BizTalk 2013 Beta: Viewing dependencies

In early November 2012 the Beta release from BizTalk 2013 has been released. That version number is interesting in itself, as the CTP was called BizTalk 2010 R2.
One on the new functionalities in this release, which was not yet available in the CTP is a Dependency Viewer. As the name already suggests, this functionality enables the user of the BizTalk Server Administration Console to view which BizTalk artifacts depend on other artifacts. This article intends to provide more information on how this functionality works.

The problem it solves

Most BizTalk Groups contain multiple BizTalk Applications which might contain hundreds of schemas, (custom) pipelines, maps, orchestrations and endpoints. These artifacts are not autonomous, they depend on other artifacts and those artifacts might also depend on other artifacts.

When it comes to subjects like deployment and troubleshooting, it's handy to know which artifacts rely on each other. That's the point where the Dependency Viewer comes in.

Where to find

The Dependency Viewer can be found in the Administration Console. It can't be missed in the lower part of the screen under the following artifacts:

Receive Ports
Receive Locations
Send Ports
Send Port Groups
Schemas
Maps
Pipelines

How it works

Whenever you select one of the mentioned categories, the Dependency Viewer appears in the lower part of the pane that shows the artifacts. To find out which dependencies a certain artifact has, you need to hit the 'View Dependencies' button in the right pane. So unfortunately the Admin Console does not automatically show the dependencies, whenever you click on another artifact. Hopefully this will be fixed in a later BizTalk 2013 version.
Once you click that hyperlink the Dependency Viewer shows the dependencies, if any, of the selected artifact. It does this per category.
If dependencies exist, the number of dependencies appears as a hyperlink. The dependencies themselves appear after you have clicked the hyperlink.

The screen above shows the dependencies for a Receive Port called ReceiveSamplePort. This port has 2 Receive Locations which are shown both.
Although the upper Receive Location is selected, no dependencies are shown. If you want to see its dependencies, click View Dependencies in the right pane again and in this case it would show that this Receive Location depends on one Receive Port and one Pipeline.

Conclusion

The way the Dependency Viewer is implemented in this Beta release is not (yet) very impressive. I mention a couple of down sides on the current implementation:

no auto-retrieve. You need to hit the 'View Dependencies' button
the Dependency Viewer is always there, it's not possible to change its size or hide/show the viewer
no dependencies shown in case of Message Based Routing scenarios, for example a Send Port with a filter to a Receive Port
no dependencies shown relating to Hosts

I'm looking forward to the next BizTalk 2013 release and I am sure the Dependency Viewer will be implemented in a better and richer way.