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ESB Resolver and Adapter Provider Framework

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The Resolver and Adapter Provider Framework provides a comprehensive pluggable architecture for dynamically resolving endpoint information and BizTalk map types. It uses extensible components, which allow developers to change the behavior to suit their own requirements, and extend the mechanism to support alternative resolution and routing methods.

The Resolver and Adapter Provider Framework provides support for WS-MetadataExchange in addition to a range of other mechanisms, such as UDDI, BRE, and XPATH. It also exposes developer interfaces (IResolveProvider and IAdapterProvider) to allow creation of custom resolver and adapter components. The following are the three main components of the Resolver and Adapter Provider Framework:

  • Resolvers. These are defined by a schema, connection string, and through the implementation of the IResolveProvider interface in a .NET assembly. These are loaded and cached at run time and support a range of resolution types and connection strings. Resolvers that ship with the Microsoft ESB Guidance support the following resolution mechanisms:
    • BRE: Business Rules Engine Policy execution for resolving endpoint information or metadata
    • WSMEX: Querying of WS-MetadataExchange-enabled services for endpoint information
    • UDDI: Querying UDDI 2.0–compliant or UDDI 3.0–compliant registries for end-point information or metadata
    • XPATH: Querying for endpoint information within the message content using an XPATH expression
    • STATIC: Specifying BizTalk endpoint information within the connection string or SOAP Header
  • Adapter providers. These are defined through the implementation of the IAdapterProvider interface within a .NET assembly. These are registered by their BizTalk transport type, which set the endpoint information provided by a resolver on the appropriate BizTalk adapter. Adapter providers that ship with the Microsoft ESB Guidance support the following transport types:
    • FTP
    • FILE
    • MQSeries
    • WCF-WSHttp
    • WCF-BasicHttp
  • Dispatcher pipeline components. These parse resolution instructions from connection strings or from the ESB Itinerary SOAP headers, and they provide endpoint resolution or transformation execution capabilities using the Resolver and Adapter Provider Framework. The components can dynamically set the BizTalk endpoint properties or execute a BizTalk map-type transformation based on resolution instructions from the connection string or from the ESB Itinerary SOAP headers. These components are responsible for managing, updating, and persisting the itinerary across process and service boundaries. The optional Disassembler component provides native BizTalk parsing of the message and implements the Microsoft ESB Guidance feature of routing to multiple endpoints without the need for an Orchestration service.

For more information about using dynamic resolution and routing, see Using Dynamic Resolution and Routing and Using Dynamic Transformations.

For information about how the Resolution and Adapter Provider Framework works, see Modifying and Extending the ESB Guidance.