Migration from Biztalk 2004 to Biztalk 2006

I recently converted a Biztalk 2004 project to Biztalk 2006. Believe me this time MSFT is right when they say that "Migration is very Simple". From my experience, all the orchestrations, pipeline, schemas and Maps (All Biztalk Artificats) were migrated without any changes. Some changes were required for some of the .Net functions that changed their signature from Studio 2003 to Studio 2005. Below are some screen shots of the wizard.































































(This Final step gives the Migration Report)

BTW: Biztalk 2006 RTM is ready to roll!

Coming soon!

I am in process of writing a research paper on Business Integration in general and how Biztalk positions itself in the grand schema of things.

Difference in HAT screens

I noticed that the HAT screen in 2006 is different than 2004. Actually there are certain functionalities that are absent in 2006. i.e "Operations" and "Configuration".
see below:

Trying to figure out as if how to terminate the "instances" in 2006 . In 2004 it was done by going to "Operations" and terminating the instances. Do not see anything similair in 2006 as for now. I think I have the answer, it can be done from Biztalk Admin Console

Some New Features in Biztalk 2006

Biztalk 2006 has some little changes here and there that can contribute to efficiency. Some of them are:

1) Having a "drop" down on the top pane of Solution Explorer window.

As in Biztalk 2004 version there was a horizontal scrolling to view all the artifacts contained in the solution. This was very frustrating at times because one could not see all the artifacts at once and needed to keep clicking to get to the right one. 2006 has a drop down that gives the list of all the artifacts at once and one can just click the required one.

2) File adapter (recv and send) contains an option for authentication.

As in 2004 version, biztalk service account had to have full permissions on the shared drive that contains the receive or send folder. In 2006 it need not be. Any user name and password that has permissions to the shared drive can be used to access the shared driver from Biztalk Explorer. It need not be Biztalk service account.





















3) File Adapter Batching

The receive location has option of batching the incoming file. This option was not available in 2004.

Event Name: BizTalk Server 2006 First Look Clinic - Iselin, NJ

I registered for this seminar.

For interested people :

Session Code: 1032288971
Session Name: BizTalk Server 2006 for DevelopersSession
Location: Microsoft NJ Office/Long Beach Conference Room
Session Room:
Session City: IselinSession
Start Date: 04/04/06