Convoys exist in the world any time multiple single items 
must be related together in order to achieve something that 
the individual item cannot accomplish by itself. This 
concept generalizes into a basic design pattern. This is 
convoy processing.

Convoy processing can be additionally broken out into two 
separate categories as shown in the following list:

Sequential convoy - Items that are in a order, one after 
another

Parallel convoy - Items that are in any order, but must all 
be present before something occurs

Use it for SQL schema generation using Add Generated items 
wizard.

Use it for Send and receive Port

If your case is the simple Add/Update-ing several rows, the 
Updategram give you more simple way. You completely were 
out of the SQL code.

SP give you more control under your data inside SQL. If you 
also have SPs or
part of your business logic is/will be inside SQL you need 
use SPs. Usually we have to use SP with OPENXML.

we will use updategram and storedprocedure when we want to 
insert any information to database or we are selecting any 
information from database

when we use the SQL Adapter for generating Schemas, Port etc.

This is way we can use updategram to update multiple rows 
in BizTalk orchestration.

Using the updategram to insert and delete are very 
straightforward. It's also easy to update one row of data 
using the updategram in BizTalk. BizTalk SQL adapter seems 
to be problematic when dealing with updating multiple rows 
of data using updategram. SQL XML states that you need to 
use the attribute "updg:id" to associate the records 
enclosed in the <updg:before> and those enclosed in 
<updg:after>

Mapping - its just used to transfer values from one XSD to other XSD.

Orchestration - Work flow of processes.

Schema - Schema(Sample) of the XML files which will be used for processing messages.

Adapter.Pipeline - Gateway to receive and send messages.

BRE -(Bussiness Rule Engine)Used to Externally configure the values.

HAT - (Health and Activity tracking) Used to trace the message.

BAM - (Bussiness activity monitoring) Used to generate and Moniter Report's

Custom Pipeline components extend the behavior of Pipelines 
to include processing data of virtually any format. They 
can be a powerful solution if you support legacy systems 
that require integration with other products, but your 
legacy data format does not follow standards.

Custom pipelines are used for extend the behavior of Pipelines
Here we have two types of Custom pipeline

1. Receive pipeline
2. Send pipeline

we can specify the Assembler, Dissembler, Encoding characters etc, while creating custom pipeline.

Once we complete the successful deployment we can bind them to ports.

YES.

This will be in case when you route the failed messages.

If you use XML object, then you can get any *.xml messages 
into orchestration

yes, whenever we are using the .net class we assighn the 
message without shema

yes by using XML Document datatype

using system.Xml.XmlDocument we can get the message into 
orchestration

Having version attribute in the root node name

having root node and name space you can version your schema

Use Document Version attribute of schema

When A message is passed through biztalk without being 
processed then it is called Message Routing.

When A message is passed based on certain field value of 
schema, it is called content routing.

Routing: It  means the selection of most 
shortest,easiest,convenient path in between source and 
destination.

Message Routing:
 When a message is routed by BizTalk based on message Type.

Content Routing:
  When a message is routed by BizTalk based on some 
specific values in the message elements.

Host is nothing but the logical container of host instance.
from which we can create host instance.

Host instance is a Win-NT service.

A BizTalk Server Host is a logical set of zero or more 
BizTalk Server run-time processes in which you deploy items 
such as adapter handlers, receive locations (including 
pipelines), and orchestrations.

A host instance is the process where the message 
processing, receiving, and transmitting occurs You install 
a host instance on each server running BizTalk Server 2006 
that has one or more hosts mapped to that server

If the application using it is not too large, the entire 
BizTalk Server 2004 engine can be installed on a single 
computer. In many situations, however, this is not the 
right solution. The number of messages the engine must 
handle might be too great for one computer, or redundancy 
might be required to make the system more reliable. To meet 
requirements like these, the BizTalk Server 2004 engine can 
be deployed in a number of ways.
A fundamental concept for deploying the engine is the idea 
of a host. A host can contain various things, including 
orchestrations, adapters, and pipelines. Hosts are just 
logical constructs; to use them, a BizTalk Server 2004 
administrator must cause actual host instances to be 
created. Each host instance is a Windows process, and as 
the following figure shows, it can contain various elements.
Figure 6 Host computers
 
