relationship between roles by defined by the message and port types used in the interactions in both directions.

role link type

A property that characterizes the relationship between two services or orchestrations by defining the part played by each of the services in the relationship and specifying the port types provided by each role.

rule

Usually refers to a business rule pairing conditions and actions. May also refer to a branch of a Decide shape, containing conditional logic for program flow.

rule set

A logical grouping of similar rules. This can be viewed as a grouping/partitioning mechanism of the rule engine.

Rules Engine Update service

A service that performs dynamic policy updates.

Rules store

A SQL Server database for persisting published business rules policies.

S

schema

The structural specification for an XML message. 'Schema' is a generic term that can also used to refer to SQL database schemas.

Schema Editor Extension

The mechanism through which software modules extend the basic XML/XSD functionality supported by BizTalk Editor. Schema Editor Extensions typically add supplemental properties to one or more nodes in BizTalk schemas to represent their particular semantics.

SEED package

A feature of BizTalk Server used to help you rapidly start conducting business with your trading partners. The SEED package contains items such as trading partner URLs and Profiles, orchestrations, templates, and specification and instance data.

send handler

A BizTalk Server Host with which the send adapter is associated.

send pipeline

A pipeline that is executed on messages before they are sent out of the BizTalk server.

send port

The location to which messages are sent or from which messages are received, and the technology that is used to implement the communication action. The location is uniquely identified by the name of the port.

service

A program, routine, or process that performs a specific system function to support other programs at the operating systems level, such as a Windows NT service. A service is a Windows NT service or a COM+ service that runs on a server. In the Health and Activity Tracking (HAT) tool, a UI element.

shape

A graphical representation of an action or grouping of actions in an orchestration.

SMTP adapter

An adapter that implements the SMTP protocol (that is, sends e-mail messages) to interact with line-of-business applications. This adapter includes only the send handler.

SOAP adapter

An adapter that implements the SOAP protocol to interact with line-of-business applications, publishes orchestrations as Web services, and consumes external Web services.

solicit-response adapter

A receive adapter that queries the client for a message, submits it to the server, waits for response, and sends the response back to the client. A solicit-response send adapter queries the destination for a message, waits for a response message, and then submits the response message back to the server.

SQL adapter

An adapter that exchanges information between BizTalk Server and a SQL Server database.

stage

A portion of a pipeline dedicated to completing a certain category of work. The pipeline components within the stage complete the actual tasks.

static port

A send port that has a destination address and adapter type associated with it. As opposed to a dynamic send port, a static send port cannot change its configuration at run time and is always used to send messages to only one destination address.

strong name key file

A file that contains the identity for an assembly - its simple text name, version number, and culture information (if provided) - plus a public key and a digital signature. It is generated from an assembly file using the corresponding private key. (The assembly file contains the assembly manifest, which contains the names and hashes of all the files that make up the assembly.)

submit

Placing a message and associated properties in the appropriate tables in the MessageBox database and scanning the Subscription directory for subscriptions whose predicates match the properties of the message.

subscribe

To sign up for a service.

subscription

A mechanism to route messages that match certain property comparison criteria into a Work queue.

Subscription database

The MessageBox database that contains all of the subscriptions for a MessageBox group.

Suspended queue

A queue that contains work items for which an error or failure was encountered during processing. A suspended queue stores the messages until they can be corrected and reprocessed, or deleted.

T

tracking

The ability to track interchanges and messages processed by BizTalk Server.

Tracking database

A Microsoft SQL Server database that stores the tracking information for a MessageBox group. There is one Tracking database per MessageBox group.

Tracking Profile Editor

A graphical user-interface tool used to define the interesting parts of their business process as well as interesting business payload data.

trading partner

An external or internal organization with which your organization exchanges electronic data. For example, a trading partner could be a supplier, a customer, or an internal department.

Trading Partner Management database

The Business Activity Services (BAS) database that stores partner profiles, agreements, and other business process-related information.

Trading Partner Management Web service

The Business Activity Services (BAS) Web service used to create, read, update and delete partners and agreements.]

transformation

The process of converting an XML document that conforms to one schema into an XML document that conforms to another schema, often changing the document structure in the process.

translation

The process of converting an XML document into native (non-XML) format, or vice versa.

U

unenlist

The act of eliminating all subscriptions and instances (running or suspended) for that service.

V

vocabulary

A collection of vocabulary elements used as aliases representing facts in rule composition.

