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August 23, 1999

BizTalk Could Spur XML And E-Business

Microsoft makes big investment in latest XML framework

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izTalk, Microsoft's new electronic-commerce framework for XML schemas, attempts to provide flexible data exchange between distributed applications--a large and growing need these days.

As interest in Extensible Markup Language for standard data interchange of applications over the Web increases, XML's limitations become more evident as well. For example, XML's flexibility can also be a weakness at times; it's so flexible that two uncoordinated efforts to design schemas using XML produce incompatible results. And while XML is quite powerful for a lot of applications, it's also too easy to create XML schemas that are usable only in a single application--for example, when competing industry groups develop different schemas for all members of that industry, such as auto manufacturers, building contractors, or clothing wholesalers.

Microsoft is strongly behind XML, as demonstrated by the addition of native data support to develop technologies such as ActiveX Data Objects. As a result, XML documents are a native format in the Internet Explorer 5.0 Web browser. Microsoft also serves on the World Wide Web Consortium's XML standard committee.

To further capitalize on the growing interest in XML, Microsoft in May introduced BizTalk, a design framework for XML. By developing an XML schema under the BizTalk guidelines, data can be shared easily between applications using a loosely coupled, message-based system across a network or running on the same machine. Because BizTalk provides a repository for schemas, all applications can have access to the data definitions contained in the schema.

The current version, 0.81, consists of four documents: BizTalk Framework XML Tags Specification, BizTalk Framework Document Design Guide, XML Schema Developer's Guide, and a guide to a schema canonical format.

Microsoft makes clear that XML, not BizTalk, is the specification. So while XML provides the structure, BizTalk provides the dialects and dictionaries to make sense of the content. It also serves as a framework for consistent XML schemas, and as a means for registering such schemas for wide use.

Unlike HTML, which is user-oriented, BizTalk data is shared among applications. It is appropriate for any application that automates business processes, particularly those that cross application or organizational boundaries. As such, it fits nicely into Microsoft's Windows DNA architecture for widely distributed applications, providing the means for exchanging data, particularly across platforms.

BizTalk was designed to ease three types of burdens on developers building distributed applications: transport dependence, proprietary calling conventions, and data formats.

Traditional client-server and n-tier applications running on different platforms are likely to require several technical mechanisms for moving data around. But BizTalk--built on XML in an environment of various W3C standards--presumes no transport mechanism. This makes building distributed applications extremely flexible, because applications can communicate data over the Internet, via a local area network, or by direct serial connection, using any communication protocols available.

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