Will Dublin replace BizTalk Server?

Some time ago Microsoft’s application server Dublin was announced and the BizTalk community was watching closely. Seeing WF and WCF integrated in Dublin got a lot of developers wondering whether it was Microsoft’s intention to replace BizTalk in the long run.

For a detailed discussing you should read Charles’s Young blog ariticle Dublin and BizTalk Server – What’s the difference?  You can find it at: http://geekswithblogs.net/cyoung/archive/2008/10/15/125848.aspx

I?l just give some highlights and quotes I?l gathered reading around on this topic.

Microsoft describes Dublin as an “Application” server, and BizTalk Server as an “Integration” server.

Microsoft architect Igor Sedhukhin: “Dublin is not intended to be an integration server at all,” he said. “We aren’t trying to put all the adaptors in Dublin. BizTalk is really focused on that integration scenario.”

Product Unit Manager Dan Eshner: “Dublin really is a hosting environment for WF and WCF services,” Eshner said. The goal, he added, was to take the heavy lifting and skill requirements out of invoking WCF and WF services. “You can make these services work without Dublin, you just got to do some stuff. You’ve got to get all the configs set up and you got to do some work, create services out of them,” he said.

Dublin won’t have the transforms and adaptors found in BizTalk. “BizTalk as an integration server is much more powerful than what you get with an app server like Dublin.”

So if you hear developers ditching BizTalk already in favor of Dublin “you can persist WF’s to SQL Server and it can talk to anything over WCF; it does everything BizTalk can and its free”… you might want to point out some major differentiators (for details see Charle’s article):

  • Differentiator 1: It’s the Message Box, stupid: fully supported integration.
  • Differentiator 2: Vote XLANG/s for president: complex orchestration.
  • Differentiator 3: Stronger regulation needed: central administration.
  • Differentiator 4: Investing in the market: supported message protocols.
  • Differentiator 5: Putting Lipstick on Pigs (oh come on, give me a break…): rich tooling.
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