The BizTalk Migrator (or Azure Integration Migrator) was first announced at the Integrate 2020 event in June by Microsoft, and released formally in the October. It is designed to analyse your BizTalk artefacts and convert these to Azure artefacts i.e., Logic Apps, API Management, Functions etc.
BizTalk Migrator/Azure Integration Migrator Warning
However, a word of warning, BizTalk has been around for over 20 years and not all that BizTalk offers is supported in Azure. At the same time, what you have available in Azure is much more than you get with BizTalk. So, any migration will likely be complex and not necessarily straightforward.
Let’s look at the tool in more detail to understand what it can do to help migrate our BizTalk solutions to Azure Integration Services.
The Six Stages of the BizTalk Migrator/Azure Integration Migrator
There are in all six stages:
- Discover
- Parse
- Analyse
- Report
- Convert
- Verify
Discover
DiscoverThis stage requires the MSI of the BizTalk Application and all referenced BizTalk Applications and identifies the BizTalk artefacts to be migrated. It reads the assemblies and Binding file information.
Parse
This stage reads the BizTalk artefacts and builds up a source data model of the BizTalk Application.
Analyse
This stage builds an Azure Integration Services (AIS) target data model using the source data model from the Parse stage.
Report
This stage generates a report of the information created so far. It contains both the source data model and the target data model. The report contains detailed information on the contents of the source and target applications and will also detail any problems with the conversion.
Convert
This stage uses the target data model which creates a set of source files (Azure Templates) that are used to build the application in Azure.
Verify
This stage is not currently built into the BizTalk Migrator but is where you would run the installation scripts to deploy your application to Azure. You can then assess whether the generated Azure application covers the functionality of your on-premise BizTalk Application.
The Migration Process
As stated previously, there is no direct one-to-one conversion of BizTalk artefacts to AIS. What the migrator tries to do is recognize patterns in the BizTalk Application and uses this as a basis for the migration. The BizTalk Application is broken down into a messaging model which has four different parts:
- Endpoints
- Channels
- Intermediaries
- Messages
Endpoints
These are used for external communication with other systems and are similar to the adapters in BizTalk.
Channels
These are the pipelines which messages use and are the links between components. They provide loose coupling of components as messages are routed between components using a Routing Slip Router pattern.
Intermediaries
These are blocks of logic and represent pipeline components, maps and orchestrations.
Messages
These are the same as what we have in BizTalk and is the data that is passed between the components listed above.
Conclusion
The BizTalk Migrator tool goes a long way to automating the conversion of your BizTalk Applications to Azure but there are areas where you will have to update the generated Azure artefacts i.e., Orchestration Exception Handlers have no equivalent in Logic Apps so any specific code will need to be added manually.
As it is open source, you are able to extend the tool to cover common scenarios in your BizTalk Applications, saving having to make manual changes every time. You can find it here on GitHub.
Get Help With Your BizTalk System
If you need help migrating your on-premise BizTalk system to Azure Integration Services, get in touch and find out how we can help. If migration is not on the cards quite yet, but you’re in need of some BizTalk experts, we are also able to help, just contact us.
