My second on-demand course for Pluralsight is now online. This course, Solution Modeling with UML in Visual Studio 2010, has three major components: how to build models, how to manage models and why to build models. First, I show how to create both behavioral diagrams (Use Case Diagrams, Activity Diagrams, Sequence Diagrams) and structural diagrams […]
Blog Post by: Richard Seroter
It’s very common to use .NET code for orchestration support. In one of these scenarios I decide to use a class for, in a certain way, validate request and add more information, and to my surprise I was blessed by this error: An unhandled exception (‘<System.StackOverflowException>’) occurred in BTSNTSvc.exe [2756]. Just-In-Time debugging this exception failed […]
Blog Post by: Sandro Pereira
In the first post of this series , I used Autoruns , Process Explorer and VMMap to statically analyze a Stuxnet infection on Windows XP. That phase of the investigation revealed that Stuxnet infected multiple processes, launched infected processes that…(read more)
Blog Post by: Mark Russinovich
BizTalk 360 provides a SQL server dashboard to view information that’s relevant to BizTalk Server. The screen shot below shows the SQL Server dashboard.
Why do we need SQL Server information in a BizTalk monitoring and support tool?
The heart of BizTalk server is the message box and it’s supporting databases like tracking, bam, SSO, management, etc. databases are system databases and treated as black boxes. It’s not recommended to change anything in these system databases. It will violate your support agreement.
But from a BizTalk production support and monitoring perspective its vital to keep track of the health of these databases. Often times the support people will use SQL tools like SQL management studio to check this information, to check the size of data and log files they either use the reporting functionality of SQL management studio or check the physical file size in SAN and disks.
These activities posses both security risk by providing access to SQL server and physical boxes, and it also posses risk due to human errors accessing production systems for health monitoring.
BizTalk 360 addresses these challenge by providing a SQL server specific dashboard, where all these required information are readily available without giving any additional permissions to support people. Also, it’s restricted read-only access, make the production environment safe from human errors.
Let’s take a deeper look at the parts of the portal
1.Checking of database data and log files sizes
BizTalk 360 separates the BizTalk databases into two categories. Message box databases and other databases. It got algorithm to calculate the database data and log file sizes and displays it appropriately.
2. Checking whether the SQL jobs are running properly
Health of SQL server jobs installed by BizTalk server is very critical in a production environment. SQL server jobs are responsible for variety of operations like moving historical data from message box database to tracking and bam databases. Taking care of log shipping information for disaster recovery (DR), back up databases etc.
BizTalk 360 lists all the SQL jobs relevant to BizTalk server in the dashboard, so the support person will get visibility directly.
3. Checking the auto-growth setting
Auto growth setting plays an important role in BizTalk configuration for performance reasons. It’s recommended to set this value to a fixed value, so SQL server doesn’t waste is resources expanding the data and log files during heavy processing.
4. Other trivial information
BizTalk 360 also provides some basic information related to SQL server like whether its clustered, the physical server name, version information etc.
Summary
In a nutshell, BizTalk 360 avoids monitoring and support teams from accessing the SQL server directly just for checking few information. It bring all the relevant details specific to supporting that BizTalk environment straight to the dashboard. It both speeds up the process and makes it secure.
Social:
twitter: @biztalk360
facebook: http://facebook.com/biztalk360
support: http://getsatisfaction.com/biztalk360
PS: If in case you haven’t noticed BizTalk 360 is a web based (RIA) application, built using Microsoft SilverLight. The above screens are accessible via browser. There is no necessity to install anything on the client PC except Microsoft SilverLight.
Nandri
Saravana
We are once again fortunate to have prominent speakers visiting our user group in Sweden. This time it's Kent Weare and Richard Seroter. Both of them have been here before, and have both been much appreciated speakers. (BTW if you are aware of any challenges happening in Sweden at the time of the event such as Iron man, marathon or cage fighting let me know so we can sign up Kent).
Kent Weare recently led a team of authors in their production of the book Microsoft BizTalk 2010: Integrating with Line of Business Systems (Packt Publishing, 2011). This book walks through multiple technologies and how to integrate with them via BizTalk Server 2010. Join Kent and Richard as they deliver the Top 10 Things to Know When Integrating with Line of Business Systems.
In these sessions, they will walk us through numerous key principles to follow when doing system integration and they will draw inspiration from their new book. These principles will be demonstrated by integrating BizTalk Server 2010 with SharePoint, Windows Azure, SAP and software-as-a-service providers.
Monday the 13th of June 18:00 at Microsofts office in Akalla
If you have an opportunity to join us, sign up. If you need help booking travel arrangements such as hotel, let us know by dropping us an email.
Welcome
Blog Post by: wmmihaa
BizTalk 360 comes with an integrated Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) portal, which gives the ability to query BAM views, perform activity searches, check user permission and check activities time window. If you have used BizTalk server BAM functionality for your applications BizTalk 360 will automatically pick up those configurations and display it. There is no necessity to do any additional configurations.
Let’s take a look.
Business Activity Monitoring – Home Screen
The above picture shows the home screen of the BAM portal. The home screen lists all the BAM view’s currently configured in the environment and it list all the BAM databases configured.
From a monitoring perspective it’s important to keep an eye on the size of database data and log files. BizTalk 360 eases this process by displaying them on the home screen as shown above.
