In this article I will shed light on some of the available techniques in implementing Hybrid integration models using Azure along with some context with regards to the organizations decisions within the new integration landscape. New Integration Landscape Over the past 7 years or so, Microsoft integration landscape has been evolving going beyond the typical

In integration scenarios where authorization constraints are required for the API protected assets, an authorization solution will be needed to enforce the necessary, fine-grained access control. In this article, I will conduct a walk-through for applying OAuth 2.0 using Azure API management (APIM) and Azure Active Directory (AAD) which provides an authorization solution for an

I recently had an interesting request from one of our customers. As part of their new cloud adoption strategy, the organization was planning to migrate their on-premises systems to Azure, including refactoring their current BizTalk integration layer into Azure workloads. The target was to eventually leverage cloud-native solutions. This blog post will be the first

During the design phase of integration projects, sometimes, the topic of a “Generic API” design comes up usually driven by the need for an extensible API design that can keep up with the changing business requirements. This technique is typically introduced by novice technical people as a “silver bullet” design that can presumably minimize the

I was recently reading an in-depth analysis of the Buy versus Build decision process. In this article, I look back on 3 short real-world stories from my experience when the decision to build a technology was favored for the wrong reasons. I shed light on the key context for each story, the buy vs. build

During my work with delivery teams on solution designs, I noticed a common set of misconceptions regarding Microservices architecture and Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). I will use the following simplified solution to highlight the key points in this article. It represents a typical AKS solution with the key components that include a load balancer, web

Following Microsoft’s recent preview release of the long-awaited Azure Logic visual data mapper, this is a look back on visual mappers in Microsoft real-time integration platforms: BizTalk Server, the deprecated BizTalk Services, and Azure Logic Apps. Visual Data Mappers It is typical in integration solutions to integrate with disparate systems which come with different message

Today, technology is evolving so rapidly, and it is getting increasingly difficult to select the right technology platform from a myriad of technology choices. This article was inspired by the questions and concerns shared by some of my clients regarding the criteria for selecting a core platform. Platform selection criteria The following factors should influence

The uptime service-level agreement (SLA) for cloud-based solutions is sometimes overshadowed by the cloud provider’s availability commitments for its managed services. However, solution providers also have a responsibility towards achieving high availability (HA) requirements, by incorporating resiliency and redundancy into their cloud-based solutions being built using the managed services. In this article, we will look

BizTalk Null Adapters, sometimes called Void Adapters, have existed for quite some time, they are used to get rid of (nullify) unwanted BizTalk messages. These adapters are just like any other BizTalk Adapter except they don’t transmit the incoming messages to a target system, instead they make the messages disappear! but, why would anyone need

Few months ago, I thought about preparing a security checklist for Azure Solutions as an essential step for the teams designing Azure solutions in order to consciously make security-related decisions and to avoid forgetting critical areas when securing their cloud solutions, which are usually comprising of multiple distributed components. Why a Checklist? There were two

In this post, I will share some of the misconceptions that I usually get from our customers regarding Azure API Management (APIM) self-hosted gateway, during consultation sessions. First, let me start with a quick overview on Azure APIM main components and their functions. Azure APIM main components Azure Portal: The management plane to design, publish

I recently had to move my Azure resources from one subscription to another within the same Azure Active Directory tenant because the offer linked to my source subscription had expired. In this article I will share a few quick notes on moving your Azure resources between subscriptions within the same Azure Active Directory tenant. I