In our experience, the product performs really well when interfacing systems with ERP's through SQL server database tables, but we've even made some interfaces with the web service functionality included with the magic xpi integration platform. Also, we've made some SAP Business One - SAP Business One interfaces, for copying information from one company to another.
It is perfectly suited if some heavy operation needs to be automated where jobs can be queued up. Scalable app which is required to develop in a lesser time frame. Good for when users should be able to change rules more frequently without any downtime, like promotions. The server is well proven in the market. BizTalk server is the best fit if all other integration adapters are developed using Microsoft applications and if all applications are meant to be processed on a Windows environment.
BizTalk uses Microsoft Visual Studio as the IDE (integrated development environment) tool, and it's very easy to use.
The orchestration engine of BizTalk addresses resource issue very well for long-running business processes by dehydrating and rehydrating orchestration instances.
BizTalk is very easy to integrate if the development is mainly on the Microsoft software family.
Although the scenarios may be online, the main service usually freezes and the processes can't transact any data. With a single restart of the service, the processes will be functioning again.
The support for more applications would be nice, even though there is a nice number of them.
The licensing for the software may be a little confusing.
BizTalk needs to be better at tracking down errors after the fact. Input files by default get deleted after processing successfully, unless you specifically specify that they don't. This can be an issue where you need to see what the input file contained, since you may have errors showing up in your target platform, in our case this was SAP.
BizTalk logging needs improved. It needs to be able to log the content of the messages it sends and receives. It would be good if the log had a link to the input and output files.
BizTalk needs to allow a simple way to preserve the input and output files for debugging purposes. A master setting on the orchestration would be helpful for this.
Microsoft BizTalk is not an intuitive product. It requires many hours of looking through the settings to achieve what you need. Using 3rd party DLLs is a nightmare as you are forced to register them in the GAC of the server and this process is quite cumbersome just to use a DLL.
BizTalk Server has been supported for more than 15 years. It is well proven in the market. Microsoft has provided excellent support with technical issues.
Honestly, we have only used and evaluated magic xpi platform because of the recommendation of our SAP Business One main supplier, who has previously used the platform for their developments. So far, we have no regrets with the acquisition of the platform and we are very happy with it's performance until now.
We did look at Jitterbit dataloader from Salesforce.com. Jitterbit seems like a pretty decent solution if you are doing a lot of uploads into Salesforce.com. However, its not nearly as flexible as Microsoft Biztalk is. Biztalk allows you to create any type of custom solution you wish, whereas Jitterbit is much more limited.
The implementation time for this kind of projects has been greatly reduced.
Certifying an In-House resource in the Magix xpi platform is probably the best option, considering all of the projects that can be developed in the future without the need of an external consultant.
The processes that have been automatized with the Magic xpi platform helped reduced human error and the time those processes took to finish.
