January 09, 2020 Weekly Update on Microsoft Integration Platform & Azure iPaaS

January 09, 2020 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.

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 version available (v5.1.0)

Microsoft Integration and Azure Stencils Pack for Visio: New version available (v5.1.0)

In October, I did a major rearrange and release of my stencils pack mainly because Microsoft redesigned many of the icons present in the Azure Portal, but and guess what? Microsoft didn’t stop it yet. And several of the symbols that suffer a redesigned they already have a new version. So I decide that it is time for me to update my stencils once again, but instead of spending a lot of time and release everything at the same time, like I did last time, I decided this time I will do it in small waves.

What’s new in this version?

The main goal of this release was to provide the new icons present in the Azure Portal and update existing ones. In this version, the changes and additions are:

  • New shapes: New shapes added on MIS Security and Governance, MIS Developer Stencils and MIS IoT Devices Stencils;
  • MIS Security and Governance: Complete update to this category with many unique symbols added and updating many others to there current stencils;
Microsoft Integration Azure Stencils Pack: Security Governance
  • SVG Files: Add new SVG files, and uniform all the filenames;
  • Special Highlights: Azure Arc and Machines – Azure Arc
Microsoft Integration Azure Stencils Pack: Security Governance

Microsoft Integration, Azure, Power Platform, Office 365 and much more Stencils Pack

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.

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 (v5.1.0) appeared first on SANDRO PEREIRA BIZTALK BLOG.

Webinar Spoiler: BizTalk360 v9. X Product Walkthrough

Webinar Spoiler: BizTalk360 v9. X Product Walkthrough

In 2019, we released multiple major versions of BizTalk360. We have always believed that listening to the requests of our customers and partners is the right way to evolve the product. Many of the new features and improvements in the most actual version of the product have been suggested by our customers. So, we decided to organize a webinar to showcase the most appealing new features and improvements in the product.

Date: Wednesday 22nd of January

Time: 10 AM to 11 AM GMT (London)

Overview of some of the most important updates in BizTalk360 v9.x

It is interesting to see, that although over the last 8 years, we have brought over 60 releases, there are still areas where we can improve in the product. When looking at the v9.X updates we have released in 2019, the most recent version of the product contains 11 new features, 25 improvements, and 30 bug fixes. During the webinar, we will show the most interesting of these features in detail. Some of the features we brought are in the following areas:

  • Monitoring and notification – SQL Server cluster monitoring, database size monitoring, a new BizTalk Group dashboard, configurable polling intervals, a new Notification Channel
  • Operations – Querying Subscriptions, Send Port Group operations
  • Analytics – APM integrations (AppDynamics, Dynatrace), Reporting improvements, data collection optimization

Does this sound interesting? It doesn’t stop here! Join the webinar to learn about other new capabilities in BizTalk360!

How does BizTalk360 help our customers?

Meanwhile, we have around 600 customers all over the world and we believe that we are doing a good job in helping them efficiently manage their BizTalk environments. But why should you just take our word for it?

That’s why we have invited representatives from a BizTalk360 customer and a partner to be a part of our webinar.

During the webinar, we will interview them, enabling them to share their experiences with BizTalk360. Please find a short introduction about both below.

The customer, UWV (Netherlands), is an organization around social security. They might just have the largest BizTalk Server platform in The Netherlands. UWV is using BizTalk360 for a few years now. We have invited Hans Knaap, a senior administrator at UWV, to share his experiences with the product.

The partner, Integration.Team, is one of the major Belgian consultancy companies in the area of Microsoft integration. During the webinar, we will talk to Jordy Maes, who is a BizTalk360 Product Specialist for multiple years meanwhile. He has done multiple implementations of BizTalk360 at his customers.

Join us at the Webinar!

The webinar will be hosted by two of our senior Product Consultants, who have years of experience in the area of BizTalk Server and BizTalk360. This tandem will be able not just to show how the new capabilities look like, they will also share how they can be used in day-to-day practice.

Do you want to join us at the webinar on January 22nd? Why wait! Registration is simple, just click the below banner and leave your details. We are looking forward to welcoming you during the webinar.

The post Webinar Spoiler: BizTalk360 v9. X Product Walkthrough appeared first on BizTalk360.

