Windows Azure Virtual Machines – Stopped doesn’t equal Stopped Deallocated

Windows Azure Virtual Machines – Stopped doesn’t equal Stopped Deallocated

by | Jul 23, 2013 | Stephen's BizTalk and Integration Blog

When driving down the street I think we all know what to do when we see a Stop Sign – we know we need to stop the car. 

What happens when you see Stopped as a status for a Windows Azure Virtual Machines?

A little over a month ago Microsoft announced they would no longer charge for a Stopped Virtual Machine.  This came as welcome news as I am sure many of you are like me – have left something on for a few days and received a bill for it. 

What Microsoft introduced was really a new definition of Stopped to go along with the existing process they had in place.

We now have the following two definitions:

  • Stopped
  • Stopped – Deallocated

When you create a Virtual Machine inside Windows Azure you get a Cloud Service to basically host that virtual machine role.  You can add more than one Virtual Machine to that Cloud Service and would do so to achieve high availability. 

Up until a few days ago, that Cloud Service was always hidden from the Windows Azure Management Portal.  You could see it when you deleted the last virtual machine in the service or using PowerShell.  Now, you can see the services inside the UI – so that should help with the confusion.  The Cloud Service, along with other things, is what gives your Virtual Machine a Virtual IP address (VIP). 

In the pictures below you can see a few of my Virtual Machines and Cloud Services in the Stopped and Stopped Deallocated state. 

What’s the difference between Stopped and Stopped– Deallocated? 

Stopped $$$ – When a virtual machine is stopped you are still being charged for the virtual machine.  You also have the Virtual IP (VIP) address reserved and when you start the machine back up again you will get the same VIP.  This is useful when you must have the same VIP. 

Stopped Deallocated – When a virtual machine is stopped deallocated you are no longer charged for the virtual machine.  The catch is, when you start it back up you might not get the same VIP back again.  You get a message about this when you stop the Virtual Machine.

For all the work I am doing right now, the Stopped Deallocated state works just fine for me. 

See below on how to get your Virtual Machine into a Stopped or Stopped Deallocated state.

How to Stop a Virtual Machine ($$$)

  • PowerShell
    • Stop-AzureVM -Name $VirtualMachineName -ServiceName $ServiceName –StayProvisioned (StayProvisioned  is new in PowerShell as of 06/13)
  • Selecting Shut Down while logged into the Virtual Machine
  • REST API
    • Example: https://management.core.windows.net/<subscription-id>/services/hostedservices/swt003-sql01/deployments/swt003-sql01/roleInstances/swt003-sql01/Operations

How to Stop – Deallocate a Virtual Machine (Money Saver!!!!)

  • PowerShell
    • Stop-AzureVM -Name $VirtualMachineName -ServiceName $ServiceName –Force (Note if you don’t use –Force you get an annoying confirmation popup)
  • Using the Windows Azure Management Portal
    • You will get a confirmation informing you the Virtual IP will be released

Please post if I have missed any other ways to stop a Virtual Machine.

How are you using Windows Azure Virtual Machines?  Does the Stopped Deallocated state work for you?

 

Top Rated Pre-con on TFS at TechEd Europe 2013

Top Rated Pre-con on TFS at TechEd Europe 2013

by | Jul 23, 2013 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Congratulations to Anthony Borton, QuickLearn’s TFS course developer and lead TFS trainer! Anthony recently received an email from Microsoft confirming he delivered the highest rated developer pre-conference seminar at TechEd Europe this year. His seminar was titled Kickstart Your Application Lifecycle Management Using Team Foundation Server 2012 and was focused on helping attendees get a […]
Blog Post by: Nick Hauenstein

One Click BizTalk Multi-Server Environment Azure provisioning and full configuration

by | Jul 23, 2013 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

So you need a multi-server BizTalk Environment, and you want it automagically provisioned in one click?

A zip file with some powershell scripts which will perform the following tasks for you (all in one click) 🙂

1.Basic configured Virtual Network
    includes creation of an affinity group if not available
    includes creation of storage if not available
2. Configured Domain Controller
    includes Active Directory Installation
    includes BizTalk Service Accounts
    includes BizTalk Groups
3. Configured SQL Server joined to the domain
    includes firewall changes
    includes msdtc changes
    includes sql protocol changes
    ensures domain admin to be added to the sql-server sysadmin role
4. Fully Configured! BizTalk Server joined to the domain
    includes all BizTalk Features with exception of BAM Alerts
    includes firewall changes
    includes msdtc changes
    includes configuration of hosts / host instances and adding them to the adapters

1. Download the powershell scripts here

2. Unzip

3. Download your azure publisher profile here

4. Open the script in your favorite editor using Administrative Privileges

5. Modify the script named Start_BizTalk_Multi_Server_Azure_Provisioning_v1.0.ps1

6. Run the script and wait.

Powershell executing

<embed width=”425″ height=”355″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” src=”http://www.youtube allemagne viagra.com/v/dSIsRK0gJa0&hl=en” />

BizTalk Server End Result

Special thanks and credits go out to:

Peter Borremans, who wrote the following article which got me going

Jeremie de Villard, I used his adapted BizTalk Configuration Tool and Task-Schedule script to auto-configure BizTalk

Scott Banwart, I used his powershell script as basis for configuring the BizTalk Hosts, Host Instances and Adapters

Please note; the scripts are as is; go ahead and play with it. Most definitely you can clean it up more and make it more efficient 😉 If you make any modifications, feel free but be nice and SHARE!! 🙂

This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-/3.0/

Cheers

René

MsgBoxViewer 13.20 is available : Improved UI, new Dashboard report, predefined profiles

MsgBoxViewer 13.20 is available : Improved UI, new Dashboard report, predefined profiles

by | Jul 23, 2013 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Hello BizTalk community,

  

I continued  to work on MBV since its recent version 13, improving its UI and updating again its repository (queries and rules).

