News

Microsoft Pulling Plug on Azure BizTalk Services

• By Kurt Mackie
• June 02, 2017

Azure BizTalk Services, which is used by organizations to bridge hybrid connections between the Internet and on-premises business applications, will be "retired on May 31, 2018," Microsoft said in a post this week.

In addition, new subscriptions aren't available anymore, since Microsoft ended them on Wednesday.

Azure BizTalk Services was used to address messaging transport complexities for premises-based enterprise applications, such as Oracle EBS, PeopleSoft or SAP systems, as well as SQL Server. Instead of using Azure BizTalk Services for those purposes, though, Microsoft wants organizations to shift to using its Azure Logic Apps and Azure App Service Hybrid Connections.

According to Microsoft's Web site, "Azure Logic Apps meets and exceeds the capabilities found in BizTalk Services." Azure Logic Apps provides "over 100 connectors to cloud and premises-based apps."

The deprecation plans for Azure BizTalk Services don't apply to the server version of the product.

"This consolidation is not changing the BizTalk Server product," the Microsoft post stated.

Microsoft's last server product was BizTalk Server 2016, which was released in October. Based on descriptions last year, it seems that the server version of the product will stick around to address the hybrid network needs of organizations. However, organizationally speaking, the BizTalk team is already now part of Azure teams at Microsoft.