Chapter 12. EAI/B2B Integration Using Logic Apps

So far, we have looked at how anyone can get started with Logic Apps to build a standard workflow using Logic Apps in Azure. We also discussed how we can automate business process spanning across cloud and on premises in Logic Apps using on-premises data connector. All these we have achieved without any real client-side development.

Now in this chapter, we will build enterprise workflow using Enterprise Integration Pack for Logic Apps. We will also explore an Enterprise Integration Tool, which basically adds an integration project type to Visual Studio, and let you create XML schemas, Flat File Schemas, and maps to build an EAI /B2B integration solution.

This chapter introduces the following topics:

• What is the Enterprise Integration Pack?

• An Enterprise Integration Tool for Visual Studio 2015

• Enterprise Integration Pack connectors

• How to build the EAI/B2B app using the Enterprise Integration Pack in Logic Apps

Enterprise Integration Pack for Logic Apps

It is a cloud-based solution to develop Enterprise Integration workflows:

• EAI: Enterprise Application Integration

• B2B: Business-to-Business communication

The pack uses industry standard protocols, including AS2 (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/logic-apps/logic-apps-enterprise-integration-as2), X12 (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/logic-apps/logic-apps-enterprise-integration-x12), and EDIFACT (https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/app-service-logic-enterprise-integration-edifact/), to exchange messages between business partners. Messages can be optionally secured using both encryption and digital signatures.

Architecturally, the Enterprise Integration Pack is based on integration accounts, which is a container that stores the various artifacts you need for more complex business process workflow such as trading partner agreements, schemas for XML validation, and maps for transformation.

So currently, integration account...

Enterprise messaging in Logic Apps

The Enterprise Messaging in Logic App have the following features:

• Flexibility in content types: Logic Apps are flexible enough to support different content types, such as binary, JSON, XML, and primitives. Now you can receive different message types in Logic Apps and then convert them to JSON or XML format required for the downstream systems. We also have new BizTalk connectors, which can be used to push the message to the on-premise BizTalk server. More about BizTalk connectivity is explained in the next chapter.

  The Enterprise Integration pack provides XSD support in Logic Apps. So, you can upload your XML schemas to integration account and use them in Logic App workflow and further convert them to the binary or JSON format as per your requirement.

• Mapping: Now you can also create XSLT-based map in Visual Studio and use them in Logic App workflows. You can also leverage your existing assets-schema and maps by uploading them to integration account and...

Enterprise Integration Pack connectors

The integration pack connectors enable you to easily validate, transform and process different messages that you exchange with different applications within your enterprise (EAI) or with your business partners (B2B).

• XML validation: You can use the XML validation connector to validate documents against a predefined schema.

• XML transformation: It primarily converts data from one format to another format. For example, you may have incoming message that contains FirstName, MiddleName, and LastName fields and you need to transform to a destination message which only contains Name field. These kind of manipulation can be done using built-in functions. You can use different built-in functions to help manipulate or control the data, including string manipulations, conditional assignments, arithmetic expressions, date time formatters, and even looping constructs.

• Flat file encode and Flat file decode: The Flat file encoding/Flat file decoding connectors provide...

Add partners in your workflow

Partners are the key stakeholders who participate in B2B (business-to-business) transactions by exchanging messages. Before creating partners within an Enterprise Integration Account, you and your partner need to identify the protocol and messaging format used to make communication through an agreement. To create the agreement, one organization needs to act as a host partner and other will act as a guest partner. To learn more about partners and the agreement, you can refer to Microsoft documentation for the Enterprise Integration pack at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/logic-apps/logic-apps-enterprise-integration-partners.

In the following section, we will walk through the process of creating the partner and agreement within the Enterprise Integration Account, which we have created in the preceding section.

Creating a partner within the Integration Account

To create a partner, we will perform the following steps:

1. Select the Integration Account within which...

Store custom metadata information in Integration Accounts artifacts

With Enterprise Integration Pack, it is very much easy to add and retrieve custom metadata information within Enterprise Integration artifacts. For example, you can add metadata information for artifacts such as partners, schema, maps, and agreement. The next steps describe how you can easily add metadata information and retrieve it within the logic apps workflow.

Add Metadata information to Integration Account artifacts

In this walkthrough, we will go step by step to add metadata information in the uploaded schema. You can follow the same steps to add the custom metadata properties to other components such as partners, agreements, or maps.

• Create an Integration Account as being mentioned in the earlier sections or by following the Microsoft documentation at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/logic-apps/logic-apps-enterprise-integration-create-integration-account

• Add sample schema to the Integration Account. The steps will...

Summary

In this chapter, we explored Enterprise Application Pack for Logic Apps. We started with the concept of integration account and then how to create enterprise artifacts using an Enterprise Integration Tool.

We discussed about Enterprise Integration Pack connectors and finally developed an EAI messaging scenario from the scratch by creation schemas and map in Visual studio and using them in Logic App workflow.

In next chapter we will explore the tooling and monitoring of Logic App workflows.