BAM View – Object Explorer
When you expand the BAM node in the object explorer it automatically list’s all the BAM views deployed in the environment. For example, in the above picture the current test environment got 2 BAM views deployed.
BAM View – Activity Search
A BAM view can have one or more activities, Activity search functionality allows users to query the activity data as shown above.
When the user select a "BAM View" from the object explorer, the above screen is shown, it automatically populates all the activities in that "BAM View" in a drop down list. The user can then select the appropriate activity.
Once the activity is selected, all the available columns in that activity are populated on the "Available Columns" list, the user can then move the required columns to "Selected Columns" list, optionally user can also tell how to sort the results by moving appropriate columns to "Order by Columns". (Note: multiple columns can be selected and moved between available, selected and order by columns).
There is also a powerful query builder functionality to fine grain the results, which is explained bit more in detail in next section.
Once everything is set, user can then press the "Execute Query" button to see the results.
Activity Search Query Builder:
BizTalk 360 integrated BAM portal comes with powerful query builder, which allows the support people to query the BAM data seamlessly.
Values are pre-populated:
Instead of asking the support person to enter the data manually, BizTalk 360 pre-populates the available values in the drop down list, so the user can simply select the appropriate ones.
Rich editor for corresponding data types:
BizTalk 360 automatically understands the data type of the column and displays a corresponding input type, for example if its a date time column, it displays a rich calendar/time picker as shown below.
BAM View – User Permission
In order to view the "BAM data" users should have appropriate permission. BizTalk 360 comes with integrated user permission display screen which lists all the users and roles that got permission for that particular BAM View as shown below.
BAM View – Activity Time Window
When you create and deploy BAM activities, by default it will have an active time window of 6 months. It’s important to review activity time window based on your requirement and change it if necessary. You can refer to this previous article BAM Production Environment management to understand the importance of activity time window. The BAM data will reside in the active BAMPrimaryImport database based on the active windows time frame. Normally you can get to this data only by using the command line BAM management tool bm.exe by passing right arguments, but BizTalk 360 makes it seamless and bring the information straight into the integrated BAM portal as shown below.
BAM Security:
BizTalk 360 piggy backs the security infrastructure provided by BizTalk server to access any BAM related data. This gives the maximum protection and it respects the existing BAM security setup. It’s important to make sure the BAM data is protected, since it might have some sensitive information.
Summary:
When it comes to monitoring and supporting a BizTalk environment, its vital to give the application support person seamless access to all the required information. That’s the main objective behind BizTalk 360 and the integrated BAM portal functionality is one of them. This avoids the support person to jump into different tools to get to different data all related to the same application/environment they are supporting.
Social:
Twitter: @biztalk360
facebook: http://facebook.com/biztalk360
support: http://getsatisfaction.com/biztalk360
PS: If in case you haven’t noticed BizTalk 360 is a web based (RIA) application, built using Microsoft SilverLight. The above screens are accessible via browser. There is no necessity to install anything on the client PC except Microsoft SilverLight.
Nandri
Saravana
Normally we can debug almost all pipeline components in run-time mode by attaching Visual Studio to “BTSNTSvc.exe” process (see: Debugging External assembly’s or pipeline components – Attach to Process – which BizTalk process to use?) This is true for components that is running on In-Process Host, the exception is: Custom Pipeline Components that are running […]
Blog Post by: Sandro Pereira
Last week, I was having a debate with a renowned technology analyst about the open source cloud fabric model and why, in my opinion, are destined to become one of the predominant models in the Platform as a Service (PaaS) space. In a nutshell, PaaS encompasses…(read more)
Blog Post by: gsusx
The ESB Toolkit is great. However, it’s not without its fair
share of bugs. I’ve been meaning to blog about this since I first came across this
bug a year or so ago, but it’s taken me a while.
If you use the ExceptionManagementDb functionality…
Blog Post by: Daniel Probert
Today lets take a look at how BizTalk 360 represents the send ports in a graphical way. It’s needless to say a picture is worth more than 1000’s words.
Inside the BizTalk application, users can navigate to the send port section and see all the send ports defined for that application.
When the user double-click on any of the send port from the list, it brings the diagrammatic view of that send port. Example
Send ports in BizTalk are used for transmitting messages to external parties. They take a message emerging from the messaging engine and fire it off to the outside world. There are four types of send ports
A send port is a combination of few things as shown below (depending upon the choice of send port you are using).
It’s important to understand the sequence of steps that occur inside the send port. Typically only a person with reasonable BizTalk knowledge be able to tell this. BizTalk 360 tries to address this challenge by dynamically generating a diagrammatic view of the send port and the sequence of steps that happens inside that send port.
Example, the sequence of steps for a one-way port will normally be
which is represented in the below picture, dynamically generated by BizTalk 360
Detailed view of Tracking:
If in case you haven’t noticed, appropriate tracking boxes will be selected based on the options chosen as shown below.
Note:
For V1, the diagrammatic view of artifact is only generated for Send port, if you think it will be valuable to add this functionality you can cast your vote at http://getsatisfaction.com/biztalk360/topics/diagrammatic_view_of_biztalk_artifacts
Social:
Twitter: @biztalk360
facebook: http://facebook.com/biztalk360
support: http://getsatisfaction.com/biztalk360
PS: If in case you don’t know BizTalk 360 is a web based (RIA) application, built using Microsoft SilverLight. The above screens are accessible via browser.