In this figure:
•	Computer A runs two host instances. One contains a 
receive adapter and receive pipeline, while the other 
contains the orchestrations P and Q. 
•	Computer B runs just one host instance, also 
containing the orchestrations P and Q. 
•	Computer C, like computer A, runs two host 
instances, but neither of them contains an orchestration. 
Instead, each of these instances contains a send pipeline 
and send adapter. 
•	Computer D houses the MessageBox database that is 
used by all of the host instances in this configuration.
This example illustrates several ways in which hosts might 
be used. For example, because both computers A and B run 
host instances that contain the orchestrations P and Q, 
BizTalk Server 2004 can automatically assign requests to 
these orchestrations based on the availability and current 
load on each computer. This allows a business process to 
scale up as needed for high-volume applications. Notice 
also that computer C contains two different ways to handle 
outgoing messages. One way might rely on a standard BizTalk 
Server 2004 adapter, such as the HTTP adapter, while the 
other might use a custom adapter to communicate with a 
particular application. Grouping all output processing on a 
single computer like this can make good sense in some 
situations. And because each host instance is isolated from 
every other host instance—they are different processes—it 
is safer to run code that is not completely trusted, such 
as a new custom adapter, in a separate instance. It is also 
worth pointing out that even though this example contains 
only a single instance of the MessageBox database, you can 
also replicate or cluster the databases to avoid creating a 
single point of failure.
Managing Applications
The BizTalk Server 2004 engine provides a range of 
services, and several different tools are used to manage 
this environment. The primary tool is the BizTalk 
Administration console, a Microsoft Management Console 
(MMC) snap-in. This tool enables you to create hosts, 
assign hosts to computers, start and stop orchestrations, 
and perform many other administration tasks. You can even 
dynamically add computers and specify what hosts should be 
assigned to them while an application is running—there is 
no need to shut the application down to make these changes. 
You can also access the functions of the Administration 
console programmatically through Windows Management 
Instrumentation (WMI), which enables you to create scripts 
that automate management functions.

Here the Host is - BiztalkserverApplication.

Normally we use the Host to initialise and start the default Biztalk services.

Yes we can deploy Biztalk on more than one machine.

Use content Base routing

create receive port and Send Port.
while configuring send port provide filter condition as
BTS.Receiveportname=<receive_portname you created>

BOTH ARE SAME YAAR, ANSWER 1 IS HEADING FOR ANSWER 2

yes, with out using orchestration, we can get the message  
it is done in the case of messaging solution.
Messaging solution means it is the biztalk solution with 
out orchestration.
go to biztalk adminstration console and create the receive 
port and create the send port .
in the send port configuration wizard, in the left 
pane,there is tab called filters which is used to provide 
subscription infornation to biztalk msg box, that tells the 
msgbox,"if any information comes on a particular port, 
please send that information to me
there is a filter property is there 

bts.receiveportname="ReceivePortName"

so when ever the msg is dropped to receive location 
configured with receive port, it comes to biztalk msgbox 
db, msgbox db sends the message to send port based on 
subscription information

This is how the message transformation is done without 
using orchesrtation

Regards,
Chaitanya Talasila

Can have custom functoids, custom pipelines, custom
adapters, custom way of calling BRE, calling external .NET
assemblies

Kris

use custom developed .NET components by calling 
external .NET
assemblies

Surjit
Bangalore

Use the Script functoid and configure that with external .Net assemblies or Inline XSLT, Inline C# code etc. as well as we can also use the External Assemblies.

its all depends on sort of deployment, in case of single 
box hosting sql and biztalk services then absolutely no 
need of active directory which is mostly happens in 
development environments, but AD importance coming in to 
the picture in enterprise deployments where you have 
biztalk group , sql on separate boxes, more important when 
you want to have cluster for high availability and 
performance scalability. Because the service user accounts 
and service group credentials are used across the network 
and group of computers and which is maintained in common 
repository called AD on windows platform.

Active Directory is considered as default directory for Deployment of Application.

create one port, port type as dynamic.
Drag one expression shape in orchastration.
in that type, Portname(Microsoft.XLANGS.BaseTypes.Addresses)
= Address url.

BIZTALK SERVER dynamic ports .
Create a port and give the port information by using 
expression.It works when the orchestrtion runs being 
dynamic in nature.
Drag a expression shape from the tool bar write code for 
configuration.

Create a MAP in Biz talk and add first name and  last name
strings with space in between and map to destination schema
node. Use that map in port to port binding either in recieve
port or in send port.

Use the looping functoid to link FirstName and LastName to 
Name. use this map as outbound map in send port binding.

Ok, this is something like mapping flat source schema to 
multiple occurrences of node in destination schema, use 
Table Looping, Table Extractor functiond's and map. for 
more info read this interesting article.

http://geekswithblogs.net/evankoch/archive/2007/08/07/114470
.aspx