Azure Thoughts, EAI Challenges

Today Scott Guthrie announced a number of great enhancements to Windows Azure. One of these is of interest to us integration professionals: BizTalk Services . A new service in the Windows Azure Platform that enables EDI and EAI integration in the cloud. Now many of you might know or is familiar with previous Windows Azure EAI/EDI labs , which can be considered as a Beta or preview of this new service. In this post and a follow up I like to walk you through the creation of a BizTalk Service (Set up) and use case scenario that leverages the BizTalk Services. I was inspired and guided by the post of Sam VanHoutte, Codit Belgium . In case you have an azure account then you can go to the preview features: https://account.windowsazure.com/PreviewFeatures and try it out. The scenario or use case I am going to use is about providing secure access to a database that contains running data. Let’s say 30.000 people run a half marathon race. Every 5K there is a mark that registers the...

December 2011 almost a year ago I wrote a blog post for TechNet Wiki on Windows Azure- and Server AppFabric . Now on the Server part a cookbook has been released written by fellow Microsoft Integration MVP  Rick G. Garibay and Microsoft Architect Hammad Rajjoub .   I know both Rick and Hammad (both very active community leaders) have done a great job. Windows Server AppFabric can be viewed as a part of the Microsoft Integration Stack together with BizTalk, SQL Server and Azure ServiceBus. For lightweight integration Windows Server AppFabric together with WF (Windows Workflow) and WCF (Windows Communication Foundation) can be a right fit within your enterprise without using the more scalable, robust BizTalk Server or Windows Azure Service Bus. The eBook Contest I have teamed up with Packt Publishing and am organizing a give away especially for you my blog readers. All you need to do is send me an email with your view on Microsoft integration at SteefJan @ msn...

I myself have written a cookbook on BizTalk Server called: BizTalk Server Cookbook 2010 for Packt Publishing. Yet there is another cookbook heading our way from this publisher. Fellow MVP from the “Connected Systems” discipline  Rick G. Garibay and Microsoft Architect Hammad Rajjoub have written a cookbook on Windows Server AppFabric. This book will: Download, install, configure and get up and running with Windows Server AppFabric quickly Learn how to take advantage of distributed caching for providing high performance and elastic scale on-premise today Take advantage of the enhanced hosting capabilities that Windows Server AppFabric has to offer including Auto-Start and a greatly simplified configuration experience Enable support for long-running composite applications that are resilient and fault-tolerant while maximizing computing resources Gain insight into the health of your composite applications seamlessly, both proactively and when something goes wrong Lea...

Recently fellow BizTalk MVP Gijs in ‘t Veld asked me to review his whitepaper “Guidance for integration architecture on the Microsoft Business Platform” , which is now available. I definitely recommend every BizTalk professional to read this and/or let his or her manager read it. The paper gives the reader the most up-to-date facts on the availability and roadmap of Microsoft integration products and it provides you with high level guidance on how to design future proof integration solutions with Microsoft technology, including BizTalk Server and Azure Service Bus. In my view it tells the story on where integration with Microsoft technology is heading and will provide you with a clear view where to invest in now as a BizTalk professional and in the future. For your manager, management and/or client you can now provide a clear story on where Microsoft integration platform is heading. Finally architects will have the ability to create a future proof architecture with guidance provide...