Consume WCF Service Wizard generates port binding configuration files for import into BizTalk Server

Scenario: You have already designed, implemented and hosted a WCF Service. Now, youwould like to send (and get) messages to this WCF Service in a BizTalk Orchestration process. BizTalk communicates with WCF applicationsvia BizTalk WCF Adapter, which can be configured through send and receive ports in BizTalk. This post talks about how BizTalk’s Consume WCF Wizard can be used to simplify the port creation process in BizTalk, especially the need of mapping the operation(s) with the SOAP Action(s) within the port to invoke the operation in WCF Service.

[BTSR2] now includes a BizTalk WCF Adapter to provide support for WS-* and transport neutrality by letting the user choose most appropriate [WCF] binding in BizTalk Port configuration. The BizTalk WCF Adapter can be selected within a Send Port by creating a new port and then selecting a Transport Type. In Receive Port, the BizTalk WCF Adapter can be selected by creating a new Receive Location and then selecting Transport Type from the drop-down box. The Receive Location allows for hosting a non-HTTP WCF Service within BTSNtSvc.exe and can be enabled within the BizTalk Administration Console without need for publishing.

Even though WCF-Custom is the only adapter needed, BizTalk allows other WCF adapters for most common messaging scenarios, as shown in the table below. For example, WCF-Custom can be used as WCF-WSHttp transport by selecting WCF-Custom, clicking on Configure, select Binding tab and selecting the Binding Type wsHttpBinding or customize this transport by using wsDualHttpBinding or wsFederationHttpBinding.

Available Send Port
WCF Adapters / Available Receive Port
WCF Adapters
One-way / WCF-BasicHttp
WCF-Custom
WCF-NetMsmq
WCF-NetNamedPipe
WCF-NetTcp
WCF-WSHttp / WCF-BasicHttp
WCF-Custom
WCF-CustomIsolated
WCF-NetMsmq
WCF-NetNamedPipe
WCF-NetTcp
WCF-WSHttp
Two-way / WCF-BasicHttp
WCF-Custom
WCF-NetNamedPipe
WCF-NetTcp
WCF-WSHttp / WCF-BasicHttp
WCF-Custom
WCF-CustomIsolated
WCF-NetNamedPipe
WCF-NetTcp
WCF-WSHttp

Note: Adapters built using [ASDK] are consumed within BizTalk using WCF-Custom BizTalk WCF Adapter. Once the adapter is configured, it shows up in the Binding Type drop-down box and can be selected like any other predefined WCF binding.

The following section shows, at a very high level, how a BizTalk WCF Adapter is used within a typical BizTalk programming lifecycle.

  • Design-Time Experience
  • Create a Visual Studio BizTalk Project
  • Use Consume WCF Service Wizard (Right Click > Add > Add Generated Items > Consume WCF Service) to download metadata from a running service using MEX endpoint or import metadata using WSDL.
  • Following files are generated as an outcome of running this wizard.

Metadata / XML Schema Files
Orchestration / BizTalk Orchestration (.odx) file
Port Binding Information Configuration / {ServiceName}_Custom.BindingInfo.xml – Contains port configuration using WCF Custom Adapter
{ServiceName}.BindingInfo.xml – Contains port configuration using other WCF bindings as obtained from the MEX endpoint
These configuration files can be imported in
  • MEX endpoints only with these transport types are supported
  • http, https, net.pipe, net.tcp
  • Implies users CANNOT use this wizard to import metadata from MEX enabled services that use a custom transport channel. WCF users can publish and retrieve metadata over a custom binding, which may include transports (and schemes) other than the ones defined above.
  • Port Binding Information Configuration Contains operation to action mapping strings
  • BtsActionMapping> <Operation Name=”Operation1” Action=”Action1”/> </BtsActionMapping
  • Build the BizTalk Project
  • Deployment-Time Experience
  • Deploy the BizTalk Project
  • Import the Port Binding Information XML file to auto-generate the ports in BizTalk Server 2006 Administration Console
  • Right click on Applications within BizTalk Group, select Import > Bindings and then navigate to the Visual Studio BizTalk project folder
  • Select the Port Binding Information XML file
  • Execution-Time Experience
  • Enlist and start the orchestration
  • Trigger the orchestration depending on your scenario – e.g. dropping a file in the file drop for receive location to pick it up

See the attached document for screen shots of Consume WCF Service Wizard.

