Walk-through on Management REST-API Service-Feature Pack 1

Microsoft has just released the Feature Pack 1 for BizTalk Server 2016 with plenty of features for BizTalk Developers and Administrators. I am so excited to articulate this feature of Management-REST API’s in BizTalk Server as a futuristic scalable design with REST-API services. This time Microsoft has considered designing a functionality for BizTalk Administrators!! Natively, we were using the BizTalk ExploreOM dll to fetch the artifact details and for state level monitoring in the BizTalk Admin Console. Now BizTalk Server 2016 Feature Pack 1 comes with REST-API support to handle all the Administrative services and Operational Data services with Power-BI portability. The Management REST API services caters the long-time expectation of managing BizTalk Artifacts out of BizTalk Admin Console. The REST-API Swagger engine interacts with internal BizTalk classes to fetch the State-level details of the Artifacts for better and also provides a capability to interact/take action with the Artifacts through REST interface. Let us categorize this article to Four Stages:

• Installation/Configuration
• REST-API Documentation
• BizTalk Management Service
  • Application Management
  • Operational Management
  • Platform Management
  • Parties Management
  • Policy Management
• Using the Management REST API service

Installation/Configuration of REST API Services

For Installing/Configuring the Management REST-API service for BizTalk Management please visit the article here. If running the FeaturePack.ConfigureServices.ps1 script generates an error as “Exiting…. Could not find BizTalk Server Installation Folder.” Consider modifying the Install Path manually in the script from Change it manually according to the install path of BizTalk Server Once the Installation is done you will be able to see couple of below services and assign it to the App pool which has elevated permission to access the BizTalk Install path.

BizTalk Management Service REST-API documentation

Browse the URL http://localhost/BizTalkManagementService/swagger to get the swagger metadata/Documentation of the REST Services. The Swagger metadata page gives the in-detail view of the Request and response json formats and their methods for comprehensive usage of the API.

BizTalk Management Service

Generally, BizTalk Administration can get Categorized into

• Application Management
• Platform Management
• Parties Management
• Operational Management
• Policies Management

Application Management

BizTalk Admin Console can be made as REST API interfaces for better Application Management. All the artifacts can be Managed/Operated/Monitored with just a REST-API call. We no longer need to rely on logging into the BizTalk physical machine to monitor the status of the artifacts. All the artifacts management is exposed as a REST API actions with (GET/POST/PUT) methods for remote administration.

Parties Management

Parties/Aggrement can be easily managed with the help of Management services with the below actions/methods

Platform Management

For Platform settings management, The Hosts and Protocols are exposed as a REST-API service to fetch the details of the Host and the Adapter details

Operational Management

The OperationalData Action is being designed to cater the BizTalk Grouphub page-actions like Suspended Instances, Tracked Message Events, EDI specific traction etc. This Action can also provide the capability to Resume/Terminate the instances from BizTalk Server through REST interface.

Policies Management

Managing Policies are natively being managed by BRE composer. Managing the Business Rules policies are always being carried out from Business Rules composer. Now this management is also rendered in the REST-API for finer administration.

Using the Management REST API Service

Once the Management Service is installed and Configured, browse the URI:  http://localhost/BizTalkManagementService/swagger .All the API actions exposed by the Management service is listed on the Swagger Metadata Page. Each Actions are provided with the documentation of request Json messages to test the results. For Example; Swagger metadata page/Postman/any REST client will be useful to test the API. I am taking one example of Application Action to perform

1. Fetch all Applications (GET)
2. Get one Application status (GET)
3. Start an Application (PUT)

Fetch All Application

The Application Action in the page contains list of methods to perform different operations   Expand the First Application Service and Open the GET method Click on Try it out! to fetch all the Applications from the BizTalk server. You will find the Response json with all the details of an application. With the Request URL, we can access this REST service from any client application From Postman tool, I am trying to fetch the details of Single application, with just a change of Application name.

Get one Application status (GET)

Start an Application (PUT)

To Start an Application from the client application: Just change the URL to http://localhost/BizTalkManagementService/Applications/BizTalk Application 1/Start and assign the method to PUT. With this request, we will be able to disable the desired artifacts

Summary

Microsoft has made the Administration of BizTalk Applications in a finer way with REST-API based interactions. This is one-such feature which makes the Remote administration much easier with just a browser call. Keep exploring more from this Feature Pack1 and make a finer BizTalk Administration. You can manage Artifacts, EDI parties, Operations and BRE policies in one REST API call. #HappyIntegration #BizTalk360 #Techmeet360

DYK: You can get to see these in action?

Tord Glad Nordahl from Microsoft Product Group will be showcasing all these features in the upcoming Integration Monday session scheduled for May 8th, 2017.