On-site BizTalk360 Consultancy

On-site BizTalk360 Consultancy

As part of our efforts to help you make the best of your investment in BizTalk360, we provide several services. Take for example our very responsive support team which helps you with your support requests, installation and implementation best practice sessions and quarterly client relationship calls. Typically, these ways to support you are carried out via remote conference calls. In most scenarios, we are very well able to help our customers via such calls. However, sometimes it is just more convenient to speak to somebody in person and with your BizTalk environment at hand. For such scenarios, we provide our customers with the opportunity to have an experienced BizTalk360 Product Consultant visit you at your premises.

In this blog post, we wanted to explain more on this topic of on-site BizTalk360 consultancy and why this could be beneficial for you, as a BizTalk360 user, too! We have been doing these consultancy visits for a couple of years now and our experience is positive – these sessions are of great value, not only for you, the customer but also for us!

To demonstrate the rationale and effectiveness of these sessions, we have provided a few examples:

BizTalk360 Upgrades & Newer Versions

We often see that our customers have not upgraded to the latest release of BizTalk360. That is totally fine, as we bring 3 to 4 releases per year and not each version will contain features that are relevant for you. We understand that and, in fact, that’s the reason why we test upgrade scenarios from multiple previous BizTalk360 versions before we release a new version.

One of the topics we discuss during consultancy visits is explaining the new features and improvements since the customer’s latest upgrade.

On multiple occasions, we arrived wanting to discuss a particular requirement from a customer, only to find out that the requirement can be met once the customer upgrades to a newer version! Similarly, we also see that a specific requirement can already be met in the currently installed version, but the customer was not yet aware of it. In the latter case, we can immediately dive into the details and start using the required feature.

Move your organization forward by maximizing your investment in BizTalk360

As you are probably aware, BizTalk360 is very rich in features. Since its inception in 2011, the product has constantly been matured and improved by bringing 3 to 4 releases a year. As a customer of the product, it is likely that you will take the implementation of the product one step at a time.

invest

This is exactly how we can help our customers during consultancy visits. During face to face meetings with all the employees involved, we discuss the current status and any requirements. The product consultant will actively participate in the conversations, share his/her experiences and explain how specific requirements can be met with the product. After such meetings, we can immediately have a look at implementing any requirements which have been identified. By doing similar sessions with a certain frequency, you will be able to quickly move forward fulfilling requirements and, at the same time, make most of your investment in BizTalk360.

Potential agenda and outcome of a visit

To make the actual visit as effective as possible, we usually set up an agenda for the day, beforehand. This helps to structure the day and will also help in identifying any preparations, from either side, to be done.

An agenda of a previous on-site visit looked like below:

  • The customer tells about the current situation at the customer’s side, including any issues (high level)
  • The product consultant tells about the features which appeared in BizTalk360 since the latest installed version at the customer’s site. During the explanation, the customer identifies features they might be interested in
  • A detailed look into any issues the customer faces, address these issues or plan how the issues will be solved
  • Product consultant does several checks of the current configuration of BizTalk360 and where possible gives the advice to make the most of the product
  • Upgrade to the latest or latest minus 1 release of BizTalk360, depending on the company policy
  • Product consultant demonstrates the earlier identified features and configures them, based on the customer’s requirements

In the above case, the customer had the latest release of BizTalk360 installed and could immediately benefit from a new feature. Besides that, an improvement request has been identified which has been released in the next version of the product and installed during the next visit of the consultant.

These are just a couple of examples we have experienced. Let’s take a closer look at some more advantages of this service.

Face to face meeting with an experienced product consultant

Sometimes, face to face meetings is simply the best way to investigate and have a look at a specific requirement you might have. In your busy day to day activities, you might find it hard to allocate time to have a good look at your operations and monitoring requirements. Sitting down with a BizTalk360 product consultant is helpful as you will allocate some time to have a better look at your BizTalk operations and monitoring requirements and immediately optimize your current setup.

meeting

Focused on your requirements

The product consultant has many years of BizTalk and BizTalk360 experience. He/she can relate to your pain points and can share with you similar customer scenarios more often than not from the same industry.  BizTalk360 has always prided itself on improving business processes. The main focus for the consultant is, therefore, helping you out in the best possible way when using the product, thereby helping you achieve the best possible return on investment.

We often see cases where customers have a particular business requirement with respect to their BizTalk administration unaware it could be solved with BizTalk360.

Any BizTalk360 or BizTalk Server topic can be discussed

When you have a BizTalk360 product consultant on-site, any BizTalk360 or BizTalk Server topic is on the table. The consultant has rich experience in both fields, so is happy to take your questions in these areas and share his/her views and experience.

For example, you might be in the process of installing our BizTalk360 product. The consultant will explain the different deployment models and, based on your requirements, give you a recommendation making you aware of any prerequisites. Moreover, if you are not sure how to implement the monitoring of your BizTalk environment, you can discuss and implement, based on your requirements and the recommendations of the consultant. Even if you have concerns about BizTalk administration in general, the consultant will be more than happy to provide you with best practices and his/her own experiences from the field. If required, the consultant can do a short health check of your BizTalk environment, which might give you the confidence that your BizTalk environments are in a healthy state.

