Another year has gone by, and looking back, it has been an amazing year for me. The year started with becoming a MVP, for which I am thankful and honored. I want to once again thank everyone who has helped me reaching this astounding accomplishment, with special thanks going out to my buddy Steef-Jan, who has been like a mentor to me.
Became a MVP
In the previous post, we have seen how we can implement the Message Router pattern when working with Logic Apps. As discussed, Logic Apps are a great fit if you have a limited set of endpoints to which you want to route the message, and if you have a need for various connectors. In this post we will look into another technology to implement this pattern, Azure Service Bus Topics. Topics are a great solution if we want to implement a publish / subscribe mechanism.
Azure Service Bus Topics
When implementing software, it’s always a good idea to follow existing patterns, as these allow us to use proven and reliable techniques. The same applies in integration, where we have been working with integration patterns in technologies like BizTalk, MSMQ etc. These days we are working more and more with new technologies in Azure, giving us new tools like Service Bus, Logic Apps, and since recently Event Grid. But even though we are working with new tools, these integration patterns are still very useful, and should be followed whenever possible. This post is the first in a series where I will be showing how we can implement integration patterns using various services in Azure.
Message Router Pattern
After having shown how to send our custom events to Event Grid in my previous blog post, we will now see how we can create custom subscribers. Event Grid will be integrated with all Azure services, but by allowing us to create our own custom subscribers as well, we can truly route events to any service or application. And what’s more, we will also see how we can use the API to create a subscription from our subscriber, allowing us to quickly onboard new services, which can then start listening to the events which are of interest to them. In this sample, we will create an Azure API App, which will receive the events from our previous blog post, and store them in Azure Table Storage. On starting, the API App will check if the subscriptions it uses are created, and if not, it will create them and point them to the various endpoints the API App exposes.
Azure Event Grid
In my previous post I showed how we can use the recently announced Event Grid service to integrate Azure services with each other. In this post, I will show how we can send custom events from any application or service into Event Grid, allowing us to integrate any service. My next post will show you in detail how we can subscribe to these custom events.
Integrate any service or application
Yesterday Microsoft announced their newest service on Azure, and it is called Azure Event Grid. With this new service, we now have event based serverless routing, from any source, to any destination. Of course, we all love integration, and Azure Event Grid brings a whole new world of possibilities. The service is currently in public preview, and we already have various publishes and event handlers to our disposal, and more will be rolling out over the coming months. In the end, expect every service within Azure to have a connection to Event Grid.
Event Publishers and Handlers
Last week, June 26th to 28th, Integrate 2017 was once again held in London. This is the largest integration centered event, and a great way to have fun with the community, see amazing sessions, and get to meet the product groups. I have been to these events since the beginning, and have seen it grow into one of the best events around.
Last week I was in Lisbon for TUGA IT, one of the greatest events here in Europe. A full day of workshops, followed by two days of sessions in multiple tracks, with attendees and presenters from all around Europe. For those who missed it this year, make sure to be there next time!
Just under two weeks away, TUGA IT will be held once again in beautiful Lisbon. TUGA IT is three days full of sessions, workshops, meeting the experts, and having a great time. After having visited last year as a participant, I am honored to have been selected as one of the speakers this year.
For quite some time, BizTalk was not getting the love it deserved. Sure, we got our platform alignment, and sometimes a new or updated adapter, but all in all, there were not many exciting new features. That changes now, with the just released Feature Pack 1 BizTalk 2016. In this feature pack, we are seeing more new features than we have in a long time, and shows that the product team, with our very own Tord at the helm, really is caring about the product once again. If you look at the user-voice page for BizTalk, you will notice a lot of suggestions are being made by the community, and this feature pack shows that we are actually being listened to as well! In this post, I will go into the new features being introduced.
