Create and manage integration accounts for B2B workflows in Azure Logic Apps with the Enterprise Integration Pack

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Before you can build business-to-business (B2B) and enterprise integration workflows using Azure Logic Apps, you need to create an integration account resource. This account is a scalable cloud-based container in Azure that simplifies how you store and manage B2B artifacts that you define and use in your workflows for B2B scenarios. Such artifacts include trading partners, agreements, maps, schemas, certificates, and so on. You also need to have an integration account to electronically exchange B2B messages with other organizations. When other organizations use protocols and message formats different from your organization, you have to convert these formats so your organization's system can process those messages. Supported industry-standard protocols include AS2, X12, EDIFACT, and RosettaNet.

Tip

To create an integration account for use with an integration service environment, review Create integration accounts in an ISE.

This article shows how to complete the following tasks:

• Create an integration account.
• Link an integration account to a logic app resource.
• Change the pricing tier for your integration account.
• Unlink an integration account from a logic app.
• Move an integration account to another Azure resource group or subscription.
• Delete an integration account.

If you're new to Azure Logic Apps, review What is Azure Logic Apps? For more information about B2B enterprise integration, review B2B enterprise integration workflows with Azure Logic Apps and Enterprise Integration Pack.

Prerequisites

• An Azure account and subscription. If you don't have an Azure subscription, sign up for a free Azure account. You have to use the same Azure subscription for both your integration account and logic app resource.

• If you're using the Logic App (Consumption) resource type, you need to have a logic app resource that you can link to your integration account. This link is required before you can use your artifacts in your workflow. You can create your artifacts without this link, but the link is required when you're ready to use these artifacts in your workflows.

• If you're using the Logic App (Standard) resource type, you can directly add maps and schemas to your logic app resource using either the Azure portal or Visual Studio Code. You can then use these artifacts across multiple workflows within the same logic app resource. You still have to create an integration account for your other B2B artifacts and to use B2B operations, such as AS2, X12, EDIFACT, and RosettaNet operations. However, you don't need to link your integration account to your logic app resource, so the linking capability doesn't exist.

Create integration account

Integration accounts are available in different tiers that vary in pricing. Based on the tier you choose, creating an integration account might incur costs. For more information, review Logic Apps pricing and billing models and Logic Apps pricing.

Based on your requirements and scenarios, determine the appropriate integration account tier to create. Both your integration account and logic app resource must use the same location or Azure region. The following table describes the available tiers:

Tier	Description
Basic	For scenarios where you want only message handling or to act as a small business partner that has a trading partner relationship with a larger business entity. Supported by the Logic Apps SLA.
Standard	For scenarios where you have more complex B2B relationships and increased numbers of entities that you must manage. Supported by the Logic Apps SLA.
Free	For exploratory scenarios, not production scenarios. This tier has limits on region availability, throughput, and usage. For example, the Free tier is available only for public regions in Azure, for example, West US or Southeast Asia, but not for Azure China 21Vianet or Azure Government. Note: Not supported by the Logic Apps SLA.

For this task, you can use the Azure portal, Azure CLI, or Azure PowerShell.

Portal

1. Sign in to the Azure portal with your Azure account credentials.

2. In the main Azure search box, enter integration accounts, and select Integration accounts.

3. Under Integration accounts, select Create.

4. On the Create an integration account pane, provide the following information about your integration account:

   Property	Required	Value	Description
   Subscription	Yes	<Azure-subscription-name>	The name for your Azure subscription
   Resource group	Yes	<Azure-resource-group-name>	The name for the Azure resource group to use for organizing related resources. For this example, create a new resource group named FabrikamIntegration-RG.
   Integration account name	Yes	<integration-account-name>	Your integration account's name, which can contain only letters, numbers, hyphens (-), underscores (_), parentheses ((, )), and periods (.). This example uses Fabrikam-Integration.
   Region	Yes	<Azure-region>	The Azure region where to store your integration account metadata. Either select the same location as your logic app, or create your logic apps in the same location as your integration account. For this example, use West US. Note: To create an integration account inside an integration service environment (ISE), select Associate with integration service environment and select your ISE as the location. For more information, see Create integration accounts in an ISE.
   Pricing Tier	Yes	<pricing-level>	The pricing tier for the integration account, which you can change later. For this example, select Free. For more information, review the following documentation: - Logic Apps pricing model - Logic Apps limits and configuration - Logic Apps pricing
   Enable log analytics	No	Unselected	For this example, don't select this option.