Quick access to the BizTalk360 Dev team

Although the product consultant has rich experience with BizTalk360, it might still happen that there are areas where the consultant does not immediately have an answer. If there is no direct urgency to have the answer, the consultant will take your question(s) and get back to you once there is more clarity about the topic. However, if urgency is required and time is of the essence, the consultant will escalate the matter with the developers of BizTalk360.

Listening to & logging your improvement requests

BizTalk360 is a very mature and feature-rich product. Nevertheless, you might have a requirement that BizTalk360 cannot solve.

Having a BizTalk360 product consultant at hand is probably the best way to discuss requests for new or improved features.

When such improvements or new features are discussed, there will be an open conversation about the improvements you have in mind and if the request is considered valuable, it will be logged in our internal systems.

New feature requests generally take the following course: by listening to other customers & partners on a regular basis we tend to hear the same or similar requests. Naturally, we want to bring features that are useful to as many customers as possible. Deciding which requests will be taken for development is carried out, amongst others, on a voting system. The more votes a feature request receives, the more likely it will be that we will take it up for development.

Keep up to date with the latest product developments

Keeping up to date with product development can be tricky especially if you are always busy with important daily activities. It is our responsibility to make you aware of new additions to BizTalk360. As we bring new releases so frequently, we notice that users of BizTalk360 have not always upgraded to the latest version. During the meeting, the consultant will give you an overview of the features which have been added since the version you are using was installed. It might very well be that it contains features of interest to you!

Summary

We have agreements with multiple customers who we serve with quarterly or half-yearly visits. Normally, we receive positive feedback on the usefulness of the consultancy visits. We hope that, based on the above-mentioned arguments, you will understand that such visits can be useful for you too. In most cases, a full day will be allocated for the consultancy visit, but any duration from half a day to multiple days can be considered.

If you would like to discuss the possibility of an on-site visit, feel free to contact us at support@biztalk360.com.

Besides these product consultancy visits, we can also provide BizTalk360 training and BizTalk Server Administrator or Developer training.

The post On-site BizTalk360 Consultancy appeared first on BizTalk360.

October 28, 2019 Weekly Update on Microsoft Integration Platform & Azure iPaaS

October 28, 2019 Weekly Update on Microsoft Integration Platform & Azure iPaaS

Do you feel difficult to keep up to date on all the frequent updates and announcements in the Microsoft Integration platform and Azure iPaaS?

Integration weekly update can be your solution. It’s a weekly update on the topics related to Integration – enterprise integration, robust & scalable messaging capabilities and Citizen Integration capabilities empowered by Microsoft platform to deliver value to the business.

If you want to receive these updates weekly, then don’t forget to Subscribe!

Microsoft Announcements and Updates

 

Community Blog Posts

 

Video

 

Podcasts

 

How to get started with iPaaS design & development in Azure?

  • Robust Cloud Integration with Azure
  • Microsoft Azure for Developers: What to Use When
  • Serverless Computing: The Big Picture
  • Azure Logic Apps: Getting Started
  • Azure Logic Apps: Fundamentals
  • Microsoft Azure Developer: Creating Enterprise Logic Apps
  • Microsoft Azure API Management Essentials
  • Azure Functions Fundamentals
  • Cloud Design Patterns for Azure: Availability and Resilience
  • Architecting for High Availability in Microsoft Azure

Feedback

Hope this would be helpful. Please feel free to reach out to me with your feedback and questions.

SQL Server Monitoring in BizTalk360

SQL Server Monitoring in BizTalk360

From the upcoming BizTalk360 version 9.0 phase 3 on, we extend our support to monitor SQL Server clusters. By configuring the SQL Server Network Name for monitoring, BizTalk360 will start monitoring the current active node and in case of failover scenario, BizTalk360 will automatically take the active server for monitoring.

 It’s important to make sure the physical infrastructure of your SQL servers like disks, CPU, memory, etc., are healthy for proper functioning. BizTalk360 made this simpler by having the SQL Server Monitoring capability.

BizTalk360 will alert to the user when the configured disk space, CPU, memory usage exceeds the set percentage.

Challenge

In existing BizTalk SQL Monitoring, we came across a few challenges on monitoring the clustered SQL Server

  1. The user could not find the active node while monitoring the clustered SQL Server.
  2. When the Failover happens, the disk monitoring could not identify the disks of the failover node and an error message was displayed as below.

sql-server-status

Scenario 1 (Active/Active): As the same as the previous version of BizTalk360, you can monitor the Clustered SQL Server (Active/Active) or a non-clustered SQL Server, by simply adding the SQL Server physical node in the “Add SQL Server For Monitoring”.

Scenario 2 (Active/Passive):  In BizTalk360, you can monitor the Clustered SQL Server (Active/Passive), by adding the common “SQL Server Network Name” for the physical node into the “Add SQL Server For Monitoring”. It will automatically pick up the active server node for monitoring and then it will start monitoring the active node. If a Failover happens, then it will automatically switch to the failover node (Active Node).

Let’s take a quick look at how you can monitor Non-Clustered/Clustered SQL Server (Active/Passive) using BizTalk360.

