Guys – this document has recently hit the shelves and what a great guide it is. Written
and reviewed by a huge team within MMS mostly – the two main authors Ewan
Fairweather
and Rob
Steel
(both MS and very much project/client oriented guys – out in the
field!) did a superb job.

Firstly – grab the Performance
Optimisation Guide

(checkout Ewan and Rob’s blogs as there’s some great bits on there, as well as a section
dedicated to the BizTalk Performance Explorer)

What’s the meaty stuff I can expect to read? (I hear you ask…)

1. It serves as 2 things – a prescriptive guidance and two – best
practices around optimisation
(It’s also great to see BizUnit in there for testing and as part of LoadGen)

I’ve summarised below:

The key sections of the guide are:

%u00b7 Getting Started: Provides an overview of the BizTalk Server functional components
that can affect performance. It also describes the phases of a BizTalk Server performance
assessment.

%u00b7 Finding and Eliminating Bottlenecks: The Finding
and Eliminating Bottlenecks
section describes various types of performance bottlenecks
as they relate to BizTalk Server solutions and information about how to resolve the
bottlenecks.

%u00b7 Automating Testing: Describes how to implement an automated build process
and how to automate functional and load testing using Visual Studio Team System, BizUnit and
Loadgen.

%u00b7 Optimizing Performance: The Optimizing
Performance
section provides guidance for optimizing performance of specific components
in a BizTalk Server environment

 

Other ‘related stuff’ to download while you’re in the mood

  1. Microsoft
    BizTalk Server Operations Guide

  2. BizTalk
    Server 2006 R2 Installation and Upgrade Guides

  3. BizTalk
    Server 2006 Tutorials

  4. BizTalk
    Server 2006 R2 Runtime Architecture Poster

  5. BizTalk
    Server 2006 R2 Capabilities Poster