5. When you're finished, select Review + create.

   After deployment completes, Azure opens your integration account.

Azure CLI

Prepare your environment for the Azure CLI

• Use the Bash environment in Azure Cloud Shell. For more information, see Azure Cloud Shell Quickstart - Bash.

  

• If you prefer to run CLI reference commands locally, install the Azure CLI. If you are running on Windows or macOS, consider running Azure CLI in a Docker container. For more information, see How to run the Azure CLI in a Docker container.

  • If you're using a local installation, sign in to the Azure CLI by using the az login command. To finish the authentication process, follow the steps displayed in your terminal. For additional sign-in options, see Sign in with the Azure CLI.

  • When you're prompted, install Azure CLI extensions on first use. For more information about extensions, see Use extensions with the Azure CLI.

  • Run az version to find the version and dependent libraries that are installed. To upgrade to the latest version, run az upgrade.

1. To add the az logic integration-account extension, use the az extension add command:

   az extension add –-name logic
   

2. To create a resource group or use an existing resource group, run the az group create command:

   az group create --name myresourcegroup --location westus
   

   To list the integration accounts for a resource group, use the az logic integration-account list command:

   az logic integration-account list --resource-group myresourcegroup
   

3. To create an integration account, run the az logic integration-account create command:

   az logic integration-account create --resource-group myresourcegroup \
       --name integration_account_01 --location westus --sku name=Standard
   

   Your integration account name can contain only letters, numbers, hyphens (-), underscores (_), parentheses ((, )), and periods (.).

   To view a specific integration account, use the az logic integration-account show command:

   az logic integration-account show --name integration_account_01 --resource-group myresourcegroup
   

   You can change your SKU, or pricing tier, by using the az logic integration-account update command:

   az logic integration-account update --sku name=Basic --name integration_account_01 \
       --resource-group myresourcegroup
   

   For more information about pricing, see these resources:

   • Logic Apps pricing model
   • Logic Apps limits and configuration
   • Logic Apps pricing

To import an integration account by using a JSON file, use the az logic integration-account import command:

az logic integration-account import --name integration_account_01 \
    --resource-group myresourcegroup --input-path integration.json

Link to logic app (Consumption resource only)

For your Logic App (Consumption) workflow to access the B2B artifacts in your integration account, you must first link your logic app resource to your integration account. Both logic app and integration account must use the same Azure subscription and Azure region. To complete this task, you can use the Azure portal. If you use Visual Studio and your logic app is in an Azure Resource Group project, you can link your logic app to an integration account by using Visual Studio.

1. In the Azure portal, open an existing logic app, or create a new logic app.

2. On your logic app's menu, under Settings, select Workflow settings. Under Integration account, open the Select an Integration account list, and select the integration account you want.

   

3. To finish linking, select Save.

   

   After your integration account is successfully linked, Azure shows a confirmation message.

   

Now your logic app can use the artifacts in your integration account plus the B2B connectors, such as XML validation and flat file encoding or decoding.

Change pricing tier

To increase the limits for an integration account, you can upgrade to a higher pricing tier, if available. For example, you can upgrade from the Free tier to the Basic tier or Standard tier. You can also downgrade to a lower tier, if available. For more information pricing information, review the following documentation:

• Logic Apps pricing
• Logic Apps pricing model

Upgrade pricing tier

To make this change, you can use either the Azure portal or the Azure CLI.

Portal

1. Sign in to the Azure portal with your Azure account credentials.

2. In the main Azure search box, enter integration accounts, and select Integration accounts.

   Azure shows all the integration accounts in your Azure subscriptions.

3. Under Integration accounts, select the integration account that you want to move. On your integration account menu, select Overview.

   

4. On the Overview pane, select Upgrade Pricing Tier, which lists any available higher tiers. When you select a tier, the change immediately takes effect.

