Microsoft offers REST support in BizTalk Server 2013 through the WCF-WebHttp Adapter. Something that has been anticipated by BizTalk developers for sometime. With BizTalk Server 2010 there was already quite a demand resulting:
- in a TechNet Wiki Article called Invoke ReSTful Web Services with BizTalk Server 2010 describing a solution to consume Restful services with BizTalk 2010,
- and a REST Start Kit for BizTalk to provide support for REST made by Microsoft Integration MVP Mikael Håkansson.
REST API’s have grown big on the web. Twitter, Google, Salesforce, eBay, Amazon all offer REST API’s to use their services. Together with the increase of mobile devices and light weight rich (Ajax) web applications the adoption of REST grows more and more. So the Microsoft BizTalk product group has made a good decision by supporting REST through the new BizTalk release 2013. Since there is so much REST API’s available now it wouldn’t be a surprise if this leads to more integration solution requiring communication with RESTful services.
The integration solution can have BizTalk Server as one of its components and within an enterprise it can even be the heart of the messaging infrastructure supporting many protocols. Adding REST support will mean that BizTalk will provide even more value.
For you developers out there here is a list of resources (up to date) around BizTalk and REST:
- Exploring REST Capabilities of BizTalk Server 2013 (Part 1: Exposing REST Endpoints)
- Exploring REST Capabilities of BizTalk Server 2013 (Part 2: Consuming REST Endpoints)
- REST (WCF-WebHttp) adapter in BizTalk Server 2010 R2 and code
- BizTalk and Rest Example from BizTalk Saturday
- BizTalk Server 2013: New Adapters Series: WCF-WebHttp (code)
- BizTalk Server 2013: WCF-WebHttp Adapter Sample
- BizTalk Server 2013 – you can now connect to every REST service out there more easily out-of-the-box
- MSDN Tutorial: Integrating BizTalk Server 2013 with Salesforce (code)
- Using HttpHeaders with WCF-WebHttp Adapter on Biztalk 2013
- BizTalk 2013 and ReST
- R-ESB another way to use ReST in BizTalk 2013
- Calling the Force.com REST API from BizTalk Server
- BizTalk Server 2013: REST Services
- Exposing a REST GET endpoint using BizTalk Server 2013
- RESTfully GETting JSON Formatted Data with BizTalk 2013
- BizTalk Server: REST Services Error Handling
I think these resources will get you on your way building a (hybrid) solution with BizTalk 2013 and REST. There will some overlap in case you go through all these resources, yet you will get a good understanding of the REST Support in BizTalk 2013.
Cheers,
Steef-Jan
