Introduction

First public CTP of Service Bus EAI & EDI has gone live. Through the Windows Azure Service Bus EAI and EDI Labs you can get acquainted with integration capabilities provided for the Windows Azure Platform. These capabilities enables you to extend on-premises applications to the cloud, provide rich messaging endpoints on the cloud to process and transform the messages, and help organizations integrate with disparate applications, both on cloud and on-premises. Basically the Service Bus EAI and EDI Labs will provide common integration capabilities (e.g. bridges, transforms, B2B messaging) on Windows Azure Service Bus. To be able to work with the labs you need to download from Windows Azure Service Bus EAI & EDI - Dec 2011 Release page:

• Windows Azure Service Bus EAI and EDI Labs SDK
• WindowsAzureServiceBusConnect
• Samples

Installation is detailed through Installing the Windows Azure Service Bus EAI and EDI Labs - December 2011.

Windows Azure Service Bus EAI and EDI Labs SDK

When you install this SDK it will provide the Visual Studio project templates for creating an Enterprise Application Integration project or an EDI Project (Artifacts) and tools to develop and deploy EAI Bridges and Artifacts.

WindowsAzureServiceBusConnect

This will provide with following when install this component:

• Developer SDK : This is required to create an Enterprise Application Integration project that can include a Service Bus Connect component.
• Runtime : This is required to manage connectivity between the cloud applications and the on-premises LOB applications.
• Management Tools : These include PowerShell cmdlets to manage the Service Bus Connect Runtime components.

Samples

After installation of SDK and WindowsAzureServiceBusConnect you can download the samples and try them out following instructions found on the Service Bus EAI and EDI Labs - Tutorials, Create the EAI Scenario or Create the EDI Scenario.

System Requirements

Supported Operating Systems are Windows 7, Windows 7 Service Pack 1, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. You will need an account on Windows Azure Platform, AppFabric Labs to be able to use Service Bus. On your machine you will need to following software:

•  Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 RTM or SP1(Premium, Professional, Ultimate).
•  .NET Framework 3.5 SP1.
•  .NET Framework 4.0. 
•  SQL Server 2008 and higher versions are supported with all their flavors.

For Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0 the following settings need be enabled:

        Use Add/Remove Windows Features to enable the following.

•  IIS Metabase and IIS 6 configuration compatibility
•  Windows Authentication

Community Resources

• Windows Azure Service Bus EAI and EDI Labs - December 2011 Release
• Service Bus EAI & EDI Labs Release forum
• Announcing the Service Bus EAI & EDI Labs Release
• Azure Service Bus Connect EAI and EDI “Integration Services” CTP
• Azure AppFabric Labs–EAI, Service Bus in the Cloud
• Azure Service Bus EAI/EDI December 2011 CTP – Content Based Routing
• Azure Service Bus EAI/EDI December 2011 CTP – EAI Oracle 
• An Introduction to EAI Bridges
• SAP meet Azure Service Bus – EAI/EDI December 2011 CTP
• BizTalk in the Cloud, One Step Closer
• BizTalk in the Cloud, One Step Closer Part 2 

See Also

Another important place to find a huge amount of Windows Azure BizTalk Services related articles is the TechNet Wiki itself. The best entry point is Windows Azure BizTalk Services resources on the TechNet Wiki.

If you are also looking for BizTalk Server related articles, the best entry point is BizTalk Server Resources on the TechNet Wiki.