Chapter 17. Application Integration Components

by Akhtar Hossein

In This Chapter

• Understanding Application Integration Components

• When to Use AICs

• Types of AICs

• Steps in Setting Up AICs

• Adding AIC to BizTalk Messaging

• Creating AICs Using IPipelineComponent Interface

• BizTalk Scriptor Component AIC

In previous chapters, you witnessed BizTalk Server's capability to integrate applications on heterogeneous systems, both within an organization and across organizational boundaries. We also discussed its capability to transform and route data between applications using proven Internet standards and technologies. As such, BizTalk can be considered an exciting and robust technology. However, an integration product wouldn't be complete without an interface or API that allowed developers to extend its capabilities.

Microsoft recognized this and gives developers the ability to extend BizTalk Server by writing custom modules and has built in extensibility in several areas, like the custom parsers, serializers, preprocessors, functoids, application integration components, and schema import modules. This chapter focuses on extending BizTalk Server by writing AICs (Application Integration Components). Other chapters in the book cover extensibility in other areas of the product.

This chapter examines how AICs play a role in application integration. You will learn to build, register, and deploy AICs. The chapter also focuses on types of AICs, when to choose one over the other, and how they interact with BizTalk Server.