Moving the BizTalk databases (part 1)

by | Mar 11, 2013 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

The correct title might be: “Moving the BizTalk databases – The right way”. Because the way outlined in the BizTalk help, is not much help. Scared yet? Well not after reading thru my articles.

Why move databases?

This is a very natural question and the answer is very simple: Because you have to. At some time you might need to move databases around in a big datacenter or, as for me, you need to move to a default instance on a new server (remember kids BAM needs SSIS to work properly and it will not on a named instance).

Is it possible?

Yes, very. There is even a script that does a lot of things for you but there are a lot of manual steps you need to take.

The scenario

So in order to make these articles a bit more texbook-like I will describe a scenario that I went thru.

The object of moving the databases was that the customer wanted one of their environment to be less of a testing environment and more like a staging environment. The BizTalk installation was setup on an SQL server machine that was used for patch testing and such. Not a good base for a staging environment.

I moved the databases form a working environment into a new server. The BizTalk databases did not exist before the move (this is useful to know if you plan on doing a log shipping database move, because this is not).

The BizTalk machines (this is a clustered environment) stayed the same, only the databases were moved.

The two BizTalk machines are called BizTalk001 and 002. They are a BizTalk cluster but if you do not have a clustered environment; just ignore everything I write about that.

The old SQL server is called PhyBizTalkDb and the databases to be moved are installed under the BizStage named instance.

The new SQL Server is called VBizTalkDb and the BizTalk databases will be installed at the default instance.

Microsoft support and disclaimer

In no way would I undertake this feat if Microsoft did not support it, and they do. You can find the quite extensive article here. I will refer to this article so keep it handy.

The next thing to understand is that in no way can you make me liable for anything you do to your BizTalk environment based on what you read here.

I was fortunate enough, as well as prepared enough, to test the whole scenario in another environment before heading into the scenario above. I highly recommend you do the same. Just see to that the BizTalk and SQL Servers are on different machines, otherwise you don’t get any practice.

Preparation

Before you begin you have get a couple of things done.

  1. Get a person who knows SQL server and has access rights to everything you need on both machines. On an enterprise level this is usually not the BizTalk admins, nor the BizTalk developers.
  2. Plan the outage! In our case we were lucky enough to get a full week between two testing stints. Set aside a day in which the platform is completely out.
  3. Plan the backups! Lets say you get what I got: The backups run once a day at 3am. Therefore nothing may enter or leave the platform after 3am. You need that backup to be 100% compatible with a fallback (retreat?) scenario.
  4. Script all the BizTalk SQL jobs to files and store them securely.
  5. Script all the BizTalk SQL users and store them securely as well.
  6. Get a txtfile and paste the names of the source and destination servers and everything else you might find useful.
  7. Read thru the article by Microsoft just to see what you are expected to do, and what you might need to ignore.

More to follow.

Blog Post by: Mikael Sand

BizTalk360 Version 6.0 is released

by | Mar 8, 2013 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Last week we highlighted some of the new features that’s been added to our new 6.0 release. You can read about the complete set of features in this blog article What’s new in BizTalk360 v6.0. We are extremely delighted to announce the immediate availability of v6.0, you can download and try it on your own […]

The post BizTalk360 Version 6.0 is released appeared first on BizTalk360 Blog.

Blog Post by: Saravana Kumar

Error on Calendar/Contacts sharing in Outlook

by | Mar 8, 2013 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

I ‘ve encountered a problem sharing Contacts from within Outlook. We were trying to share a contactgroup where both parties are from the same company, so on the same Office365 license.
However, on trying to send out a share request we stumbled upon following error:

“Problem: Your organization’s policy does not allow you to share with this recipient.”

At first it seemed that there should be anything wrong with the organizations settings made in office365. But nothing strange was configured there… Setting the permissions to the other mail addres did seem to work. What got me questioning there would be anyhting wrong in the configurational settings.

It turned out there was a difference when trying to share the contact or setting the permission. And after realising this, even sharing the contact worked just fine… without changing any of the configuration settings!

Solution

What turned out to be the problem than?
when the user started typing the recipient name in the “To” box of the “Share invitation” dialog, the recipient was picked up by autocompleteion. However, the autocompletion picked up the recipient from the Contacts instead of from the Global Address List. So the name of the recipient appeared as “User Name <[email protected]>”, where it had to be “User Name” when you choose from the Global Adress list.
So on sending the email invitation to share the contact list, Microsoft Exchange considered the recipient to be outside the organization. Which resulted in the above error message of course.

