We are running BizTalk. Is migration worth it?

The case for migrating depends on three factors: licensing cost (BizTalk licensing is significant, especially at scale), maintainability (BizTalk requires specialized skills that are increasingly hard to find), and observability (BizTalk errors are notoriously difficult to diagnose). If all three are a problem, migration is worth exploring. We have done this twice in documented engagements and can walk you through what the process involves for your specific environment.

We need multiple teams to integrate with the same external service. What is the right approach?

A shared integration platform, not point-to-point integrations. The Communications Hub we built for a major retail organization solved exactly this: instead of 50 teams each integrating independently with SMS and email providers, one platform exposes a single API. Any team integrates once, and gets access to all channels. This architecture also gives you a single point for monitoring, vendor switching, and contract negotiation.

We need to connect our e-commerce platform to our CRM and a payment provider. How do you approach this?

We start by mapping the data flows and integration events, then evaluate whether to build a custom solution, use a managed service, or configure an existing platform. We document the trade-offs before recommending. For Salesforce-based stacks, we have delivered Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud, and B2C Commerce Cloud integrations in production.

How do you handle monitoring for integrations in production?

We build observability in from the start, not as an afterthought. New Relic for real-time performance metrics and alerting, Hangfire for background job scheduling and monitoring, structured logging, and error handling with retry and recovery mechanisms. The goal is that your operations team knows about an issue before your customers do.

Systems Integration Services

Why integration keeps coming back

Most organizations do not have an integration problem. They have fifty integration problems, each solved independently by a different team.

A customer notification needs to go out. One team integrates with an SMS provider. Another team, three months later, integrates with the same provider: differently, under a separate contract, with no shared monitoring. A third team does it again six months after that.

Multiply this across email, push notifications, payments, shipping providers, CRM systems, and ERP, and you have an organization spending significant engineering time on integration work that should have been solved once.

The alternative is treating integration as infrastructure: a shared platform, governed and maintained, that any team can connect to without starting from zero.

We have built this for large retail organizations in Portugal. The results are measurable.

Integration capabilities

API platform development

We design and build REST APIs and integration platforms that serve multiple internal teams or external partners. This includes API management (with tools like Azure API Management or Apigee), authentication, rate limiting, documentation, and a developer-facing backoffice so teams can onboard without depending on us.

The goal is not just a working API. It is an API that other teams can use independently, without requiring integration expertise every time a new consumer comes along.

Event-driven architecture and messaging

We design and implement event-driven integration flows using message brokers and streaming platforms: RabbitMQ, Kafka, Azure Event Hubs, Azure Service Bus, Azure Event Grid. We choose the right tool for the volume, latency, and reliability requirements of each use case.

For high-volume scenarios, this architecture handles tens of millions of events per week without the operational overhead of point-to-point integrations.

Legacy middleware migration

If your organization is running Microsoft BizTalk, you are paying high licensing costs for a platform that is difficult to maintain, troubleshoot, and extend. We migrate BizTalk environments to modern, cloud-native integration architectures: RabbitMQ, .NET workers, Azure Integration Services, or a combination.

We have done this for financial institutions (UNICRE: 44 business processes, 88 message schemas, 10 weeks) and for major retailers (BizTalk to RabbitMQ + .NET, with processes that previously took one hour now completing in 10 minutes).

Cloud integration and serverless architectures

We integrate cloud services into existing systems and build serverless integration flows using Azure Functions, Azure Logic Apps, Azure Data Factory, and AWS Lambda. For scenarios that require elasticity at scale (billing systems, peak-load processing, international expansion), serverless removes the operational burden of infrastructure management.

Third-party and e-commerce integrations

We integrate with the platforms your business depends on: Salesforce (B2C Commerce Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud), payment processors (MBRef and others), shipping providers (CTT), and communication platforms (SMS gateways via SMSC protocol, push notification services, WhatsApp Business API). We evaluate trade-offs before recommending a solution: build custom, use a managed service, or integrate an existing platform, and document the reasoning.

Data integration and synchronization

We design data integration flows between systems that need to share or synchronize data: from simple database synchronization to complex ETL pipelines using Azure Data Factory, Azure Functions, and cloud storage. We build these for reporting, analytics, and operational consistency.

Case Study

Communications hub: 60 million events per week for a major retail organization

A large retail company faced a problem familiar to any organization with multiple product teams: every team was independently integrating with SMS providers, email platforms, and push notification services. Each integration came with its own vendor agreement, its own contract, and no ability to switch providers centrally. There was no shared monitoring across channels.

