Customer Reviews

Understanding BizTalk

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book come little bit too early. So those tiny information about Biztalk could only cover the JumpStart Kit, instead of a "more complete" Technology Preview / Alpha Version. This book is only for those who need a really quick and high-level introduction on what's Biztalk for. It's not for developers.

The book is a good introduction to Biztalk and Biztalk Server 2000. It could be good course material for a Biztalk Server Lab.

Anyway this book is based on the alpha version of Biztalk Server 2000, it includes photos that doesn't reflect the final product.

The book life is very short.

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The bad news is, this is the ONLY BizTalk Book available. The book is "OK" but the bulk of the book is about XML.

It's an easy read for a geek, but doesn't get very specific or deep into BizTalk Technologies.

Still, readinq it is quicker than playing around with the jumpstart kit.

I hope somebody writes an "in depth" BizTalk book soon !

The authors spend a great deal of time (and many pages) going over XML under the guise of preparing the reader to understand the underpinnings of BizTalk. In reality, they're clearly just filling out the book.

They then touch upon BizTalk itself in as shallow a manner as possible, after which they switch to talking about the BackOffice 2000 offerings that will interact with the BizTalk Server.

Again, the BackOffice products are covered with incredible shallowness.

The case study at the end is more of the same - basically, the user wanted openness and flexibility, so they used XML and BizTalk. Again, no real details.

Unfortunately, there is very little out yet about the BizTalk server. Even so, only the most uniformed managers will learn much new from this book. ....

This book was written before the BizTalk Server product became available. It's a waste of time and money if you are trying to learn the server product.

Here's the deal from a developers viewpoint. 1) The book is about the MS Commerce Server 2000. So if you have the quickstart kit, forget this book. And since I cannot get my hands on an alpha or beta of Commerce 2000, it is mostly useless. Here's 2 key points that will save you the bucks; Commerce 2000 has a catalog API (COM) built on XML and BizTalk is tightly integrated into Commerce 2000. You now owe me the cost of this book! 2) It's an overview book plain and simple. If you are a developer like me and hope to get real info on techniques, or even examples, forget it. There are just about no examples in this book (none of any use). The kit eclipses this book in examples. 3) If there are things that are unclear in the quickstart kit, they will remain unclear after you read the book. And by the way, it is a thin book. And it is clear that they stretched the contents (you developers know what I mean).

But I will say that if you have no idea what BizTalk is and you are a manager not a developer, this book would be of value.

Understanding BizTalk is a great introduction to this new technology and its importance in the future of B2B e-commerce.

It provides a comprehensive, manager-level view, not only of BizTalk itself, but also of the supporting technologies, such as XML, DNA 2000 and SOAP. Understanding BizTalk even discusses a critical but oft overlooked issue: legacy system integration.

The book is intelligently laid out, starting with an overview, then moving into details, planning, and finally onto implementation and a real world case study.

Understanding BizTalk provides IT managers and system architects with everything needed to plan a B2B solution. Credit goes to the authors for distilling a complex technology down to a concise guide (especially considering that the topic is a moving target).