In this example, let’s host a sample WCF Service in IIS using the WsHttpBinding. I have picked Calculator Service in TechnologySamples\Basic\Binding\WS\Http\CS\Http.sln solution installed as part of Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows Vista and .NET Framework 3.0.

Design-Time Experience

Create a new Solution and add a BizTalk Project to this solution. Right click on the BizTalk project and select Add > Add Generated Items > Consume WCF Service. Click on Consume WCF Service Visual Studio installed template.

Select MEX endpoint or Metadata Files (WSDL and XSD) as a metadata source for obtaining metadata. I will use the MEX endpoint configured within my service’s web.config. Here is the configuration:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

configuration

<system.serviceModel

<services

<service name="Microsoft.ServiceModel.Samples.CalculatorService" behaviorConfiguration="CalculatorServiceBehavior">

<!-- this endpoint is exposed at the base address provided by host: -->

<endpoint address="" binding="wsHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="Binding1" contract="Microsoft.ServiceModel.Samples.ICalculator" />

<!-- the mex endpoint is exposed at -->

<endpoint address="mex" binding="wsHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange" />

</service>

</services>

<behaviors

<serviceBehaviors

<behavior name="CalculatorServiceBehavior">

<serviceMetadatahttpGetEnabled="true"/>

</behavior>

</serviceBehaviors

</behaviors>

</system.serviceModel

</configuration>

Unrelated to the topic in this post, I digress. When using [SVCUTIL]:

  • If httpGetEnabled = false,
  • Use svcutil.exe
  • If httpGetEnabled = true
  • Use svcutil.exe

Enter the URI address where the service is hosted.

Click on Get button.

Click on Next button.

Click on Import button.

Select Finish. The Wizard generates the following files for my sample WCF service.

  • CalculatorService.BindingInfo.xml
  • CalculatorService.odx
  • CalculatorService_Custom.BindingInfo.xml
  • CalculatorService_microsoft_servicemodel_samples.xsd
  • CalculatorService_schemas_microsoft_com_2003_10_Serialization.xsd

CalculatorService.BindingInfo.xml

<?xmlversion="1.0"encoding="utf-8"?>

BindingInfoxmlns:xsi=" Version=3.0.1.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"Version="3.5.1.0"

<Timestamp2007-04-12T14:23:43.4269883-07:00</Timestamp

<SendPortCollection

SendPortName="WcfSendPort_CalculatorService_WSHttpBinding_ICalculator"IsStatic="true"IsTwoWay="true"BindingOption="0"

<Descriptionservice "CalculatorService" port "WSHttpBinding_ICalculator"</Description

<TransmitPipelineName="Microsoft.BizTalk.DefaultPipelines.PassThruTransmit"FullyQualifiedName="Microsoft.BizTalk.DefaultPipelines.PassThruTransmit, Microsoft.BizTalk.DefaultPipelines, Version=3.0.1.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"Type="2" />

<PrimaryTransport

Address

<TransportTypeName="WCF-WSHttp"Capabilities="899"ConfigurationClsid="2b219014-ba04-4b70-a66b-a8c418b109fd" />

<TransportTypeData&lt;CustomProps&gt;

&lt;MaxReceivedMessageSize vt="3"&gt;65536&lt;/MaxReceivedMessageSize&gt;

&lt;MessageEncoding vt="8"&gt;Text&lt;/MessageEncoding&gt;

&lt;TextEncoding vt="8"&gt;utf-8&lt;/TextEncoding&gt;

&lt;EnableTransaction vt="11"&gt;0&lt;/EnableTransaction&gt;

&lt;SecurityMode vt="8"&gt;Message&lt;/SecurityMode&gt;

&lt;MessageClientCredentialType vt="8"&gt;Windows&lt;/MessageClientCredentialType&gt;

&lt;AlgorithmSuite vt="8"&gt;Basic256&lt;/AlgorithmSuite&gt;

&lt;NegotiateServiceCredential vt="11"&gt;-1&lt;/NegotiateServiceCredential&gt;

&lt;EstablishSecurityContext vt="11"&gt;-1&lt;/EstablishSecurityContext&gt;

&lt;TransportClientCredentialType vt="8"&gt;Windows&lt;/TransportClientCredentialType&gt;

&lt;UseSSO vt="11"&gt;0&lt;/UseSSO&gt;

&lt;ProxyToUse vt="8"&gt;Default&lt;/ProxyToUse&gt;

&lt;StaticAction vt="8"&gt;&amp;lt;BtsActionMapping xmlns:xsi=" xmlns:xsd="