Create IT designed and built a centralized Communications Hub: a single REST API that abstracts all customer communication channels: SMS, email, push notifications, in-app messages, and WhatsApp. Any development team can integrate with one API and reach any channel. A self-service backoffice lets teams manage their own templates and preferences without involving the integration team.

The platform was built using ASP.NET Core, Azure App Service, Azure SQL, Azure CosmosDB, Azure EventHubs, Azure DataFactory, and Azure Container Apps. API management via Apigee.

Results (from published case study):

50+ applications integrated with the platform
135,000 emails dispatched weekly
2.8 million SMS messages processed weekly
700,000 push notifications delivered weekly
60 million in-app notifications handled weekly
80% reduction in the time required for any team to issue their first customer notification

View Case study

Case Study

BizTalk to modern integration: processes from 1 hour to 10 minutes

A major retailer was running Microsoft BizTalk as its integration backbone. BizTalk required highly specialized skills to maintain, errors were difficult to diagnose, and the licensing costs were significant. Integration processes that should have been fast were taking up to an hour.

Create IT designed a replacement architecture based on RabbitMQ for message queuing, .NET workers as consumers and publishers, and Docker containers on Linux for portability. A shared "Base Worker" foundation layer consolidates integration logic into reusable components, reducing complexity and allowing new developers to onboard quickly. Monitoring was rebuilt with New Relic for real-time visibility and Hangfire for job scheduling.

"This project was filled with significant hurdles, from the lack of documentation and the need for constant investigation to navigate through old workflows, to the uncertainty of the issues we encountered along the way. With tight deadlines and many unknowns, we had to be agile, adapt quickly, and problem-solve on the go."
David Botelho, Solutions Architect at Create IT

Results (from published case study):

Integration processes reduced from 1 hour to 10 minutes
Full observability via New Relic (errors previously failed silently in BizTalk)
Reusable Base Worker architecture reduces time to implement new integration flows
The platform has become the foundational integration layer for future needs

View Case study

More Case Studies

case study

Transforming Q-Commerce: A Portuguese Retailer's Instant Delivery App

Discover how Create IT helped a top Portuguese retailer launch a custom instant delivery app with real-time tracking, loyalty card integration, dynamic delivery pricing, and full control over the Q-commerce experience, boosting sales and efficiency.

case study

Worten billing

Based on the relationship and skills already demonstrated, Create It implemented a billing dematerialization solution at Worten.pt, based on Amazon Web Services.

case study

Portuguese retailer boosts sales with Create IT

A major Portuguese retail brand partnered with Create IT to boost their digital sales and customer engagement with back-in-stock notifications.

Where we have delivered

Integration work at Create IT spans:

❯ Retail and e-commerce: Sonae Group (Continente, Worten): ongoing embedded work across communications, OMS, billing, and e-commerce integrations

❯ Financial services and payments: UNICRE: BizTalk migration for payment card management infrastructure

❯ Hospitality and tourism: Pestana Group (e-commerce and infrastructure)

❯ Consumer goods and distribution: Integration work within embedded team engagements

❯ Healthcare: Hospital da Luz / Luz Saúde (patient portal, until 2020).

Integration needs emerge in every sector and in every long-term engagement. Most of our integration work does not originate as a standalone "systems integration" project: it surfaces inside ongoing product development at clients where we are embedded.

What we bring to integration work

We have built at production scale

60 million in-app notifications per week through a platform that 50+ teams depend on. 2.8 million SMS per week. These are not proofs of concept. They are production systems.

We have migrated legacy middleware before

BizTalk is the most common legacy middleware we encounter. We have migrated it twice in published engagements, for a financial institution and a major retailer, with documented outcomes. If you are on BizTalk and looking for a path out, we know that path.

We are embedded in the teams where integration happens

For clients like Sonae Group, integration needs emerge continuously inside long-term product team engagements. A new payment provider, a new logistics partner, a new notification channel. We resolve these as part of the ongoing development cycle because we are already there.

Microsoft Solutions Partner for Digital and App Innovation (Azure)

Our Azure credentials are verified by Microsoft. Integration services including Azure Event Hubs, Azure Service Bus, Azure API Management, Azure Logic Apps, Azure Data Factory, and Azure Functions are part of our daily work.

We make integration decisions transparently

Before building, we document the options, their costs, and their trade-offs. Clients choose informed.

Frequently asked questions

Tell us what systems need to talk to each other.

Whether you are migrating legacy middleware, building an API platform, or connecting e-commerce systems with third-party providers, start with a conversation. We will map the options and give you an honest view of the complexity involved.

Talk to our team