Application Integration Futures – The Road Map and what's next on Windows Azure

This presentation has hosted by Bala Sriram and Rajesh Ramamirtham

 

Blog Update: I have added a conclusion where I have provided a summary and some of my thoughts on this release.  Also, this session has now been posted so feel free to take a look at it here.  You can also add any comments that you have regarding this session at the bottom of this post.

Key takeaway from Bala: We are innovating in BizTalk!

General Update

• BizTalk Server “R2” release will be available around 6 months after Windows 8
• CTP expect this summer
• Commitment to releasing server for years to come. Publicly indicating there will be at least another release beyond “R2”
• 12k+ BizTalk customers
• 81% of Fortune Global 100 use BizTalk
• 79% of customers are using BizTalk 2010
• CU delivered every quarter with product enhancements
• Best NSAT in the industry
• 6 of 8 largest US Pharmaceutical Companies use BizTalk
• Continue to bet on BizTalk – We will take your investments forward!
• Enabling new Azure based BizTalk scenarios for EAI & EDI
  • Bringing together BizTalk on-premises and in Azure

What customers are telling us?

• Keep me current with platform, standards and LOB changes
• Reduce time and cost of developing of Integration solutions
• Let me focus on business challenges, not technology infrastructure
• Cloud advantages
  • Cost-effective, scalable infrastructure for easy deployment
  • Some scenarios like b2b are amenable to cloud
• Cloud Challenges
  • Data privacy, isolation , control more integration
  • LOB assets will continue to be on-premise
• Phased cloud adoption on my terms
  • One size does not fit all

How BizTalk will meet these requirements?

• Upgrade to latest MS platform
• Improved reach for B2B customers
• Better performance and manageability
• BizTalk on Azure IaaS
  • Eliminate HW procurement lead times
  • Reduce time and cost to setup and maintain BizTalk environments
• BizTalk on Azure PaaS for EAI and EDI
  • Reduce partner onboarding and management cost
  • Leverage existing BizTalk artifacts
  • Rapid configuration-driven development for common integration patterns
• All of these working together seamlessly as one BizTalk
  • Trying to work under “one umbrella” but no naming can be implied at this time

BizTalk Server On-Premise Update

• Platform Update
  • Support for:
    • VS 2012,
    • Window 8 Server
    • SQL Server 2012
    • Office 15
    • System Center 2012
• B2B enhancements:
  • EDI
  • HL7 2.5.1, 2.6
  • SWIFT 2012 Message Pack
• Better Performance
  • In Order Delivery process
    • Serialization created delays
  • Improved dynamic send ports and ESB via host handler association of Send ports
    • Can configure a dynamic send port host handler in Admin Console
  • MLLP adapter performance
  • HIS DB2 client transaction load balancing, client bulk insert (15 times faster)
• Better manageability
  • Visualize BizTalk artifact dependencies in BizTalk admin console
  • ESB toolkit as core part of BizTalk setup and product
  • HIS Administration using Config files with application metadata stored in XML
• Improved connectivity
  • Consume REST Services directly in BizTalk
    • WebHttpBinding will be used when calling REST Services
    • ACS support
  • Simplified SharePoint integration experience
    • No more adapter web service installs on SharePoint
  • Improvements to existing adapters (HIS, SMTP)
    • improved macros
  • Easy connectivity to Service Bus Relay, Queues and Topics
  • CICS http client connectivity to Windows

BizTalk running in Azure (IaaS)

• Use case :

  • First step in the cloud adoption
    • Eliminate hardware procurement lead times
    • Reduce time and cost to setup and maintain BizTalk environments
    • Move applications from on premise and back
  • Create a virtual network in Azure and enable connectivity to on-premise network
    • User logs into Azure Portal
    • User creates a new VM and selects BizTalk stock image
    • User specifics BizTalk environment topology and adds them to existing virtual network
    • New VMs are provisioned for user in Azure IaaS
    • User logs into the provisioned VM which has BizTalk installed and configured and starts using it.
• Targeting same Windows 8 timeframe
• Microsoft will provide guidance on performance
• MSDTC support in Azure?
  • It is supported now in IaaS and was brought in to support BizTalk
• All features that work on premise will work in IaaS

Goals

• Seamlessly connect with Azure artifacts
• Enable hybrid applications that span Azure and on-premises
• Expose LOB services both on Premise and to the cloud

Conclusion

Wow…that was a lot of content in a short 1:15 h session.  There was actually more information released related to EDI support in the EDI Services (PaaS) but I just couldn’t keep up between writing this blog and tweeting with the European BizTalk community.

What I liked:

• REST support event if it is only Send
• Cleaner integration with SharePoint.  A similar statement was made with BizTalk 2010 but talking with the product team members after the presentation I know that this is not lip service.  The Adapter Web Service is gone.  No more installs on SharePoint servers.  Also, no more consuming SharePoint’s legacy “Lists.asmx” web services.  Yay!
• Ordered Delivery performance.  It will be nice to have some improved performance while maintaining sequential integrity.
• First class ACS support in selected “cloud enabled” Adapters
• BrokeredMessage property/BizTalk Context property support
• BizTalk IaaS – should open new capabilities
• I can see the symmetry between on-premises and PaaS starting to materialize

What I would love to see:

• Exposing REST end points
• Single Mapper/Transformation experience between On-Premises and PaaS offering
• Support for other sterilizers than XML (JSON, C#)  - stay tuned?
• Service Bus Connect – Receiving requests from LOB systems (SAP IDOCS)

 

Overall the tone was extremely encouraging.  Personally, I haven’t seen this much innovation come from the BizTalk team since BizTalk 2006 R2 when support WCF/WCF LOB adapters was introduced.  Yep..I said it.  The next release of BizTalk is no longer “just a platform update” .  In my opinion, this is a full release and should be named accordingly.  For those that think BizTalk is dead – better think again.  The operation was successful and the patient is still alive.