BizTalk Server 2013 is now Released to Manufacturing (RTM)!

I am excited to announce that BizTalk Server 2013 is now Released to Manufacturing (RTM)! BizTalk Server 2013 makes it easier than ever to build hybrid applications that span on-premises and the cloud.

BizTalk Server 2013 will be available on MSDN starting March 21. The English locale SKUs will be available for purchase starting April 2013. Other language SKUs will be available for purchase starting May 2013. 

This is the eighth release of BizTalk Server, another step in the on-going investments we are making in BizTalk.  In this release, we have focused on the “One BizTalk” vision and have invested both in the on-premises server and in the cloud. The cloud offerings, which will be released soon, include Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) capabilities as well as Platform as a Service (PaaS) capabilities. Please stay tuned for exciting updates on this topic in the near future.

For the on-premises BizTalk Server 2013 release, we have focused on the following themes:

·        

         Cloud Connectivity

·         Ability to run existing BizTalk applications in the cloud (IaaS)

·         Improved Performance

·         Simplified Development and Management Experience

·         Support for the latest platform and standards

In terms of features, this translates to

• Integration with Cloud Services – BizTalk Server 2013 includes new out-of-the box adapters to send and receive messages from Windows Azure Service Bus, making it easy to build hybrid solutions. It also provides capabilities to host BizTalk endpoints in Azure through the Service Bus Relay providing a simple and secure way to connect external partners and application to BizTalk Server on-premises. New adapters include
  • WCF-BasicHttpRelay
  • WCF-NetTCPRelay
  • SB-Messaging
• RESTful services – BizTalk Server 2013 provides adapters to invoke REST endpoints as well as expose BizTalk Server artifacts as a RESTful service.
• Enhanced SharePoint adapter – Integrating with SharePoint using BizTalk Server 2013 is now as simple as integrating with a file share. We have removed the dependency on SharePoint farms, while still providing backward compatibility.
• SFTP adapter –Enables sending and receiving messages from an SFTP server.
• ESB – The ESB capabilities previously introduced in the ESB Toolkit are now fully integrated with BizTalk Server and the ESB configuration experience is vastly simplified to enable a quick setup.
• Dependency tracking - The dependencies between artifacts can now be viewed and navigated in the Admin console.
• Improvements in dynamic send ports –You now have the ability to assign a host handler per adapter, providing better scales and performance for dynamic send ports.
• XslCompiledTransform – The mapping engine now makes use of the enhanced XslCompiledTransform API, which provides significant improvements in mapping engine performance for complex maps.
• Ordered Send Port improvements –We have made changes to the BizTalk runtime engine which significantly increases the performance of ordered send port scenarios, for example in HL7 solutions that use the MLLP Adapter.
• BAM Alerts update – In previous releases of BizTalk Server, BAM Alerts feature had a dependency on SSNS (SQL Server Notification Services). With the current release of SQL Server (SQL Server 2012), SSNS is no longer available. However, we have made sure your existing BAM Alerts scenario work just the same even if your backend is targeting SQL Server 2012. If your backend is SQL Server 2008 R2, you will continue to require the dependency on SSNS.

·         Support for latest LOB version and protocol standards - Additionally, we also support the latest LOB versions and protocol standards. For B2B, the enhancements include

• Support for X12 5040, 5050, 6020, 6030
• Support for EDIFACT D06A, D06B, D07A, D07B, D08A, D08B, D09A, D09B, D10A, D10B
• HL7 2.5.1

With this release, we are also moving to a per-core licensing model to keep BizTalk consistent with our SQL Server licensing.  The changes to BizTalk Server licensing reflect the evolution of the industry, along with new hardware deployment practices. With these changes, Microsoft will continue to offer industry-leading TCO to our customers.

Under the new Per Core licensing model, the net price impact to individual customers will vary based on how they deploy BizTalk Server 2013, their current capacity, and their future needs. For customers who are running BizTalk Server software on processors with four cores or less, the license cost for 

BizTalk Server 2013 remains consistent with BizTalk Server 2010, as core licenses are priced at one quarter the cost of a processor license. For customers running servers with higher capacity processors, licensing cost will grow with the increased power of their hardware. 

BizTalk Server 2013 offers expanded virtualization rights, options and benefits to provide greater flexibility when deploying in virtual environments. When deploying BTS 2013 in a virtual environment, you have the choice of licensing either individual virtual machines (VMs) as needed or to license for maximum virtualization to support highly virtualized and private cloud environments.

For more information on the per-core licensing, go to the InfoPedia site and download the customer-facing document “;BizTalk Server 2013 Licensing Datasheet and FAQ”.