BizTalk Server can handle transactions that run as long as weeks or months, not just minutes or hours. While BizTalk Server includes a broad set of tools and services, the two principal services and the focus of this chapter are BizTalk Orchestration Services and BizTalk Messaging Services. BizTalk Orchestration Services represents the top layer of BizTalk Server 2000. It is used to design business processes that manage the overall business logic.
Business processes are as important to business management as assembly lines are to manufacturing.
Adhering to a well-defined, formalized set of processes can enable any business to increase productivity and lower costs. To define a business process, you must determine the logical order of actions and the corresponding flow of messages. A business process does not include definitions of the distributed participants who perform these actions. BizTalk Messaging Services provides an underlying support layer for BizTalk Orchestration Services. This enables you to integrate trading partners and existing applications into comprehensive business processes that are managed by BizTalk Orchestration Services.