Integrate 2016 – What an Event!

Last week I had the privilege of attending the world’s largest integration event this year, Integrate 2016 in London. A big thanks to my employer Mexia for sending me. As is typical for events organised by BizTalk360, it was on an especially grand scale (27 sessions with 25+ speakers) and did not disappoint in the content presented by members of the Microsoft product team and the MVP community.

Day 1 of the three day event featured a number of announcements from Microsoft that clarified their vision and direction for integration, even more so than the Integration Roadmap delivered at the end of last year. Showing their commitment to BizTalk Server as the on-premises integration platform and Logic Apps as the cloud platform provided some much-needed reassurance and comfort to the community. “BizTalk and Logic Apps better together” is the mantra underpinned by the addition of a Logic Apps adapter in the upcoming BizTalk 2016 CTP2 release and the new BizTalk Connector soon to be introduced in Logic Apps.

Without explicitly stating it, it also became rather apparent as to what is “on the outs” in the integration space:

• • Microsoft Azure BizTalk Services (MABS) is likely to be deprecated as both the VETER pipelines and the EDI/B2B functionality moves into Logic Apps by way of the Enterprise Integration Pack;
  • Azure Stack is no longer being touted as the on-premises integration platform; rather BizTalk Server will continue to be king of that domain.

I’ve already posted an article on Mexia’s blog giving my rundown on all the sessions presented by Microsoft and the  significant announcements. Soon after I followed up with a summary of the many MVP sessions that rounded out the conference.  In addition, there are plenty of other blog posts from the community giving their thoughts and recaps of the event; here are just a few:

• • Evolving Microsoft Enterprise Integration Services (Microsoft)
  • INTEGRATE 2016 – A Recap of Day 1 & Announcements from the Product Group (BizTalk360)
  • Updates on Azure Service Bus – INTEGRATE 2016 Day 2 (BizTalk360)
  • Integrate 2016 Summary (BizTalk360)
  • A Solid Vision for Integration – Day 1 Integrate 2016 (Steef-Jan Wiggers)
  • Integrate 2016 – Day 1 Recap (Kent Weare)
  • Integrate 2016 Wrap-up (Kent Weare)
  • Integrate 2016 – Highlights from the Microsoft Product Team Sessions (Gijs in ‘t Veld)
  • Integrate 2016 – Day 1 (Axon Olympus)
  • Integrate 2016 – Day 1 Recap (Rob Fox)
  • Wrapping Up Integrate 2016 (Rob Fox)
  • Integrate 2016 – Day 1 (Codit)
  • Integrate 2016 – Day 2 (Codit)
  • Integrate 2016 – Day 3 (Codit)
  • Integrate 2016 – My Take-Aways (Eldert Grootenboer)
  • Integrate 2016 (Jean-Paul Smit)
  • Integrate 2016 – Highlights (Wagner Silveira)

Besides Microsoft’s clear roadmap message and the excellent presentations, perhaps the best thing about this conference was the opportunity to catch up with colleagues and friends from around the world – and meet new ones as well!

(photo by Thomas Canter)

(photo courtesy of BizTalk360)

(photo by Tara Motevalli)

(photo by Steef-Jan Wiggers)

Kudos again to Saravana Kumar, BizTalk360, Microsoft and all the sponsors for making this such an outstanding event! Looking forward to Integrate 2017!