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August 23, 1999

BizTalk Could Spur XML And E-Business

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In addition to XML standardization, business is clearly driving Microsoft's interest in BizTalk--in particular, the BizTalk Server. Slated to ship sometime after Windows 2000 is released, the server will facilitate the interchange of information encoded according to BizTalk schemas. It will handle queuing, batching, document translation using Extensible Style Language, document tracking, and reliable transport of XML data. BizTalk Server and schemas go hand in hand. Crucial to Microsoft's continued growth in servers is the ability to let customers exchange data with partners, a key part of its E-commerce initiatives.

As they do with other Microsoft servers, developers can write software to interact with BizTalk Server and manipulate document routing, security, and other features according to tags marking content. Microsoft certainly has something to gain from the success of XML and the BizTalk initiative--but at the same time, if BizTalk and its competitors are successful, they will also provide a significant boost to XML, and that in turn will facilitate the Web as an E-commerce powerhouse.

Because the technology is derived from XML, BizTalk is extensible. XML and BizTalk documents contain information that describes what each piece of data represents, unlike HTML, which just formats data.

Elements Of BizTalk
Version 0.81 of the specification contains three major elements: the framework description, a repository for BizTalk schemas, and requirements for submitting schemas to automated validation bots.

The first part of the specification, the BizTalk framework, is straightforward. It describes a set of mandatory XML tags that all BizTalk XML documents must contain in order to take advantage of the framework. Each XML document must contain a root tag that identifies the document as complying with the BizTalk specifications. Like any XML document, but unlike HTML documents, all opening tags must have a corresponding closing tag.

Messaging transport systems--such as Microsoft's own Message Queue, released with the Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack and a part of Windows 2000 and IBM's MQSeries--are very hot right now, but they are transport mechanisms only. BizTalk includes a set of optional tags for message routing, crucial for automating the exchange of data. These tags and their attributes must be located between the opening BizTalk framework tag and the opening body tag. BizTalk describes a standard, extensible message format that is usable with any transport mechanism and containing information about the application where the data is heading. It provides application-independent routing information for transferring XML documents.

The mandatory and optional tags identify an XML document as part of the BizTalk framework. However, the real benefit of XML will be realized when groups get together and define schemas that describe the format of data for particular uses.

Part of the XML specification is document type definitions, which, like XML, are derived from the Standard Generalized Markup Language. DTDs describe the data structure and give identifying names to their contents.

But BizTalk is based on the proposed XML-Data specification, which goes beyond DTDs. It describes data types and supports the XML namespaces specification. XML-Data was proposed by Microsoft and some of its partners, and it is by no means certain to become a standard. But some kind of data specification for XML is likely to be adopted by the W3C, and Microsoft has pledged to support the final specification.

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