Business Integration Agent (BIA), formerly known as Barium Integration Agent, is a lightweight Windows service that can be configured to monitor local data sources and send messages and data to process applications in a space in Process Automation if the configured rules are fulfilled.
The BIA requires that your Process Automation subscription plan has support for API integration. This will give you access to an API key that is needed to integrate with Process Automation. Please contact the Process Automation sales team to get access to and to get started using the BIA.
Introduction and background
The Business Integration Agent is created for customers who need to get started with integration fast and easily. The BIA is a simple application that can be installed on any Windows environment and that has an accompanying XML configuration file where the configuration for the BIA is done. It is possible for anyone with knowledge to create their own, custom integration agent since Process Automation has an open REST API that is used by the BIA. We have created the BIA so that customers do not have to. It supports a number of data sources that it can connect to, but it can of course be extended to support more.
Supported data sources
Business Integration Agent supports integration with the following data sources:
- SQL server databases (Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or later)
- XML documents
- LDAP-compatible directory services (LDAP version 3, including Active Directory)
- Excel documents
BIA communicates with Process Automation over the Process Automation REST API. Many other integration scenarios are possible through the use of Process Automation REST API. Contact a Process Automation Integration Partner if you need help creating integration with Process Automation.
Deployment requirements
The BIA software is technically a .Net executable service that connects to the Process Automation REST API over HTTPS (port 443) and performs HTTP requests. The requests contain custom HTTP headers used for authentication, content type etc. and string and binary data is transferred between the BIA and the Process Automation website.
Pre-installation checklist:
- Make sure that the server where BIA will be installed has Microsoft .Net Framework 4.8 installed.
- The server where BIA will be installed must allow outgoing HTTPS connections to https://live.barium.se on port 443.
- Make sure that the communication BIA and the Process Automation website is not blocked. Note: The Business Integration Agent uses the default proxy settings of Internet Explorer.
Installation
Zip file can be downloaded from the following URL: https://balistaticfilehosting.blob.core.windows.net/bia/BIA.zip
Extract the zip file with Business Integration Agent into a folder on an application server.
Business Integration Agent can be run on-demand in console mode or be installed as a Windows service. Make sure to configure the configuration file agent.xml (see the Configuration section) before running the integration agent for the first time.
BariumIntegrationAgent.exe Runs the agent in console mode
-service Installs and starts the agent service
-uninstall Stops and uninstalls the agent service
Note: Business Integration Agent must be installed/uninstalled with an administrator account or using "Run as administrator" in Windows.
See the article Configure Business Integration Agent about configuration.