BizTalk Host setup for your First BizTalk Projects

by community-syndication | May 18, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Ive been speaking to a few people starting their organisations first BizTalk projects recently and talking about Host setup and what is a good intial setup and how it may change over time.

Normally you see companies go one of two ways to begin with:

1. They just have one BizTalk host with an instance on each server and use it for everything

2. They have many instances for everything and use way more than they need to.

Im a big believer that a little thought about this and how your company plans to use BizTalk over time can help ensure you dont end up messing around with your host setup constantly.

I was saying to the team that probably the best way to start is create the following hosts to begin with.

• A host called GenericRecevice which would be a host that your in process receive adapters can use
• A host called GenericApplication which is a host for all of your orchestrations
• A host called GenericSend which is a host for all of your send ports
• A host called Tracking which is used for nothing but tracking.

I recommended they left the BizTalkApplication host because it can be the default incase anyone doesnt follow the above rules but do not have any instances of this host on any servers so your team are forced to fix configuration mistakes and to follow your host rules.

When you setup your host instances this obviously varies where you put each host instance based on the topology of your BizTalk group but having already splitt out your artefacts like suggested abovemakes it easier to move your hosts around in a consistent manner.

At this point you not have a clear well understood host setup and some simple rules around when you would use each one, however the key thing is that there will often be potential exceptions to these rules and you should ensure that if you want to create a new host for one or more artefacts you are able to explain clearly the reason for this new host and not just have a new host because the developer used a different name like Ive seen happen before.

Lastly a thought on the isolated host. We often tend to just have the one BizTalk Server Isolated Host which comes out of the box and run different adapter typeson seperate app pools in IIS as an example. This will cover the majority of cases but of course again there will be occasions where you have a need to do something different which is fine so long as its clearly explained.

I would say that generally good reasons for new hosts out side of this patten will be:

• Performance reasons
• Security Isolation
• Adapter specific scenarios

Just a final note that this is intended as some advice when you start your companies first BizTalk projects. If you set of with this configuration it should cover you nicelyfor most of your cases.

Windows Azure tables: partitioning guid row keys | Windows Azure tables: partionnement de clefs de type GUID

by community-syndication | May 18, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

internal class AuthSessionDataSource
{
//...
        public const int nbPartitions = 15;
// ...

public static class AuthSessionState
{
//...
    private static string PartitionKeyForGuid(Guid guid)
    {
        int sumOfBytes = 0;
        foreach (var x in guid.ToByteArray())
        {
            sumOfBytes += x;
        }
        int partitionNumber = sumOfBytes % AuthSessionDataSource.nbPartitions;
        return partitionNumber.ToString();
    }
//...

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

namespace ConsoleApplication2
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            for (int i = 0; i < 36; i++)
            {
                Guid g = Guid.NewGuid();
                Console.WriteLine("{0}, {1}", g, PartitionKeyForGuid(g));
            }
            Console.ReadLine();


        }


        private static string PartitionKeyForGuid(Guid guid)
        {
            const int nbPartitions = 12;

            int sumOfBytes = 0;
            foreach (var x in guid.ToByteArray())
            {
                sumOfBytes += x;
            }
            int partitionNumber = sumOfBytes % nbPartitions;
            return partitionNumber.ToString();
        }

    }
}

public const int nbDaysForOldSessions = 3;
//...
internal void RemoveOldValues()
{
    DateTime oldDate = DateTime.UtcNow.AddDays(-1 * nbDaysForOldSessions);

    for(int p=0; p<nbPartitions; p++)
    {
        string partitionKey = p.ToString();
        var query = (from c in context.AuthSessionStateTable
                     where c.PartitionKey == partitionKey
                     && c.Timestamp <= oldDate
                     select c)
                    .AsTableServiceQuery<AuthSessionStateEntity>();
        var result = query.Execute();
        int i = 0;
        foreach (var x in result)
        {
            i++;
            this.context.DeleteObject(x);
            if (i >= 100)
            {
                this.context.SaveChangesWithRetries();
                i = 0;
            }
        }
        this.context.SaveChangesWithRetries();
    }
}

Benjamin

Blog Post by: Benjamin GUINEBERTIERE

BizTalk Server 2010 Cookbook by Steef-Jan Wiggers

by community-syndication | May 18, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

  In my previous post I promised that my next blog post would be a follow up on the CRM2011 integration example. Covering a rewrite of the CRM Workflow Component such that it incorporates functionality which uses the Windows Azure… Read more ›
Blog Post by: Ren%u00e9 Brauwers

BizTalk Innovation Event, Milan, Italy | May 24th

by community-syndication | May 17, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Overnet Education in collaboration with Microsoft Italy and User Group Italiano Connected System has organaised one of the biggest BizTalk event in Italy.

All thanks goes to Nino Crudele (fellow Italian BizTalk Server MVP) for taking the effort to organise the event. It’s not a easy task by no means organising a community activity (FREE) of this magnitude bringing international speakers. Big thanks to Nino for organising this.

