Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009 in an ESB scenario

Shortly after the release of Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009 (BTS 2009) Microsoft also released the BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0. As the version number suggests, this is the second major release of what is formerly known as the ESB Guidance. The ESB Guidance version 1 was released for Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 (BTS 2006) and looked promising, but we never found it production ready. BizTalk ESB Toolkit is only compatible with BTS 2009. On BTS 2006 you would have to take a different approach to build an ESB. We have written an article about our thoughts on this.

We have yet to see an ESB toolkit ESB running in a production environment for a long time, but it seems like the toolkit addresses the issues that makes Queries impractical on an out of t he box BizTalk Server.

The toolkit also delivers a lot of functionality beyond what is needed for the basic ESB. Better error handling, an Itinerary designer and a state of the art management portal are some of the most exciting offerings from the ESB toolkit. It would make sense to leverage this functionality over time as needed by the projects.

The BizTalk ESB Toolkit can be found here.