Non-Clustered SQL Server

The BizTalk server database will be pointed to one SQL server Instance as below.

Non-SQL-clustered-server

Failover Clustered SQL Server

Windows Failover Clustering is a high-availability option which is designed to increase the uptime of SQL Server instances. A SQL Server cluster includes two or more physical servers, called nodes. One is identified as the active node, on which a SQL Server instance is running the production workload, and the other is a passive node, on which SQL Server is installed but not processing the workload. If the SQL Server instance on the active node fails, the passive node becomes the active node and begins to run the SQL Server production workload with some minimal failover downtime.

https://www.biztalkgurus.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Failover-Clustered-SQL-Server.png

The SQL Server Network Name is used to identify a failover cluster (active node) on the network. This was known as the virtual SQL Server name.

sql-server-network

The virtual SQL Server will automatically connect to the currently active node. You can find the SQL Server Network Name as below in the Failover Manager.

connecting-active-node

Prerequisites or Permissions required to monitor the Non-Clustered/Clustered SQL Server in BizTalk360

  1. MSDTC should be enabled in the BizTalk360 server and SQL Server. In the case of Clustered SQL Server, MSDTC should be enabled in all the SQL Servers which belong to the cluster. Follow the link to enable the MDTC.
  2. If BizTalk360 is installed using the service account, then the service account should get added to the Administrator group in the SQL Server node. In the case of a Clustered SQL Server, the service account should get added to both physical SQL Server Nodes(active & passive node).

How the (Non-Clustered) SQL Server  is monitored in BizTalk360

Let’s have a detailed look at how you can monitor a non-clustered SQL server using BizTalk360.

By adding the Physical SQL server name for Monitoring, you can monitor the disks, CPU, memory, etc. You can add the SQL Server name under BizTalk360->Settings ->Monitoring and Notification ->Add SQL Server for monitoring.

monitoring-sql-server

Note: For non-clustered SQL servers you must add the physical SQL Server name for monitoring.

Once the above configuration is done, the added SQL servers will get available for monitoring as below.

monitoring

The configured server will be listed for monitoring under BizTalk360->Monitoring ->Manage Mapping->SQL Servers. By clicking on the Server name you can configure Disks, System Resources (CPU, memory), Event Logs and NT Services of the specific SQL server for monitoring.

Disk Monitoring

A click on the Disks tab, will automatically pick up all the disks in the configured SQL server and show a graphical view of the disk properties with total and available disk space. To monitor the disk, you can simply set the appropriate warning and error threshold level for each disk in percentage (%), as shown below. For more detailed information, follow the article link.

disk-monitoring

Note: The system reserved and the unpartitioned disk will not be available for monitoring.

System Resource Monitoring

Click on the System resource tab to monitor the CPU usage and Memory consumption. Next, configure the appropriate warning and error thresholds for CPU and memory. The system will start alerting if the system condition hits the configured warning/error level for the persisted duration, which you can see below. For more detailed information about the CPU and Memory, follow the article link.

system-resource-monitoring

By default, warning and error thresholds for CPU and memory will be in 30% and 10%, but you are free to reconfigure these thresholds depending on your own requirements

Event Log Monitoring

You can monitor for various event log entry conditions using BizTalk360. You can have multiple combinations of event log monitoring, for example, certain sources, certain event ids, certain text in the message, with configured threshold conditions as below.

Note that you can also set up Event Log monitoring in the Data Monitoring section. Setting it up there helps in correlating event log entries across multiple servers. For more detailed information about the Event Log monitoring, follow the article link.

event-log-monitoring

NT Service Monitoring

You may want to keep an eye on certain NT services that are running in SQL Server. BizTalk360 gives you the opportunity to automatically monitor the NT services by just setting the expected state. BizTalk360 will alert you when the configured expected state is not equal to the current state. For more detailed information about the NT Services monitoring, follow the article link.

NT-Service-Monitoring

How a SQL Clustered node is monitored in BizTalk360

Now, let us have a quick look at how we can use BizTalk360 to monitor a clustered SQL server.

Configuring a Cluster SQL Server for monitoring

If you want to monitor a Clustered SQL Server, all you need to do is, specify the name of the Virtual SQL Server (SQL Server Network Name). When you connect to SQL Server using this SQL Server Network Name, BizTalk360 will automatically connect to the currently active node.

Configuring-Cluster-SQL-Server

Note: It is is enough to add just the SQL Server Network Name for monitoring the SQL Cluster,  it is not required to add the actual physical SQL cluster nodes.

Once the above configuration is done, then the added clustered SQL Server Name will get listed for monitoring as shown below.

It will automatically pick the active node and the state of the (clustered) server.

Disk Monitoring

In clustered SQL Server monitoring, it will show the currently active monitoring Node, and also it will automatically pick up all the disks in the currently active node. 

By Default, warning and error thresholds for each disk will be in 20% and 10%. You can also change the warning and error percentage as per your need and save it. Then, the currently active node will get monitored by the BizTalk360. If the disk space exceeds the set percentage, BizTalk360 will send the alert to the respective user.

If the “Failover” happens for the monitored disk, then the configured disk will automatically switch to the active server(Failover server).