   

Azure CLI

1. If you haven't done so already, install the Azure CLI prerequisites.

2. In the Azure portal, open the Azure Cloud Shell environment.

   

3. At the command prompt, enter the az resource command, and set skuName to the higher tier that you want.

   az resource update --resource-group {ResourceGroupName} --resource-type Microsoft.Logic/integrationAccounts --name {IntegrationAccountName} --subscription {AzureSubscriptionID} --set sku.name={SkuName}
   

   For example, if you have the Basic tier, you can set skuName to Standard:

   az resource update --resource-group FabrikamIntegration-RG --resource-type Microsoft.Logic/integrationAccounts --name Fabrikam-Integration --subscription XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX --set sku.name=Standard
   

Downgrade pricing tier

To make this change, use the Azure CLI.

1. If you haven't done so already, install the Azure CLI prerequisites.

2. In the Azure portal, open the Azure Cloud Shell environment.

   

3. At the command prompt, enter the az resource command and set skuName to the lower tier that you want.

   az resource update --resource-group <resourceGroupName> --resource-type Microsoft.Logic/integrationAccounts --name <integrationAccountName> --subscription <AzureSubscriptionID> --set sku.name=<skuName>
   

   For example, if you have the Standard tier, you can set skuName to Basic:

   az resource update --resource-group FabrikamIntegration-RG --resource-type Microsoft.Logic/integrationAccounts --name Fabrikam-Integration --subscription XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX --set sku.name=Basic
   

Unlink from logic app

If you want to link your logic app to another integration account, or no longer use an integration account with your logic app, delete the link by using Azure Resource Explorer.

1. Open your browser window, and go to Azure Resource Explorer (https://resources.azure.com). Sign in with the same Azure account credentials.

   

2. In the search box, enter your logic app's name to find and open your logic app.

   

3. On the explorer title bar, select Read/Write.

   

4. On the Data tab, select Edit.

   

5. In the editor, find the integrationAccount object, and delete that property, which has this format:

   {
      // <other-attributes>
      "integrationAccount": {
         "name": "<integration-account-name>",
         "id": "<integration-account-resource-ID>",
         "type": "Microsoft.Logic/integrationAccounts"  
   },
   

   For example:

   

6. On the Data tab, select Put to save your changes.

   

7. In the Azure portal, open your logic app. On your logic app menu, under Workflow settings, check that the Integration account property now appears empty.

   

Move integration account

You can move your integration account to another Azure resource group or Azure subscription. When you move resources, Azure creates new resource IDs, so make sure that you use the new IDs instead and update any scripts or tools associated with the moved resources. If you want to change the subscription, you must also specify an existing or new resource group.

For this task, you can use either the Azure portal by following the steps in this section or the Azure CLI.

1. Sign in to the Azure portal with your Azure account credentials.

2. In the main Azure search box, enter integration accounts, and select Integration accounts.

   Azure shows all the integration accounts in your Azure subscriptions.

3. Under Integration accounts, select the integration account that you want to move. On your integration account menu, select Overview.

4. On the Overview pane, next to either Resource group or Subscription name, select change.

   

5. Select any related resources that you also want to move.

6. Based on your selection, follow these steps to change the resource group or subscription:

   • Resource group: From the Resource group list, select the destination resource group. Or, to create a different resource group, select Create a new resource group.

   • Subscription: From the Subscription list, select the destination subscription. From the Resource group list, select the destination resource group. Or, to create a different resource group, select Create a new resource group.

7. To acknowledge your understanding that any scripts or tools associated with the moved resources won't work until you update them with the new resource IDs, select the confirmation box, and then select OK.

8. After you finish, make sure that you update any and all scripts with the new resource IDs for your moved resources.

Delete integration account

For this task, you can use either the Azure portal by following the steps in this section, Azure CLI, or Azure PowerShell.

Portal

1. Sign in to the Azure portal with your Azure account credentials.

2. In the main Azure search box, enter integration accounts, and select Integration accounts.

   Azure shows all the integration accounts in your Azure subscriptions.

3. Under Integration accounts, select the integration account that you want to delete. On your integration account menu, select Overview.

   

4. On the Overview pane, select Delete.

   

5. To confirm that you want to delete your integration account, select Yes.

   

Azure CLI

You can delete an integration account by using the az logic integration-account delete command:

az logic integration-account delete --name integration_account_01 --resource-group myresourcegroup

Next steps

• Create trading partners in your integration account
• Create agreements between partners in your integration account