Notes From The Road: 2019 Year In Review

Notes From The Road: 2019 Year In Review

2019 was a very challenging year. Nevertheless, it was another great year both on a personal and professional level, if last year I described as a family year this one it was a consolidation year.

  • If last year I moved my family to a bigger house, this year we made all the necessary modifications to the home of our dreams;
  • If my team at DevScope grew at the end of 2018, 2019 was a year of consolidation, and we hope it will continue to grow during this year in terms of business but full of challenging and great projects worldwide. We are doing a fantastic job;
  • My Porto Airbnb host house is running smoothly, with good reviews from our guests. Nevertheless, there is always space for improvement.
  • And who knows me knows that one of my passions is to enjoy a glass of good wine, so I’m delighted to have my first wine cellar draft (it will be improved in the future)
  • But with all of these renovations, it was also a year
    that I had to dedicated more time to the family – something that was delightful!
  • And I got married…

My Blog is growing every year…

So, once again, I struggle to have free time, but when you love what you do, you will always find a way to do it. So, in the end, I was able to:

  • Publish 43 new posts on my blog; it was indeed the year I publish fewer blog posts since I started my blog, but to be honest, I compensate in other aspects!
    • More than 431,000 visits to my blog – that’s an average of 1,181 visits per day!
      • That is almost double of last year. And the best year ever.
    • Coming from 207 countries across the world in the past year.
      • 13 new locations compare to the previous year
    • And the countries that most visited my blog still are the United States, followed by India, the United Kingdom, and Canada

Not bad if we compare to previous years:

  • 2018: 246,381 visits, 194 countries, 70 new posts
  • 2017: 210,000 visits, 167 countries, 63 new posts (migrate to a new blog)
  • 2016: 318,576 visits, 190 countries, 50
    new posts
  • 2015: 350,000 visits, 184 countries, 79 new
    posts
  • 2014: 310,000 visits, 183 countries, 52
    new posts
  • 2013: 200,000 visits, 176 countries, 79
    new posts
  • 2012: 170,000 visits, 171 countries, 102
    new posts
  • 2011: 91,000 visits, 61 new posts

I want to say thanks to all my readers. I appreciate all the visits to my
blog, and thanks for your support.

Attractions in 2019

These are the top 10 posts that got the most views in 2019:

  1. A fish out of water: Saving changes is not permitted. The changes that you have made require the following tables to be dropped and re-created with 82,876 views
  2. BizTalk Assessment: .NET Runtime Optimization Service causing high CPU usage with 36,387 views
  3. SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS): The Visual Studio component cache is out of date. Please restart Visual Studio with 18,915 views
  4. The source was not found, but some or all event logs could not be searched. Inaccessible logs: Security with 15,125 views
  5. Microsoft Integration (Azure and much more) Stencils Pack v3.0.0 for Visio with 14,048 views
  6. SQL Server detected a logical consistency-based I/O error: incorrect pageid in BizTalkMsgBoxDb database with 12,965 views
  7. New Office365 icons are now included in Microsoft Integration (Azure and much more) Stencils Pack v3.1.1 for Visio with 8,255 views
  8. Microsoft Flow: How to pass the SQL data table results in a Markdown-formatted table into an Email notification or Approval Requests with 6,852 views
  9. TypeLoadException: Could not load type ‘type name’ from assembly ‘assembly name, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=…’ with 6,078 views
  10. BizTalk Server 2020… is coming at the end of CY 2019 with 5,905 views

And these are some of my favorite post
that I enjoyed writing in 2019:

Open Source Contributions…

I told earlier that this was the year I wrote fewer
blog posts in my blog. On the other hand, this was the year I published more
open source contributions like code samples, tools, and resources. Here is the
current list of all my contributions:

