On 10 & 11 June 2024, INTEGRATE 2024, the Largest Microsoft Integration Tech Conference was held in Kings Place, London. I attended this conference remotely.
This year was the 12th anniversary of INTEGRATE and there were about 290 people in the live audience (of which 180 newcomers) and some 300+ following the sessions remotely. The event was completely sold out and there were about 15 speakers and 20 topics. Originally INTEGRATE used to be a lot of BizTalk and then there was a move to Azure, and today the majority of sessions is about Azure and hybrid.
The event is organized by the Kovai.co Event Team.
In this article I gathered some practical information about the event, and the sessions that were held. Perhaps this gives you more insight in what you can expect from such an event and it may help you in deciding if, as it was for me, such an event is an opportunity for you to gather/share information. For me, this was the second INTEGRATE event, I attended.
For more information, please see: https://turbo360.com/events/integrate-2024/
INTEGRATE 2024
INTEGRATE is the place where the Microsoft Integration Community Connect, ignite and grow! It is the largest and vibrant heartbeat of the Microsoft Integration community.
INTEGRATE stands as the premier conference for Microsoft Integration experts on a global scale, drawing together the most influential users and decision-makers for more than ten years to engage and collaborate with Industry peers.
[https://turbo360.com/events/integrate-2024/]
Microsoft was the official Main Partner for INTEGRATE 2024!
Tickets
With regard to tickets, the following options were available:
There was also a special discount for Alumni available. So, I received and used a coupon code and got a special 20% discount.
Schedule (10 June 2024)
Here you can see the schedule for the first day:
| Time | Topic | Speaker(s) | Organisation |
| 09.30AM – 09.40AM | Welcome speech | Saravana Kumar | Kovai.co |
| 09.45AM – 10.30AM | Keynote | Slava Koltovich | Microsoft |
| 10.35AM – 11.10AM | Accelerating developer productivity with Azure Logic Apps | Wagner Silveira and Rafal Mielowski | Microsoft |
| 11.10AM – 11.25AM | Break | – | – |
| 11.25AM – 12.00PM | Real-world with Logic App Workspace | Bill Chesnut | SixPivot |
| 12.05PM – 12.40PM | Latest developments in Azure Logic Apps | Kent Weare | Microsoft |
| 12.45PM – 01.20PM | The future of event streaming with Azure Messaging | Kevin Lam and Anasheh Boisvert | Microsoft |
| 01.20PM – 02.00PM | Lunch | – | – |
| 02.00PM – 02.35PM | BizTalk to Azure the migration journey: Azure Integration in action | Sandro Pereira | DevScope |
| 02.40PM – 03.15PM | How an integration team identified >$1m worth of Azure Cost savings | Mike Stephenson | (Microsoft MVP) |
| 03.20PM – 03.55PM | Building an integration solution with GitHub Copilot chat | Martin Abbott | Evolytica Ltd |
| 03.55PM – 04.10PM | Break | – | – |
| 04.10PM – 04.45PM | Master PaaS networking for AIS | Mattias Lögdberg | DevUp Solutions |
| 04.50PM – 05.25PM | Knowledge Management for your Enterprise Integration Platform | Mike Stephenson | (Microsoft MVP) |
| 05.30PM – 06.05PM | Azure API Center: What’s New in the Microsoft API space! | Julia Kasper and Arpi Shah | Microsoft |
| 06.05PM – 08.00PM | Drinks and Networking | – | – |
Schedule (11 June 2024)
Here you can see the schedule for the second day:
| Time | Subject | Speaker(s) | Organisation |
| 09.00AM – 09.35AM | Rules, Rules, RULES!! | Dan Toomey | Deloitte Australia |
| 09.40AM – 10.15AM | The evolution of Azure Message brokers | Clemens Vasters and Christina Compy | Microsoft |
| 10.20AM – 10.55AM | The world’s biggest Azure integration mistakes I want you to learn from! | Toon Vanhoutte | Noest |
| 10.55AM – 11.10AM | Break | – | – |
| 11.10AM – 11.45AM | Accelerating generative AI development with Azure Logic Apps | Kent Weare | Microsoft |
| 11.50AM – 12.25PM | BizTalk to Azure Integration Services – Supercharged by Turbo360 | Mike Stephenson | (Microsoft MVP) |
| 12.30PM – 01.05PM | Integrating AI into your healthcare based solutions through Logic Apps | Mick Badran | SolveIT.Today |
| 01.05PM – 01.45PM | Lunch | – | – |
| 01.45PM – 02.20PM | Accelerating Innovation: Exploring Azure API Management’s Latest Advancements and Future Developments | Mike Budzynski and Vladimir Vinogradsky | Microsoft |
| 02.25PM – 03.00PM | Migrating from a retail on-premise solution to an integration platform in Azure | Steef-Jan Wiggers | i8c |
| 03.00PM – 03.15PM | Break | – | – |
| 03.15PM – 03.50PM | Intrusion tactics: mastering offensive security in Azure integration | Nino Crudele | Avanade |
| 03.55PM – 04.30PM | Azure OpenAI + Azure API Management Better Together | Andrei Kamenev and Alexandre Vieira | Microsoft |
| 04.35PM – 04.45PM | Closing note | Saravana Kumar | Kovai.co |
Sponsors
These were the sponsors of the conference:
INTEGRATE 2024 Day 1 Highlights
Very conveniently, for every conference day, a recap is created by the Kovai.co Event Team. You can find the link for day 1 below:
https://turbo360.com/blog/integrate-2024-day-1
Table of Content:
- #1: Keynote
- #2: Accelerating developer productivity with Azure Logic Apps
- #3: Real-world with Logic App Workspace
- #4: Latest developments in Azure Logic Apps
- #5: The future of event streaming with Azure Messaging
- #6: BizTalk to Azure the migration journey: Azure Integration in action
- #7: How an integration team identified >$1m worth of Azure Cost savings
- #8: Building an integration solution with GitHub Copilot chat
- #9: Master PaaS networking for AIS
- #10: Knowledge Management for your Enterprise Integration Platform
- #11: Azure API Center: What’s new in the Microsoft API Space!
