BizTalk Server 2006 Beta 1: Download!

 We have just posted Beta 1 of BizTalk Server 2006, visit here and register to gain access to the Beta 1 Build, it’s open to all!

BizTalk Server 2006 (codename Pathfinder) is a great leap forward especially with regard to the Setup and Administration tools that have been completely reworked and address a huge amount of pain that customers have had with BizTalk Server 2004, all of the demos I’ve done so far of the new MMC Snapin which integrates a lot of the “Live” Reporting features of HAT with a fully capable Administration tool has blown customers way.

On top of that there are some awesome improvements with BAM which makes it even better; I’ll detail some of those soon. Per Host Throttling is another crucial improvement, it’s not cool or shiny so doesn’t tend to get noticed but you can now control engine throttling on a per host basis rather than a per BizTalk Group or Service Class (Inbound, XLANG, Outbound, MSMQT) basis in BizTalk 2004 which is far too “global” for most customers needs, if you wanted to throttle say one outbound Web Service (via the SOAP adapter) you would have to throttle all outbound adapters which meant other areas of your system suffered.

More on the other bits of Pathfinder over the following weeks, in the meantime get it installed and try it out! J