Consider a scenario if Node 1 has disk A and disk B which are configured for monitoring (error and warning condition as 50 %). Let say, Node 1 went down, then BizTalk360 will automatically pick up the currently active node 2 for monitoring. But what happens if node 2 has Disk B and Disk C?

In the above scenario, the default monitoring configuration i.e error and warning condition 20% is set to the Disk C. Disk A, which is available in node 1 but not in node 2 will be moved to the orphaned state.
state

As in the above screenshot, the “STR-Disk1 (F:)” disk is newly added after failover with the default warning and error conditions. The other two disks are “STR-Disk2 (E:)”, which is a shared volume, and the (C:) drive is a common volume, which is also configured with the existing warning and error percentages.

System Resource Monitoring

As the same as disk monitoring, you can set up appropriate warning and error thresholds for CPU and memory as per your business needs. For a Clustered SQL Server, it will show the current active monitoring Node. It will automatically pick up the CPU usage and the memory for the currently active node.

System-Resource-Monitoring

In the case of a Failover, the CPU and the memory will automatically get updated for the active node (failover node) with the existing warning and error conditions.

Event Log Monitoring

In a Clustered SQL Server, BizTalk360 monitors the Event Log based on the active node. You can have multiple combinations of event log monitoring, for example, certain sources, certain event ids, certain text in the message, with configured threshold conditions.

Once after Failover, then BizTalk360 automatically starts monitoring the existing event log conditions based on the currently active node (Failover node).

NT Service Monitoring

In a Clustered SQL Server, current monitoring will be based on the active server. It will pick up the NT services from the active server for monitoring as you can below.

Once after Failover, the configured NT service will automatically switch to the failover node and start monitoring.

Conclusion

Our objective with the monitoring aspect of BizTalk360 is to make it simple to configure, manage and use it on a day to day basis. The above SQL Server Monitoring will do that, and it will also do the automatic way of monitoring when a failover happens. There is plenty to consider when planning on clustering SQL Server, but we trust that we came up with the best solution. For any suggestion or feedback, post it in the feedback portal.

The post SQL Server Monitoring in BizTalk360 appeared first on BizTalk360.

October 21, 2019 Weekly Update on Microsoft Integration Platform & Azure iPaaS

October 21, 2019 Weekly Update on Microsoft Integration Platform & Azure iPaaS

Do you feel difficult to keep up to date on all the frequent updates and announcements in the Microsoft Integration platform and Azure iPaaS?

Integration weekly update can be your solution. It’s a weekly update on the topics related to Integration – enterprise integration, robust & scalable messaging capabilities and Citizen Integration capabilities empowered by Microsoft platform to deliver value to the business.

If you want to receive these updates weekly, then don’t forget to Subscribe!

 

Microsoft Announcements and Updates

 

Community Blog Posts

 

Video

 

Podcasts

 

How to get started with iPaaS design & development in Azure?

  • Robust Cloud Integration with Azure
  • Microsoft Azure for Developers: What to Use When
  • Serverless Computing: The Big Picture
  • Azure Logic Apps: Getting Started
  • Azure Logic Apps: Fundamentals
  • Microsoft Azure Developer: Creating Enterprise Logic Apps
  • Microsoft Azure API Management Essentials
  • Azure Functions Fundamentals
  • Cloud Design Patterns for Azure: Availability and Resilience
  • Architecting for High Availability in Microsoft Azure

Feedback

Hope this would be helpful. Please feel free to reach out to me with your feedback and questions.

Microsoft Integration and Azure Stencils Pack for Visio: New major version available (v5.0.0)

Microsoft Integration and Azure Stencils Pack for Visio: New major version available (v5.0.0)

It was only 3 days ago that I released the latest version of this package, but someone (aka Wagner Silveira) alerted me to the existence of new shiny icons in the Azure Portal… so I decided it would be a good time to launch a new major release and here it is! I hope you guys enjoy.

Microsoft Integration, Azure, Power Platform, Office 365 and much more Stencils Pack it’s a Visio package that contains fully resizable Visio shapes (symbols/icons) that will help you to visually represent On-premise, Cloud or Hybrid Integration and Enterprise architectures scenarios (BizTalk Server, API Management, Logic Apps, Service Bus, Event Hub…), solutions diagrams and features or systems that use Microsoft Azure and related cloud and on-premises technologies in Visio 2016/2013:

  • BizTalk Server
  • Microsoft Azure
    • Integration
      • Integration Service Environments (ISE)
      • Logic Apps and Azure App Service in general (API Apps, Web Apps, and Mobile Apps)
      • Azure API Management
      • Messaging: Event Hubs, Event Grid, Service Bus, …
    • Azure IoT and Docker
    • AI, Machine Learning, Stream Analytics, Data Factory, Data Pipelines
    • SQL Server, DocumentDB, CosmosDB, MySQL, …
    • and so on
  • Microsoft Power Platform
    • Microsoft Flow
    • PowerApps
    • Power BI
  • Office365, SharePoint,…
  • DevOps and PowerShell
  • Security and Governance
  • And much more…
  • … and now non-related Microsoft technologies like:
    • SAP Stencils
Microsoft Integration (Azure and much more) Stencils Pack