W

Web services

A unit of application logic providing data and services to other applications. Applications access XML Web services using standard Web protocols and data formats such as HTTP, XML, and SOAP, independent of how each XML Web service is implemented. XML Web services combine the best aspects of component-based development and the Web, and are a cornerstone of the Microsoft .NET programming model.

Web Services Description Language (WSDL)

An XML format for describing network services as a set of endpoints operating on messages containing either message-oriented or procedure-oriented information. The operations and messages are described abstractly, and then bound to a concrete network protocol and message format to define an endpoint. Related concrete endpoints are combined into abstract endpoints (services).

Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)

A component of the Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft implementation of Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM), used to automate administrative tasks in an enterprise environment.

X

XML-Data Reduced (XDR)

One of several ways in which the structure of an XML document can be described BizTalk Server 2004 can open a schema described using XDR, but converts it to XML Schema definition language (XSD) in the process.

XML Schema definition language (XSD)

A schema language. An XML Schema defines the elements, attributes, and data types that conform to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) XML Schema Part 1: Structures Recommendation for the XML Schema Definition Language. The W3C XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes Recommendation is the recommendation for defining data types used in XML schemas. The XML Schema definition language enables you to define the structure and data types for XML messages.

XPath

A comprehensive language used for navigating through the hierarchy of an XML document. XPath expressions can contain XML element and attribute information, select data that matches specific criteria, and perform comparisons on the data retrieved. Also called a node path.

Flo Technologies empowers our clients with everything they need to successfully integrate systems and implement business processes with
Microsoft BizTalk Server.

Our BizTalk consultants help clarify your objectives, assess your needs, and deliver the architectural solutions, knowledge, skills and tools required for your team to be successful.

Contact us today to get your BizTalk project off to a great start!

Toll-free:   866-512-2643
info@flotechnologies.com

Flo Technologies empowers our clients with everything they need to successfully integrate systems and implement business processes with
Microsoft BizTalk Server.

Our BizTalk consultants help clarify your objectives, assess your needs, and deliver the architectural solutions, knowledge, skills and tools required for your team to be successful.

Contact us today to get your BizTalk project off to a great start!

Toll-free:   866-512-2643
info@flotechnologies.com

Flo Technologies empowers our clients with everything they need to successfully integrate systems and implement business processes with
Microsoft BizTalk Server.

Our BizTalk consultants help clarify your objectives, assess your needs, and deliver the architectural solutions, knowledge, skills and tools required for your team to be successful.

Contact us today to get your BizTalk project off to a great start!

Toll-free:   866-512-2643
info@flotechnologies.com

Flo Technologies empowers our clients with everything they need to successfully integrate systems and implement business processes with
Microsoft BizTalk Server.

Our BizTalk consultants help clarify your objectives, assess your needs, and deliver the architectural solutions, knowledge, skills and tools required for your team to be successful.

Contact us today to get your BizTalk project off to a great start!

Toll-free:   866-512-2643
info@flotechnologies.com

Flo Technologies empowers our clients with everything they need to successfully integrate systems and implement business processes with
Microsoft BizTalk Server.

Our BizTalk consultants help clarify your objectives, assess your needs, and deliver the architectural solutions, knowledge, skills and tools required for your team to be successful.

Contact us today to get your BizTalk project off to a great start!

Toll-free:   866-512-2643
info@flotechnologies.com

Flo Technologies empowers our clients with everything they need to successfully integrate systems and implement business processes with
Microsoft BizTalk Server.

Our BizTalk consultants help clarify your objectives, assess your needs, and deliver the architectural solutions, knowledge, skills and tools required for your team to be successful.

Contact us today to get your BizTalk project off to a great start!

Toll-free:   866-512-2643
info@flotechnologies.com

Flo Technologies empowers our clients with everything they need to successfully integrate systems and implement business processes with
Microsoft BizTalk Server.

Our BizTalk consultants help clarify your objectives, assess your needs, and deliver the architectural solutions, knowledge, skills and tools required for your team to be successful.

Contact us today to get your BizTalk project off to a great start!

Toll-free:   866-512-2643
info@flotechnologies.com

Flo Technologies empowers our clients with everything they need to successfully integrate systems and implement business processes with
Microsoft BizTalk Server.

Our BizTalk consultants help clarify your objectives, assess your needs, and deliver the architectural solutions, knowledge, skills and tools required for your team to be successful.

Contact us today to get your BizTalk project off to a great start!

Toll-free:   866-512-2643
info@flotechnologies.com