The last few weeks have been quite busy in terms of speaking engagements. In less than a month, I had the opportunity to speak at three different events: BizTalk Innovation Day Oslo, the LIX edition of the SQLPort Community (Porto, Portugal), and SQLSaturday #341 Porto.
📝 One-Minute Brief
This post recaps three community events held in October 2014 where the author delivered sessions about Microsoft Azure BizTalk Services and integration technologies. It shares experiences speaking at SQLSaturday Porto, the SQLPort community meeting, and BizTalk Innovation Day, highlighting knowledge sharing and community engagement within the BizTalk and data platform ecosystem.
BizTalk Innovation Day Oslo 2014
The first event took place on September 25: BizTalk Innovation Day Oslo. I am also part of the organizing team, the BizTalkCrew. This was the third consecutive edition of the event and, importantly, the first one held in Oslo.
Over the years, BizTalk Innovation Day has grown into a strong community conference focused entirely on Microsoft integration technologies. Therefore, it was a great pleasure to participate once again — not only as a speaker but also as an organizer.
What improved
- Around 60 attendees + speakers + event organizer.
- 5 Microsoft Integration MVPs present and 3 Sponsors (Microsoft, Bouvet, and BizTalk360).
- Attendees came especially from Norway and Sweden.
- an incalculable number of networking hours.
These are some of the numbers that reflect the great success of this event!
This was a special event for me! Because after 1 and a half years of hard work, I finally released and publicly announced my free Book about BizTalk Mapping Patterns & Best Practices – a 400-page recipe for BizTalk Developers to develop effective, robust, and organized maps that I previously announced during the BizTalk Summit 2014, London event.
You can download it at BizTalk360 website here.
My Session – The new Transform Designer available in BizTalk Services
My session was about the new Transform Designer available in BizTalk Services, where I addressed the basic differences between the BizTalk Server Mapper and the new Mapper in BizTalk Services, the challenges present while migrating current BizTalk Server maps, and how this task can be accomplished. And of course, how can we accomplish some of the basic transformation tasks like grouping, sorting, and condition transformations? I end my presentation with a very complex transformation challenge that took me a week to solve: mapping an SAP invoice to an EDI Invoice document and wrapping up with the “good, bad, and ugly” features of the new Transform Designer.
You can see the full story of the event here: BizTalk Innovation Day, Oslo – story of the day
LIX Encontro da Comunidade SQLPort
The second event was the LIX edition of the SQLPort Community, held in Porto.
Unlike a large conference, SQLPort is a local user group meeting. However, that is exactly what makes it special. The sessions are informal, practical, and highly interactive.
SQLPort gathers professionals from different backgrounds: developers, DBAs, architects, and students. As a result, discussions usually continue long after the presentations end. These meetings create a great opportunity to exchange real-world experiences and learn directly from peers.
During my session, I presented Microsoft Azure BizTalk Services and discussed how integration scenarios are moving from on-premises environments to the cloud. The audience showed great interest, especially in understanding the differences between BizTalk Server and a Platform-as-a-Service integration model.
Moreover, it is always a pleasure to speak in my own city. Being able to share knowledge with the local community makes the experience even more rewarding.
SQLSaturday #341 – Porto
Finally, the third event was SQLSaturday #341 Porto.
This was a special milestone because it was the first SQLSaturday held in Porto and also the first time I was selected by attendees to speak at this type of conference.
SQLSaturday is a larger event than SQLPort and attracts a wider audience. The conference included multiple tracks such as DBA, Business Intelligence, and .NET development. Consequently, participants came from many different technical areas.
My session focused again on Microsoft Azure BizTalk Services. I introduced the platform, explained EAI and EDI capabilities, and demonstrated how organizations can manage partners, schemas, and transformations in the cloud. I also discussed the challenges companies face when moving from BizTalk Server to Azure-based integration.
The room was full, and the interaction with the audience was fantastic. Many attendees asked practical questions about real migration scenarios, which made the session particularly engaging.
My Session – Introduction to Microsoft Azure BizTalk Services
I had the pleasure to speak at SQLSaturday #341 Porto to a bright young audience that never heard about BizTalk Server/Services… Hoping to open the door for a new integration “BizTalk” genius, and why not work with me!
In this session, we spoke about the existing functionalities in the new integration services in the cloud: Microsoft Azure BizTalk Services: EAI (Enterprise Application Integration) and EDI (Electronic Data Interchange), and the challenges in moving from BizTalk Server to BizTalk Services. And the evolving challenges of Enterprise Integration.
I was also honored to represent my company, DevScope, a gold sponsor of this event, in the awards ceremony. DevScope has offered an entry to Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Master Class that will be held on November 22 in Porto