&amp;lt;Operation Name="Add" Action=" /&amp;gt;

&amp;lt;Operation Name="Subtract" Action=" /&amp;gt;

&amp;lt;Operation Name="Multiply" Action=" /&amp;gt;

&amp;lt;Operation Name="Divide" Action=" /&amp;gt;

&amp;lt;/BtsActionMapping&amp;gt;&lt;/StaticAction&gt;

&lt;InboundBodyLocation vt="8"&gt;UseBodyElement&lt;/InboundBodyLocation&gt;

&lt;InboundNodeEncoding vt="8"&gt;Xml&lt;/InboundNodeEncoding&gt;

&lt;OutboundBodyLocation vt="8"&gt;UseBodyElement&lt;/OutboundBodyLocation&gt;

&lt;OutboundXmlTemplate vt="8"&gt;&amp;lt;bts-msg-body xmlns=" encoding="xml"/&amp;gt;&lt;/OutboundXmlTemplate&gt;

&lt;PropagateFaultMessage vt="11"&gt;-1&lt;/PropagateFaultMessage&gt;

&lt;OpenTimeout vt="8"&gt;00:01:00&lt;/OpenTimeout&gt;

&lt;SendTimeout vt="8"&gt;00:01:00&lt;/SendTimeout&gt;

&lt;CloseTimeout vt="8"&gt;00:01:00&lt;/CloseTimeout&gt;

&lt;Identity vt="8"&gt;&amp;lt;identity&amp;gt;

&amp;lt;userPrincipalName value="SONUA5\ASPNET" /&amp;gt;

&amp;lt;/identity&amp;gt;&lt;/Identity&gt;

&lt;/CustomProps&gt;</TransportTypeData

<RetryCount3</RetryCount

<RetryInterval5</RetryInterval

<ServiceWindowEnabledfalse</ServiceWindowEnabled

<FromTime2000-01-01T00:00:00</FromTime

<ToTime2000-01-01T23:59:59</ToTime

<Primarytrue</Primary

<OrderedDeliveryfalse</OrderedDelivery

<DeliveryNotification1</DeliveryNotification

<SendHandlerxsi:nil="true" />

</PrimaryTransport

<ReceivePipelineName="Microsoft.BizTalk.DefaultPipelines.XMLReceive"FullyQualifiedName="Microsoft.BizTalk.DefaultPipelines.XMLReceive, Microsoft.BizTalk.DefaultPipelines, Version=3.0.1.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"Type="1" />

<ReceivePipelineDataxsi:nil="true" />

<Tracking0</Tracking

<Filter />

<OrderedDeliveryfalse</OrderedDelivery

<Priority5</Priority

<StopSendingOnFailurefalse</StopSendingOnFailure

<RouteFailedMessagefalse</RouteFailedMessage

<ApplicationNamexsi:nil="true" />

</SendPort

</SendPortCollection

</BindingInfo

CalculatorService_Custom.BindingInfo.xml

<?xmlversion="1.0"encoding="utf-8"?>

BindingInfoxmlns:xsi=" Version=3.0.1.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"Version="3.5.1.0"

<Timestamp2007-04-12T14:23:43.4269883-07:00</Timestamp

<SendPortCollection

SendPortName="WcfSendPort_CalculatorService_WSHttpBinding_ICalculator_Custom"IsStatic="true"IsTwoWay="true"BindingOption="0"

<Descriptionservice "CalculatorService" port "WSHttpBinding_ICalculator"</Description

<TransmitPipelineName="Microsoft.BizTalk.DefaultPipelines.PassThruTransmit"FullyQualifiedName="Microsoft.BizTalk.DefaultPipelines.PassThruTransmit, Microsoft.BizTalk.DefaultPipelines, Version=3.0.1.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"Type="2" />

<PrimaryTransport

<Address

<TransportTypeName="WCF-Custom"Capabilities="907"ConfigurationClsid="af081f69-38ca-4d5b-87df-f0344b12557a" />

<TransportTypeData&lt;CustomProps&gt;

&lt;BindingType vt="8"&gt;wsHttpBinding&lt;/BindingType&gt;

