This post was originally published here
The beginning of december I visited the Microsoft Campus (Building 92) for the 3rd global BizTalk Summit, which was branded as Integrate2014. The event was organized this time by BizTalk360 along side with Microsoft itself and core partners like Quicklearn, Nevatech, Codit, and LogicalTech SysTalk. It was a three day event filled with numerous sessions by Microsoft themselves, a few MVP’s and partners.
The first important message to me, partners and end-users I believe was that BizTalk Server is going to play an essential role for integration systems and applications on-premise. Besides that its also provide support with connectivity to cloud (Azure with adapters that support SB-connectivity, and relay). That means BizTalk Server can also provide enterprises the ability to build cloud to ground or ground to cloud based solutions (see also Richard Seroter’s course on Pluralsight called Cloud Integration Patterns). The product group explicitly shared that there will be future platform upgrades (full version, or R2). See also my post on the TechNet Wiki Blog: The Future of Integration.
Second even more important message was the new direction for BizTalk Services. MABS 1.0 will change course to adopt architecture called MicroServices. This means that MABS 2.0 will fundamentally change to support this architecture. What the architecture basically boils down to is that granularity will increase. A BizTalk Service solution can consist of many small services like connectors (called triggers and actions), mediation (that supports VETER pattern we know from MABS 1.0), BPM, Mappings, and Business Rule Engine (BRE). During the event we have seen different sessions on MicroServices from different speakers. All sessions were recorded and will be made available soon.
Finally the number of attendees and partners (sponsors) showed me that ecosystem of Microsoft Integration is very alive. Microsoft will continue to innovate it’s on-premise product BizTalk Server and it’s cloud based offering BizTalk Services, which will be named Azure BizTalk Microservices (MABS 2.0). We stand before the door to the next generation of integration solutions. We slowly we move (migrate) integration solution to Azure Platform and build new solutions to communicate with distributed systems (anywhere, anyplace, anytime) and devices.
Other blog post on INTEGRATE 2014 definitely worth to checkout are:
- Integrate 2014 Recap by Kent Weare (Microsoft Integrattion MVP)
- Integrate 2014 – Final Thoughts by Nick Hauenstein (Quicklearn Trainer)
- Azure BizTalk Microservices, initial thoughts by Sam Vanhoutte (Microsoft Integration MVP)
- Microsoft making big bets on Microservices by Saravana Kumar (Microsoft Integration MVP)
- Reflections on Integration 2014 (aka BizTalk Summit) by Richard Broida (Microsoft VTSP)
- Reachable Architecture by Tom Canter (Microsoft VTSP, Partner Evangelist)
- Integrate 2014 Summit: “Microservices” is the Word by Dan Toomey ( Brisbane BizTalk User Group leader)
- Integrate 2014 : My Thoughts by Bill Chesnut (Microsoft Integration MVP)
- Why I’m Excited About BizTalk Microservices by Michael Stephenson (Microsoft Integration MVP)
It has been an amazing event and it was awesome to meet with people like Microsoft Integration MVP’s present, Microsoft BizTalk Product Group, Biztalk360 Team, Quicklearn Team, Andrew Slivker (Nevatech), Jason Sander, Dwaine Gilmour, Mandi Ohlinger, Richard Broida, Tom Canter, Rob Fox, Jean Paul Smit, Martin Peters, Rene Brauwers, JoAnn Een, Michael Shea, Koen van Oost, Eldert Grootenboer, Rex van der Laan, Bart Scheurweghs, Rajesh Kolla, Howard Edidin, and list goes on.
BizTalk360 as event organizer have done an outstanding job taking the BizTalk Summit (Integrate) to the next level!
Cheers,
Steef-Jan