Workflow Solutions
This topic is specific to a legacy technology. XML Web services and XML Web service clients should now be created using Windows Communication Foundation.
XML Web services enable a powerful mechanism by which applications that constitute end-to-end workflow solutions can be created. Such solutions are appropriate for long-running scenarios such as those found in business-to-business transactions.
The BizTalk Framework provides an additional protocol layer that defines mechanisms to identify and address messages, define their lifetime, package them with attachments, deliver them reliably to their destinations, and secure their contents for authentication, integrity, and privacy.
Microsoft® BizTalk™ Server provides the infrastructure and tools for rules-based business document routing, transformation, and tracking infrastructure. The infrastructure enables companies to integrate, manage, and automate business processes by exchanging business documents (for example, purchase orders and invoices) among applications within or across organizational boundaries.
BizTalk Orchestration is a technology that is included with BizTalk Server for defining the behavior of a single XML Web service, as well as the composition of many XML Web services in building multi-party business processes.