November
7th,
2005
With the launch of Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005 and BizTalk 2006 today, the new licensing scheme for BizTalk 2006 has been announced. Scott Woodgate talks about it here.
Personally, I feel the licensing changes are great. Sure, it raises the price a little bit, but some of the more problematic restrictions have been lifted, and I am glad Microsoft has listened to their customers on this one! Some highlights of the changes:
- Everything in a box: All the adapters included in the box, not just the existing ones but also all the new ones Microsoft recently bought (i.e. Peoplesoft, Oracle, etc.). Extremely exciting!
- Two processor support for STD: Standard Edition now supports up to 2 processors (you need to buy two licenses). This is a sweet spot for many of our customers and was one piece of feedback I gave to MS on several ocassions. I'm extremely happy this was changed because it lowers the bar of entry for customers that need more throughput (or just want to take advantage of their existing dual processor servers) but don't want to pay for two ENT licenses.
- Parts of Host Integration Server going into BizTalk Server 2006 Enterprise Edition: This one took me a little bit by surprise, but I believe it is the right move; I've been thinking for a while now that Host Integration Server and BizTalk Server should really be a single product. The functionality included is DB2 database access, the transaction integrator to CICS/IMS/RPG and Host File Access.
All in all, excellent news, I think.