If there is a year when it will be difficult to select the best moments, this could be one of them. There are so many that it’s hard to begin describing what happened in 2017.
In personal terms, as I mentioned in my last post, the family is growing this time with a baby boy, and I’m currently moving to a brand new, bigger house… so, exciting times! In professional terms, it was a year full of projects and traveling. But it was a year that my blog got a new and modern look that made it more professional… and I even got a sponsor, BizTalk360, which allows me to pay the costs of hosting the blog on my own domain.
📝 One-Minute Brief
A personal year‑in‑review reflecting on travel, community involvement, speaking engagements, and professional growth during 2017, highlighting lessons learned and gratitude for the Microsoft Integration and BizTalk communities.
Despite all of these changes in my blog, I was still able to publish 63 new posts in my blog. The most visited country is still the United States, followed by India, the United Kingdom, and Canada.
And I had the opportunity to present 16 sessions as a speaker! A new personal record! 2 more than last year
So once again, let’s look back and reflect on what happened in 2017. In a few words, it was an interesting and challenging year, both personal and professional!
My selected Highlights of 2017
Sharing my book with the community
Once again, sharing my book with the community is a moment that I want to highlight, and I have no words to thank you!
The first speaking event in the USA
I have been doing a lot of conferences in Europe in the last few years, but I have never had the opportunity to do it on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, not because of a lack of opportunities, but mainly because I have not been able to consolidate my professional agenda with these speaking opportunities. Fortunately, this year I was able to do it and be present at INTEGRATE USA in Redmond, presenting a session about BizTalk Server performance and optimizations:
And I have to say, you guys make me feel special! What amazing reception and feedback you provide me! THANKS!
TUGA IT 2017
Once again, I was in charge of organizing the Integration track at the TUGA IT event, one of the biggest events in Portugal that covers several distinct technological areas, including SharePoint and Office 365, Azure Infrastructure, Data Platform, Programming and Integration (BizTalk, IoT, and Azure), and more.
As the Integration track lead, I was able to invite some of my good friends to speak at this event: Nino Crudele, Steef-Jan Wiggers, Tomasso Groenendijk, Ricardo Torre, and Eldert Grootenboer.
One of the top contributors to Microsoft Documentation
BizTalk Server documentation is now on DOCS, and everyone can contribute and improve the existing documentation, of which I’m glad to be one of the non-Microsoft top contributors.
A year of speaking engagements…
Another year full of speaking engagements… I had the opportunity to be present at 16 sessions, speaking about different topics: BizTalk Server, Logic Apps, API Management, App Service, Azure Functions, Microsoft Flow, and PowerApps, in multiple events (the UK, USA, and Portugal), and some of them through live meetings. New personal record!
Some of them I already mentioned above, but here is the complete list of speaking engagements that I did in 2017:
- XXVIII Porto.Data Event: SharePoint integration: How can PowerApps and Microsoft Flow give power to your SharePoint users
- DevScope Academy: LogicApps, SmartDocumentor, DynamicCRM & PowerBI
- SQL Saturday #583 Lisbon: BizTalk Server and SQL Server Together: For Developers & Admins
- Oporto Global Integration Bootcamp: THE SPEAKER NIGHTMARE: Eval Forms & OCR & Logic Apps & Power BI
- Global Azure Bootcamp 2017 Lisbon: Halt and Catch Fire: Azure Functions
- Cloud Pro: Processing Feedback Evaluations (paper) automagically with SmartDocumentor OCR, Logic Apps, Azure Functions & Power BI
- Cloud Pro: Introduction to PowerApps and Microsoft Flow
- TUGA IT 2017: How can PowerApps and Microsoft Flow allow your power users to quickly build Enterprise Mobile Apps
- TUGA IT 2017: THE SPEAKER NIGHTMARE: Eval Forms & OCR & Logic Apps & Power BI
- Integration User Group: BizTalk Server: Teach me something new about Flat Files (or not)
- INTEGRATE 2017 London: BizTalk Server Fast & Loud
- Integration User Group: BizTalk Server: Teach me something new about Flat Files (or not) – Part 2
- Integration User Group: The Speaker Nightmare: Eval Forms, OCR, Logic Apps & Power BI
- INTEGRATE 2017 USA: BizTalk Server Fast & Loud
- Integration User Group: How can Power Apps and Microsoft Flow allow your Power Users to quickly build Enterprise Mobile Apps
- XXXVI Porto.Data Event: The Speaker Nightmare: Eval Forms, OCR, Logic Apps & Power BI
For me, it is always a great honor and joy to participate in these types of events, either as a speaker or an attendee, be with old friends, meet new people, and share the knowledge!
My 3 favorite’s posts
My favorite 3 top posts that I enjoyed writing last year were:
- Prototyping your Frontend: How to mock responses in API Management?, one of my first blog posts about API Management
- A series of 3 posts on BizTalk Server 2016 Feature Pack 1: How to publish BizTalk operational data on Power BI, at the time, a fresh topic without too much documentation available:
- BizTalk Server 2016 Feature Pack 1: How to publish BizTalk operational data on Power BI – Step-by-step configuration (Part 1)
- BizTalk Server 2016 Feature Pack 1: How to publish BizTalk operational data on Power BI – Step-by-step configuration (Part 2)
- BizTalk Server 2016 Feature Pack 1: How to publish BizTalk operational data on Power BI – Step-by-step configuration (Part 3)
- And finally, PowerShell to Configure BizTalk Server Host, Host Instances, and Adapter handlers according to some of the Best Practices, an update to my PowerShell script, because it is really a time saver resource to a painful operation that has become even simpler now.
For all of you…
Thanks for following me and reading my blog, and I promise I will continue to share my knowledge in 2018.
Hope you find this helpful! If you liked the content or found it useful and would like to support me in writing more, consider buying (or helping to buy) a Star Wars Lego set for my son.