INTEGRATE 2024 Day 2 Highlights
Very conveniently, for every conference day, a recap is created by the Kovai.co Event Team. You can find the link for day 2 below:
https://turbo360.com/blog/integrate-2024-day-2
Table of Content:
- #1: Rules, Rules, RULES!!
- #2: The evolution of Azure Message brokers
- #3: The world’s biggest Azure integration mistakes I want you to learn from!
- #4: Accelerating generative AI development with Azure Logic Apps
- #5: BizTalk to Azure Integration Services – Supercharged by Turbo360
- #6: Integrating AI into your healthcare based solutions through Logic Apps
- #7: Accelerating Innovation: Exploring Azure API Management’s Latest Advancements and Future Developments
- #8: Migrating from a retail on-premise solution to an integration platform in Azure
- #9: Intrusion tactics: mastering offensive security in Azure integration
- #10: Azure OpenAI + Azure API Management Better Together
After the conference you (with the right privileges) can look back at the recorded sessions for the 2 days, via:
https://events.hubilo.com/integrate-2024/sessions
Unfortunately, the conference started with somewhat of a delay, so some of the recorded sessions are a bit out of sync.
Some of the conference news, information and key announcements
I leave it up to you to have a look at the sessions that were held and that may be interesting to you to have a look at.
Below I will mention some of the conference news, information and key announcements.
Slava Koltovich, Principal Group Product Manager at Microsoft, delivered the keynote at Integrate 2024. He began by discussing Azure Integration Services (AIS), a comprehensive platform, with focus on security and compliance, enabling the creation of tailored solutions to meet unique requirements.
Slava proceeded to announce new features in Azure:
- Azure Integration Environment is now available in public preview.
- End-to-End monitoring for AIS is also in public preview.
- Hybrid deployment of Azure Logic App Standard will be accessible from June 2024 in Early Access Preview and in public preview in Summer 2024.
- Business process tracking stage status and enhanced token picker support.
- Streamlined integration development with Artificial Intelligence (AI).
- Standard Logic App now enhances developer productivity with zero downtime deployment using slots.
- BizTalk migration gains momentum with the release of new features.
Wagner Silveira, Senior Program Manager (Logic Apps) at Microsoft, introduced automation testing for logic app standards, emphasizing the objective of enhancing code quality through a repeatable testing suite for systematic verification. Two approaches, Codeless and Codeful, were proposed for conducting automation testing for logic app standards.
Clemens Vasters, Principal Architect at Microsoft, spoke about the Azure messaging platform and new features in Azure Event Grid:
- Pull Delivery: A new model that provides a queue-like structure, allowing messages to be fetched and completed later, similar to queue capabilities. This pull delivery is built on top of HTTP and is extremely fast.
- MQTT Communication: Enabling clients to communicate over MQTT.
- Last Will and Testament (LWT): Allows clients to notify the broker about unexpected disconnections.
- Custom Domains: Supports the use of custom domain names combined with Traffic Manager for scenarios like cross-region client mobility.
Christina Compy, Principal Program Manager at Microsoft, spoke about Azure Service Bus and its recent feature releases:
- Batch delete
- Studio integration for entity down
- Integration for CMK with managed HSM support
- Deprecation of TLS 1.0 and TSL 1.1 . Enabling TLS 1.3 for AMQP
- Availability zones. Service bus and Event hubs are adding availability zones over the next few months.
- A major announcement was made regarding Geo Replication, humorously dubbed “Double Decker Service Bus.” This feature enables full data replication across multiple regions, providing robust disaster recovery capabilities. The public preview for this functionality will commence soon.
Kent Weare, Principal Program Management Manager – Azure Logic Apps at Microsoft gave an interesting session on Logic Apps with Generative AI. Kent kick started the session with the two strategies on Gen AI and Logic Apps called the Azure Logic App Generative AI Strategy. The strategies included how the Workflow assistant can help in accomplishing things easier and how intelligent business applications can be created with the AI services.
Nino Crudele, Security Manager at Avanade, gave a session with the soul purpose to make everyone better in Security. He gave a few best practices:
- Don’t use company email to login to development and azure resources. Use different login credentials for each and every solution.
- Use advanced threat detection with specific user and entity behavior
- Use clean naming conventions
- Use Integrations to evaluate and automate the intelligent accounts management
- Use Defender for O365 intelligent integration
- Organize specific training with experts
- Organize security games in the company
Concluding
Attending INTEGRATE 2024, again was great for me in gaining new insights and knowledge on a variety of subjects, in particular the new features in the Azure integration stack.
