BizTalk Server has always benefitted by a strong community of contributors. One might argue that the PRIMARY reason that BizTalk took hold with so many shops is the availability of information in newsgroups, blogs, user groups, open source projects, and discussion boards. For the longest time, the official Microsoft documentation was a bit thin, so the community provided the depth of information that developers needed. Clearly Microsoft has done a significantly better job explaining the guts of BizTalk and providing solid samples and tools, but, the BizTalk community is where I still look to for creative ideas and innovative solutions.
All that said, I’m glad to see that Southern California is finally getting BizTalk (and WCF/WF) user groups set up. Group discussion and debate is often where the best ideas originate. In SoCal we now have …
- San Diego Connected Systems Special Interest Group
- Orange County Connected Systems Special Interest Group
- Los Angeles Connected Systems User Group
Southern California has dozens of BizTalk customers, ranging in scale from 70+ processors to one processor. Each organization has unique use cases, but there’s a wide cross-section of common challenges and best practices. We also have some of the brightest and most forward-thinking implementation partners, so I’ll be jazzed to hear what those folks have to say as well. I’m looking forward to hanging out with the LA UG crowd.
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Richard Seroter's Architecture Musings 