BizTalk Server 2013 R2 - Latest and Greatest

What's New BizTalk Server 2013 R2

• Visual studio 2013 for Developers
• Windows Server 2012 & R2
• SQL Server 2012 & 2014
• SQL Server Database Mail. SQL Server 2005 Notification Services is not supported any more for BAM Alerts
• Based on .NET Framework 4.5.1
• SB Messaging On-Premises
• JSON (WCF-WebHttp Adapter - *RESTful & Relay with Server 2013)
• MLLP Adapter enhancements
• SFTP enhancements Cipher(3DES, AES)
• Performance Monitoring
• XSLT enhancements introduced with BizTalk Server 2013

Hidden Gems

• BizTalk Health Monitor (great articles by Chirag)
  • https://blogs.msdn.com/b/biztalkhealthmonitor/archive/2014/06/26/getting-started-with-biztalk-health-monitor-bhm.aspx
  • https://blogs.msdn.com/b/biztalkhealthmonitor/archive/2014/06/26/overview-of-biztalk-health-monitor-bhm.aspx
  • BHM is backward compatible with previous editions of BizTalk Server
• JSON Support
  • Wizard to generate Schema
  • Pipeline component to EnCode and Decode
• OnPrem SB Messaging Integration - Hybrid Application
  • You can use the SB-Messaging adapters to bridge the connectivity between Windows Azure and on-premises BizTalk Server 

MLLP Adapter Enhancements

• 64 Bit
• ETW Adapter level tracing
• Dynamic port enabled
• Performance Counters introduced to the MLLP adapter
• The ACK/NACK is created by the adapter. This was needed to boost performance(this was introduced last year)

Migration Opportunities

• You could import application MSIs as far back as BizTalk Server 2006 R2. This however, will not upgrade the BizTalk assemblies to .NET 4.0
• The above is not completely applicable to EDI solutions.

Known Issues

• Missing BizTalk Server development artifacts(only available are Flat File Schema Wizard and JSON Schema Wizard)
• if you have installed VS2013 Update 2; you could potentially be missing several BizTalk development artifacts. To resolve this please uninstall the VS update 2
• BizTalk Health Monitor

Comments

• Anonymous
  July 01, 2014
  It's nice  to see you post on your blog!  Keep them coming.

• Anonymous
  July 01, 2014
  You cannot uninstall VS 2013 Update 2 if it was included in the ISO. You have uninstall VS 2013 completely.