You do not talk about BizTalk!
The first rule of BizTalk is: You do not talk about BizTalk!
This is my last blog post about BizTalk! I have recently change occupation and I will be working more with business intelligence now. So, expect to se a lot of data warehousing and SQL posts on this blog in the future!
This summer, all developers from my work went to Integrate 2019, London It was three full days of news in the field of system integration. And the message is clear: you do not talk about BizTalk. The attention is on cloud-based solutions. The conference was organized by Microsoft and partners to Microsoft. So, naturally a lot of focus where on new features in Azure.
Everyone is rushing to the cloud. Even huge companies like H&M have a strategy how to move their integrations. The CIO from H&M was one of the speakers. She presented their plan to move from an all on premise solution to a hybrid solution, and in the long run to a complete cloud-based platform for system integrations.
Thumbs up for Azure, but is there any future for BizTalk? Well I think these viewpoints from two of my colleagues are valid:
- “If you need an integration platform
on premise, let’s say for legal reasons, and you want a product from Microsoft…
There is only BizTalk. Because of that and the announcement of BizTalk 2020,
the product will be relevant for at least another 10 years.”
- “I really hope companies have build so bad integrations that they simply can’t move away from on premise solutions. But new solutions will be built in the cloud. That means in the end that BizTalk developers will be scarce resources soon, especially if Microsoft discontinue BizTalk. So, hopefully I don’t have to learn something new but can charge more and more each year and retire early!”
I agree with both. And my contribution to the topic: BizTalk is a product of the past, it is built around the mindset system integration developers had 15 years ago. Most if it is still valid but as a BizTalk developer you spend too much time trying to understand and configure parts of the platform itself. Everyone that had trouble with let’s say MSDTC component service knows what I’m talking about (MSDTC is just ONE example). Its simply too much nuts and bolts to be a modern IT system.
Well, that’s
all from me! Bye, bye System Integration!
And remember this: You do not talk about BizTalk anymore!