As you may or may not have heard, a WCF adapter will be included in BizTalk Server 2006 R2!  It won't actually be a single adapter, but instead there will be multiple adapters with each one exposing one of the bindings that are included in WCF.  Each adapter will also include a custom UI for configuring the most commonly used features of that particular binding.  Do you have a custom binding?  No Worries!  There will also be a "Custom Binding" adapter that essentially opens the floodgates of WCF extensibility.

Here are some of the supported use cases for the WCF adapters:

• Exposing BizTalk orchestrations as a WCF web service
• Exposing BizTalk Content Based Routing applications as a WCF web service
• Consuming a WCF service from BizTalk orchestrations
• Consuming a WCF service from Content Based Routing applications
• Transactional message receive
• Transactional message send
• Using WS-* headers for routing and message processing
• Using custom headers for routing and message processing
• Using custom binding elements
• Using custom bindings
• Using BizTalk dynamic send ports
• Using BizTalk as SOAP intermediary

The WCF adapters will support the following WCF transports:

• HTTP / HTTPS
• SOAP
• MTOM
• TCP
• MSMQ
• Named Pipes

If you or your customers are interested in joining the Technical Adoption Program for this adapter, please email btsr2tap@microsoft.com.

Thanks,

Joe