The BizTalk Server team blog sneaked out an announcement yesterday that you might have missed. I caught it due to an RSS feed. BizTalk Server 2010 R2 is coming. Now the question is when, and a better question will they change the name, as they should to BizTalk 2011?

We have a while to wait, no firm dates yet, but since it adds support for Windows Server 8 and SQL Server 2010 (codename Denali) which don’t have announced release dates yet either, that isn’t too much of a surprise. They are saying about six months after those products release. Support for Visual Studio 11 was also part of the announcement.

It doesn’t sound at all earth shattering, more just a bit of a jiggle. It may calm some of the fears as they are frequently bandied about from the title of the article, that BizTalk is a dying breed. Rest assured that QuickLearn will be on the forefront of training for this new product as soon as a beta is available.

In addition to support for the new platforms another point of interest is a change to licensing making it possible to provide BizTalk as a hosted service , and to transfer a license to a hosting provider. This is obviously a step in moving BizTalk into the cloud, a change that has long been planned. We’ll have to see what that means as to whether Microsoft will be a possible provider themselves (a la Office 365 and SharePoint online).

That’s about it for what’s new unless you are interested in IBM host integration there are some adapter improvements that way. For the whole article check out the BizTalk Team blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/biztalk_server_team_blog/archive/2011/12/08/biztalk-server-2010-r2.aspx

Until next time, see you in the funny papers.

Score a free e-book from Microsoft Press - Moving to Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 (Microsoft Press, 2011; 336 pages), written by Patrice Pelland, Pascal Paré, and Ken Haines. You can download a PDF of the book here.

Microsoft is offering a free e-book to partners. Learn about the features of Windows Server 2008 R2 in the areas of virtualization, management, the web application platform, scalability and reliability, and interoperability with Windows 7. Sign in to download Introducing Windows Server 2008 R2, written by industry experts Charlie Russel and Craig Zacker along with the Windows Server team at Microsoft.

Sign in to Microsoft Partner site to download the free e-book.

Microsoft has just released BizTalk Server 2010, and it is now generally available! Along with this release comes an updated licensing structure that will be a relief for consultants, and companies managing multiple BizTalk environments. While the cost of the Enterprise edition has increased, the cost of the Developer edition has been eliminated. The Developer edition includes the full capabilities of the Enterprise edition, with the limitation being only that you cannot use it in production.

The pricing and licensing page sums this up saying:

Note: Many customers who deploy BizTalk Server implement separate development, testing, and production environments for their BizTalk Server 2010 solution. For the development and testing environments, you can use the free download of the BizTalk Server Developer Edition.

For the production environment, you need a valid processor license of BizTalk Server 2010 Enterprise, Standard, or Branch Edition for each processor on which you install an edition of BizTalk Server 2010.

I applaud this move by Microsoft, as it could encourage a new generation of developers to download and experiment with this powerful platform. This is a move that could drive adoption while at the same time potentially lower the TCO for those organizations managing multiple environments. Given the nature of BizTalk Server, I trust that this will not result in an equivalent of Eternal September for the BizTalk community, but don’t quote me on that remark.

To further help out developers that are new to BizTalk Server in general, we are offering a major discount on our BizTalk Developer Fundamentals online course. Simply use promo code BT2010 when you register, and you will receive $295 off a self-paced registration. This offer expires at the end of September, so act fast!

Finally, go and get BizTalk Server 2010 while it's still cached at a CDN server near you!

Get sneak peak of QuickLearn’s BizTalk Online Anytime Training and learn about new features in BizTalk 2010 including:

• Enhancements to the BizTalk Mapper
• Adapter and Integration Changes
• Improved Trading Partner Management
• BizTalk Server Settings Dashboard
• New OpsMgr Management Pack
• Updated Platform Support

See all of QuickLearn’s BizTalk Training Courses