Setting Up BizTalk Server 2013 Beta on a Windows Azure Virtual Machine

by stephen-w-thomas | Nov 12, 2012 | Stephen's BizTalk and Integration Blog

A few days ago BizTalk 2013 Beta was announced and released for download.  The plan is to make this available as a Windows Azure Virtual Machine Image just like the CTP but it has not yet been released. 

Since the prebuilt image is not available, I wanted to try to manually install BizTalk Server 2013 Beta on a Windows Azure Virtual Machine. I did the same thing with the BizTalk 2010 R2 CTP without any issues. Below is a quick overview of BizTalk 2013 and my experience trying to get this running in an Azure Virtual Machine.

Some of the top improvements I am excited about with BizTalk 2013 include:

• Slick and clean integration with Windows Azure Service Bus including the ability to follow meta data across the exchange
• Easy ESB installation (I am already counting the hours per developer this will save in the future)
• New adapters for calling and exposing REST Services and SFTP
• Dependency tracking through BizTalk Admin Console

Below is what the Dependency Tracking looks like.  It is somewhat basic but will be very helpful for someone new looking at an Application for the first time.

Below is my experience trying to get BizTalk 2013 running in a Windows Azure Virtual Machine.

Issues with Windows Server 2012 – End Result: Failure

I started off trying to get BizTalk 2013 to run on a Windows Server 2012 Image provided in the Image Gallery.  While I admit I am still totally lost on the new Windows layout I figured no better way to learn than just jumping in. 

I got SQL 2012 and Visual Studios 2012 installed without any issues.  I installed and configured BizTalk 2013 Beta and also installed the ESB 2.2 from the main menu.  Everything seemed fine, except the ESB 2.2 installation gave me a silent completion.  That is, the install box just went away.  I never got confirmation it was complete or if it had any errors.

I did not know anything was wrong until I tried to create my first project inside Visual Studios.  Visual Studios was unable to find the BizTalk Template to create the project although the BizTalk Project was available as a selection.  I have seen this in the past with other versions of BizTalk.  I then went into the BizTalk Server Admin Console and got an error that it was unable to load the MMC. 

I tried to do a BizTalk Repair, but that did not fix the issues, in fact I do not think it ever completed.   I deleted the Virtual Machine and associated Virtual Hard Disk.  I will give it a try again later when I have more time.

Issues with Windows Server 2008 R2 – End Result: Success, after fixing the issue

After already being in a down mood after my Windows 2012 experience I set out to try installing BizTalk on a Windows Server 2008 R2 Image.  Like before, everything installed and configured fine.  This time, I was able to create a new BizTalk project in Visual Studios.  I was even able to deploy. 

I ran into an issue when I tried to create a new Receive Port inside the BizTalk Admin Console.  I received an error that pointed me to the Enterprise Single Sign-on Service.  Sure enough, it was not started.  I tried to start it and received the following error message.  The error message was from source SideBySide:

“ Activation context generation failed for "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Enterprise Single Sign-On\ENTSSO.exe".Error in manifest or policy file "C:\Windows\WinSxS\manifests\amd64_microsoft.vc80.atl_1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b_8.0.50727.6195_none_8a1dd9552ed7f8d8.manifest" on line 5. Component identity found in manifest does not match the identity of the component requested. Reference is Microsoft.VC80.ATL,processorArchitecture="amd64",publicKeyToken="1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b",type="win32",version="8.0.50727.6195". Definition is Microsoft.VC80.ATL,processorArchitecture="amd64",publicKeyToken="1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b",type="win32",version="8.0.50727.42". Please use sxstrace.exe for detailed diagnosis.”

I was able to find the file named amd64_microsoft.vc80.atl_1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b_8.0.50727.6195_none_8a1dd9552ed7f8d8.manifest inside the above directory but the file was blank.  This seems to be related to something in Visual Studios 2005.  After an hour or two of research I found Johan fixed a similar issue related to SQL.  I followed the same process to fix this issue. 

To fix this issue I did the following :

1.  From a command prompt I ran:

dropown C:\Windows\WinSxS\manifests\amd64_microsoft.vc80.atl_1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b_8.0.50727.6195_none_8a1dd9552ed7f8d8.manifest

icacls C:\Windows\WinSxS\manifests\amd64_microsoft.vc80.atl_1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b_8.0.50727.6195_none_8a1dd9552ed7f8d8.manifest /grant Administrators:F

.csharpcode, .csharpcode pre
{
font-size: small;
color: black;
font-family: consolas, “Courier New”, courier, monospace;
background-color: #ffffff;
/*white-space: pre;*/
}
.csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; }
.csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; }
.csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; }
.csharpcode .str { color: #006080; }
.csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; }
.csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; }
.csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; }
.csharpcode .html { color: #800000; }
.csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; }
.csharpcode .alt
{
background-color: #f4f4f4;
width: 100%;
margin: 0em;
}
.csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; }

2.  Open the file and update as follows – I got this from a virtual machine running BizTalk Server 2010.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>

<!-- Copyright %u00a9 1981-2001 Microsoft Corporation -->

<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0">

    <noInheritable/>

    <assemblyIdentity type="win32" name="Microsoft.VC80.ATL" version="8.0.50727.6195" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b"/>

    <file name="ATL80.dll" hash="c7e340d6abcbb023cbfd848a292f6583f4227105" hashalg="SHA1"/>

</assembly>

.csharpcode, .csharpcode pre
{
font-size: small;
color: black;
font-family: consolas, “Courier New”, courier, monospace;
background-color: #ffffff;
/*white-space: pre;*/
}
.csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; }
.csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; }
.csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; }
.csharpcode .str { color: #006080; }
.csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; }
.csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; }
.csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; }
.csharpcode .html { color: #800000; }
.csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; }
.csharpcode .alt
{
background-color: #f4f4f4;
width: 100%;
margin: 0em;
}
.csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; }

I am now up and running with BizTalk Server 2013 Beta on a Windows Azure Virtual Machine!

Has anyone else tried to install the new BizTalk 2013 Beta on a Windows 2008 R2 or Windows 2012 Azure Virtual Machine? 

I would love to hear about your experience.