When I started my career with BizTalk, people told me the vendor would sunset BizTalk Server, but it didn't happen. Higher versions are still being released. The product will not face the sunset. A lot of companies are working on BizTalk Server for large-scale integrations. I recommend the tool if an organization wants to process large data through an on-premise system. To perform well, we must undergo a lot of training to learn about the orchestration process. If someone plans to buy the product, I suggest they do a thorough R&D since the cost is quite high since it comes with SQL Server. They must do some R&D to understand why they want to use BizTalk. They must understand whether it will be an organization-wide process for the middleware system, such as SR data, finance data, and internal billings. If they want to do a lot of processes, they can use BizTalk. If they want it only for finance or HR data, I suggest using a cloud-based product. People must evaluate tools based on the volume of data and how many processes they will take care of. The Business Rules Engine works well. The latency depends on how many applications we are running. If an EDI is processed by the tool, the orchestration will consume memory. It will be faster based on how many EDIs are processed. The memory will be at stake if we process one lakh EDIs simultaneously. The tool will release the transaction based on our concurrency. The AS2 communication is pretty fast. If we load more than the specified limit on the BizTalk Server, it will be dead until we terminate the instances. If someone wants to use the solution, they must have basic programming knowledge like C#, .NET, and SQL because they need to design the C# function during orchestration. If a person has basic programming knowledge, they can kick start the training. There are a lot of modules available. They can take three months of training. After the training, they can start working on projects from the fourth month onwards. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.
I would rate this solution as seven out of ten. I have learned a lot from working on BizTalk server. There are new features we can implement in that time. For transactions, they can simplify all of the values for schema-free use. If they want to pick one field from the schema, they can write an excerpt in the expression shape and the orchestration. There's an advantage with using BizTalk. Basically, BizTalk is an XML to XML transaction, so it's better to use BizTalk server. My advice is to understand the client's expectations. Do they want a more secure way of using third party services? Based on their requirements, we can determine whether they should use BizTalk or upgrade to Azure. If someone wants to use BizTalk, they need to buy VMs and install Visual Studio, SQL Servers, and BizTalk Server. They also need to buy all of the licenses. They will need Microsoft support initially for deployment, Azure, and maybe even DevOps tools. If they install BizTalk Server in a different way, they will want to deploy the DLLs and SSLs to PowerShell scripts in DevOps. DevOps lays out the activities they're using. If there are heavy transactions in the SQL Server, they have to upgrade their sequencer hosts and DVs. I would recommend Azure instead of BizTalk. For Azure integrations, there are also API capabilities. Right now, my organization is using Azure, so they're using SFTP folders, but it's intermittent service. All of these activities have moved to the cloud. It's a more secure way of data transactions through the use of tokens. It can be restricted, and you can convert it into API and bond policies. It's more secure.
My advice to anyone considering implementing BizTalk into their organization would be to consider something newer because BizTalk is losing its value. It has been replaced with Azure Functions or Azure Applications. Overall, I would rate BizTalk Server a five out of ten. It is not modern, however, it is alive and kicking.
From a stability standpoint, I would rate the solution 9.5 out of 10. From a manageability standpoint, it's more like a 7 out of 10. Overall, I would rate it at 8.5 out of 10.
When I started my career with BizTalk, people told me the vendor would sunset BizTalk Server, but it didn't happen. Higher versions are still being released. The product will not face the sunset. A lot of companies are working on BizTalk Server for large-scale integrations. I recommend the tool if an organization wants to process large data through an on-premise system. To perform well, we must undergo a lot of training to learn about the orchestration process. If someone plans to buy the product, I suggest they do a thorough R&D since the cost is quite high since it comes with SQL Server. They must do some R&D to understand why they want to use BizTalk. They must understand whether it will be an organization-wide process for the middleware system, such as SR data, finance data, and internal billings. If they want to do a lot of processes, they can use BizTalk. If they want it only for finance or HR data, I suggest using a cloud-based product. People must evaluate tools based on the volume of data and how many processes they will take care of. The Business Rules Engine works well. The latency depends on how many applications we are running. If an EDI is processed by the tool, the orchestration will consume memory. It will be faster based on how many EDIs are processed. The memory will be at stake if we process one lakh EDIs simultaneously. The tool will release the transaction based on our concurrency. The AS2 communication is pretty fast. If we load more than the specified limit on the BizTalk Server, it will be dead until we terminate the instances. If someone wants to use the solution, they must have basic programming knowledge like C#, .NET, and SQL because they need to design the C# function during orchestration. If a person has basic programming knowledge, they can kick start the training. There are a lot of modules available. They can take three months of training. After the training, they can start working on projects from the fourth month onwards. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.
I recommend the product since it has helped us with verification and messaging. I rate it a seven out of ten.
You need to consider a modern system instead of BizTalk Server. I rate it a two out of ten.
I would rate this solution as seven out of ten. I have learned a lot from working on BizTalk server. There are new features we can implement in that time. For transactions, they can simplify all of the values for schema-free use. If they want to pick one field from the schema, they can write an excerpt in the expression shape and the orchestration. There's an advantage with using BizTalk. Basically, BizTalk is an XML to XML transaction, so it's better to use BizTalk server. My advice is to understand the client's expectations. Do they want a more secure way of using third party services? Based on their requirements, we can determine whether they should use BizTalk or upgrade to Azure. If someone wants to use BizTalk, they need to buy VMs and install Visual Studio, SQL Servers, and BizTalk Server. They also need to buy all of the licenses. They will need Microsoft support initially for deployment, Azure, and maybe even DevOps tools. If they install BizTalk Server in a different way, they will want to deploy the DLLs and SSLs to PowerShell scripts in DevOps. DevOps lays out the activities they're using. If there are heavy transactions in the SQL Server, they have to upgrade their sequencer hosts and DVs. I would recommend Azure instead of BizTalk. For Azure integrations, there are also API capabilities. Right now, my organization is using Azure, so they're using SFTP folders, but it's intermittent service. All of these activities have moved to the cloud. It's a more secure way of data transactions through the use of tokens. It can be restricted, and you can convert it into API and bond policies. It's more secure.
My advice to anyone considering implementing BizTalk into their organization would be to consider something newer because BizTalk is losing its value. It has been replaced with Azure Functions or Azure Applications. Overall, I would rate BizTalk Server a five out of ten. It is not modern, however, it is alive and kicking.
From a stability standpoint, I would rate the solution 9.5 out of 10. From a manageability standpoint, it's more like a 7 out of 10. Overall, I would rate it at 8.5 out of 10.