Biztalk, Azure and BPEL - How to orchestrate?

Question

I'm fairly new to all these technologies and try to grasp how they are related. I'm searching for a way to use orchestrate .Net services with BPEL, in the intranet but also in the cloud.

As I understand it Biztalk supports BPEL and is connectable to the Azure AppFabric. So is it possible to orchestrate Web Services via BPEL in Biztalk and jump the gap into the cloud with a connection to AppFabric? Do I even need Biztalk? Is this possible at all?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Currently Biztalk and Azure AppFabric are complementary, but not integrated. The services offered by AppFabric are Authorization, Caching and Service Projection (sticking intranet web service endpoints on the internet). So to implement BPEL "in the cloud" currently you would need to host on premises and use Azure Service Bus to project your service endpoints onto the internet.

However ... Azure Integration services should be delivered sometime this year, which is basically Biztalk hosted on Azure, so you won't need to host Biztalk on premises. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/AppFabric/Overview/default.aspx (you have to click on the left nav, silly javascript navigation)