BizTalk Saturday – BizTalk 2013 Hands On Day – Melbourne

by | Mar 8, 2013 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

The registration and info sites for the BizTalk Saturday – BizTalk 2013 Hands on Day – Melbourne, we are having 2 events for Melbourne:

BizTalk Saturday – BizTalk 2013 Hands On Day – Melbourne – Friday 22nd March – http://www.eventbrite.com.au/event/5678855610

BizTalk Saturday – BizTalk 2013 Hands On Day – Melbourne – Saturday 23rd March – http://www.eventbrite.com.au/event/5678923814

Any question please post a comment

More …

BizTalk360 visiting Portugal for Oporto BizTalk Innovation Day

by | Mar 7, 2013 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

You probably don’t need any introduction about BizTalk Innovation Day and our BizTalk Crew team. But for those of you who don’t know! BizTalk Crew BizTalk Crew was born without any planning nearly 2 years ago consisting of Steef-Jan Wiggers, Saravana Kumar, Nino-Crudele, Sandro Pereira, and Tord Nordahl all Microsoft Integration MVP’s, all specialising in […]

The post BizTalk360 visiting Portugal for Oporto BizTalk Innovation Day appeared first on BizTalk360 Blog.

Blog Post by: Saravana Kumar

Azure: 6 weeks of Azure (6WOA) just got even more exciting-FEZ Kits

by | Mar 6, 2013 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Folks – we’re into week 2 of the 6 weeks of Azure program and as I was planning these
sessions out with Christian last year, I thought I’d like to bring some fun
into the mix.

There’s many possibilities that you can do in Azure, but none other than building
a bit of h/w, programming it & having it talk to Azure! Monitored, controlled
– how good is that.

Enter the FEZ Kits – www.ghielectronics.com

(There’s also the Raspberry PI’s that run a flavour of Linux with a deployment of
Mono – that let’s you run C# code straight onto a $35 computer! – I’ll save that for
another post)

FEZ Kits

These are the ’mans lego’ kit as I like to think of them as.

What makes these kits cool:

  • they run a flavour of .NET – .NET Microframework. So yes you can write C# etc that
    runs on the device.
  • you can get many many additional modules for
    these to plug into your masterpiece – things like temperature sensors, light sensors,
    colour sensors etc.
  • they run off USB power, even a set of 4 AAA batteries would do it.
  • you program them via USB cable from Visual Studio.
  • *rich* community and developer support – http://www.ghielectronics.com/support/.net-micro-framework

FYI – my kit I’ve added to over time and I’ve also got a Raspberry PI that
I play with (good NFC reader).

My FEZ KIT on the left, with the PI on the right in my beautiful Lego box

 

Now the best thing is that the FEZ Hydra kit (above) will
be available to you (as a prize and the like) on the BOOTCAMPS as part of the 6 weeks
of Azure.

Let me know how you get on and if you’ve got any questions about these guys – they’re
great and good for developers.

— from the official blurb —-
6 Weeks of Azure

Need in-person Azure Training? DevCamps are for you

Register for a DevCamp in Melbourne | Sydney | Brisbane to
learn how to use the new Windows Azure features and services including Windows Azure
Virtual Machines, Web Sites, and Visual Studio 2012 to build and move a variety of
apps to the cloud.  You will see how to build web sites, mobile

applications, and enterprise-class applications. 

Need help with your app? Register for a Boot Camp

Register for a Boot Camp near you: Melbourne | Sydney | Brisbane. Our

Industry and Microsoft experts will be available to help complete your

Windows Azure app as part of the 6 Weeks of Windows Azure course.

There will be a FEZ Hydra
Kit or two to win not to mention some t-shirts and mice to
giveaway.

6 Weeks

Forum
Blog Post by: Mick Badran

Catering for non-standard UNB identification qualifiers in EDIFact envelopes with BizTalk 2010

Catering for non-standard UNB identification qualifiers in EDIFact envelopes with BizTalk 2010

by | Mar 6, 2013 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

While implementing an EDI exchange using BizTalk Server 2010 I ran into a rather perplexing problem. There was a requirement that the system should be able tosupport any identification qualifiers (in the UNB2.2 / UNB3.2 segments) that our trading partners prescribed, even if they were non-standard values. The grief-inducing scenario was that some of the […]
Blog Post by: Johann