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BizTalk-as-a-Service dog wags Microsoft's on-premises tail

Two-year plan will harmonise middleware's cloudy and on-premises release cycle

Microsoft has signalled it will harmonise the feature set of the cloudy and on-premises versions of its BizTalk Server.

Redmond's blogged announcement of the intention to have BizTalk Server and BizTalk Service may not look remarkable at first glance: hardly anyone jumps out of bed in the morning excited about their day working with middleware, while the likes of MuleSoft and Oracle already offer cloudy connectors for the enterprise.

But there's an interesting wee detail in Redmond's post, which explains that features are added to BizTalk Service “every three months”.

“The release cadence [for BizTalk Service] is much faster than for on premise BizTalk Server,” the post continues. “

Here's the most interesting bit:

“Over next two years we will see an increase of integration demands for enterprises with emerging cloud, mobile devices and the Internet of Things. Microsoft will invest in both BizTalk Server and BizTalk Service to provide its customers a compelling set of features. The company will ultimately thrive for symmetry of features sets for both technologies.”

The internet of things stuff isn't the interesting part, but we left it there for context. The last two sentences do appear interesting, as they indicate Microsoft seems keen match the speed of updates to XaaS and on-premises software.

BizTalk's role as a connector of differing technologies makes it a prime candidate for that kind of accelerated release cycle, especially if used in hybrid cloud mode. And if all Microsoft will do is add new connections it sounds like the kind of thing that can be done without giving sysadmins complex update chores.

Yet even if the post can't be taken as a sign that Redmond is considering a speedier release cycle, it does show that there may well be times where the cloud dog will wag the on-premises software tail.

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