The Microsoft Integration Stencils Pack is composed of 27 files:

  • Microsoft Integration Stencils
  • MIS Additional or Support Stencils
  • MIS AI and Machine Learning Stencils
  • MIS Apps and Systems Logo Stencils  
  • MIS Azure Additional or Support Stencils
  • MIS Azure Mono Color
  • MIS Azure Old Versions
  • MIS Azure Others Stencils
  • MIS Azure Stencils
  • MIS Buildings Stencils
  • MIS Databases and Analytics Stencils
  • MIS Deprecated Stencils
  • MIS Developer Stencils
  • MIS Devices Stencils
  • MIS Files Stencils
  • MIS Generic Stencils
  • MIS Infrastructure Stencils
  • MIS Integration Fun
  • MIS Integration Patterns Stencils
  • MIS IoT Devices Stencils
  • MIS Office365
  • MIS Power BI Stencils
  • MIS PowerApps and Flows Stencils
  • MIS SAP Stencils
  • MIS Security and Governance
  • MIS Servers (HEX) Stencils
  • MIS Users and Roles Stencils

That you can use and resize without losing quality, in particular, the new shapes.

What’s new in this version?

I still have many things to do in this project in terms of organization and cleaning some resources but I will leave that for another occasion. The main goal of this release was to provide the new icons present in Azure Portal. In this version the changes and additions are:

  • New shapes: I think almost all the new shapes layout present in Azure Portal are now added in this package.
  • New categories: MIS Azure Mono Color, MIS Azure Old Versions, MIS Azure Others, MIS Integration Fun;
  • Categories Renaming: MIS Databases and Analytics and MIS AI and Machine Learning
  • SVG Files: The SVG files, from all these new resources, are now available on GitHub

Download

You can download Microsoft Integration, Azure, BAPI, Office 365 and much more Stencils Pack for Visio from:
Microsoft Integration Azure Stencils Pack VisioMicrosoft Integration, Azure, Power Platform, Office 365 and much more Stencils Pack for Visio
GitHub

or from :

You can download Microsoft Integration Stencils Pack for Visio 2016/2013 from:

Microsoft Integration Stencils Pack for Visio 2016/2013 (10,1 MB)
Microsoft | TechNet Gallery

The post Microsoft Integration and Azure Stencils Pack for Visio: New major version available (v5.0.0) appeared first on SANDRO PEREIRA BIZTALK BLOG.

Database Size Monitoring

Database Size Monitoring

In any BizTalk environment, it is important to keep track of database growth and execute the data purging policies whenever necessary. When the database size grows, the SQL server needs more memory and CPU to read data from the tables, which slows down the database operation. Besides that, there is also the risk that, due to the growing database(s), you are running out of disk space. Database Administrators spend a lot of their time dealing with the problem of database processes consuming too much disk space. So, it’s very important to monitor the database size to ensure the database is not seizing the memory and CPU for smooth BizTalk server operation.

The ability of Database Size Monitoring is a feature request we picked up from our feedback portal. This feature will be available for production use from BizTalk360 version 9.0 phase 3 on.

What can be monitored with Database Size Monitoring?

With Database Size Monitoring, you can monitor the data file and log file sizes of below BizTalk Server and BizTalk360 databases, by simply configuring the error and warning threshold conditions for the data and log file sizes.

  • BizTalkDTADb
  • BizTalkMgmtDb
  • BizTalkMsgBoxDb
  • BizTalkRuleEngineDb
  • BAM databases (BAMPrimaryImport, BAMAlertsApplication, BAMArchive, BAMStarSchema)
  • SSODB
  • BizTalk360

For example, if the size of the BizTalkDTADb is greater than a configured threshold value, then you will get notified.

Scenario

OutOfMemoryException in BizTalkDTADb

BizTalkDTADb contains the health monitoring data tracked by the BizTalk Server tracking engine. The size of the database can grow relatively quickly depending on the load of your server, which in turn results in OutOfMemory Exceptions.

This scenario can be overcome by proactively knowing the size of the database and acting against the exponential growth of the database by configuring the threshold limit in database size monitoring.

Monitor BizTalk360 database Growth

There might be a situation where the BizTalk360 database grows due to the amount and size of event log data and performance counter data. The BizTalk360 purging policy will take care of the data growth, but it is also important to monitor the size regularly to ensure BizTalk360 is working seamlessly.

Configuring Database for monitoring size

We wanted to simplify the process of configuring database size monitoring. To achieve this, we list all the BizTalk and BizTalk360 related databases. You can start monitoring by specifying the threshold details from the SQL instance.

To configure a database for monitoring, navigate to Monitoring->BizTalk environment-> Database Size, which lists all the BizTalk and bizTalk360 databases under the respective SQL Instances. Click on the config gear icon, as shown in the above image, to configure the threshold values to monitor the size of the database. Based on the threshold configuration, the user will get notified if there is any threshold violation occurring.

