Reply to: Biztalk - rant of the day

[portseven]

Pah, Biztalk, a good Perl monkey could do the ETL better

[scotspine]

[biztalk] What a crock.

that took you a while...

[ChimpMaster]

Apologies for resurrecting such an old thread.

I've been playing around with Biztalk on and off for a couple of years and am just about to embark on a Biztalk bootcamp. I've been an e*Gate developer for about 5 years but the contracts have been drying up and it looks like there's plenty of Biztalk opportunities out there.

Having seen the negative comments about biztalk I was wondering what integration engines/technologies you would recommend, considering rates, learning curve and contract opportunities.

OMG eGate, thats a blast from the DotCom Crash past.

Go for IBM TX, it's far far better than BizTalk and IBM are ramping it up by merging it with Websphere IB which is tulipe and they can't get rid of it so they're just gonna merge it with TX.

[hunterm]

Apologies for resurrecting such an old thread.

I've been playing around with Biztalk on and off for a couple of years and am just about to embark on a Biztalk bootcamp. I've been an e*Gate developer for about 5 years but the contracts have been drying up and it looks like there's plenty of Biztalk opportunities out there.

Having seen the negative comments about biztalk I was wondering what integration engines/technologies you would recommend, considering rates, learning curve and contract opportunities.

[Weltchy]

That definately comes under the header of piss poor performance on their part then!!!!

[AtW]

Does not matter - Biztalk is good on your CV and it is so sh1t that companies will pay top dollar for it - I still get people calling me for Biztalk contracts after finding my CV on, errr, Google - but my memories of Biztalk are so bad that I ain't going for it

[DimPrawn]

This is 2006 edition. Yes it is pricey and yes you need a SQL 2000 or 2005 backend too. It is also sucky and can't cope with Microsoft file formats.

It's not like many companies have data and data exports to XL files is it?

[AtW]

BizTalk itself is not exactly cheap, and you probably need SQL server to run it - at least we did when I used Biztalk 2002 - nice idea, but poorly implemented at the time, clearly never used for serious tasks - had to work around a lot of stuff.

HTH

[DimPrawn]

Business Analyst. Development is being done by a very expensive consultancy company well known in the Biztalk field.

Me "The majority of the data is in XL and is automatically exported to file folders ready for Microsoft Biztalk to consume it."
Them "We can't consume it. You will have to employ someone to sit all day and open XL files and save them as CSV"
Me "Use a custom or 3rd party pipeline?"
Them "No. We won't. It's your fault for using horrible proprietary files from Microsoft. You see Microsoft products can't deal with Microsoft file formats. "

[Weltchy]

I know! I've written loads! But I'm not writing it you see! And those that are refuse to! So there!

And why should I! It's a crock of a product!

Fair enough point. So what exactly is your involvement in this project then, and why don't you tell those lazy, good-for-nuffin bizTalk consultants to sort it out and write the damn pipeline.

[DimPrawn]

Write your own bloody pipeline then. Its not difficult!!!!!

I know! I've written loads! But I'm not writing it you see! And those that are refuse to! So there!

And why should I! It's a crock of a product!

[DimPrawn]

These "blue chips". How much do they spend on these IT projects?

I only seem to get little friendly companies these days who pay me £400/day to sit at home and drink tea and stuff.

These big "blue chip" contracts sound great. Please tell more.

[Weltchy]

Does Biztalk natively consume XL files? Nope. You have to save them all as CSV or some other tulip it can cope with.

Write your own bloody pipeline then. Its not difficult!!!!!

[milanbenes]

are you talking from experience or hearsay ?

if you're gonna be a tape changer why not be a tape changer for the biggest projects

Milan in 'trying to get into .Net' mode.

[sasguru]

that's cos you always contract to noddy sme's

you need to go to some blue chip companies with real big budget projects

Milan.

Aye. The blue chips even provide you with gloves for tape changing, eh, Milan?