BizTalk Interview Questions

What is BizTalk?

Ans: Microsoft BizTalk Server is a business process management tool. It enables the communication between applications and systems involved in a business process with the help of adapters. It provides a mechanism to map input and outputs of various systems used for exchanging documents like invoices, purchase orders between enterprises. It basically transforms one file format to another.

What are the components of the BizTalk Server?

Ans: Here are the components of BizTalk Server architecture,

• Receive Port - message listener
• Adapters - exchange information between external systems
• Pipeline, dis-assembler and sub-components - normalizing schema through XML
• Message-box - XML messages are published internally and subscribers will consume them
• Subscribers - subscribe to the messages or context properties in the Message-box 
• Biz-talk Orchestration Engine - to process internal messages for republishing to  Message-box
• Send Port - consumes the XML messages and converts them to wire messages
• Adapter - wire messages are sent to the target system

What are the types of subscriptions in BizTalk?

Ans: A subscription is usually a set of conditions that ensure a subscriber gets the required message. There are two types of subscriptions,

• Activation Subscription - a message when received should create or activate a new instance of the subscriber
  
• Instance Subscription - a message should be routed to an already existing instance of the subscriber that is in running state

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Explain about artifacts in BizTalk server

Ans: Artifacts are the components that are required for a BizTalk application to function. Here are some of the artifacts,

• Receive Ports
• Receive Locations
• Send Ports and Send Port Groups
• Role Links
• Schemas
• Maps
• Pipelines
• Adapters
• Orchestrations
• Policies

What is Direct Binding?

Ans: Direct Binding is used to bind one orchestration port directly to another. The messages from one Orchestration can also be routed to the MessageBox of another Orchestration.

Explain about the distinguished field in BizTalk server

Ans: Distinguished fields are properties of messages that can be added to a message. It is mainly used for decision making or data manipulation in Orchestration when the message is received on the port.

What is a promoted property?

Ans: Promoted properties are defined inside a schema to provide more visibility to a message. They are used for accessing key items of data in a message i.e distinguished fields and property fields rather than going through the entire message.

What is a Message Type?

Define correlation in BizTalk Server

Ans: At any point in time, multiple instances might run simultaneously. So the correlation of messages with the Orchestration instances can be achieved by defining correlation sets. It will associate an incoming message to a specific instance in the Orchestration.

. Tell the difference between static, dynamic and direct binding?

Ans: 

• Static Binding - at the time of deployment, a static port will already be configured to send messages to a specific external port. The compilation would be slower as the static binding will be implemented at compile time
• Dynamic Binding - used to select transport types and locations dynamically at runtime. Compilation time will be faster
• Direct Binding - developers have full control on subscriptions and message context to route messages

. Explain about Virtual Directory

Ans: If we have written a custom Web service for applying to BizTalk Server, then we have to create a virtual directory. A service will be published at isolated host(IIS) in the virtual directory by the publishing wizard.

. What is BizTalk Orchestration?

Ans: Orchestration represents an executable business process based on XLANG/s language. It publishes and subscribes messages through MessageBox. Message send and receive actions, the ports through which the messages should be transported are all fundamental elements of orchestration.

[ Related Article: What is Biztalk ]

. How can we transfer files without using Orchestration?

Ans: We can use content-based routing for transferring files without Orchestration. Content-based routing routes messages based on envelope properties. While sending messages, we can create a filter that checks for ‘receive location’ in the envelope. If a match is found, it will be directly sent to the receive location, instead of sending it through Orchestration.

. What is Dehydration?

Ans: The process in which the state of orchestration is serializing into a SQL Server database is called Dehydration. It determines how long an Orchestration instance has been idle. If the Orchestration instance idle time exceeds a threshold, it will dehydrate the instance.

. What is the Rehydration Process?

Ans: If an orchestration instance is dehydrated, it can be rehydrated when the orchestration engine is triggered through a message (or) when a specified time-out expires. The orchestration engine loads the saved orchestration instance into memory and runs it.

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. Explain the execution modes in a pipeline Stage

. What are the differences between Message Routing And Content Routing?

Ans: 

• Message-based Routing - no processing will be applied to the message. It will be routed through Orchestration.
  
• Content-based Routing - the routing will be based on envelope properties. The message will be directly sent to the destination without using Orchestration

. Define rules engine in BizTalk

Ans: Rules Engine is used to define, classify and manage all business rules and applies them to business objects in a dynamic production environment. We can create a rule-based application by constructing rules from business logic which will apply to the data in the business objects.

. What are the ways of deploying a BizTalk application?

Ans: There are many ways to deploy a BizTalk application,

• Import them to an application through Deployment Wizard (.msi file)
• Importing through BTSTask.exe
• Deploying from Visual Studio
• MSBuild
• Deploying from BizTalk Server Administration Console
• From command line using BTSTask

. Explain the use of persistence points

Ans: Persistence points are used to save the orchestration state to the database. The orchestration engine saves the states of all the running instances at different points. When the orchestration engine has to rehydrate an instance, it uses the last persistence point of that instance and loads it into memory to run the orchestration instance.

. Give the list of persistence points?

. What are the transaction types in the BizTalk server?