The available Threshold types, logical condition, and unit prefixes are:

Threshold Type

Logical Condition

Unit Prefixes

Data File Size

Data File Used Space

Data File Available Space

Log File Size

Log File Used Space

Log File Available Space

Equals

Not-Equals

Greater-than

Greater-than-or-Equal

Less-than

Less-than-or-Equals

Bytes

Kilo-Bytes (KB)

Mega-Bytes (MB)

GigaBytes (GB)

Following are the threshold types on which you can monitor a database:

Threshold Type

Explanation

Data File Size

This threshold type represents the reserved space for the data file.

For e.g.:

Warn Me if Data File Size is Greater-than 200 GB

Error if Data File Size is Greater-than 250 GB

Data File Used Space

This threshold type represents the size used by the data file.

For e.g.:

Warn Me if Data file Used Space not-equals 250 GB

Error if Data file Used Space not-equals 250 GB

Data File Available Space

This threshold type represents the available space for the data file

For e.g.:

Warn Me if Data file Available space less-than-or-equals 99 GB

Error if Data file Available space less-than-or-equals 99 GB

Log File Size

This threshold type represents the size reserved for the transaction log file.

For e.g.:

Warn Me if Log File Size is Greater-than 200 GB

Error if Log File Size is Greater-than 200GB

Log File Used Space

This threshold type represents the space used by the log file.

For e.g.:

Warn Me if Log File Used Space not-equals 250 GB

Error if Log File Used Space not-equals 250 GB

Log File Available Space

This threshold type represents the available space for the log file.

For e.g.:

Warn Me if Log File Available Space Greater-than 250 GB

Error if Log File Available Space Greater-than 250 GB

Once the threshold values are configured and saved, the monitoring conditions will be evaluated, and the status of the database size will be displayed in the grid.

The Monitoring Dashboard and BizTalk Group Dashboard display the overall status of the alarm including the Database size shown in the picture below.

The user will get notified through mail or notification channel when any threshold violation happens.

Quick Alarm

You can also configure database size for monitoring simply by configuring Quick alarm. In this case, an alarm will be created and all the BizTalk and BizTalk360 databases will get configured for database size monitoring with default threshold conditions.

Conclusion

Considering the feedback provided by our customers, via the feedback portal, BizTalk360 will continue to provide more useful features every single release. In the upcoming release v9.0 phase 3, the ability to monitor Database Sizes is only one of the features we bring. If you have any suggestions for a =n upcoming version, please write to us at support@biztalk360.com.

The post Database Size Monitoring appeared first on BizTalk360.

Analytics Custom Widgets in Reporting

Analytics Custom Widgets in Reporting

The Analytics Reporting feature is one of the main features which offers out of the box capabilities. It allows users to create schedules and generate PDF documents based on critical performance metrics at specific time periods. In previous versions, we supported only default pre-configured widgets in the Analytics reporting section. From v9.0.2 we provided an option to configure the Secure SQL Queries widgets in the Reporting section.

In the upcoming version v9.0.3, we extended this to support Analytics custom widgets, with this the user can configure the performance metrics as a widget and get them as a report.

Analytics Custom Widgets

In the Analytics dashboard, we have an option to configure performance widgets to the dashboard. Once you enabled any of the types (BizTalk, SQL, IIS, and Windows) in any selected environment, the BizTalk360 Analytics service will start collecting the performance metrics. These performance metrics can be mapped to the custom widget.

Some of our customers requested us to bring the ability to manage analytics custom widgets in the Reporting section. Considering the business value, for BizTalk360 v9.0.3, we are bringing an option to manage analytics custom widgets to the Analytics Reporting, as well as new user experience of the Reporting section.

custom-widget

Analytics Custom Widgets in Reporting

Let’s take a few scenarios to understand what we can achieve with the custom widgets.

Get the Host Suspended Messages Metrics

Using Analytics custom widget, you can determine the Suspended messages metrics and also the number of instances, per host instances, in a graphical representation. For this, you need to enable the Performance counter Server->BizTalk->BizTalk: Message Box: Host Counters. Once you enabled the metrics and configured to the widget, it will fetch the current metrics values and represent them in a graphical way.

metric-value

Comparing the performance of two BizTalk servers

Consider another scenario where you would like to compare the performance of two BizTalk servers and find which server consumes more memory and CPU. This can be achieved by configuring servers and select the appropriate metrics for the widgets.

comparing-performance

BizTalk Host Performance By CPU

By enabling the Server->BizTalk->Process -> % Process time, in Analytics Configuration under the Settings section, you can see the Host Performance by CPU, by using an Analytics custom widget. Once you enabled the metrics and configured the widget, the Analytics service will collect the counters for the selected metrics and represent it in a graphical way.

host-performance

Below are some of the BizTalk performance metrics which you can configure as an analytics custom widget and get it as a report.