  • Migrate all the code samples that existed in Microsoft Code Gallery that shut down to a GitHub repository: BizTalk Server Learning Path that includes nothing less than 46 code samples that will help you understand and improve different skill in BizTalk Server.
  • Microsoft Integration, Azure, Power Platform, Office 365 and much more Stencils Pack continues to be updated with new releases. The last time I counted already includes nearly 2150 shapes that will help you visually represent Integration architectures (On-premise, Cloud or Hybrid scenarios) and Cloud solutions diagrams.
  • BizTalk Scheduled Task Adapter repo includes an in-process receive adapter that executes a prescribed task on a daily, weekly or monthly schedule.
  • And the creation of a public repository for Microsoft BizTalk Server open source community extensions: code samples, BizTalk Artifacts (components), adapters, tools and so on: BizTalk Server Open Source Community that at the moment already includes 5 tools and 3 resources:
    • BizTalk Port Multiplier Tool is a simple tool that aims to simplify this process by allowing you to easily “clone or duplicate” an existing port (Receive Port or Send Port).
    • BizTalk Filter Finder Tool is a simple tool that aims to simplify the process for better understand and maintain solutions based on content-based routing and context-based routing with or without orchestrations involved.
    • BizTalk Pipeline Components Extensions Utility Pack is a set of custom pipeline components (libraries) with several custom pipeline components that can be used in received and sent pipelines, which will provide an extension of BizTalk out-of-the-box pipeline capabilities.
    • BizTalk Mapper Extensions UtilityPack is a set of libraries with several useful functoids to include and use it in a map, which will provide an extension of BizTalk Mapper capabilities.
    • BizTalk MapperExtensions Functoid Wizard is a Custom Functoid Project Wizard for Visual Studio. It allows you to create a new Functoids project for BizTalk Server without having to create manually the project.
    • SSO Application Configuration tool that provides the ability to add and manage applications, add and manage key-value pairs in the SSO database, as well as import and export configuration applications so that they can be deployed to different environments.

Other contributions…

And of course, several other publications outside my
blog.

A year of speaking engagements…

However, that not all! I still was
able to deliver 9 sessions:

  • XLVIII Porto.Data Community Meeting | January 30, 2019
    | How we use Microsoft Flow and PowerApps: Real cases scenarios
  • Integration Use Group | February 4, 2019 | The
    NoS-addin – your (free) BizTalk Dev buddy!
  • Integration Down Under | February 14, 2019 | How we
    are using Microsoft Integration features and related Azure technologies to
    improve our processes
  • Global Integration Bootcamp 2019 Madrid | May 30, 2019
    | Real case implementations using Azure Logic Apps and/or Microsoft Flows
  • Global Azure Bootcamp 2019 Lisbon | April 27, 2019 |
    How we are using Logic Apps (and/or Microsoft Flow): Real cases scenarios
  • INTEGRATE 2019 UK London | June 3-5, 2019 | BizTalk
    Server Fast & Loud Part II
  • INTEGRATE 2019 USA – Redmond | June 24-26, 2019 |
    BizTalk Server Fast & Loud Part II
  • PBIPT #7 | July 2, 2019 | Power BI Service, Flow,
    PowerApps and all together!
  • DevScope CSI | October 4, 2019 | Diagnosis – How are
    your Flow’s: Best Practices, Tips and Tricks

And several workshops and
training course during 2019:

  • Developing Business Process and Integration Solutions
    Using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2016 training  course
  • BizTalk Server 2016: Developer and Administration
    (OAM) training course
  • Get started with Microsoft PowerApps and Flow training
    course
  • Microsoft Integration Workshop London | October 28-29

For all of you…

Once again, thanks for following me, for reading my blog, and I promise that I will continue to share my knowledge during 2020.

The post Notes From The Road: 2019 Year In Review appeared first on SANDRO PEREIRA BIZTALK BLOG.

Top 10 Features of BizTalk360 Released in 2019

Top 10 Features of BizTalk360 Released in 2019

In BizTalk360, we have a practice of releasing new versions with significant features in every quarter. In 2019, we have released 4 major versions. In this blog, you can get to know about the top 10 stimulating features we have shipped in 2019.

1. Send Port Group Operations and Monitoring

You can completely manage and monitor your Send Port Groups from BizTalk360. 

Operations – Send Port Groups can be Start/Stop/Enlist/Unenlist from BizTalk360. With this capability, it is possible to manage the operation of BizTalk applications (Start & Stop) for all the artifacts of each application in BizTalk360.

Monitoring – Create an alarm, map the Send Port Groups for monitoring by setting up the expected state. If any threshold violation occurs, you will be notified. You can also setup auto-healing for this monitoring; once the Send Port Group goes down, then BizTalk360 will try to auto-heal it to the expected state.

