BizTalk Server 2006 and Beyond

Microsoft is planning on two new releases of BizTalk server. The first one will be called BizTalk Server 2006 (code named Pathfinder).

Some of the new features BizTalk Server 2006 may include are:

• Integration with Visual Studio 2005 (.NET 2.0)

• Support for both SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005

• Support for Virtual Server 2005

• Simplified Installation, Migration, and Deployment

• Improved Business Activity Monitoring (BAM)

• Windows 64-bit support

• New Management Console (Visual Studio no longer required for management)

• Wizard for creating Flat File Schema

• New Adapters such as POP3, Sharepoint, MQSeries, and MSMQ

• Enhancement to existing adapters (SMTP, FILE, and HTTP)

• Processing of Larger Messages

• Better Message Handling: Endpoints (Orchestration & Send Ports) can now subscribe to failed messages as well

• New Functoids (IsNil, Nil, and Assert) for Mapping

• XSLT Debugging

The second release, known as BizTalk vNext, is due sometime in 2007 or maybe later and is expected to take...