The BizTalk framework is a set of tools for communication using XML. BizTalk builds on several foundations, notably HTTP (the HyperText Transfer Protocol), but the most important foundations from the perspective of a schema designer are XML and XML-Data Reduced (XDR). XML provides the basic syntax for BizTalk messages, while XDR is used to describe the contents of those messages.
BizTalk uses XML as its core syntax for documents, called messages in BizTalk usage. BizTalk is focused on information interchange between businesses, and XML provides the necessary level of flexibility and structure to reliably exchange information of a wide variety of types among different companies and even different types of organizations. BizTalk provides a framework on top of XML that specifies how messages should be routed and interpreted that goes well beyond the 'native' capabilities of XML.
BizTalk uses XML-Data Reduced (XDR) schemas to describe the information businesses are sending each other. You can build XDR schemas with XML Authority using the same set of tools used for XML 1.0 DTDs - XML Authority handles all the syntactical details. XDR is another schema format, with additional capabilities for handling namespaces and data typing. If you need to have both XDR and DTD descriptions of a schema, you can save your schemas in both formats from within XML Authority. Eventually, BizTalk schemas will be expressed using the W3C's XML Schemas(XSDL), which XML Authority also supports.
To save your schema for use with BizTalk select Export from the File Menu and choose BizTalk compatible as the format. Tell XML Authority where to save the schema, and you're ready to start integrating your schemas with BizTalk.
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