The BizTalk application is a new feature of BizTalk Server 2006 that makes it quicker and easier to deploy, manage, and troubleshoot BizTalk Server business solutions. A BizTalk application is a logical grouping of the items, called "artifacts," used in a BizTalk Server business solution. Artifacts are described in more detail later in this topic.
The newly designed administration and monitoring tools of BizTalk Server 2006 take advantage of this new concept, so that you can manage and configure BizTalk Server business solutions at the application level, and not just at the individual artifact level. By creating an application and adding artifacts to it, you can view, package, deploy, and manage a group of artifacts in a solution as a single entity. Therefore, as the number of complex applications increases you can still manage them individually in a simple and intuitive manner.
There are several tools you can use to create and manage applications, which are described in Application Deployment and Management Tools.
The following diagram depicts two BizTalk applications and the artifacts that they contain.
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Artifacts include the following:
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BizTalk assemblies and the BizTalk-specific resources that they contain – orchestrations, pipelines, schemas, and maps
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.NET assemblies that do not contain BizTalk-specific resources
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Policies
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Send ports, send port groups, receive locations, and receive ports
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Other items that are used by the solution, such as certificates, COM components, and scripts
For background information about each type of artifact, see Runtime Architecture. For more information about adding, removing, and configuring artifacts, see Managing Artifacts.
An application can contain all of the artifacts used in a business solution or only some of them. Depending on how you want to deploy the artifacts, you may want to place them into a single application or into two or more applications. For more information about deciding how to group artifacts, see Best Practices for Deploying a BizTalk Application.
When BizTalk Server 2006 is configured following installation, a default application named BizTalk Application 1 is automatically created. This provides compatibility between BizTalk Server 2004 and BizTalk Server 2006. When you upgrade an instance of BizTalk Server 2004 to BizTalk Server 2006, the artifacts in the BizTalk Management database are automatically placed in the default application. If you want to manage your migrated business solutions as separate applications, you can create additional applications and move the artifacts that you want to manage together into them, as described in How to Move an Artifact to a Different Application. For information about best practices for grouping artifacts into different applications, see Best Practices for Deploying a BizTalk Application. You can also change the default application or rename the default application.
In the following scenarios, artifacts are automatically added to the default application:
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When you deploy an assembly from Visual Studio 2005 into BizTalk Server without specifying an application name. For more information, see How to Deploy a BizTalk Assembly from Visual Studio.
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When you use the BTSDeploy command-line tool to add an artifact to an application. (Because it was developed for previous versions of BizTalk Server that did not include the application feature, BTSDeploy does not provide an option to specify an application name.) For more information, see How to Deploy Assemblies Using BTSDeploy.
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When you use BTSTask to add an artifact to an application without specifying an application name. For more information, see AddResource Command.
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When you use BTSTask to import an application .msi file without specifying an application name. For more information, see ImportApp Command.
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When you configure BizTalk Server with Business Activity Services (BAS), the following artifacts are automatically created in the default application. You should not delete these artifacts because they are required for BAS to function. Any BAS artifacts that you add to an application in the BizTalk group will depend on them. For more information, see Managing BAS Artifacts.
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A send port named Bas.TpmWebServicePort
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A receive port named Sts.Outbox
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A receive location named Sts.Outbox.Location
The BizTalk.System application
When BizTalk Server 2006 is configured following installation, an application named BizTalk.System is automatically created and populated with common artifacts that are used by all BizTalk applications, such as the default schemas and pipelines. BizTalk.System and its artifacts are read-only. You cannot delete or rename BizTalk.System, nor can you delete, rename, or move any of the artifacts that it contains.
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Every application in BizTalk Server automatically contains a reference to the BizTalk.System application. This is because the artifacts in BizTalk.System are used by every BizTalk application. You should never remove a reference to the BizTalk.System application. If you do, your application may not function correctly.
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Other Resources
Understanding BizTalk Application Deployment and Management