Adapters
BizTalk uses adapters for communications with different protocols, message formats, and specific software products. Some of the adapters are: EDI, File, HTTP, FTP, SFTP, SMTP, POP3, SOAP, SQL, MSMQ, Microsoft SharePoint Server, IBM mainframe zSeries (CICS and IMS) and midrange iSeries (AS/400) server, IBM DB2, IBM WebSphere MQ adapters.
The WCF Adapter set was added with 2006 R2. It includes: WCF-WSHttp, WCF-BasicHttp, WCF-NetTcp, WCF-NetMsmq, WCF-NetNamedPipe, WCF-Custom, WCF-CustomIsolated adapters. Microsoft also ships a BizTalk Adapter Pack that includes WCF-based adapters for Line of Business (LOB) systems. Currently, this includes adapters for SAP, Oracle database, Oracle E-Business Suite, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, PeopleSoft Enterprise and Siebel Systems.
Additional adapters (for Active Directory, for example) are available from third party Microsoft BizTalk core partners.
Read more about this topic: Microsoft Biz Talk Server