BizTalk 2003 to AppFabric migration or move to BizTalk 2013

Question

We're a development dept that have 'inherited' a large BizTalk based middle-ware system (100+ orchestrations that run a large number of financial transactions). The system is based on BizTalk 2003 which is now reaching end of life and our systems team want to can it.

Is is possible to migrate from BizTalk 2003/2004 to Appfabric?
I presume if we took this approach we'd have to re-develop the orchestrations to Windows Workflow (which we already use)

Or is a migration to BizTalk 2013 an better (easier) option?

Has anyone come across this situation before?

Thanks Steve.

Answer 1

The two pieces of software have nothing in common, except that they both use the WF libraries.

• AppFabric is a set of services, one of which is to host WF workflows. The workflows themselves are plain low-level WF4 workflows. No special activities or adapters to other systems like Biztalk.
• BizTalk is a server product with rules, adapters to various systems, able to read various business process languages, define orchestrations at a high level,etc, etc

It's almost like comparing IL to LINQ. Yes, there is common ground but not much.