It is effectively a component of BizTalk R2 that is being released in the next couple of weeks. From the demos I saw it is designed to be used as an edge server that feeds RFID-triggered business events and data to a central BizTalk server e.g as a hub-and-spoke topology with BizTalk Branch Edition.
What it actually provides is:
- Device (reader) management
- Autodiscovery, presumably using UPNP
- Device configuration, versioning and security
- An ADO.Net-provider style API for accessing vendor specific functionality
- Business Rules management
The basic premise of the system is when a tag is scanned by a physical scanner, a bitstream is read by the API and then fed up to the BizTalk processing layer. By abstracting physical devices into logical ones you can then route events to different processes. The business rules engine is used to execute pre-defined activities written in C# or then sent off to event sinks such as SQL Server, a WCF service or off to a central BizTalk server. Not really a whole lot to it, but it does tie in these physical events with business workflow enabling your enterprise to 'close the loop' as Krishnan put it.
One of examples of it in use at the moment was this sushi chain that was tagging all the dishes that were being placed on the conveyor belts at their restaurants. As the dishes went around and around, a reader would detect the tag and calculate whether the dish had been sitting there for more than half an hour. If it had it would redirect the dish off the belt and into the trash. Anything that prevents me from getting e-coli gets my thumbs up :-)
Some important takeaways from the session were:
- Gen2 readers are still now only achieving ~90% success rate at reading tags, making tag placement and removal of metal sources of interference so importance. Alternative processes such as human reconciliation are still required to weed out that 10% of tags that may slip through your net.
- On the roadmap apparently is the ability to push workflow down to a mobile device so that events can be routed before they hit the server, which of course may be too late for certain scenarios.
- X-ray machines can apparently damage these tags. WTF?! This came up after Krishnan's demo fell over and his reason for it was apparently putting the tags through the X-ray machines at the airport had caused the tags to stop working for whatever reason. Was I the only person in the audience to think this could be a pretty big bloody show-stopper for using RFID in logistics scenarios where goods need to go through security clearances?
http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/technologies/rfid/default.mspx
