An important date is coming up for users of BizTalk Server 2013 and 2013 R2. The end date for extended support of these servers is 11 July 2023. In effect, this means the end of life and Microsoft will no longer support the product, meaning no further support tickets can be raised and there will be no further security updates or fixes.
Whilst being outside of support and your servers being vulnerable is a compelling reason to migrate on its own, benefitting from new features in the latest Biztalk version may also make it more appealing. Or you may want to take this time to migrate your BizTalk servers to the cloud and Azure Integration Services.
Additionally, it’s also a good time to upgrade other Microsoft platform components that BizTalk may depend on. For instance, you may want to upgrade to a SQL Server version that isn’t supported by your current version of BizTalk Server. For more information: The BizTalk Lifecycle – BizTalk Server Versions End of Life.
Benefits to Modernising Your BizTalk Servers
Aside from access to support and security, there are two other large drivers in modernising. The key is of course the latest features and functionality available in newer versions.
The second is that due to the nature of BizTalk, it is interacting with and may depend on a large range of other applications which may not be supported by an older BizTalk version. As time passes, this becomes more of a factor, with newer software being designed to make the most of the latest BizTalk features and increased functionality in newer applications no longer being compatible with older BizTalk versions.
If you need help modernising your BizTalk Server, please reach out to us.
