Using the WCF Service in BizTalk 2006 R2

Question

I am trying to figure out how to use the WCF service in BizTalk 2006 R2 (sending a request and receiving a response).

I went to the Add Adding Generated Elements wizard. Now I am trying to figure out how to use the elements generated in the orchestration.

How should the request be executed?

Answer 1

The following is a description of how to do this. I will assume at least basic knowledge about things like BizTalk mapping, let me know if you need more details, and I will update.

After creating the elements in BizTalk you should have (at least):

• An orchestration file with created messages and port types has been created.
• A scheme that describes the messages you send and receive, and to your WCF service

• A.Binding.xml file that describes the service contract provided by WCF and makes it easy to configure in BizTalk

  • Open the orchestration file. It must be empty.

• Drag a port from the toolbar onto the surface of the orchestration designer.

• Name the port accordingly.
• Select "Use an existing port type" - one of the existing port types will be your WCF service (created by the Add New Items Wizard).
• Specify that you will send and receive messages
• Specify binding later

This port should have messages about requests and responses, and they should have been automatically configured to use messages for your WCF service. If your service provides several operations, you will see that this is reflected here.

2. Using standard BizTalk mapping methods, map the data that you want to send to the WCF service in a request message for the WCf port. (you may need to change the message names in the orchestration designer as something better than the default message message_1, message_2 ...)

3. Drag the receiver and send the figures to the orchestration constructor and connect them to the correct port messages.

4. Connect another part of the BizTalk orchestration to get data from the corresponding source systems (this is just basic BizTalk, not WCF).

5. Deploy the BizTalk app.

   Now the application is ready to work, it can be deployed in BizTalk.

6. Configure BizTalk Application

   • Open the BizTalk Server 2006 Administration Console and find the application that contains the newly deployed orchestration.
   • The orchestra will not be listed, you need to link all its ports
     For most ports, this is similar to any other BizTalk application — only the ports that work with the WCF service are different.

For WCF ports, you have (at least for starters) two main options:

• Import the binding file created by the BizTalk Generate Items wizard (right-click on applicaiton and import - go to the .xml binding file). It is probably recommended until you understand how Biztalk presents all WCF binding options.

• Configure your own WCF send port.

  • For this, the port must be Solicit-Response in order to match the WCF service.
  • Select one of the WCF send port types to match the binding type of your WCF service.
    For starters (for a basic Web service) this will often be WCF-BasicHttp.
    After you have the basics, you can return here and experiment with the options available in the user binding - there is a LOT!
  • Configure the send port.
    • In the general tab, enter the URL where the .svc file is listed
      e.g. http: //localhost/WCF/myservice.svc
    • Set the action to match the action specified in the WCF service WCF file
      
      e.g. http://tempuri.org/IMyContract/MyMethod

Now that your WCF port is created, you can bind the orchestration ports to it.

Once all this is done, you can start the BizTalk application and everything should work.

One thing that can help is that errors will be recorded in the event log, they may not be very useful, but you should also be able to see soap failure messages returned by the service in the paused message view.

Good luck

Answer 2

BizTalk is redundant if you just use it to organize WCF services. You can use WCF services in .NET 3.5 inside the Windows Workflow Foundation a little easier.

So here is a screencast that should help:

http://www.pluralsight.com/community/blogs/aaron/archive/2007/11/15/49172.aspx

Answer 3

It is very simple, like other developments in BizTalk. Let me make it simpler.

• Just design your desired workflow (Orchestration) and Service.
• Open the WCF Web Publishing Wizard and check (a) Include the metadata endpoint, (b) Create a BizTalk receiving location in the ur application.
• Go to the BizTalk console and enable the receive location and launch the application from the Biztalk console.
• Then view it from IE or Fire Fox to check if the service is working or not. Now the service is developing. Allows you to do something for your client.
• Go to the folder "c: \ Program Files \ Microsoft SDKs \ Windows \ v6.0A \ Bin \" and write SVCUTL and your URL to your service, i.e. c: \ Program Files \ Microsoft SDK \ Windows \ v6.0A \ Bin \ svcutil localhost: axix // axx.svx? Wsdl, this will copy two files, one is output.config and the other is BizTalkServiceInstance. cut and paste both files into your ciletn, and then see how you get rid of its consumption. I think this is the easiest I tried to do. thanks to Abdul Aziz Faroki.