PowerApps and BizTalk (Part 1 - Setting it up)

Introduction

My previous blog post regarding BizTalk and PowerApps contains a few moving parts which I will be explaining in this multi part blog post. It consists of four parts:

1. Components on premise.
2. Components/ Services in Azure. (Posted here.)
3. Security. (Posted here.)
4. PowerApps. (Posted here.)

This first post will focus on the on premise components: 

1. On premise

Prerequisites

The first thing that is required is to ensure that you have installed the feature pack for BizTalk 2016 which can be downloaded at this link, along with any new CU's. One of the features that is available with the installation of the feature pack is the BizTalk Management Service. 

The two REST services running on premise are:

• The BizTalk Management Service (REST API with full swagger support) which provides operational and administrative functions such as listing applications, creating an application, retrieving operational data etc. For a full listing see this link.
• A custom API App for the BizTalk operations (REST API with full swagger support), which provides additional functionality which is not available in the BizTalk Management Service such as:
• Event logs which is implemented using a LINQ query which provides a paging mechanism to minimize the amount of data flowing back to PowerApps.
• Restarting of the BizTalk host instance(s) which is not available in the BizTalk Management Service and is implemented using WMI.

Note:

I will not be focusing on the custom API App as there are many blog post and articles on the internet on how to create this already.

Installing the feature pack 

The feature pack can only be installed on Developer or Enterprise versions of BizTalk 2016 and you must:.

1. Have an active software assurance with Microsoft or
2. Running BizTalk Server 2016 in Azure under an Enterprise Agreement

Steps:

1. Download the feature pack from the Microsoft web link.

2. Install it with Administrative privileges.

Configuring the BizTalk Management Service

To configure the BizTalk Management Service:

1. Open PowerShell with Administrative privileges

2. Type: "Set-Location $env:BTSINSTALLPATH"

3. Type .\FeaturePack.ConfigureServices.ps1 -Service Management -WebSiteName 'Default Web Site' -ApplicationPool BtsMgmtAppPool -ApplicationPoolUser <AppPoolUser> -ApplicationPoolUserPassword <AppPoolPassword> -AuthorizationRoles 'BizTalk Server Administrators'

Changing the AppPoolUser name and AppPoolPassword appropriately to for example, "BizTalkServerIsolatedHost" and password.

Once you have configured the BizTalk Management Service, you can test it by browsing to: 

http://localhost/BizTalkManagementService/swagger/

If done correctly, you should be able to see the following:

Conclusion

In this post I showed what components need to be setup on premise as well as how to install the feature pack as well as the BizTalk Management Service. In the next post I will focus on how to set up the Azure components as well as coming back to On Premise to install additional prerequisites.