Overview

The Microsoft ESB Guidance provides architectural guidance, patterns, practices, and a set of BizTalk Server and .NET components to simplify the development of an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) on the Microsoft platform and to allow Microsoft customers to extend their own messaging

Announcing the Availability of the BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0

The BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0, formerly known as the ESB Guidance, is now available on MSDN. The BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0 is a collection of tools and libraries that extend BizTalk Server 2009 capabilities of supporting a loosely coupled and dynamic messaging architecture. It functions as middleware that provides tools for rapid mediation between services and their consumers. Enabling maximum flexibility at run time, the BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0 simplifies loosely coupled composition of service endpoints and management of service interactions.

Important Note: The BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0 only works with BizTalk Server 2009. Customers who are using ESB Guidance 1.0 are strongly encouraged to upgrade to BizTalk Server 2009 and the BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0. ESB Guidance 1.0 will be deprecated in August 2009. Also, proactive monitoring of the ESB 1.0 forums will no longer take place after the BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0 is released.

Learn More

See the "BizTalk ESB Tookit 2.0" page on the BizTalk Developer Center on MSDN. This is a dedicated ESB page for developers and architects who are interested in ESB has been created on the BizTalk Developer Center. This ESB page provides basic information about the BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0 and useful links to relevant resources.
See the documentation for the BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0. It is available just below the BizTalk Server 2009 product documentation in the MSDN Library. It is also available on the Download Center.

Download

You can download the BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0 from the Microsoft Download Center with a standard stand-alone, free software end-user license agreement (EULA). The toolkit is packaged as binaries and samples in a Windows Installer. The source code for signed binaries will be available as a separate download (date to be determined).

Community and Support

The BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0 Connect site has been created to log bugs with the BizTalk ESB Toolkit Team and to provide updates to additional tools over time. Once you log a bug, someone from the BizTalk ESB Toolkit team will respond to you within five days with an acknowledgment and status. Any future updates or tools will be provided through the Microsoft Download Center.

In addition, an ESB Toolkit Forum is provided on MSDN. These forums target online communities—in particular BizTalk MVPs and other BizTalk community lists. Best-effort assistance will be offered through a closely managed forum. That is, any fixes and responses to questions in the forums are best effort. We will continue to leverage the community to provide peer assistance, although with the capability of issuing fixes if necessary.