• Chart: BizTalk Server Editions and Limits

BizTalk Server 2006 will cost slightly more than its predecessor, and a low-cost version for smaller businesses has been eliminated. BizTalk Server is Microsoft's server product for enterprise application integration, business-to-business electronic commerce, and other tasks that involve integrating disparate applications and users into a larger business process. New features in BizTalk Server 2006 could simplify solution deployment and management, and some important bundled features could also speed integration projects involving the most common types of enterprise applications and mainframes.

New Features Aid Deployment and Monitoring

BizTalk Server 2006, which was released to manufacturing in Apr. 2006, is the latest version of Microsoft's server product for enterprise application integration (EAI) scenarios, such as connecting a company's warehouse and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems; business-to-business e-commerce, such as issuing and receiving purchase orders between business partners; management of business processes, such as purchasing approval; and customer relationship management (CRM) that involves both people and applications.

Like earlier versions, BizTalk Server 2006 includes a core engine with two main functions:

Messaging. BizTalk Server provides data format translation, protocol translation, and message routing for communications between applications being integrated.

Business logic. BizTalk Server includes an orchestration engine that provides execution and coordination of complex and long-running transactions among multiple applications communicating over the message layer. It also includes a business rules system that enables developers and business analysts to build and deploy detailed business rules (such as geography-based shipping rules or customer-specific discounts) in BizTalk applications.

Customers create "BizTalk applications"—solutions that run on the BizTalk Server engine and integrate the specific applications of interest to the customer. Microsoft and other vendors also offer BizTalk accelerators and adapters, which provide components for vendor- or industry-specific integration tasks (e.g., supply chain integration for electronic components businesses using the RosettaNet standards).

BizTalk Server 2006 delivers few changes to the core engine. It does include several features to help deploy and monitor BizTalk solutions, such as the following:

• Improved setup routines that help install many of the prerequisites (e.g., the .NET Framework) for BizTalk Server
• Application packaging tools that enable developers to package BizTalk applications into Windows Installer (.MSI) files to simplify deployment
• A Web-based interface to BizTalk's Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) feature, which enables administrators and business analysts to check on the state of BizTalk solutions through a browser.

Adapters, Mainframe Integration Bundled

BizTalk Server 2006 also introduces packaging changes that could reduce the cost of building BizTalk solutions. Specifically, the base product now includes a large lineup of adapters and other components for tying specific types of systems into BizTalk Server solutions. Significant bundled adapters include those for IBM's MQSeries message queuing system, and for J.D. Edwards, Oracle, SAP, and Siebel products.

BizTalk Server 2006 also bundles Host Integration Server 2004 Enterprise Edition, Microsoft's product for integrating Windows with IBM zSeries mainframe and iSeries midrange host applications and with IBM DB2 databases. Bundling Host Integration Server with BizTalk Server supports industries where many of an organization's important applications still run on mainframes. For example, a bank might use Host Integration Server to put a Windows front end on its mainframe-based core applications, then use BizTalk Server to integrate that front end with other reporting and customer service systems.

Microsoft still plans to maintain Host Integration Server as a separate product. The next version, code-named Dawson, is due in late 2006. It will deliver a BizTalk Server adapter for host integration, which will enable BizTalk Server to send and receive messages through Host Integration Server; this will eliminate some "shim" code that developers have to write to combine the two products today. The company has not indicated whether this adapter will be free to BizTalk Server 2006 customers.

Together, the bundled adapters and Host Integration Server give BizTalk Server developers a jumpstart on integrating the most common types of enterprise applications. Developers will still have to develop BizTalk orchestrations and business rules for their specific business processes (e.g., for human resources or orders-to-cash processes), but the technical aspects of communicating with a particular application will occupy less developer time.

Higher Prices for More Capabilities

BizTalk Server 2006 costs more than BizTalk Server 2004. The estimated retail price for the Enterprise Edition is US$29,999 per processor (versus US$25,000 for its predecessor), and the estimated retail price of Standard Edition is US$8,499 per processor (versus US$7,000). The Partner Edition, which cost US$1,000 per processor, has been discontinued, although customers who have Software Assurance on Partner Edition will be able to step up to Standard Edition at no charge. Microsoft continues to offer a Developer Edition (US$499 per user) for nonproduction use. Limits on installation sizes and processors have also changed for Standard Edition. (See the chart "BizTalk Server Editions and Limits".)

BizTalk Server 2006 solutions that use even one bundled adapter or Host Integration Server will probably incur lower software license costs than similar solutions with BizTalk Server 2004. However, BizTalk Server 2006 will cost more than BizTalk Server 2004 for integrating custom applications, which will not be covered by the bundled adapters. The higher prices will also disappoint smaller organizations that might have used Partner Edition to connect to larger trading partners.

Resources

BizTalk Server 2006 improvements were previewed in "Improved Management in BizTalk 2006 Beta" on page 8 of the Sept. 2005 Update.

Adapters and other additional BizTalk Server components are outlined in "BizTalk Server Accelerators and Adapters" on page 17 of the Oct. 2005 Update.

For a comprehensive overview of BizTalk Server, see the Oct. 2004 Research Report, "BizTalk Server 2004 Drives Microsoft's Integration Strategy."

Microsoft's BizTalk Server Web site is www.microsoft.com/biztalk.