What makes BizTalk360 the best BizTalk Server Monitoring tool?

What makes BizTalk360 the best BizTalk Server Monitoring tool?

Key takeaways from this blog

  • Introduction
  • BizTalk Server Monitoring tools
  • Azure Serverless Monitoring
  • Pricing Structure of BizTalk360
  • If everything is a peaceful and relaxing environment, then something is wrong

Introduction to BizTalk360 

BizTalk360 has been around for more than a decade in the field of BizTalk Server Administration and Monitoring. This blog shows users how they can streamline their day-to-day monitoring. Besides providing full coverage of your BizTalk Server Monitoring, BizTalk360 also fulfils many other functions. Let us see this in detail.

BizTalk Server Monitoring tools

In this section, you can get a deeper understanding of what you can monitor with BizTalk360.

  • Application and artifacts monitoring
  • Host Instance Monitoring
  • Host Throttling
  • EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) Agreement Monitoring
  • Database size
  • Event Log Monitoring
  • Event Log Data Monitoring
  • File Location Monitoring
  • Queue Monitoring
  • BizTalk & SQL Server Monitoring
  • SQL Job Monitoring

Application and artifacts monitoring

BizTalk360 automatically shows the applications that are deployed in the BizTalk Server environment at hand. All state-based applications artifacts can be monitored, including:

  • Orchestrations
  • Receive locations
  • Send ports
  • Send port groups

Users can set the expected state of those artifacts. When there is a mismatch between the actual and the expected state, BizTalk360 sends you an email, or a notification to any of the systems such as:

  • Microsoft Teams
  • Slack
  • ServiceNow
  • PowerShell
  • Webhook
  • Twilio
  • PagerDuty

Host Instance Monitoring

In BizTalk, messages can only be processed when the host instance is running. BizTalk360 allows users to manage and monitor BizTalk Host Instances. Additionally, BizTalk360 can also monitor clustered host instances. To learn more about clustered host instances, follow the link.

Host Throttling

Microsoft does not provide any tool to understand whether your BizTalk environment is working efficiently or under throttling conditions. It is typical for administrators to use Windows Perfmon to add all the performance counters associated with throttling and then analyse throttling conditions. This requires extensive knowledge of how the BizTalk Server works, various throttling counters & conditions, whether it is running at an optimum level, etc.

Setting up Host Throttling monitoring in BizTalk360 is just a 5-minute process, where users can monitor the following:

  • Rate throttling
  • Process memory
  • System memory
  • Database size
  • Database session
  • Thread count
  • User override

EDI agreement monitoring

Any business trading partners commonly exchange data electronically through EDI. For successful transactions, it is important to maintain the agreement state. Via BizTalk360, users can monitor the states of EDI Agreements.


Database size

For a healthy BizTalk environment, it is essential to monitor the growth of the BizTalk databases. With the Database size monitoring feature, users can monitor the database and log the file size of the BizTalk and BizTalk360 databases. Follow the link to learn more!

Event log monitoring

What happens when your Windows server gets booted without your knowledge? It may be a good idea for users to check if everything is still in good shape. Without a monitoring product, it requires manual intervention to be aware of the reboot. Wouldn’t it be more convenient if there was a tool to monitor your Event log entries?

BizTalk360 comes with a feature named Event log monitoring that enables users to be alerted about specific events being written to event logs in your BizTalk or SQL servers.

There is also another type of monitoring, which is Event Log Data Monitoring where users can configure a specific value based on conditions. Follow the link to know more.

Before moving on to the next topic, it is helpful to know the difference between Event Log and Event Log Data Monitoring. Let us say you have multiple BizTalk servers and want to correlate and monitor event IDs. In such a scenario, Event Log Data Monitoring will be helpful whereas, in Event Log Monitoring, you need to create two event logs to monitor different event IDs.

Event Log Data Monitoring

BizTalk administrators look first for the Event Logs when something unexpected happens since the Event Viewer contains the exact error information. Logging in each time to the BizTalk and SQL servers to check the event logs would be cumbersome. When BizTalk360 event log data monitoring is enabled, it is easy to check for event logs. You can get the log message count as well as event log message information in the alert email.

Wouldn’t it be helpful if we see all this information in one place? Yes, BizTalk360 provides you with this option where data can be filtered with more options and conditions. An additional filtering option is that the event logs can be filtered based on multiple event ids.

File Location monitoring

BizTalk360 lists all the locations configured in the BizTalk artifacts (Send Ports and Receive Locations) for the Transport types (File, FTP, SFTP) respectively, which helps users to monitor all the File Locations mapped with Receive Locations/Send Ports.

Queue Monitoring

BizTalk360 monitors the health of the IBMMQ and MSMQ along with other parameters, including Queue Size, Active Messages, Dead Letter messages, and Journal Messages. Monitor your local and remote queues and set threshold conditions to get notified of any violations.

SQL Jobs Monitoring

BizTalk Server heavily relies on SQL Server databases. The health of these databases is crucial for the health of the BizTalk Server. Out of the box, BizTalk Server comes with several SQL Server jobs that perform all kinds of maintenance tasks, thereby contributing to the health of those databases. BizTalk360 allows you to monitor those SQL Jobs.

BizTalk & SQL Server monitoring

This feature helps the users to monitor the availability of

  • Disk space
  • CPU and Memory usage
  • Event Log entries
  • Windows NT Services

Azure Serverless Monitoring

To support hybrid integrations, BizTalk360 becomes aligned by supporting Azure Serverless technologies. Hereby, the product prevents you from switching between BizTalk360 and the Azure portal. Let’s see what Azure Services can be monitored by BizTalk360:

  • Azure Logic Apps
  • Azure API (Application Programming Interface) Apps

Azure Logic Apps

With BizTalk360, Logic Apps can be monitored and ensure they are running correctly. You will gain deeper insight into when the expected number of runs is met and the number of failures that occur.

