IntegrationNewsletter
July 2018

Welcome to the Integration newsletter!
Hi there!
This monthly newsletter is all about Microsoft Integration and here is the first edition. It provides links to resources we think can be of interest to you as an Integration enthusiast. For future editions, we intend to evolve the newsletter and make it as useful as possible. Feel free to share any suggestions!
In this edition, you will find the following sections:
- Announcements
- Webinars and Video logs
- Blog posts
- Resources
We hope you find the information valuable, but if you think we are missing something in this newsletter, do let us know!
Announcements
BizTalk Server releases and Cumulative Updates (CU’s)
Here we provide a short announcement of the latest updates which were recently brought by Microsoft.
BizTalk Server 2016 Feature Pack 3 (June 25th)
This update to BizTalk Server 2016, which also includes CU5, contains new and improved capabilities for integrating BizTalk Server workloads with Office 365 Outlook Email, Calendar, and Contact resources.
When you are running SQL Server 2016 Availability Groups, you will be interested in that, combined with BizTalk Server CU5 (see below) and SQL Server 2016 SP2, you can have multiple BizTalk databases in the same SQL Server instance. This capability makes your deployment cheaper and less complicated. Read more about this in the article by Samuel Kastberg, who is a Microsoft Premier Field Engineer (PFE), wrote on his blog.
BizTalk Server 2016 Feature Pack 3, with CU5, can be downloaded here.
BizTalk Server 2016 Cumulative Update 5 (June 25th)
End of June, Microsoft also released CU5 for BizTalk Server 2016. If you only want the hotfixes, without the added value of Feature Pack 3, you can download this one. This update contains fixes for the following adapters:
- SFTP adapter
- MQSeries adapter
- SAP adapter
Further, it includes fixes in, amongst others, the following areas:
- Administration tools and Management API’s
- Support for TLS 1.2
- Support for SQL Server 2016 SP2
If you want to read more on this CU, read the Cumulative Update 5 for Microsoft BizTalk Server 2016 article.
BizTalk Server 2013 R2 Cumulative Update 8 (March 21st)
Microsoft BizTalk Server product team has released Cumulative Update 8 for BizTalk Server 2013 R2. For more information.
Note: BizTalk Server 2013 and 2013 R2 went out of mainstream support July 10th, Extended support is available until July 2023.
Most recent BizTalk Server CU’s
This section shows the most recent Cumulative Updates (CU’s) for BizTalk Server, the BizTalk Server Adapter Pack and the BizTalk Server Accelerators. As such, it will make it easy for you to check, whether you have the latest updates installed on your environments.
Azure Integration offerings
Webinars/Video Logs
Azure Logic Apps Live!
Azure Logic Apps updates, directly coming from the Microsoft Pro Integration Group, Redmond!
Their most recent recordings are:
Some sessions have also been converted to blog articles by BizTalk360. If you prefer to read a blog article, rather than to view the recording, check the blog articles, including some other Logic App related content.
Integration Down Under
Recently, Martin Abbott, Dan Toomey, Wagner Silveira, Rene Brauwers and Bill Chesnut started the Integration Down Under Webcasts. This initiative runs in Australian/New Zealand time zone and can be compared with the Integration Mondays, which run in UK time zone.
So far, the following sessions are available via YouTube:
Follow the Twitter feed of Integration Down Under (@integration_du) to be informed of upcoming sessions!
No sessions are planned until the summer holidays are over. However, we are working on new sessions post summer holidays. So, do stay tuned!. Future sessions, including links to the registration site, can be checked at the Integration User Group website.
Past events can be checked here.
Another successful initiative is the Middleware Friday recordings, which are done by Kent Weare and Steef-Jan Wiggers. For more than 1.5 years now, they record sessions (duration 15-20 minutes) on Microsoft Integration and publish them via the Integration User Group.
At the moment, Kent and Steef-Jan are taking it a bit slower by bringing session every alternate week- due to summer break, which will last until September.
Most recent sessions were:
Check all the Middleware Friday sessions at the website!
Blog Posts
We collected several exciting reads for you, check them out here:
Resources
BizTalk resources
-
An authority when it comes to BizTalk Server. This website exists for about 13 years now and contains 11.000 posts and 5000 forum topics!.
-
The BizTalk documentation portal from the makers of BizTalk Server. Besides documentation on BizTalk Server, you will also find information about Host Integration Server.
-
1000’s of forum items on all kind of BizTalk Server topics.
-
100’s of articles and resources on all aspects of BizTalk Server and integration.
-
Want to be updated from first hand? Follow the blog of the product team.
-
For Microsoft Integration, Azure, BAPI, Office 365 and much more.
-
Available on GitHub (at the moment only BTS 2016).
-
Public repository for Microsoft BizTalk Server open source community extensions: code samples, BizTalk Artifacts adapters, tools and so on.
Azure Integration resources
-
Here, you will find links to free Training, Events/Webinars, Videos, White Papers, Case Studies. Downloads of SDKs, Code Samples and the Azure Roadmap.
-
Also a lot of content about Azure can be found at TechNet Wiki.
-
MSDN contains an extensive and active forum on many Azure topics.
-
Another forum on Azure can be found on TechNet. Check it out here.
-
The Azure Product Team uses this blog for announcements etc.
-
The team behind Azure Logic Apps blogs about their updates here.
BizTalk360, Kovai Ltd., LEFA Business Park, Planwell House, 35 Edgington Way, Sidcup DA14 5BH, United Kingdom