Types of AICs

As stated earlier, AICs are simply COM components that must implement at least one of the two COM interfaces:

• IBTSAppIntegration

• IPipelineComponent

• BizTalk Scriptor Component

IBTSAppIntegration components are compiled components designed for simplicity. You use this type of component when you do not need to configure the component at deployment or design-time to get different behaviors at runtime, depending on the configurations.

IPipelineComponent components are also compiled components; however, they allow the configuration of their behavior at design-time and then at the time of deployment. These components also have access to the BizTalk Messaging Interchange Metadata—for example, the organization name, application name, envelope information, and selection criteria, to name a few. The IPipelineComponent interface was originally introduced with the Site Server 3.0 Commerce Edition. So if you have worked with SSCE 3.0, you're probably familiar with these types of components. However, to get the capability to configure the component, the component must implement the IPipelineComponentAdmin interface in addition to the IPipelineComponent interface.

BizTalk Scriptor Components are interpreted components and are usually used for quick proof of concept and debugging purposes. Scriptor Components are written in VBScripts and have inherent performance issues. The advantage of Scriptor Components is that they are easy to write and modify.

In this chapter, we will first build a component using the IBTSAppIntegration interface. Then we will build that same component using the IPipelineComponent interface. We will also discuss when you should choose the IPipelineComponent interface over the simpler IBTSAppIntegration interface. Finally, we will build and implement a BizTalk Scriptor Component.