BizTalk Roadmap Update

BizTalk Server will continue to receive updates, but much of Microsoft’s future development effort will focus on Windows Azure BizTalk Services, a Microsoft-hosted cloud service. BizTalk is Microsoft’s product line for application integration, business-to-business commerce, and related functions. Microsoft revealed the latest roadmap at a “BizTalk Summit” event in Nov. 2013. It plans to rapidly expand the scope of the Microsoft-hosted service to match that of the software, hoping to enable faster deployment of BizTalk systems with lower infrastructure costs, especially for systems with Internet-facing components.

BizTalk Server Software to Be Maintained

BizTalk Server is Microsoft’s software for application integration and business-to-business commerce systems, and it enables organizations to tie together existing applications into larger business processes with minimal changes to the applications themselves. The software is commonly deployed on-premises, but it can be hosted by partners or by Microsoft in the company’s Windows Azure Virtual Machines (VMs) service. BizTalk Server is projected to receive new versions annually, alternating between minor (R2) versions and major ones. (See the illustration “BizTalk Server Releases and Retirements“.)