Why BizTalk Server 2010 R2 should be BizTalk Server 2013

That BizTalk Server 2010 will have a successor and that the working title of that release is BizTalk Server 2010 R2 was announced at the BizTalk Server team blog in december 2011 and re-announced by folks like Kent Weare, Charles Young, Saravana Kumar, Steef-Jan Wiggers among others.

What some of them hints at but doesn’t discuss further is that the version naming “2010 R2” might not stick. There are good grounds for such guesses. Historically BizTalk Server 2009 was initially called BizTalk Server 2006 R3 before the renaming was announced and BizTalk Server 2010 was called BizTalk Server 2009 R2 when first announced before it too was renamed.

One might argue that the R2 is a good suffix in this release since it is a minor release, without an abundance of new functionality. That’s true.

One might argue that there is only so much to a name, the important thing is that Microsoft is showing that it will continue to maintain and carefully evolve the product. Not so I say.

There is one very important thing that goes into that name that should not be overlooked or underestimated – the support lifecycle. Microsoft’s support lifecycle policy says that products will have 5+5 (mainstream+extended) support. However, that applies to major versions. An excerpt:

“Minor releases follow the same Support Lifecycle as the major product release.

An example of this is Windows Server 2003 R2 which has the same Mainstream Support phase and Extended Support phase dates as the parent product, Windows Server 2003. Likewise, Windows Server 2008 R2 follows the same Support Lifecycle dates as the initial release of Windows Server 2008″

If the product will be BizTalk Server 2010 R2 (and assuming it will follow the general rule), it will not get an extended support lifecycle end date. Except for what is stated in the general policy you can see examples of this scheme throughout the product chain. BizTalk Server 2006 and 2006 R2 are the closest examples, but also Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2, and SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 both follow suit. In all these cases the R2 version does not start a new 5+5 year period. Where as with BizTalk Server 2006 R2 to BizTalk Server 2009 and again to BizTalk Server 2010, we got new lifecycle support dates.

One of the major asks around BizTalk Server before the announcement was for Microsoft to clearly show its continued support for BizTalk Server as a product – they did that, but here is hoping that they will strengthen that statement further by giving us a BizTalk Server 2013 (or 2012).

HTH
/Johan