First podcast of 2021 and Danny’s already forgotten what shirt to wear!
In this episode we’re discussing the topic of getting your integration solution migrated into the cloud.
To tackle this topic we first look at what on-premises integration applications look like, using BizTalk server as an example. This is now regarded as OLD technology, and works in a way that is very cloud-unfriendly.
In fact, if you ever read about kittens vs cattle you’d recognise BizTalk installations as very much on the kitten side of things. It’s a great analogy – if you have a ranch with thousands of heads of cattle you don’t lose sleep if one of them keels over. Kittens, on the other hand, are part of the family. You nurture them and love them. (I’d have chosen puppies as the analogy, but I didn’t write it.)
BizTalk servers need loving care. They need tending. You miss them when they go wrong. Hence they’re kittens.
The solution to this is to adopt a modern cloud-friendly integration platform. The migration process for most people is then a rewrite. Expensive, time-consuming, susceptible to error.
Microsoft are attempting something new with the BizTalk Migrator – their migration tool. They are literally decomposing a BizTalk application right back into the fundamental design patterns and then reassembling the application in Azure.
Does it work? Sometimes. It’s definitely a work in progress. Simple applications will migrate well, complex orchestrations leave you with some work to do. The idea is that over time, Microsoft and the integration community will build on the open source project to provide ever more fidelity in the migration of BizTalk applications, meaning you get faster and more predictable migration projects.
You can then go and kill those kittens.
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