Category: BizTalk Server 2010

Before I uninstall BizTalk Server 2010 Standard Edition and go back to Developer I thought I’d run one additional test that points to a limit with Standard and a peculiarity “discovered” earlier this year that I can’t take any credit for noticing. It’s blogged about here – In essence: BizTalk Server 2009 Standard supports 6 “custom” BizTalk applications, not just the five that the license mentions. Or rather – It supports 5 additional applications on top of the ones created by install/configure by default (for those of you that do not understand what the term application means at this point, and how it affects us, can read this link). So the question then is – Does this hold true for the 2010 Standard RTM as well?

Sure enough, as you would expect, I am stopped from creating more than 5 additional applications by the following dialog.

I can however rename BizTalk Application 1 and use that for whatever purposes.

I can also just delete the BizTalk Application 1 and create a new application named whatver-I-want.

So. The answer to the question I asked above is – Yes it holds true. BizTalk Server 2010 Standard allows 6 applications on top of the BizTalk.System application, which is read-only. Nothing has changed from 2009 on this account.

With BizTalk Server 2010 going RTM I was interviewed briefly about the release in the last issue of the Swedish podcast show MSDN Radio. Link to show is here. It’s in Swedish. I’m on at about 5:20 in, but it has lots of other interesting content as well.

I generally try not to blog about the same thing as countless others do, but being a BizTalk MVP I feel obliged to make some notes about the release of BizTalk Server 2010 as it really is big news.

BizTalk Server 2010 has actually been RTM for a while and available to Volume License customers for a short period of time already. It will become available for general purchase on October 1st – or so the official announcement on the BizTalk Team Blog says. That post does a good job of covering the news in the release, as does the microsoft.com New Features in BizTalk Server 2010 page. For an even more comprehensive write-up download the Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010 Technical Overview white paper.

There are also numerous other MS web pages that have been updated. I’ll try to highlight a few of the things I haven’t seen mentioned so far and provide links to the more important ones:

• Editions
  • The Development Edition is now a FREE download and the page clearly states that it’s the one to use for development and testing environments, which is a relief since it’s a discussion I’ve been in more than once regarding the use of MSDN licenses.
  • The BizTalk Adapter Pack is no longer licensed separately. You need at least STD for this.
• Pricing and Licensing Overview
  • BizTalk Server has gotten slightly more expensive for the production environments ($44k ENT, $10k STD).
  • Current limitations with STD are still there: Single Server, Two procs AND as it seems limited 64-bit support. The technet 64-bit Support pages seems to confirm that STD still has a 64-bit exception when compared to other versions.
    • Update 20100930: Product Group representatives says the documentation is incorrect and Standard DOES SUPPORT 64-bit. Good thing that was included.
    • Update 20101001: It’s proven! 64-bit supports standard. Se blog post here.
  • The AppFabric Connect feature is an installation option. Since I see now real licensing info about it I’m assuming it’s not stand alone. And since the pre-requisite of the Adapter Pack that makes some of that magic happen is packaged with STD (and up) I can only assume at this point that using the mapper in production also requires at least STD. I would still argue that it could be well worth it to enable scenarios like this.
• Pricing and Licensing FAQ
  • There is a running discussion on how long Microsoft can continue to license per socket instead of heading in a slightly different direction as the number of cores become more and more. Whenever (if ever) that happens. It’s not now. BizTalk continues to be licensed per proc.
  • The ISV Licensing (formerly Runtime Editions) is still there. This is not a really well known possibility but essentially it allows you to package BizTalk as part of you product. The customer can’t use it with any products except your own. It’s hard to get a quote for this as it isn’t publicly listed anywhere, but it’s way cheaper that ordinary licenses. I have a quote, but I don’t want to put it out there. You could probably just call your local MS rep or Licensing partner to get your own.
• System Requirements
  • You should not be fooled by the fact that it says minimum 2GB of RAM. If you install BizTalk on a 64-bit system you will want at least 4GB or RAM. And I’m saying that even though Windows Server 2008 (R2) says that its minimum system requirements are 512MB. I suppose no one reading would want to try that either.
• BizTalk Developer Center
  • Has been updated with a lot of new content for BizTalk Server 2010 and October’s theme is the BizTalk Server 2010 Launch.
  • There’s also a BizTalk Server 2010 Training Kit available. It contains 6 labs for the Developer and 3 for the Admin that highlight new features. It’s great to see the Admin getting some much needed love on the training side. There is also 6 videos available weighing in at a 823MB download.
  • Alot of other online content like the tutorial scenarios seems to have been getting an overhaul as well (as you would expect) showing of screenshots of the new mapper and other new features.
• Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010 Help
  • Except for the updated online version there are numerous downloadable documents. The Installation and Upgrade guides as well as the CHM – which personally, I couldn’t do without.
• MSDN Subscriptions
  • So far there is no availability through this channel. I would love to see an .iso for the Developer Edition as I’m not to fond of keeping extracted catalogs around, or self-executable zip files. Keep this feed in your feed reader to be notified when it arrives.
    • Update 20101001: Enterprise, Standard, Branch (.iso’s) and Developer (still as .exe) are available at MSDN.
• Upgrading from Beta
  • Although some people (like Brian Loesgen) seems to have been able to upgrade seamlessly from the beta, I couldn’t. I got an exception saying that the Enterprise version was installed and that I had to uninstall before installing. Fair enough. My Beta version does register as Enterprise in the Add/Remove programs dialog.
• Errors and issues
  • Among the downloadable documents there is a readme file that lists known issues.
  • If you follow Microsoft Connect you can see tickets beginning to form around the new release. Things like “Unable to uninstall or repair BizTalk Developer Edition once installed“, “Unable to re-host the Mapper Activity“, “The new Monitor BizTalk Server database job fails with more than 10 hosts”
• Misc new features and updated tools
  • Most new features have been mentioned, but the last Connect Issue gives me reason to mention an addition that hasn’t really seen the light of day yet – The Monitor BizTalk Server SQL Agent job (towards the bottom of the page). When it runs it scans your BizTalk databases for inconsistency and reports it back. It does not however correct them.
  • Also the ever so useful MessageBoxViewer has been updated to support BizTalk Server 2010.

That ended up being quite a lengthy post. But then again… I’m a superstar and that’s how I do it! I hope it helps.