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Implementing your Next-generation Integration Platform (from Gartner)

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Gartner firmly positions Microsoft as one of the undisputed leaders in the Integration space with a strong emphasis on the value proposition of our platform and our firm commitment to BizTalk & Integration Platform. You can find more information at Magic Quadrant for Application Infrastructure for Systematic Application Integration Projects:

Figure 1. Magic Quadrant for Application Infrastructure for Systematic Application Integration Projects

Figure 1.Magic Quadrant for Application Infrastructure for Systematic Application Integration Projects

Source: Gartner (October 2010)

Microsoft

On its seventh release, BizTalk Server is Microsoft's primary integration technology. In 2009, Microsoft garnered 13 % of the ESB suite market software revenue. Its 2010 release (due before YE10) will be tightly integrated with Visual Studio, Team Foundation Server and its AppFabric offering.

Strengths

  • Brand recognition, global reach, mind share and a huge installed base of products that is leveraged for BizTalk Server sales, and results in the availability of skills, services and add-ins that fit within the environment.

  • BizTalk Server installed base of more than 10,000 customers — two-thirds are estimated to be BizTalk Server 2006 Enterprise Edition or newer versions, establishing a broad base of mature and stable products with proven track records.

  • Microsoft will offer AppFabric Connect to integrate BizTalk Server 2010 with Window Server AppFabric, making it easier to leverage Windows Workflow Foundation and Windows Communication Foundation.

  • While Microsoft plans slight price increases for all BizTalk Server 2010 editions, its per-processor pricing, combined with the ability to run virtual instances at no additional charge, makes it the least-expensive perpetual license of commercial offerings that Gartner analyzed.

Cautions

  • Microsoft offers extremely broad support for Web Services standards (WS*). However, the usefulness of that support is dampened by the lack of widespread demonstration of interoperability of advanced Web Services standards (e.g., Web Services Addressing [WS-Addressing] and Web Services Eventing [WS-Eventing]) with Web services stacks from other vendors.

  • Integration — in particular, the integration required to support services for mission-critical services and applications — is best approached systematically. While Visual Studio 2010 offers UML modeling and Team Foundation Server integrates with BTS 2010, Microsoft's tooling still encourages opportunistic development. This does not imply that Microsoft tooling cannot be used systematically; rather, it is a caution not to use Microsoft's tooling opportunistically for mission-critical interfaces.

  • For a registry, Microsoft offers a bare-bones Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) 3.0 implementation. Team Foundation Server offers some life cycle management features for Visual Studio artifacts. System Center offers operational policy management in a Windows environment. However, to obtain one set of technologies that supports design time and operational governance across assets deployed in a distributed heterogeneous environment, most users rely on technologies from Microsoft partners like HP and SOA Software.

  • Most vendors are extending their SOA messages and technologies to support BPM. Although it has invested in improvements to Workflow Foundation in .NET 4, Microsoft continues to leave key BPM tooling to its business process alliance partners.