BizTalk and SQL Server Health

  • CPU Usage
  • Memory Usage
  • Disk Free Space
  • Average Disk Queue Length
  • Network Performance
  • IIS Request Per Sec
  • IIS Worker Process: CPU Usage
  • IIS Worker Process: Memory Usage

Host Performance

  • Host Instance performance by CPU
  • Host Instance Performance by Memory
  • CPU Consuming Host Instances
  • Top 10 Memory Consuming Host Instances

BizTalk Messaging Performance

  • BizTalk Host Performance
  • Documents Receive/Second
  • Documents Processed/Second
  • Inbound Latency (Sec)
  • Outbound Latency (Sec)
  • Outbound Adapter Latency (Sec)
  • Request -Response Latency

Throttling Performance

  • Message delivery Throttling State
  • Message Publishing Throttling State
  • Message Delivery Outgoing Rate
  • Message Delivery Incoming Rate
  • Active Instance Count
  • Database Size
  • Database Session
  • Database Session Threshold
  • In-Process message Count
  • In-Process Message Count threshold
  • Message publishing incoming Rate
  • Message Publishing Outgoing Rate

Reports

In order to improve the user experience in the Analytics Reporting section, we have modified the User Interface for that section.

Previously, when we create a new report, the report would be added under the Reporting group on the left side navigation bar. We felt that it would be a bit confusing to the customer like where to start with. So, we removed the navigations and introduced a new page for Manage Reports.

In the Analytics Reporting Section, we now have 3 sub-menus:

  1. Reporting Schedules
  2. Manage Reports
  3. Report Notification History

Reporting Schedules

As a first step, you need to create a schedule to get a periodic report of the configured widgets. To create a schedule, refer to this article.

reporting-scheduling

Manage Reports

Once after creating a schedule, the next step is to create a report and add widgets to the report. Once you get into the Manage Reports section, you will be able to see the Sample report in the grid. You can’t do any operations with the ‘Sample Report’ except viewing the sample widgets.

manage-report

By clicking Configure reports icon, you can see the Sample widgets in the Report.

sample-report

In the Manage Reports section, you can manage (Add/Edit/Delete/Clone) the reports.

To create a new report, click on the ‘Add New Report’, the blade will open and then you can provide the name of the report and chose the schedule (how often do you want to receive the reported).

new-report

Once after you have saved the configuration, the new report will be generated and added to the grid. The Sample Report will be removed from the grid.

remove-sample-report

To manage the widgets in the report, click on the Configure Reports icon.

configuration-reports

There you can see the options to add widgets(custom/basic). Refer to the Manage Widgets article to know more about how to manage the widgets in the Report.

Configure Analytics Custom Widgets to the Report

Click on ‘Add Widget’, this will open a blade. At the bottom of the blade you can see the ‘Create Analytics Custom widget’ option.

analytics-custom-widget

Click ‘Create Analytics Custom Widget’, it opens a blade where you can see the metrics which all are enabled (in Tracking data collection in the Settings section).

create-custom-widget

You can map whatever performance metrics you want to get as a PDF in your email box.

For instance, I will configure the metrics, as mentioned above, that I want to know how much memory and CPU my BizTalk Server consumes.

biztalk-server-status

Live Data and Historical Data

Once the report has been generated and sent to the recipient’s email, the generated report will be stored and can be viewed by choosing the Date Time in the filter.

You can see the actual data sent as an attachment to your email address.

Using Live Data, you can see the actual metrics.

live-data

historical-data

Report Notification History

Using Report Notification History, you can see whether the mail has been sent to the recipient’s Email address or not. This will be represented in a success and error icon; A green tick icon is for the successful message and a red cross icon for the failure of sent. It will show only the top 50 records.

report-notification-history

Conclusion

I hope this blog has given you overall information about how to start with Analytics Reporting, the new user interface and how to configure the Analytics custom widget to the Reports.

For more information about how these widgets work, check our Documentation Portal.

The post Analytics Custom Widgets in Reporting appeared first on BizTalk360.

Microsoft Integration and Azure Stencils Pack for Visio: New version available (v4.0.3)

Microsoft Integration and Azure Stencils Pack for Visio: New version available (v4.0.3)

Microsoft Integration, Azure, Power Platform, Office 365 and much more Stencils Pack it’s a Visio package that contains fully resizable Visio shapes (symbols/icons) that will help you to visually represent On-premise, Cloud or Hybrid Integration and Enterprise architectures scenarios (BizTalk Server, API Management, Logic Apps, Service Bus, Event Hub…), solutions diagrams and features or systems that use Microsoft Azure and related cloud and on-premises technologies in Visio 2016/2013:

  • BizTalk Server
  • Microsoft Azure
    • Integration
      • Integration Service Environments (ISE)
      • Logic Apps and Azure App Service in general (API Apps, Web Apps, and Mobile Apps)
      • Azure API Management
      • Messaging: Event Hubs, Event Grid, Service Bus, …
    • Azure IoT and Docker
    • AI, Machine Learning, Stream Analytics, Data Factory, Data Pipelines
    • SQL Server, DocumentDB, CosmosDB, MySQL, …
    • and so on
  • Microsoft Power Platform
    • Microsoft Flow
    • PowerApps
    • Power BI
  • Office365, SharePoint,…
  • DevOps and PowerShell
  • Security and Governance
  • And much more…
  • … and now non-related Microsoft technologies like:
    • SAP Stencils
Microsoft Integration (Azure and much more) Stencils Pack

The Microsoft Integration Stencils Pack is composed of 23 files:

