it has in general the past year has been quiet for BizTalk but it looks like 2012 will be quiet different.

The BizTalk Team have announced that during 2012 BizTalk 2010 R2 will be out however its release will be dependant in VS 11 and Windows Server 8 and so no dates just yet

New Platforms and Infrastructure

• Windows Server 8*
• SQL Server 2012*

Increased Developer and IT Productivity

• Visual Studio 11 and Windows 8 to develop solutions
• In-place migration from BizTalk Server 2010

Extended Platform Integration

• DB2 client connectivity to SQL Server,
  conversion of commands to T-SQL,
  migration of packages to stored procedures
• Adapter connectivity to new data sources, including IBM Informix V11 and IBM IMS/DB V11

Agile Alignment to Industry Standards

• Regular updates to schemas, accelerators certifications and adapters. Highlights include:
• Healthcare: HIPPA 5010 extensions: 2777CA, 999, HL7 2.5.1
• Finance: SWIFT SRG 2011 support, SWIFT SRG 2012, SWIFTNet 7.0 (new messaging platform)

Improved Performance and Scalability

• HL7 MLLP adapter performance improvements
• Better performance with ordered send ports
• Enhanced scale out configuration with multiple hosts
• Expanded adapter options for faster batch processing

Extend on-premises solutions to the cloud

• Easily extend your on-premises BizTalk Server solution to the cloud in a secure manner
• Tighter integration of on-premises BizTalk Server applications with Windows Azure Service Bus

Improved Licensing

• Adjustments to licensing that are geared towards cloud hosting, including:
• Purchase from a hoster on a monthly basis (SPLA)
• Register your existing license with a hoster (License Mobility)

Also cumulative update 3 is now available for BizTalk 2010 get it here

Microsoft have just released CU3 for BizTalk Server 2009 get it here , it contains a bunch of fixes. Installation is straightforward (stop the services, install and reboot)

b.

New

BizTalk 2009 and Adapter Pack 2.0 as recently had some rollup updates

Cumulative Update Package 1 for BizTalk Server 2009 (KB 2429050) contains 60 fixes get it here

Cumulative Update Package 1 for BizTalk Adapter Pack 2.0  (KB 2444952) contains 11 fixes get it here.

More great news, There is now a poster available for the ESB Toolkit. You can get it here.

for people looking to draw up BizTalk for architecture diagrams, Sandro Pereira has produced a Visio 2010 stencil for BizTalk 2010 get it here

General Resources

Toolkits

BizTalk 2010 ESB toolkit:    http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=11847

Useful Code/Supplementary applications

I recommend highly you look at

BizUnit , a BizTalk testing framework http://bizunit.codeplex.com/

BizTalk Loadgen http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=c8af583f-7044-48db-b7b9-969072df1689&displaylang=en

BizTalk Benchmark Wizard http://bbw.codeplex.com/

BizTalk Mapper Extensions http://btsmapextutilitypack.codeplex.com/

a set of functoids for date time/password generation/guid generation and base64 encode/decode

Thanks to Derek @ Storm for the following links

i)a useful wizard I use for creating BizUnit test steps. http://bud.codeplex.com/

ii) a BizTalk custom pipeline component wizard: http://btsplcw.codeplex.com/

Guides

BizTalk Performance Optimization Guide http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee377064%28BTS.10%29.aspx

BizTalk Hyper-v Guide http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/dd722825%28v=BTS.10%29.aspx

ESB Toolkit core components http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/ff189324%28v=BTS.10%29.aspx

BizTalk Operations Guide http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/ee308947%28v=BTS.10%29.aspx

Mikes guide to testing http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/BTSTestGuide/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=3786

Training

BizTalk Training Kit http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=17956

the training kit has a section on Operations Management

ESB introduction videos http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/biztalk/dd876606.aspx

Posters

BizTalk 2010 ESB Architecture Poster http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=11976

BizTalk 2010 BAM Poster http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=380

BizTalk 2010 Poster http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=7142

BizTalk 2010 Runtime Poster http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=22226

BizTalk 2010 Scale out poster http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=15223

BizTalk 2010 DB Infrastructure Poster http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=443

 

b

At 9.00pm GMT, Ewan Fairweather will be running a webcast on Performance of BizTalk 2009 both on Hyper-V and Physical Deployments.

Register for the upcoming TechNet Webcast: BizTalk Server 2009 Performance on Hyper-V and Physical Deployments (Level 300)

for those of you who don’t know Ewan he co-authored the successful Professional BizTalk Server 2006 (Wrox,Press 2007) and has written many white papers for Microsoft including the "Microsoft BizTalk Server Performance Optimization Guide and has been the technical editor on other fine Wrox Press books.

b.

If you are in the BizTalk world, I would recommend reading the BizTalk Hotrod. it looks like Todd has stepped down from BizTalk Hotrod , he mentioned he was moving when we were at TechED US last year. Rajinder has taken over and it looks like he is off to a cracking start.

Get it here

b.

PNMSoft joined us at our day of events on the 21st January, to speak on Business Process Management.  A fascinating presentation by Gal Horvitz was greeted enthusiastically by the room.  All in all, a successful session.

b.

BizTalk 2009 CTP is now out along side ESB 2.0 CTP and RFID(Mobile)

BizTalk 2009 supports visual studio 2008 , SQL Server 2008 AND TFS with some great new tooling for development and application lifecycle management.

BizTalk RFID Mobile enhances BizTalk Server RFID by offering device management and offline processing capabilities using Windows CE based machines. BizTalk RFID Mobile is free to all BizTalk Server with Microsoft Software Assurance. With 2009 BizTalk RFID Mobile will be available as part of the  license.

The BizTalk 2009 CTP is available from Here.

The Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Guidance 2.0 is available at Here.

b.

Microsoft have just released the Microsoft BizTalk® Server 2006 adapter for Microsoft Dynamics® CRM 4.0, the adapter has the same functionality as the 3.0 adapter plus :-

•             Support for both 32-bit and 64-bit deployments of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

•             Support for form-based authentication

•             Support the joy that is multi-tenancy

Best of all the adapter is free.

 

Download Here

b.

Microsoft has just updated it’s BizTalk Roadmap , the key change in the roadmap is the introduction of BizTalk 2009. BizTalk 2009 replaces the planned 2006r3 release. The 2009 release should be with us early in 2009 with some great features including development in Visual Studio 2008 :), I have summarised the features below

Updated Platform – Support for Windows Server 2008  including virtualisation using Hyper-V & SQL Server 2008.

Developer & Team Productivity – Support for Visual Studio 2008 , .Net 3.5 and  improved application lifecycle mgmt support including TFS with integrated source control, bug tracking and MSBuild automation.

B2B Integration – new mobile RFID support, enhanced RFID device support, improved AS2 and EDI support

SOA & Web Services - UDDI v.3 Web Services Registry, new Oracle EBS and SQL LOB adapters, enhanced host system integration (MQ, IMS, DB2, CICS) and a new release of ESB Guidance 2.0 patterns and practices.

Microsoft are committing to release a version approximately every two years, which looks good.

I would expect a CTP or Beta soon.

b.

The BizTalk CAT/UE team have just released the “Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Hyper-V Guide”.

It covers Deploying, Evaluating and Testing BizTalk with Hyper-V. if you are even thinking of virtualizing BizTalk read this guide.

b.