After the BizTalk Server 2006 R2, Microsoft announces BizTalk Server 2009 which will serve enterprises to build integration solutions with a more powerful Microsoft suite, which is the main attraction for me to get my hands dirty with BizTalk Server 2009. The main features which I found useful on the BizTalk Server Roadmap page on Microsoft’s site are mentioned below.
Enhanced Development Platform
It supports Windows Server 2008, VS 2008, .NET Framework 3.5, and SQL Server 2008, which I think is a major change, and we will get the advantages of the new advanced platform. The main feature of Windows Server 2008 is the Hyper-V virtualization which can also be a standalone product to use virtualization on costly gigantic machines. The BizTalk Server 2009 Hyper-V guide is available for download. The ESB Guidance 2.0 is also available at the Microsoft site, and the ESB Guide package is available at the CodePlex ESB page. With VS2008, we have the new features for debugging artifacts such as Maps, Pipeline components, and Orchestrations. With SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services, we can get more functionality out of BAM.
Adapters
Unlike the release of BizTalk Server R2, BizTalk 2009 comes with two new adapters: Oracle E-Business Suites and SQL Server, while there has been an enhancement in the existing adapters, which I still have to explore.
Other Enhancements
On the MS Roadmap for BizTalk Server page on Microsoft’s website, you can see enhancements in B2B integration, SOA and Web Services, Device Connectivity, and of course, the enhancement in message processing by adding recoverable interchange processing support in the disassembling and validation stages in the pipeline. There are also new queries for message tracking in the BizTalk Management Console.
For more information, read MS Roadmap for BizTalk Server.