  • Microsoft Integration Stencils v4.0.2
  • MIS Additional or Support Stencils v4.0.0
  • MIS AI Stencils v4.0.0
  • MIS Apps and Systems Logo Stencils v4.0.0
  • MIS Azure Additional or Support Stencils v4.0.0
  • MIS Azure Others Stencils v4.0.0
  • MIS Azure Stencils v4.0.2
  • MIS Buildings Stencils v4.0.0
  • MIS Databases Stencils v4.0.0
  • MIS Deprecated Stencils v4.0.0
  • MIS Developer Stencils v4.0.0
  • MIS Devices Stencils v4.0.0
  • MIS Files Stencilsv4.0.0
  • MIS Generic Stencils v4.0.0
  • MIS Infrastructure Stencils v4.0.0
  • MIS Integration Patterns Stencils v4.0.0
  • MIS IoT Devices Stencils v4.0.0
  • MIS Office365 v4.1.0
  • MIS Power BI Stencils v4.0.0
  • MIS PowerApps and Flows Stencils v4.0.0
  • MIS SAP Stencils v4.0.0
  • MIS Security and Governance
  • MIS Servers (HEX) Stencils v4.0.0
  • MIS Users and Roles Stencils v4.0.0

That you can use and resize without losing quality, in particular, the new shapes.

What’s new in this version?

I’m doing some changes in the project in terms of organization and resources but instead of taking too much time doing it from top to bottom, I will be releasing small versions until the job is done. In this version the changes and additions are:

  • New shapes: near 50 new shapes have been added:
    • 3 related to Microsoft Intune – a requested from a community member;
    • 47 related to Security and Governance;
  • New category: I add a new file to the project called: Security and Governance with 47 shapes;
  • SVG Files: I’m starting to provide also the SVG files, from all these resources. At the moment these new shapes that were released in this version are now available in SVG Files on GitHub
MIS Security and Governance

Download

You can download Microsoft Integration, Azure, BAPI, Office 365 and much more Stencils Pack for Visio from:
Microsoft Integration Azure Stencils Pack VisioMicrosoft Integration, Azure, Power Platform, Office 365 and much more Stencils Pack for Visio
GitHub

or from :

You can download Microsoft Integration Stencils Pack for Visio 2016/2013 from:

Microsoft Integration Stencils Pack for Visio 2016/2013 (10,1 MB)
Microsoft | TechNet Gallery

The post Microsoft Integration and Azure Stencils Pack for Visio: New version available (v4.0.3) appeared first on SANDRO PEREIRA BIZTALK BLOG.

October 14, 2019 Weekly Update on Microsoft Integration Platform & Azure iPaaS

October 14, 2019 Weekly Update on Microsoft Integration Platform & Azure iPaaS

Do you feel difficult to keep up to date on all the frequent updates and announcements in the Microsoft Integration platform and Azure iPaaS?

Integration weekly update can be your solution. It’s a weekly update on the topics related to Integration – enterprise integration, robust & scalable messaging capabilities and Citizen Integration capabilities empowered by Microsoft platform to deliver value to the business.

If you want to receive these updates weekly, then don’t forget to Subscribe!

 

Microsoft Announcements and Updates

 

Community Blog Posts

 

Videos

 

Podcasts

 

How to get started with iPaaS design & development in Azure?

  • Robust Cloud Integration with Azure
  • Microsoft Azure for Developers: What to Use When
  • Serverless Computing: The Big Picture
  • Azure Logic Apps: Getting Started
  • Azure Logic Apps: Fundamentals
  • Microsoft Azure Developer: Creating Enterprise Logic Apps
  • Microsoft Azure API Management Essentials
  • Azure Functions Fundamentals
  • Cloud Design Patterns for Azure: Availability and Resilience
  • Architecting for High Availability in Microsoft Azure

Feedback

Hope this would be helpful. Please feel free to reach out to me with your feedback and questions.

October 7, 2019 Weekly Update on Microsoft Integration Platform & Azure iPaaS

October 7, 2019 Weekly Update on Microsoft Integration Platform & Azure iPaaS

Do you feel difficult to keep up to date on all the frequent updates and announcements in the Microsoft Integration platform and Azure iPaaS?

Integration weekly update can be your solution. It’s a weekly update on the topics related to Integration – enterprise integration, robust & scalable messaging capabilities and Citizen Integration capabilities empowered by Microsoft platform to deliver value to the business.

If you want to receive these updates weekly, then don’t forget to Subscribe!

 

Microsoft Announcements and Updates

 

Community Blog Posts

 

Videos

 

Podcasts

 

How to get started with iPaaS design & development in Azure?

  • Robust Cloud Integration with Azure
  • Microsoft Azure for Developers: What to Use When
  • Serverless Computing: The Big Picture
  • Azure Logic Apps: Getting Started
  • Azure Logic Apps: Fundamentals
  • Microsoft Azure Developer: Creating Enterprise Logic Apps
  • Microsoft Azure API Management Essentials
  • Azure Functions Fundamentals
  • Cloud Design Patterns for Azure: Availability and Resilience
  • Architecting for High Availability in Microsoft Azure

Feedback

Hope this would be helpful. Please feel free to reach out to me with your feedback and questions.