Background…
We’ve built a web-based b2b system. We know that we’ll need to exchange data with our customers’ existing systems. Our plan is to create web services to allow two-way access to data. We’d like these web services to be consumable via REST and SOAP in a platform-agnostic manner. HOWEVER, we know that the types of companies that use our system often use Biztalk as well.
I hardly know anything about Biztalk. My impression is that if we build a web service layer using WCF that will satisfy our requirements for an open API, and clients that use Biztalk will be able to consume the WCF services. Is that correct, and if so, will that result in a second-class integration experience for our customers? If I’m wrong, should we instead develop a separate Biztalk-specific service? Naturally I’d prefer to develop our web service API once and have it work nicely for everyone rather than support multiple services.
I’d really appreciate some pointers on how Biztalk and WCF should work together, if at all. Thanks!
You can consume WCF web services fairly easily from within a BizTalk project.
See MSDN here: How to Use the BizTalk WCF Service Consuming Wizard to Consume a WCF Service