In need of more feature? Download the BizTalk 2016 Feature Pack 1
We are used to the Cumulative Updates for BizTalk products, but a Feature Pack release is something new. It comes with some of the capabilities and features that we’ve been waiting for since the first BizTalk 2016 release.
Feature Pack 1 updates
According to Microsoft, these are the new included features.
Application Insights
Send tracking data to Azure Application Insights to use its features, such as analytics, machine learning, diagnostics. Use the Application Insights features to track your instances from receive ports, send ports, and orchestrations.
Operational data feed using Power BI
Send tracking data to Power BI using oData. For example, get a visual representation of your tracking data from your ports and orchestrations. Also, send tracking to Power BI using the Power BI template provided, or create your own.
Management REST APIs in BizTalk
Use REST APIs to remotely manage your BizTalk artifacts, including agreements, suspended instances, unenlisted orchestrations, and more. This new feature provides full support of API REST management endpoints with full swagger support.
Advanced scheduling
The Schedule properties of a receive location include a Time Zone property. When set, the time zone you choose in the receive location is used instead of the time zone on the local computer. For example, set the time zone, or set a recurrence service window for a specific day on a specific month.
Automatic deployments with VSTS
Use Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) to automatically deploy your solutions, or update existing applications. VSTS communicates with an agent installed on the BizTalk Server. This means that now we have an improved automatic deployment and application lifecycle management (ALM) experience.
Connect to SQL Server Always Encrypted columns with BizTalk Server
The WCF-SQL adapter can query encrypted columns in SQL Server. The ColumnEncryptionSetting binding property is used to enable or disable the functionality to get decrypted/encrypted column values from an Always Encrypted database.
You can download the BizTalk 2016 Feature Pack here.
Also, check our post about BizTalk 2016 Cumulative Update here.
Keep tuned in because we will cover the configuration of each new feature in future posts.