This implementation makes life easier for the BizTalk support engineers without context switching between the BizTalk admin console and BizTalk360.

send-port-operation

2. Database Size Monitoring

Database Size monitoring helps to monitor the Data and log file size of the BizTalk and BizTalk360 databases, by simply configuring the error and warning threshold values for the database and log file sizes.

Below are the BizTalk databases that can be monitor using BizTalk360:

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

database-size-monitoring-biztalk360

3. SQL Server Cluster Monitoring

Cluster SQL Server can be monitored by configuring the SQL Server Network name. BizTalk360 will start monitoring the currently active node. In case of a failover, BizTalk360 will automatically take the active server for monitoring.

The following resources can be monitored by configuring the SQL Server:

  • CPU & Memory
  • NT Services
  • Disks (available disk space)
  • Event Logs

sql-server-cluster-monitoring

4. Host Instance Monitoring

BizTalk Host Instances(clustered/non clustered ) can be monitored by setting the Expected State as started/stopped/AtleastoneActive. An alert will get triggered if there is a mismatch between the expected and current state of the host instance.

The state AtleastOneActive will guarantee that at least one host instance is running and no downtime happened for that host/server.

You can also enable AutoCorrect for Clustered and Non-Clustered host instances monitoring.

host-instance-monitoring-biztalk360

5. Configurable Polling Interval for Monitoring

By default, the BizTalk360 monitoring service checks the status of all configured artifacts every 1 min. However, BizTalk360 provides an option for the user to configure the polling interval. Based on the configured polling interval, the monitoring service will determine the monitor status of the endpoints.

manage-polling-interval

6. SMTP Notification Channel

The SMTP Notification Channel provides an ability to create email distribution lists by grouping email ids based on the business needs.

Easily using the same email recipients for multiple alarms was not possible in earlier versions; the recipient’s details need to be entered for each alarm. To overcome this, we have introduced the SMTP Notification channel, through which the user can configure email distribution lists under one channel and can be mapped to multiple alarms. In addition to this, we have added email grouping for Up Alert and AutoCorrect Alert. With this, the user can configure different email ids to receive Up and AutoCorrect alerts.

7. BizTalk Group Dashboard

In BizTalk360’s Monitoring dashboard it was not possible to view the status of all the mapped artifacts in a single view; the user needed to change the alarm each and every time to view the status of the mapped artifacts of each alarm.

To overcome this challenge, we have introduced the BizTalk Group Dashboard which gives a consolidated view of the status of all the artifacts which are mapped to all the alarms in an environment.

The “BizTalk Group Dashboard” will automatically pick up all the artifacts (which are mapped to any of the BizTalk360 alarms) and displays the status of the artifacts in a graphical manner. Also, the error/warning details of the displayed artifacts are shown in a grid view.

biztalk-group-dashboard-bitalk360

8. Subscriptions (Message Box)

In addition, to retrieve the service instance and message details, BizTalk360 allows users to execute queries to retrieve the details of the subscription from the message box database. The subscription details such as Name, Service Name, state, subscription type, service instance id will be retrieved on message box query execution.

subscription-biztalk360

9. APM Integration

BizTalk360 is a one-stop tool for operations, monitoring and application performance management (APM) of BizTalk environments.

We get to see a few of our customers utilizing modern SaaS-based Application Monitoring/Analytics platforms like New Relic, AppDynamics, Dynatrace, etc., for their global enterprise analytics/monitoring requirements.

To support that we have integrated the following tools in BizTalk360.

  • NewRelic
  • AppDynamic (new)
  • Dynatrace (new)

BizTalk360 Analytics service will start pushing the BizTalk performance data to your environment. With this, you can see the BizTalk server related performance metrics such as BizTalk/SQL Server health, Host Performance, BizTalk Messaging Performance, Throttling Performance, etc., in AppDynamics and DynaTrace environment.

apm-integration-biztalk360

10. Analytics Data Collection Optimization

We have fine-tuned the performance in analytics data collection. To improve the performance and tracking data collection we are providing an option for the user to select the required performance counters on each type. This way, BizTalk360 will start collecting data only for the selected counters.

analytics-data-collection-biztalk360

Reporting Improvements

BizTalk360 provides the option for users to be able to generate PDF documents of critical performance metrics at specific time periods depending on the business.

In BizTalk Reporting, we have introduced an additive widget called Custom SQL Query widget through which SQL queries can be mapped to get the top 100 query result as a report based on the scheduled configuration.

