I previously spoke about where BizTalk and Dublin (Insert Name), WF and WCF all fit…. Well here is my view.
As far as where does Dublin fit here I can only touch on this, Dublin could host the workflow, much like BizTalk hosts the orchestration and the communication to end points. Dublin workflows could call BizTalk to kick off the back end communication and orchestration process, and get a result when they are done. In this way the workflow/human workflow can interact with back end systems, in a correctly architected manner, you can of course cut the corners here and call wcf services hosted, not a good idea, you could call back end oriented workflows that would be hosed in Dublin. WF can’t talk to SharePoint, and it perhaps can’t talk to many back end systems, whose functionality live in BizTalk. For example WF can’t send a fax.
There are a few fax adapters that can. WF can’t map a document from one format to the format that the end system is expecting; it has no concept of this. WCF can’t do this, and WF can’t do this. BizTalk will be here for few more years still.
As far as where does Dublin fit here I can only touch on this, Dublin could host the workflow, much like BizTalk hosts the orchestration and the communication to end points. Dublin workflows could call BizTalk to kick off the back end communication and orchestration process, and get a result when they are done. In this way the workflow/human workflow can interact with back end systems, in a correctly architected manner, you can of course cut the corners here and call wcf services hosted, not a good idea, you could call back end oriented workflows that would be hosed in Dublin. WF can’t talk to SharePoint, and it perhaps can’t talk to many back end systems, whose functionality live in BizTalk. For example WF can’t send a fax.
There are a few fax adapters that can. WF can’t map a document from one format to the format that the end system is expecting; it has no concept of this. WCF can’t do this, and WF can’t do this. BizTalk will be here for few more years still.
