BIZTALK ADMINISTRATION BEST PRACTICES

Brian Loesgen & Alan Smith

BizTalk Administration Challenges

BizTalk is a complex product IT-Pros are not usually familiar with BizTalk BizTalk requires specialized backup procedures Developers often lack required discipline Hosting companies often treat BizTalk as a

customer application Who is responsible for BizTalk production

environment?

Danger Signals

“Can you send us a word document telling us how to install BizTalk?”

“We don’t use MOM or SCOM, we have our own monitoring software”

“We have our own procedures for database backups”

“How big are these databases going to get, it’s causing issues with our backups?”

Required Knowledge

Recognize that “BizTalk Server Administrator” is a dedicated role

Allow time for training and education Developers can mentor administration

personnel Start to get serious with administrating

your test environments

Database Administration

We all know this but…Enable and use the BizTalk backup jobEnsure tracking purge and archive is

runningBackup your ESSO master secret

It’s also important to…Use BizTalk Log ShippingMonitor BizTalk Server & ESSO using

MOM/SCOMMonitor SQL Server using MOM/SCOM

Disaster Recovery

Backup is only half the story, if you can’t restore “Disaster Recovery” becomes “Disaster”

Enabling the BizTalk Backup job is easy, restoring BizTalk databases is not

Consider using BizTalk Log Shipping Consider using SAN systems Practice Disaster recovery procedures

ESSO Master Secret Server Ensure you have backed it up Practice and document MSS restore

Promoting another serve to MSS Be aware of security implications

Monitoring BizTalk Use MOM or SCOM

Install the appropriate management packsBizTalk has over 50 events to monitorESSO also has over 50 eventsSQL Server should also be monitored

BizTalk is very verbose with logging events Some warning events can highlight critical

problems ESB Guidance Error Reporting console is great!

But you need the system monitoring from MOM/SCOM

Gaining the Skills Virtual environments can be used for multi server

installationsInstallationConfigurationDisaster recoveryMonitoringFailover testing

BizTalk Server Administration GuideCHM document

BizTalk for Administrators – 5 day Quick Learn course