The Stack of Technologies grows…and yet more and more they look alike.

I am glad to see the new Windows Workflow 4.5 allows “design by contract” for Windows Communication Foundation Services. This is a great thing…and it’s the way Mighty BizTalk has worked for years.

Yes, the Mighty BizTalk has been the biggest and baddest in the Microsoft stack of technologies for years. It looks easy, but I have NEVER been on a project that BizTalk handled everything. Custom Pipeline Components and helper class libraries have always been a necessity. BizTalk has been hard to configure, manage and maintain. Suffered from bad implementations by people (including me) that just didn’t know what was going on inside the box.

It is a harsh learning curve that can be both rewarding and expensive in time and company resources.

I am glad to see a lighter weight alternative come into the space with the Microsoft brand attached.

…just remember WHY we did BizTalk in the first place…message persistence…just in case the recipient isn’t available.