&lt;BindingConfiguration vt="8"&gt;&amp;lt;binding name="WSHttpBinding_ICalculator" closeTimeout="00:01:00" openTimeout="00:01:00" receiveTimeout="00:10:00" sendTimeout="00:01:00" bypassProxyOnLocal="false" transactionFlow="false" hostNameComparisonMode="StrongWildcard" maxBufferPoolSize="524288" maxReceivedMessageSize="65536" messageEncoding="Text" textEncoding="utf-8" useDefaultWebProxy="true" allowCookies="false"&amp;gt;&amp;lt;readerQuotas maxDepth="32" maxStringContentLength="8192" maxArrayLength="16384" maxBytesPerRead="4096" maxNameTableCharCount="16384" /&amp;gt;&amp;lt;reliableSession ordered="true" inactivityTimeout="00:10:00" enabled="false" /&amp;gt;&amp;lt;security mode="Message"&amp;gt;&amp;lt;transport clientCredentialType="Windows" proxyCredentialType="None" realm="" /&amp;gt;&amp;lt;message clientCredentialType="Windows" negotiateServiceCredential="true" algorithmSuite="Default" establishSecurityContext="true" /&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/security&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/binding&amp;gt;&lt;/BindingConfiguration&gt;

&lt;StaticAction vt="8"&gt;&amp;lt;BtsActionMapping xmlns:xsi=" xmlns:xsd="

&amp;lt;Operation Name="Add" Action=" /&amp;gt;

&amp;lt;Operation Name="Subtract" Action=" /&amp;gt;

&amp;lt;Operation Name="Multiply" Action=" /&amp;gt;

&amp;lt;Operation Name="Divide" Action=" /&amp;gt;

&amp;lt;/BtsActionMapping&amp;gt;lt;/StaticAction&gt;

&lt;UseSSO vt="11"&gt;0&lt;/UseSSO&gt;

&lt;InboundBodyLocation vt="8"&gt;UseBodyElement&lt;/InboundBodyLocation&gt;

&lt;InboundNodeEncoding vt="8"&gt;Xml&lt;/InboundNodeEncoding&gt;

&lt;OutboundBodyLocation vt="8"&gt;UseBodyElement&lt;/OutboundBodyLocation&gt;

&lt;OutboundXmlTemplate vt="8"&gt;&amp;lt;bts-msg-body xmlns=" encoding="xml"/&amp;gt;&lt;/OutboundXmlTemplate&gt;

&lt;PropagateFaultMessage vt="11"&gt;-1&lt;/PropagateFaultMessage&gt;

&lt;Identity vt="8"&gt;&amp;lt;identity&amp;gt;

&amp;lt;userPrincipalName value="SONUA5\ASPNET" /&amp;gt;

&amp;lt;/identity&amp;gt;&lt;/Identity&gt;

&lt;/CustomProps&gt;</TransportTypeData

<RetryCount3</RetryCount

<RetryInterval5</RetryInterval

<ServiceWindowEnabledfalse</ServiceWindowEnabled

<FromTime2000-01-01T00:00:00</FromTime

<ToTime2000-01-01T23:59:59</ToTime

<Primarytrue</Primary

<OrderedDeliveryfalse</OrderedDelivery

<DeliveryNotification1</DeliveryNotification

<SendHandlerxsi:nil="true" />

</PrimaryTransport

<ReceivePipelineName="Microsoft.BizTalk.DefaultPipelines.XMLReceive"FullyQualifiedName="Microsoft.BizTalk.DefaultPipelines.XMLReceive, Microsoft.BizTalk.DefaultPipelines, Version=3.0.1.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"Type="1" />

<ReceivePipelineDataxsi:nil="true" />

<Tracking0</Tracking

<Filter />

<OrderedDeliveryfalse</OrderedDelivery

<Priority5</Priority

<StopSendingOnFailurefalse</StopSendingOnFailure

<RouteFailedMessagefalse</RouteFailedMessage

<ApplicationNamexsi:nil="true" />

</SendPort

</SendPortCollection

</BindingInfo

Finish the BizTalk Orchestration and use the schema messages within the orchestration.

Create a strong key for signing the project.

Build project.

Deploy project in BizTalk Server.

Deployment-Time Experience

Open BizTalk Server 2006 Administration Console

Select a BizTalk Application. Right click, select Import > Bindings.

Navigate to the binding information files generated by the WCF Consume Service wizard.

Select the first binding file and click on Open. Repeat the process for the other binding file as well. The following two ports should be created in the BizTalk Administration Console. One port type will use the transport type WCF-WSHttp and the other port type will use the transport type WCF-Custom.

The following table shows the difference between the two WCF adapters.

WCF-WSHttp Transport Type / WCF-Custom Transport Type with WsHttpBinding