In addition to this, we have extended our support for Analytics custom widget. With this, you can retrieve performance metrics of the BizTalk environment such as Messaging Performance, Message Transmission failure rate, Server performance, etc., and the SQL Query results as a report. Based on the configured schedule you can receive that report in your email box.

Conclusion

Considering the feedback from our customers, BizTalk360 will continue to provide more useful features. Why not give BizTalk360 a try! It takes about 10 minutes to install on your BizTalk environments and you can witness and check the security and productivity of your own BizTalk Environments.

The post Top 10 Features of BizTalk360 Released in 2019 appeared first on BizTalk360.

January 06, 2020 Weekly Update on Microsoft Integration Platform & Azure iPaaS

January 06, 2020 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.

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.

BizTalk360 Azure Marketplace Installer for BizTalk 2016

BizTalk360 Azure Marketplace Installer for BizTalk 2016

Working in Kovai.co provides a lot of opportunities to learn and explore new things. I’m sure within Kovai.co your job role doesn’t decide your day to day work routine. Click here to know more about the work culture. Recently we had an opportunity to work in Microsoft Azure Marketplace and interestingly we came across a new case related to IIS configuration.
In this blog, I’m going to share my experience in creating a Marketplace installer for BizTalk360 and how we solved the challenge.

Different ways to install BizTalk360

There are various deployment choices for BizTalk360. To fulfill all the customer needs, there are several ways to install BizTalk360 and we provide different types of installer options:

For an overview please check here.

Before going to the problem, I would like to provide a brief insight into Microsoft Azure Marketplace and how to create an Azure Marketplace installer, since the problem appeared while creating Marketplace.

Azure-Marketplace

Microsoft Azure Marketplace

The Microsoft Azure Marketplace is an online store that offers applications and services either built on or designed to integrate with Microsoft’s public cloud computing platform.

The products and services offered through the Microsoft Azure Marketplace come from either Microsoft or its technology partners.

Before they become available for purchase on the Marketplace, all services and products are certified through the Microsoft Azure Certified program to ensure compatibility with the Azure public cloud.

BizTalk360-marketplace

BizTalk360 in Azure Marketplace

BizTalk360 on Azure Marketplace is suitable for customers having a full-blown setup in the cloud, such as a domain setup, Active Directory and one or more BizTalk environments running within the network. In this scenario, customers can download BizTalk360 from the Marketplace. BizTalk360 will run independently in its own virtual machine environment and will connect to all the available BizTalk environments available in the same network.

So, our task is to make BizTalk360 support the BizTalk Server 2016 installations on Microsoft Azure. For this, we must provision a complete virtual machine for the BizTalk server 2016 along with the pre-requisites to install BizTalk360. To know more about the BizTalk360 Azure marketplace installer please check here.

Create a user VM Image

Since it’s a vast process, here we would like to give a general step that required to create a managed or an unmanaged image from a generalized VHD.

user-vm

Capture the VM image (for a managed database)

Generalize the VM image (for an unmanaged database)

Azure marketplace virtual machine image publishing

  • Sign in to the Cloud Partner Portal and create a VM offer
  • Offer Settings – Define the offer within Azure Marketplace
  • SKU’s – Solutions can be differentiated by SKU based on their features sets, the VM image type, throughput/scalability, billing model, or other specific features
  • Publish a VM offer

For in-depth Azure marketplace documentation please refer to the article here.

Real Problem

Once after uploading the VM image into the Marketplace, before getting into public, the images will be available in preview items (inclusively for testing) for the configured subscriptions.

During the testing, we have tried installing BizTalk360 to verify the BizTalk360 is installing automatically without any issues. Without any problem, the BizTalk360 installed its services and created a database. But it failed to create the website. In the installation log, we have found error lines (some may face different error code) to the following:

WriteIIS7ConfigChanges: Error 0x80070002: Site not found for create application.

WriteIIS7ConfigChanges: Error 0x80070002: Failed to configure IIS application.

WriteIIS7ConfigChanges: Error 0x80070002: WriteIIS7ConfigChanges Failed.

WriteIIS7ConfigChanges Failed

We are able to understand that the problem is not due to the creation of the Website but during the changes in it. To drill down the problem, we tried to create a web pool manually and changed its identity. During the change, we faced an exception below.

configuration-failure

You may face this specific issue when you are running IIS 7+ and versions. When we try to change the application pool identity of an application pool to a domain account, we get the above error while committing the changes.

