Some good news in the BizTalk and Host Integration Server (HIS) world:
- The new Host Integration Server Team Blog has launched! Looking forward to good content on the new features in HIS 2006.
- The BizTalk Developer Center in MSDN has new content for december, focusing on integrating BizTalk with Windows Communication Foundation and Workflow Foundation:
- The Reference Application Pack for Retail whitepaper: Presents one possible reference architecture for retail (store-oriented) applications based on Web Services and standards like IXRetail. The whitepaper comes with a sample implementation of a part of the model using WCF, BizTalk Server and Business Scorecard Manager.
Windows Workflow Foundation and BizTalk Server 2006 Code Sample: This is a simple example of integrating WF with BizTalk by having a workflow invoke a BizTalk orchestration exposed as a WebService. The scenario is that of a purchase order workflow validating the order and based on the total amount it either suspends it or sends it over to BizTalk for further processing.