Hi,

I have got 6+ years of experience in Microsoft domain with specialties in Asp.Net(C#), MVC-4, Ms Sql Server, WCF, Web Services, LINQ etc. Now I want to get enjoy some specific domain of Microsoft but not leaving behind what I know. Domains which attracted me most are Biztalk and Sharepoint and among them Biztalk is #1. 

However I read so many articles about biztalk which put me in dilemma because everywhere it said Biztalk might go away in future. I did not get it exactly "will go away". Some say Biztalk on Azure, Biztalk360 is something worth to pay attention. If Biztalk is going to go away or change in near future, what exactly is going to happen. What should senior Biztalk expert do in that case. Shall he be able to leverage his experience when new version of Biztalk (Biztalk 360, Biztalk Azure or whatever it is going to be) as he already knows integration concepts, orchestrations, maps, adapters etc?

There are facts saying that there are very lesser jobs in Biztalk in market. Why so? Is it because market has got other  integration applications like Tibco, Web Sphere which people know since long and Biztalk came after them and has got less resources as of now or what ?

Now I want to know in first place if diving into Biztalk world is worth while keeping in mind its future rumours. And as a biztalk expert do you feel like going little away from hard core coding as you would do as senior .NET developer?

Regards

Pirzada Jeelani

BizTalk 360 is a management add-on to BizTalk Server.  Anyway...

BizTalk Sever is not going away anytime soon as there is no credible alternative on the market now* or in the foreseeable future, and that includes what Microsoft itself is doing.

*The WebSphere suite (or whatever IBM is calling it now) is the only possible/maybe/wouldn't-completely-dismiss-it-offhand competitor.  Nothing else is even close, CastIron, Mule, Tibco, WebLogic and what have you.

BizTalk app dev is a very different experience from 'regular' .Net because the integration space is different.

• Marked as answer by Biztalk Future 40 minutes ago

BizTalk 360 is a management add-on to BizTalk Server.  Anyway...

BizTalk Sever is not going away anytime soon as there is no credible alternative on the market now* or in the foreseeable future, and that includes what Microsoft itself is doing.

*The WebSphere suite (or whatever IBM is calling it now) is the only possible/maybe/wouldn't-completely-dismiss-it-offhand competitor.  Nothing else is even close, CastIron, Mule, Tibco, WebLogic and what have you.

BizTalk app dev is a very different experience from 'regular' .Net because the integration space is different.

• Marked as answer by Biztalk Future Tuesday, February 10, 2015 10:46 AM

BizTalk 360 is a management add-on to BizTalk Server.  Anyway...

BizTalk Sever is not going away anytime soon as there is no credible alternative on the market now* or in the foreseeable future, and that includes what Microsoft itself is doing.

*The WebSphere suite (or whatever IBM is calling it now) is the only possible/maybe/wouldn't-completely-dismiss-it-offhand competitor.  Nothing else is even close, CastIron, Mule, Tibco, WebLogic and what have you.

BizTalk app dev is a very different experience from 'regular' .Net because the integration space is different.

• Marked as answer by Biztalk Future Tuesday, February 10, 2015 10:46 AM

Hi Pirzada,

"Future of BizTalk", this is one topic which has been discussed a lot lately both in general forums and BizTalk Summits.

Steef Jan has shared his views in his article which will clear most of your doubts about BizTalk as a integration tool and its future.

As rightly mentioned by him, BizTalk Server has been around for over thirteen years and has matured to a full featured on premise enterprise integration product with more than 13000+ customers worldwide.

Check out this session of Guru on the future of BizTalk Server for more details.

http://www.biztalk360.com/video/future-of-biztalk-server/

http://www.biztalk360.com/biztalk-summit-2014-london/

 

The release cadence of the Microsoft Integration is as follows:

• Major Version of BizTalk Server every 2 years
• Minor Release of BizTalk Server every alternate year
• BizTalk Services will follow a release cadence of 6 months

Rachit

Integration is a discipline. This is going to exist in some form or the other always because we've moved out of monoliths into specialized/niche software which had to fit into an enterprise. In having to fit, it will always rely on integration technologies/interfaces to access data not-native to itself and to provide access to its data to others. Since integration is a means to an end, there is never a FINAL state so as more technologies emerge that promise reliability, the integration expands to embrace that to evolve new concepts such as JIT, on-demand, etc. So if you learn integration as a discipline, the name of the product or tools you use to achieve the integration shall never fade.

BizTalk as a product provides a framework to leverage the use if integration discipline to provide a solution to scenarios where multiple applications need to share data. As such the product continues to leverage new technologies as and when they emerge (WCF was alien to 2004 but became native to 2006) and so on.

On a lighter note, the BizTalk market is tight because increasingly people are ditching other products to embrace BizTalk as a platform so everyone wants to be involved with integration with BizTalk and the integration market is not exactly exploding.

My 2 cents. (IMHO and FWIW too).

Regards.