Yes indeed, the ESB Guidance is going to experience a name change once version 2.0 is released later this month.  The ESB Toolkit 2.0 (set to release in mid June) offers so much more than just guidance that we needed to make the name more clear. I want to point out that this is more than just a name change or marketing scheme. Version 2.0 of the Toolkit 2.0 contains a ton of new enhancements over version 1.0 and since these enhancements are going to be key for most BizTalk shops, we needed to take some dramatic steps to mature the Toolkit from its initial “open source”/”best effort support” roots and make sure that is is enterprise ready and fully supported. We also realized the components in the toolkit offer a ton of value right out of the box and they no longer really act just as “guidance”. these are ready to use, valuable components for organizations building out their SOA infrastructure.

A couple of key points about ESBT 2.0:

  1. From now on, the toolkit will be available via MSDN and not via Codeplex
  2. We’re not going to be making the source code available like we did in version 1.0. This is tied to our planned changes around the toolkit’s support model.
  3. As a first step to increasing support, we are launching a public forum on MSDN to provide stronger community support for the toolkit Microsoft employees will be monitoring this forum.
  4. Beyond this, additional support measures are going to be phased in over the next several months. Eventually, you should be able to receive full support for the components in the toolkit via standard Microsoft support channels such as Premier.
  5. Dramatically simplified install process (the old install guidelines I posted last year and now thankfully useless). I’ve managed to complete my latest install in less than 20 minutes.

Also, kudo’s need to go out to Dmitri Ossipov and his team who have done a great job of developing this. Most BizTalk shops will find that they will want to leverage some part of the toolkit for their future projects.

 

I’ve fallen drastically behind on my plans to release a number of “how to” videos for the ESB Toolkit 2.0. However, with the release coming soon, I' hope to change that quickly. Check back soon for some new “how to's” on two way synchronous routing, service composition (or service chaining), building your own ESB ready orchestrations etc.

 

Cheers and keep on BizTalking…

 

Peter