If you are somewhere near by (Sweden, Norway, UK or any European destination), it will be a worthy while day to network with some of the great guys in BizTalk community.

The agenda for the event:

BizTalk Host thresholds and automatic throttling
by Tord Glad Nordahl;

BizTalk360
by Saravana Kumar (MVP BizTalk Server)

Adapter Pack Integration Capabilities (BizTalk)
by Steef-Jan Wiggers (MVP BizTalk Server)

Introduction to the Azure Service Bus EAI/EDI features
by Sandro Pereira (MVP BizTalk Server)

BizTalk Innovation Event Wrap up
by Nino Crudele (MVP BizTalk Server)

Click here to ensure your registration or to get more information?s about this event.

Nandri!

Saravana Kumar

BizTalk Message Based Routing: why is my file not transfered to the location of the Send Port

by community-syndication | May 17, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Inspired by some tweets I had with Sam Vanhoutte (@SamVanhoutte), Mikael Sand (@MikaelSand) and Dean Robertson (@DeanRobertson), I decided to write down a number of our experiences of what can go wrong, or what you could forget, in case of a simple message based routing scenario.

So basically this article contains a checklist, which can be used as a reminder in case your message based routing scenario does not work, like you expected.

Scenario
Imagine you have a message based routing solution in its most simple form.
Your Receive Location listens to a local folder and your Send Port is subscribed to the Receive Port from the Receive Location. The URI of the Send Port is another local folder.
Although this is a very simple solution, still there is enough that can prevent the messages from flowing from A to B.

1. The Receive Location listens to the wrong folder or contains a typo
To be absolutely sure you have configured the correct folder, copy the path from the address bar in Windows Explorer and paste it at the URI field in the Receive Location.

2. The Receive Location is not enabled
If the Receive Location is not enabled, it won’t poll the configured folder, so you must enable the Receive Location.

3. BizTalk is not authorized to access the file location of the Receive Location
Make sure that the identity which is configured at the Host which runs the Receive Location, has enough permissions (read/write) on the folder of the Receive Location. Failing to do so, results in the Receive Location disabling itself (after some retries).

4. The Host Instance which runs the Receive Location is not started
Host Instances take care of the actual processing of your Receive Locations, Send Ports and Orchestrations. So if the Host Instance from the Receive Location is not started, no files will be picked up, although your Receive Location is enabled, so start the designated Host Instance.

5. The filter on the Send Port contains the wrong Receive Port or contains a typo
Correct this by copying the name from the Receive Port and paste it in the filter of the Send Port.

6. The name of the Receive Port in the filter of the Send Port is surrounded with quotes
Quotes are not needed, so remove them.

7. The Send Port is not enlisted and started
If the Send Port is not enlisted, there is no active subscription for the Send Port. Further the Send Port must be started to send any files, coming from the Receive Port to the outgoing folder. So Enlist and Start the Send Port.

8. The Host Instance which runs the Send Port is not started
Host Instances take care of the actual processing of your Receive Locations, Send Ports and Orchestrations. So if the Host Instance from the Send Port is not started, the file will be picked up by the Receive Location, stay in the MessageBox, but won’t be delivered to the outgoing folder, so start the designated Host Instance.

9. BizTalk is not authorized to access the file location from the Send Port
Make sure that the identity which is configured at the Host which runs the Send Port, has enough permissions (read/write) on the folder of the Send Port. Failing to do so, will result in suspended messages.

10. Mismatch of the file mask on the Receive Location
The file that you drop on the folder of the Receive Location does not match the file mask from the Receive Location. If you are dropping a .XML file while the Receive Location expects only *.TXT files, your .XML file won’t be picked up by the Receive Location.

11. Tricked by Windows Explorer
You think you are dropping a .XML file, and the file mask expects .XML files, but still the file is not picked up. Perhaps you are tricked by Windows Explorer. Windows Explorer has an option to hide familiar extensions of files. So if you have a file called order.xml.txt, Windows Explorer hides the .txt extension, perhaps giving you the idea that you are dealing with a .XML file, while in fact you are dealing with a .TXT file. In Windows Explorer turn off the option to hide familiar extensions, making sure that you will always deal with the full file name.

Should Enterprise IT Offer a “Dollar Menu”?

by community-syndication | May 16, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

It seems that there is still so much friction in the request and fulfillment of IT services. Need a quick task tracking website? That’ll take a change request, project manager, pair of business analysts, a few 3rd party developers and a test team. Want a report to replace your Excel workbook pivot charts? Let’s ramp […]
Blog Post by: Richard Seroter

Published BizTalk Monitoring best practices white paper

by community-syndication | May 16, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Today we published a white paper explaining the importance of BizTalk Server monitoring and Top 15 best practices your can follow to get your monitoring story correct.

Read the complete article BizTalk Monitoring – Top 15 Best Practices in our official BizTalk360 blog.

Hope you enjoy it, please feel free to add your views as comments.

Nandri

Saravana Kumar