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.

BizTalk Server, BTS, Host Integration Server, HIS, WCF, WF