Ans: BizTalk Orchestration engine has the ability of exception handling and recovery from failed transactions. There are two types of transactions,

• Atomic transactions - if a transaction is not successfully complete, it enables the transaction to roll back to the previous state automatically
  
• Long-running transactions - provides custom scope-based exception handling and nesting transactions

. What is an atomic transaction?

Ans: 
Atomic Transactions move a process from one consistent state to a new consistent and durable state that is secluded from other units. All the states will be reset if an atomic transaction fails. It uses custom exception handling methods to recover from error scenarios.

. Define BAM in BizTalk

Ans: Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) is used for real-time monitoring and tracking data through multiple applications. It gives end-to-end visibility on all your business processes (or) business applications. It can also send event-driven alerts.

. What are the types of schemas?

Ans: BizTalk supports four types of schemas,

• XML schema - uses XML Schema definition (XSD) for defining the structure of an XML instance message
  
• Flat file schema - defines the structure of instance messages that use a flat-file format
  
• Envelope schema - defines the structure of XML envelopes which is used to merge one or more XML documents into an XML instance message
  
• Property schema - used for property promotion

. What is the difference between Document Schema and Property Schema?

Ans: 

• A document schema is used to define a message. It is like a definition of XML message with optional extensions for flat files, EDI files, etc.
• A property schema is used for property promotion. It elevates the promotion properties that are deep within an instance message

. What is the difference between typed and untyped messages?

Ans: 

• A message that is bound to a schema is called a typed message
• A message that is bound to System.Xml.XmlDocument instead of a schema is called an untyped message.

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. What is a link in a Map?

Ans: Links are the function of copying data from an input instance message to an output instance message. We have to create links between source and destination schemas during design time. BizTalk Mapper provides support for both one-to-one and one-to-many links.

. What is the flow of message (or) a life cycle of a message in the BizTalk server?

Ans: 

• A message is received to a receive port through the receive location
• It is processed and sent to the MessageBox
• The MessageBox checks for active subscriptions and routes the message to orchestrations and send ports
• Orchestration will process the message and sends it to a send port through MessageBox where the message will be further routed to its destination

. Does BizTalk support synchronous communication?

Ans: BizTalk provides synchronous-on-asynchronous (sync-on-async) communication. The BizTalk Server architecture is asynchronous but the BizTalk Messaging Engine architecture enables exposing synchronous message exchange on top of these asynchronous exchanges.

) Define Message Metadata in the BizTalk server?

Ans. In BizTalk Server, message metadata refers to message context or context properties. While getting the message, Biztalk's pipeline and adapter will append the data to this context.

) Mention the default mapping for auto-mapping in BizTalk?

Ans. Auto Mapping's usual mapping is structure-based. Within the map's properties, this can be adjusted or modified by node name.

) What is meant by the Zombie message in BizTalk?

Ans. In BizTalk, Zombie messages are messages that the BizTalk server consumes, and the messages were "in-flight" when a running orchestration stopped after being directed there from the message box. Here, the "in-flight" message is a kind of message that is directed to the service instance. Therefore, it stays inside a queue of the message box intended for a service instance.

) What do you mean by Mapper Designer in BizTalk?

Ans. A Mapper Designer in BizTalk server is a Microsoft Visual Studio (VS) ecosystem tool that helps to build and edit maps. These maps help change the XML messages.

) How can we use Global Variables in a map in BizTalk?

Ans. Yes, we can use global variables within the BizTalk maps. Also, within the scripting functoid that stays on top of the map, we can build and initialize these global variables.

) What is the use of a

Ans. In BizTalk, a message assignment shape helps build new messages and assign a message or value to the same.

) Define

Ans. An expression shape in Biztalk is helpful to restart the variables and allocate values to them, and execute "if else" conditions. It is also helpful to write down logs of events.

) Define Functoids in BizTalk Server?

Ans. In BizTalk Server, functoids are the tools useful for implementing various practices to the data through a drag-n-drop interface existing under the BizTalk mapping tool. Also, functoids help execute computations using fixed formulas and values.

) What are the various functions of BizTalk?

Ans. BizTalk offers essential functions such as Process Automation, Communication between business to business (B2B), BPM (Business Practice Modeling), EAI, and more. Also, it helps many organizations to combine and manage different business processes by exchanging documents like invoices, purchase orders, etc.

) Define Trading Partner Management (TPM) in BizTalk?

Ans. The TPM or Trading Partner Management in BizTalk Server helps manage and save business partners' information and activities. Trading partner relations are generally maintained and managed by the information workers within an entity. Further, the TPM database allows them to secure the partner's trading relations data.

) Distinguish between Web Services and BizTalk?

Ans. The following are the essential differences between Web Services and BizTalk. 

• Web Services are the standards, whereas Biztalk is a Microsoft product. 
• Microsoft Inc. provides BizTalk services, but web services are software systems built by various entities such as IBM, Wipro, etc.
• The BizTalk application increases the entity's internal operational efficiency. Web services are the small apps produced through UDDI that allow users to access them.  
• Web Services empowers BizTalk Server Services, where web services are only platform neutral.

) Define the Business Process Configuration in BizTalk?

Ans. We can easily set specific parameters for an orchestration that applies to a business process. Even business analysts with lots of expertise need help to build the parameters. For creating an orchestration, these parameters are specified to allow developers to configure the same. By stating their values in the business agreement, the information worker lays down these parameters through TPM services.