Azure API apps

Users can monitor the health of their API apps and the configured endpoints. Monitoring API apps includes endpoints and provides a seamless monitoring experience.

Azure Service Bus Queue monitoring

Azure Service Bus allows applications and services to communicate with other applications in the cloud, on-premises, or both and ensures message exchange occurs smoothly. With BizTalk360, configure alarms for various parameters like

  • Queue Size
  • Status
  • Messages
  • Active Messages
  • Scheduled Messages
  • Transfer Messages
  • Dead letter Messages

Auto Correct

Administrators can set up monitoring on “State-based” artifacts and let the monitoring service automatically heal the artifact at any time. For example, administrators can monitor the receive locations of applications and set up auto correct functionality for the Expected state of the artifact. Whenever the receive location goes down or gets disabled, there will be a mismatch and the auto correct will try to bring the artifact back to the Expected state within the next monitoring service cycle. The feature applies to the following artifacts:

  • Send ports
  • Send port groups
  • Receive locations
  • Orchestrations
  • Host Instances
  • NT Services
  • SQL jobs
  • Logic Apps
  • EDI Agreements

Pricing Structure of BizTalk360

There are one-year and three-year subscription options available for BizTalk360. Depending on the number of BizTalk servers in the BizTalk group, the BizTalk edition (Standard or Enterprise), and the BizTalk360 feature-based license tier (Silver, Gold, Platinum), users will pay a different license fee. A license comes with unlimited users and unlimited customer support, also users can customize their license according to business requirements. A free trial is also available.

If everything is a peaceful and relaxing environment, then something is wrong

The BizTalk360 team is always there for customers when they need Product support. They frequently reach out to each customer, to update them on the latest release, and to make sure they are using the product to the fullest.

Ask for Support

When setting up BizTalk360 monitoring, you are not alone. Whenever you have a problem, the BizTalk360 technical support team is there to help. They are knowledgeable about the product and can share their experiences with other customers as well. Directly ask them to review your setup before it fails, and you find out it was set up incorrectly.

Documentation Help

It is crucial to document exactly how users have set up their business requirements and assist team members in the future. In BizTalk360, users can easily locate any information they need through the documentation portal.

Demo & Free Trial

Currently the product contains over 80 features, but Product Consultant team of BizTalk360 provides a fully customized product demo based on business needs, so please do contact the support team without any obligation. Users can either request a demo or take a free trial.

  • Introduction
  • BizTalk Server Monitoring tools
  • Azure Serverless Monitoring
  • Pricing Structure of BizTalk360
  • If everything is a peaceful and relaxing environment, then something is wrong
Middleware Friday turns 6 Months

Middleware Friday turns 6 Months

Yes, it has been 6 months since we launched Middleware Friday! Saravana announced the launch of Middleware Friday in the first week of this year.  After a fair success from Integration Monday events under Integration User Group, Saravana and Kent had the idea to experiment this concept of short video blogs on some interesting Integration topics and interviews from industry leaders. In a larger view, Middleware Friday is something very much like a short news update on the latest Integration trends posted on every Friday.

Six Months and 26 sessions later…

We’ve had 23 sessions from Kent Weare and 3 guest sessions from Steef-Jan Wiggers (both of them are eminent MVP’s, and active community members) till date, with topics ranging from Logic Apps, Power Apps, Service Bus, Power BI, Cognitive Services, Serverless Integration, HTTP Connectors, API Management and lots more. We would like to extend our thanks to the speakers and attendees for making the #MiddlewareFriday sessions a success. We’re not done yet! One of the hardest parts in conducting these kinds of video logs is being short and yet deliver fair technical output that would help the viewer. We are very pleased with the outcome so far.

Protecting Azure Logic Apps with Azure API Management

Azure Logic Apps and Service Bus Peek-Lock

Logic Apps and Cognitive Services Face API – Part 1

Microsoft PowerApps and Cognitive Services Face API – Part 2

Serverless Integration

Logic Apps and Power BI Real-Time Data Sets

Azure Monitoring, Azure Logic Apps and Creating ServiceNow Tickets

Monitoring Azure Service Bus Queues and Topics using ServiceBus360

Azure Logic Apps and SAP – Part 1

Azure Logic Apps and SAP – Part 2

Azure Logic Apps and HTTP Connector

Using API Management to protect on-premises BizTalk endpoints

Global Integration Bootcamp – March 25, 2017, New York

Using API Management to protect Azure Functions

Introduction to Azure Functions Proxies

Azure Logic Apps and Azure EventHubs

BizTalk Server 2016 First Look

BizTalk Server 2016 + Logic Apps – Thunder and Lightning

BizTalk Server 2016 Feature Pack 1

Task Management Face off with Logic Apps and Flow

Austin City Limits with Stephen W. Thomas

Azure Logic Apps – Retry Policy

Azure Logic Apps – Azure Active Directory Connector

Azure Event Hubs: Auto-Inflate

INTEGRATE 2017 Preview Show

INTEGRATE 2017 Highlight Show

Over the course of next few weeks until further communication, Kent will be moving his time schedule to summer hours. Therefore, Middleware Friday episodes will be published every alternate week.

Author: Mohan Nagaraj

Mohan as a Senior Technical Writer responsible for product documentation and all other content related activities. He combines his passion for business, technology, and writing to spread the word about BizTalk360. Mohan is responsible to work with cross functional teams to visualize and create product documentation and marketing content. He feels writing is so much fun and it is satisfying to capture the company’s soul & passion and make it live through documentation. View all posts by Mohan Nagaraj