by community-syndication | May 9, 2011 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
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
by community-syndication | May 8, 2011 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
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
by community-syndication | May 6, 2011 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
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
by community-syndication | May 6, 2011 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
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
by community-syndication | May 6, 2011 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
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
- Static one-way
- Static solicit-response
- Dynamic one-way
- Dynamic solicit-response
A send port is a combination of few things as shown below (depending upon the choice of send port you are using).
- Subscription filter
- Inbound-Outbound maps
- Primary/Secondary Transport (adapter configuration)
- Send/Receive Pipelines
- Message Context/Body tracking properties
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
- Subscription filter is the key parameter, messaging engine delivers the messages to the corresponding send port if the subscription conditions met.
- Outbound Tracking (before processing)
- Outbound maps
- Send Pipeline
- Outbound Tracking (after processing)
- Transport (with properties)
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.
by community-syndication | May 6, 2011 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
I know this post is overdue, but I’m happy to say that in the time since MIX has elapsed, my wife and I have sold our condo and moved to a new home. I’ve also transition to a new contract, and I am excited to get my feet wet my new project. Despite […]
Blog Post by: bdewey
by community-syndication | May 5, 2011 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
Today lets take a look at what BizTalk Host Dashboard provides in BizTalk 360. The below picture shows the screen shot of BizTalk Host Dashboard.
and the Hosts List
The BizTalk Host dashboard shows the following key information related to the BizTalk Host
- General Properties of the host
- Host instances configured for the host
- Throttling settings
- Host Container view
1. General Properties
At the top of the screen, the general characteristics of the host will be displayed it will include properties like name, type, windows group, 32bit, etc.
Even though its trivial thing, BizTalk host dashboard header will have appropriate icons to represent the host type. Examples: In-process, Isolated, Default host etc..
2. Host Instances Configured for the host
The dashboard also displays the host instances created for this particular host and details about it. Based on the authorization setup for the user it will also allow the users to start/stop/disable/enable host instance straight from this screen.
3. Throttling Settings (read-only)
The dashboard displays the throttling settings for the host. The throttling settings are read-only. Since this is not something you check on a day-to-day basis, the settings are by default hidden inside a collapsible panel to keep the UI clean.
4. Host Container View
This is one of the key functionalities of the dashboard, lets see the basics of host, host instances and server mapping and explain how BizTalk 360 host dashboard help us understand what’s running inside the host by visualizing it dynamically.
Host/Host Instances/Server mapping basics:
A BizTalk Host is a logical container where you deploy items such as adapter handlers, receive locations (including pipelines), and orchestrations. A host instance is the runtime engine where the message processing, receiving, and transmitting occurs. You install a host instance on each BizTalk Server computer that has one or more hosts mapped to that server.
Hosts have the following characteristics:
- Hosts are the logical containers of BizTalk objects.
- Only one instance of a specific host can exist on each server.
- You can map one host to multiple servers.
Host instances have the following characteristics:
- Host instances running on the servers are the physical containers of BizTalk objects.
- You create a host instance when you map a server to a host.
- Multiple host instances (of different hosts) can exist on a server.
The following figure shows the relationship between servers, hosts, and host instances.
In order to find out what’s deployed inside the host you need to look at all the Orchestrations host binding, send and receive ports and their corresponding handler bindings. Normally you’ll require someone with solid BizTalk expertise to understand this relationships. BizTalk 360 addresses this challenge by its internal algorithm to work out the relationships and displays the container view dynamically as shown below.
Example: Host used only for receiving
Example: Host used for receiving, processing and sending
As you can see you it will be a valuable information when you are looking at an environment and figuring out your scalability options and BizTalk deployment best practices.
Twitter: @biztalk360
facebook: http://facebook.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.
Nandri!
Saravana
by community-syndication | May 4, 2011 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
Keeping up with software technology is really hard. We are living in very exciting times for the software industry as we are witnessing revolutions in areas such as cloud computing, mobility, NOSQL databases among others that are changing the way we think…(read more)
Blog Post by: gsusx
by community-syndication | May 4, 2011 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
Today I had a very weird problem. I submitted a message via a WCF webservice and had an orchestration listening on the messagebox for that particular messagetype. The orchestration does some serious data-massage and needs to store the converted message…(read more)
Blog Post by: Patrick Wellink
by community-syndication | May 4, 2011 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
Today lets take a look at what BizTalk Server dashboard provides in BizTalk 360. The picture below shows the BizTalk Dashboard of BizTalk 360:
It displays 4 key information related to BizTalk Server
- Server Properties
- Products Installed
- Host instances running
- Last 50 Windows Event Log data
1. Server Properties:
Background:
In a typical production BizTalk environment we will have more than 1 server to support high availability and scalability. Whey you experience CPU, memory or IO bottlenecks in the BizTalk server tier, you typically add more servers to the group based on the requirement. You start out with a basic scale out configuration and keep adding more servers until your requirements are met.
Note: SQL servers and Message boxes will also be scaled out in accordance with number of BizTalk servers, but its omitted for this discussion. Above (orange shade) images are taken from BizTalk scalability posters.
One of the best practices setting up the BizTalk environment is to use separate host for receiving, sending, processing and tracking messages. BizTalk host is a logical container to host the BizTalk artifacts (ports, orchestrations), once host is defined you create run time host instances (Windows NT services) in the available servers in the group. One of the other best practice is to use dedicated tracking host, which will be responsible for moving data from message box to tracking and BAM databases.
One of the challenge is to identify how the servers in the BizTalk group are utilized, whether for receive, processing, sending or tracking. In order to get this information you need to work out the relationship between BizTalk artifacts, hosts, host instances, adapters used, send handlers, receive handlers, and tracking property of the host. This is time consuming and you need a real BizTalk expert to work out this relationships.
BizTalk 360 addresses this issue seamlessly by a background algorithm that works out all these relationships and present it in a easy to understand format.
2. Products Installed
This section highlights the version of BizTalk Server and Internet Information server installed. Even though this information looks trivial, its really valuable when you are using HTTP/SOAP/WCF receive adapters to receive messages. In a multi server group with applications using one of these adapters sometime its essential to figure out which server runs IIS. If you have scaled out the environment properly, you might have dedicated only couple of server for receiving messages via IIS.
Also, its important to give attention to the icon in header, the globe symbol will only appear when IIS is installed in the server.
3. Host instances running in the server
The BizTalk server dashboard also highlights the host instances deployed on that particular server. Based on the authorization setup for the user it will also allow the users to start/stop/disable/enable host instance straight from this screen.
4. Last 50 Windows Event Log data
One of the other common scenario when supporting BizTalk production environment is users logging in to the production servers (RDP) to check event log data to diagnose errors. This posses high risk allowing support people to access the production servers frequently. BizTalk 360 addresses this issue by bringing the latest event log information direct to the BizTalk server dashboard.
Check out complete features list at biztalk360.com/tour
Nandri!
Saravana
