Linköping University | Department of Computer Science Bachelor thesis, 16 ECTS | Datateknik 2017 | LIU-IDA/LITH-EX-G--17/082--SE Can Microsoft Logic Apps re- place Microsoft BizTalk? An evaluation of integration platforms Anton Berglund Oscar Fredriksson Supervisor : Rouhollah Mahfouzi Examiner : Ahmed Rezine Linköpings universitet SE–581 83 Linköping +46 13 28 10 00 , www.liu.se Upphovsrätt Detta dokument hålls tillgängligt på Internet – eller dess framtida ersättare – under 25 år från publiceringsdatum under förutsättning att inga extraordinära omständigheter uppstår. Tillgång till dokumentet innebär tillstånd för var och en att läsa, ladda ner, skriva ut enstaka kopior för enskilt bruk och att använda det oförändrat för ickekommersiell forskning och för undervisning. Överföring av upphovsrätten vid en senare tidpunkt kan inte upphäva detta tillstånd. All annan användning av dokumentet kräver upphovsmannens medgivande. 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For additional information about the Linköping Uni- versity Electronic Press and its procedures for publication and for assurance of document integrity, please refer to its www home page: http://www.ep.liu.se/. c Anton Berglund Oscar Fredriksson Abstract Integration has always been an important and tricky task for IT-businesses. There are several products available for solving integration issues, one of them is the long developed platform BizTalk from Microsoft. As cloud computing has grown in recent years, Microsoft has been putting more focus towards the cloud. With their cloud, named Azure, expanding a new integration platform have been released, the iPaaS (integration Platform as a Service) Logic Apps. This report aims to evaluate the integration platforms Logic Apps and BizTalk with the purpose of finding out if the new Logic Apps can replace the long developed BizTalk. The evaluation is performed by implementing an application in both platforms, then evaluat- ing selected parameters by giving each a score to concretize our assessment on quantify whether Logic Apps can replace BizTalk. Contents Abstract iii Acknowledgments iv Contents iv List of Figures vi List of Tables 1 1 Introduction 2 1.1 Introduction . 2 1.2 Background . 2 1.3 Aim............................................ 3 1.4 Research questions . 3 1.5 Approach . 3 1.6 Thesis Structure . 3 2 Theory 4 2.1 Integration . 4 2.2 Cloud computing . 6 2.3 Azure . 8 2.4 Logic Apps . 11 2.5 BizTalk . 13 2.6 Miscellaneous . 17 3 Method 18 3.1 Choice of the parameters . 18 3.2 Defined parameters . 19 3.3 Evaluation . 20 4 Implementation 21 4.1 Message Relay Scenario . 21 4.2 Logic Apps implementation . 24 4.3 BizTalk implementation . 28 5 Evaluation and Result 33 5.1 Evaluation of parameters . 33 5.2 Evaluation rating . 41 5.3 Side Study . 44 6 Discussion and Conclusion 46 6.1 Discussion . 46 6.2 Conclusion . 48 iv Bibliography 49 List of Figures 2.1 Many to many connections . 5 2.2 One to many connections . 5 2.3 Cloud Service Models . 6 2.4 Azure Function development in Azure portal . 9 2.5 Logic Apps Components . 12 2.6 BizTalk components overview . 13 2.7 BizTalk orchestration overview . 16 4.1 Message-relay overview . 22 4.2 Message-relay operations . 22 4.3 Logic Apps Parent workflow . 25 4.4 Logic Apps Child workflow 1 . 25 4.5 Logic Apps Child workflow 2 . 26 4.6 Logic Apps Child workflow 3 . 26 4.7 Logic Apps Child workflow 4 . 27 4.8 Try-Catch scope in BizTalk . 29 5.1 Logic Apps Resubmit run . 34 5.2 Logic Apps Map to messages . 35 5.3 Logic Apps Run History . 36 5.4 Logic Apps Detailed Run History . 37 5.5 BizTalk Server map editor . 39 vi List of Tables 3.1 Rating definitions . 20 5.1 Rated exception handling parameters . 42 5.2 Rated functionality parameters . 42 5.3 Rated rest of parameters . 43 5.4 Evaluation Total rating . 43 5.5 Side Study Results . 45 1 1 Introduction 1.1 Introduction In IT-businesses, the process to connect individual systems to become a larger system work- ing together is called integration. As the systems used by companies become more complex. As a result the applications developed that exchange information needs to be integrated in the system. To integrate these systems, engineers often use software called integration platforms. In recent years cloud computing has grown bigger. With cloud computing, many services has appeared, such as the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), where a user can use a software which is not installed on user machines. Using cloud services has many benefits compared to using software installed locally (on-premise). On-premise software is often more expensive and requires more configuration and maintenance which can be time consuming. As new cloud integration platforms emerge, they might be more beneficial for solving integration problems. Several companies are considering to migrate to the cloud. However, as the new cloud services are being released, it is interesting to see how these new kind of software can replace the well developed, stable, on-premise software. Or are they still too immature to be used? 1.2 Background The host company is a global corporation with around 2000 employees spread across the world. With employees developing systems on different locations, the systems need to be integrated. The company has started to migrate some of its applications and services to the cloud, where it is building a platform. The office in Linköping has around 50 employees and is mainly working with development and integration. Microsoft BizTalk is the current platform used to solve integration issues. The platform is stable, and has been developed since its release in year 2000. However, as cloud computing is growing, there may have appeared other solutions to solve integration problems. One of the solutions could be the newly released Microsoft Logic Apps which could ease the integration in terms of implementation and maintenance. 2 1.3. Aim 1.3 Aim The purpose of the study is to determine if the current platform Microsoft BizTalk is replace- able with the newly released Microsoft Logic Apps for the host company by comparing them by literature and with a scenario implemented in both platforms. 1.4 Research questions The research questions that are going to be answered are the following: • What aspects of the integration platforms are relevant for the host company? • Is Microsoft BizTalk replaceable with Microsoft Azure Logic Apps for the host com- pany? 1.5 Approach To be able to answer the research questions in this thesis, we plan to: • Read about the platforms, Logic Apps and BizTalk. • Identify the needs for the host company. • Choose relevant parameters. • Implement a scenario in both platforms. • Evaluate the platforms based on the chosen parameters. 1.6 Thesis Structure The thesis structure is as follows: Chapter 2 will contain the theory and background on the notions used in the thesis. Chap- ter 3 proposes the method with the parameter that is used to compare Logic Apps and BizTalk. Chapter 4 contains the scenario description and the implementation in Logic Apps and BizTalk. Chapter 5 contains the evaluation of the parameters described in the method as well as a side study done to test the performance of implemented applications. Chapter 6 contains a discussion and the conclusion that was drawn for this thesis. 3 2 Theory In this chapter the background of the notions that will be used in this thesis will be described. This chapter will be structured as follows. First we generally describe what system inte- gration and cloud computing is. Then we will describe the cloud service provider "Azure" and some of its services that is used in this thesis, such as the integration platform Logic Apps, Azure Function, Blob storage and Service Bus. Lastly the integration platform BizTalk is described as well as the API that is being used in the implementation in chapter 4. 2.1 Integration Integration is a process where applications or systems are connected to create a larger sys- tem. As the amount of applications and systems within the system increases, the integration solution becomes crucial. Imagine a customer calling a support-service and when the sup- port enters the customers’ information. A lookup in a database is triggered and the support personnel can immediately answer if items are in store or sold out. All these systems that trade information require a connection between each other. Now imagine an organization with over thousands of different systems that trade information with each other.