Summary

Microsoft's next-generation development platform is designed to make standards-based Web and Win32 application development much simpler for the Web developer. The many new enhancements included in the .NET Framework and CLR make what was once difficult in the Web development world much less complex. Although the new component technology is impressive and tempting to implement, its true value lies in its capability to communicate and coexist with existing applications and component technologies. Microsoft recognized this and provided built-in support for COM interop, making integration with existing applications such as BizTalk not only possible but easy to implement.

BizTalk Orchestration instantiates managed objects using a wrapper interface provided by the .NET runtime called the COM Callable wrapper. BizTalk Messaging supports the implementation of .NET-managed AICs using a wrapper object named the Runtime Callable wrapper. These wrapper interfaces hide the differences between the component technologies and allow both to communicate as if they were of the same type.

Although .NET may be new to some, you'll find the .NET Interop wrapper technology not only adequate but also an invaluable tool when developing BizTalk Server application integration solutions in the relatively near future.