Download BizTalk Server 2009 Resources: Demos and Hands-on Labs

Microsoft has made available a new resource designed to help customers become increasingly familiar with its enterprise integration and connectivity server solution. The BizTalk Server 2009 Live Demo and Hands-on Labs VPC Image went live on the Microsoft Download Center on October 25th, 2009 and is currently up for grabs at no charge. With the download the Redmond company is supplying businesses both demonstrations and hands-on labs involving its latest iteration of BizTalk Server.

“This virtual machine image contains a full live demo and six hands-on labs of BizTalk Server 2009, which highlight integration with SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows Workflow (.NET 3.5),” Microsoft explained in the general overview of the download. Of course there’s always the option to download and test-drive the actual BizTalk Server 2009 bits (you’ll be able to find a link at the bottom of this article).

The gold version of BizTalk Server 2009 was released to the market earlier this year. May 1st, 2009 marked the general availability of the company’s sixth edition of BizTalk Server, but Microsoft was already serving the RTM bits to MSDN subscribers. At the same time, a test version of the solution was made available from the software giant. The 120-day test release can be downloaded and run at no cost, straight from Microsoft.

Microsoft noted that “the BizTalk Server 2009 demo and hands-on labs virtual machine image contains the following:
- A live demo of “Northwind purchasing process,” which includes sub-processes for creating and approving a purchase request, creating and processing a purchase order, and processing an invoice
- A hands-on lab that takes you through the entire solution
- Five hands-on labs that let you build the BizTalk components of the whole solution
- The demo solution is based on BizTalk Server 2009, SQL Server 2008, SharePoint Server 2007, .NET 3.5, and Silverlight 3.0 technologies.”

BizTalk Server 2009 Live Demo and Hands-on Labs VPC Image is available here.
Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009 is available for download here.