BizTalk Roadmap, Service Pack Released

BizTalk Server’s next scheduled release (BizTalk Server 2006) will include manageability improvements and support for SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005, Microsoft said in Jan. 2005. The company also plans a BizTalk release after the next major Windows Server release (code-named Longhorn Server); that version of BizTalk will probably ship in 2008. The announcements were preceded by the release of BizTalk Server 2004 SP1, which rolls up almost 100 fixes to resolve problems ranging from low-severity glitches to more severe bugs that could degrade performance or cause data loss.

Service Pack Fixes Broad Problems

Arriving nine months after the Apr. 2004 release of BizTalk 2004, SP1 contains a relatively large number of fixes—perhaps not surprising, given the ambitious scope of the original release. (In contrast, BizTalk Server 2002 SP1 was released 17 months after BizTalk Server 2002 shipped and contained just over 50 fixes.) BizTalk Server 2004 was a nearly complete rewrite of BizTalk Server’s core messaging and orchestration technologies and added major new features, such as a business rule engine, services and programming interfaces for human workflow applications, utilities for monitoring and tracking BizTalk applications, and a development environment based on Visual Studio .NET (VS.NET).