This topic was last updated on: December 5, 2007

Device vendors use the Device Service Provider Interface (DSPI) to write device providers to interface with the radio frequency identification (RFID) platform. Providers establish a uniform way to discover, configure, and manage devices, and establish communication between devices and business applications through BizTalk RFID. In an RFID application, each device may have a different specification, respond to different stimuli, and use a different protocol. DSPI helps independent hardware vendors (IHVs) implement device providers and thereby normalize the devices in an RFID application.

Consider a scenario where a company, Contoso Ltd., has implemented an RFID solution with devices from a vendor, Datum Corporation. Contoso Ltd. then decides to replace the Datum Corporation devices with devices from another vendor, Fabrikam Inc. If both device vendors support DSPI, the switch from one vendor to another can occur seamlessly, without any additional effort from Contoso Ltd.

Note

In Windows XP and Windows Vista, device providers and the BizTalk RFID service (RfidServices.exe) are hosted in the same process space (in-process). Therefore, a fault in a device provider can cause the BizTalk RFID service to crash. However, in Windows Server 2003, a separate IIS worker process is created for each provider, and each provider is hosted out-of-process. In the event of a device provider error, only the device provider running in its own process space (w3wp.exe) crashes. Therefore, an error in a faulty provider will not affect the BizTalk RFID service or other providers.