Unlike BizTalk Server, with its focus on integrating independent systems, WF provides a general framework for creating applications that are themselves built around workflows. Over time, WF will become the common workflow technology used by Microsoft products, including the Microsoft Office System and others. In fact, the BizTalk release that follows BizTalk Server 2006 will include the ability to create WF workflows alongside its current orchestration capabilities.
To get a sense of what WF provides, here are some examples of how it might be used:
· An ASP.NET application that displays pages to its users might use a WF workflow to control the order in which those pages are shown. Doing this can make it easier to change the page flow without changing the pages themselves, as well as cleanly separating the application’s user interface from its controlling logic.
· The next version of Microsoft Office, code-named Office “12”, will let information workers create and modify document-oriented workflows. This ability relies on WF hosted in Windows SharePoint Services.
· A composite application in a service-oriented environment might implement its core logic using a workflow. As more and more applications expose their behavior through Web services, WF can provide a foundation for the process logic that drives these services.
· An application built by an independent software vendor targeting a specific problem, such as customer relationship management, or a particular vertical market, such as financial services, might be built around a WF workflow. This kind of application commonly implements a number of different business processes, and so designing it around workflow technology can make the application faster to build and easier to change.
BizTalk Server and WF have some obvious similarities. To a developer, for example, BizTalk Server’s Orchestration Designer looks much like the Workflow Designer provided by WF. This shouldn’t be surprising, since the same group within Microsoft is responsible for both. But the two technologies address quite distinct problems. Here are some guidelines for deciding when to use each one.
Use BizTalk Server when:
- Solving an EAI problem that requires communication with diverse applications on diverse platforms. Because of its focus on cross-platform integration, BizTalk Server provides adapters for communicating with other software, tools for mapping between message formats, and more. WF is focused solely on workflow, not EAI, and so it doesn’t provide these things.
- B2B services are required. WF doesn’t address this area, while BizTalk Server provides tools for working with trading partners, accelerators for RosettaNet, SWIFT, and other industry standards, and more.
- BPM services such as BAM are needed. WF provides a basic tracking infrastructure that can be used to create these services, but BizTalk Server includes a much more complete set of tools in this area.
- A complete management infrastructure and support for increased scalability are necessary. As described earlier, BizTalk Server includes a full set of tools for administering and scaling a production environment, something that’s not provided by WF.
Use WF when:
- An application will itself host workflows. WF lets workflow be built into an application, allowing the workflow to be deployed and managed as a native part of the application. Because it’s focused on integrating diverse applications rather than providing a general workflow framework, BizTalk Server always runs orchestrations within the BizTalk Server process.
- The business process being implemented requires human workflow. BizTalk Server addresses system workflow, and so it lacks WF’s support for things such as state machine workflows and dynamic update. A scenario that requires both human workflow and more complex system integration services could be addressed by using WF and BizTalk Server together, however. For example, the Office “12” support for document-centric workflows, based on Windows SharePoint Services, might be used for the human aspects of the problem, while BizTalk Server handles the system integration aspects. The two can interoperate using the BizTalk Server Adapter for SharePoint.
- The workflow will execute on a client system. BizTalk Server is a server-focused product, and so it’s less well-suited to run on desktop machines.
(Extracted from: “Understanding BizTalk Server 2006, Microsoft Corporation,Published: October 2005”)