The error code might change according to your machine operating system and IIS version, but you will get the text as keyset does not exist while trying to update the application pool identity with a custom account or while trying to specify a connect as a user. You might also get the below error codes:

0x80090005

0x8009000D

Cause of the problem

Possibility 1

This issue happens when your IIS specific machine keys are corrupted or missing. Your machine keys might go corrupt if there was an improper shutdown of the machine or the machine was cloned from an existing image or if there was a system crash.

We have referred some blogs and articles for this issue, and they suggested to replace the machine keys. What if you don’t have a backup (Its always a good idea to have a backup of the machine keys)? Unfortunately, we have no idea about the corrupted machine keys.

Okay! Let’s see the different machine keys required in IIS for encryption.

The location of the key depends on the operating system (from Windows server 2012 onward) is basically C:ProgramDataMicrosoftCryptoRSAMachineKeys

IIS-key-corruption

Possibility 2

The BizTalk360 service should be the LOCAL SERVICE account of the IIS Web Management Service (also known as WMSvc). This problem occurs because the SERVICE account does not have Read access on the iisWasKey key.

Possibility 3

Check if the metabase.xml is corrupted or if c2319c42033a5ca7f44e731bfd3fa2b5_GUID is corrupted. In IIS any sensitive data like passwords won’t be stored in plain text and will have to be encrypted before it is stored in the config file and get decrypted accordingly when needed.

Most suggest to rebuild or reinstall IIS ☹. But what if reinstalling IIS is not an option?

How we solved the case

We can regenerate these machine keys without reinstalling IIS completely. To do that follow the below steps.

1. Rename the below files or move them to a different location from C:ProgramDataMicrosoftCryptoRSAMachineKeys. This time I don’t want to take the risk, so I just took existing machine keys as a backup.

6de9cb26d2b98c01ec4e9e8b34824aa2_GUID

iisConfigurationKey

d6d986f09a1ee04e24c949879fdb506c_GUID

NetFrameworkConfigurationKey

76944fb33636aeddb9590521c2e8815a_GUID

iisWasKey

2. Backup applicationhost.config, then delete everything inside the tags below in applicationhost.config. Delete the contents within <configProtectedData> or <providers>.

<configProtectedData>

<providers>

</providers>

</configProtectedData>

3. Open a command prompt in admin mode and run the below command

“%windir%system32inetsrviissetup.exe /install SharedLibraries”

system-command

Now you will receive a message “the error Failed = 0x80070005”. Even though it shows a failure message, the above steps should regenerate the machine keys and the configprotecteddata section in applicationhost.config.

If the above suggestions don’t help, the most preferable option would be to reinstall IIS to fix the corruption (no other go).

Fix in the Marketplace

From my understanding, the machine keys might be corrupted due to an improper shutdown of the machine. Because we used the Sysprep command to generalize the VM.

sysprep.exe /oobe /generalize /shutdown /mode:vm

The above command helped the image to remove computer-specific information such as installed drivers and the computer security identifier (SID).

Once after running the sysprep.exe command, we faced the WriteIIS7ConfigChanges exception. So, to fix the issue, we used the below registry command to regenerate the machine keys during the machine provision/first-time launch.

in RegenerateIISKeys.reg file

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRunOnce]

“BizTalk360 Azure Marketplace Installer”=””C:AzureMarketplaceInstallerRegenerateIISKeys.bat””

In RegenerateIISKeys.bat file

START cmd.exe /k “C:WindowsSystem32inetsrviissetup.exe”

azure-marketplace-installer

After the bootup, at the initial launch (only one time) RegenerateIISKeys.bat file will be called by the RegenerateIISKeys.reg file to regenerate the machine keys. So, during the installation of BizTalk360, the installer will have the new machine keys and the installation will be successful.

Conclusion

Keeping the user perspective in mind, we have built various deployment choices for BizTalk360 customers which would ease the installation and provide a user-friendly experience. You are just one click away from provisioning a brand new BizTalk360 VM in Microsoft Azure.

I want to take this opportunity once again to thank everyone in and out of Kovai.co for this wonderful opportunity and believing in us. We are looking forward, for many more opportunities.

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