I also fixed some issues that were reported to me and I added some interesting features :

 

1) MBV provides now a new section named “Dashboard report”.
This section contains in fact all indicators considered as critical for the good health of a BizTalk group  and will allow you to have a very quick view of the state of your BizTalk System.
This view was missing from my experience spent with some BT admins; indeed, the existing “Summary Report” section contains already lot of important information but we don’t know obviously what is crucial to monitor among that volume of information  and what is reflecting the good health of a BT System.
 This Dashboard section takes so only some important entries of the Summary Report  and isolate them in a specific section.
Idealy I would appreciate to have also a such view in one tab of the Hub  page of the BizTalk console, showing quickly the number of total messages in all MsgBox queues, the used space of the BizTalk databases, the state of the jobs,etc… 😉

This is a sample view of that section :

 

Dashboard Report   

Item Caption Item Value
BizTalk Databases – Sizes  
Total DB Space Used  for MGMT DB “BizTalkMgmtDb” on MJPAUCLT 12.00 MB
Total DB Space Used  for MSGBOX DB 1 (MASTER) “BizTalkMsgBoxDb” on MJPAUCLT 8.84 MB
Total DB Space Used  for DTA DB “BizTalkDTADb” on MJPAUCLT 7.66 MB
Total DB Space Used  for BAM PRIMARY IMPORT DB “BAMPrimaryImport” on MJPAUCLT 6.69 MB
Total DB Space Used  for RULEENGINE DB “BizTalkRuleEngineDb” on MJPAUCLT 3.22 MB
Total DB Space Used  for SSO DB “SSODB” on MJPAUCLT 5.67 MB
BizTalk Host Instances  
Total Host Instances 2
Total Host Instances Running 1
Total Tracking Host Instances Running 1
MJPAUCLT: BizTalkServerApplication (PID:4524.000) Memory = 73863170.000 bytes, Thread Count = 76.000
Ports, Pipelines & Orchs  
Total Receive Locations 3
Receive Locations disabled 2
Total Send Ports 2
Send Ports stopped 0
Total Orchestrations Deployed 4
Orchestrations stopped 0
BizTalk Jobs  
Backup BizTalk Server (BizTalkMgmtDb) State=Disabled,Sched=15m,No History Found
CleanupBTFExpiredEntriesJob_BizTalkMgmtDb State=Enabled,Sched=12h,Last Status=Succeeded,Last Duration (hhmmss)=000000
DTA Purge and Archive (BizTalkDTADb) State=Disabled,Sched=1m,No History Found
MessageBox_DeadProcesses_Cleanup_BizTalkMsgBoxDb State=Enabled,Sched=1m,Last Status=Succeeded,Last Duration (hhmmss)=000000
MessageBox_Parts_Cleanup_BizTalkMsgBoxDb State=Enabled,Sched=1m,Last Status=Succeeded,Last Duration (hhmmss)=000000
MessageBox_Message_ManageRefCountLog_BizTalkMsgBoxDb State=Enabled,Not Running,Sched=1m
MessageBox_Message_Cleanup_BizTalkMsgBoxDb State=Disabled,Last Status=Succeeded,Last Duration (hhmmss)=000000
PurgeSubscriptionsJob_BizTalkMsgBoxDb State=Enabled,Sched=1m,Last Status=Succeeded,Last Duration (hhmmss)=000000
TrackedMessages_Copy_BizTalkMsgBoxDb State=Enabled,Sched=1m,Last Status=Succeeded,Last Duration (hhmmss)=000000
MessageBox_UpdateStats_BizTalkMsgBoxDb State=Enabled,Sched=5m,Last Status=Succeeded,Last Duration (hhmmss)=000001
Operations_OperateOnInstances_OnMaster_BizTalkMsgBoxDb State=Enabled,Sched=1m,Last Status=Succeeded,Last Duration (hhmmss)=000000
Longer job’s duration (except ‘Message_ManageRefCountLog’) 000001 Sec (MessageBox_UpdateStats_BizTalkMsgBoxDb)
DTA Tables  
Larger table “dta_Services” – 1016 KB -59 Rows
MsgBox Tables  
Larger table – MSGBOX DB 1 (MASTER) “BizTalkMsgBoxDb” on MJPAUCLT “Fragments” – 1064 KB – 33 Rows
Total in MsgBox TrackingData table(s) – MSGBOX DB 1 (MASTER) “BizTalkMsgBoxDb” on MJPAUCLT 96 KB – 0 Rows
Total in Tracking Body tables – MSGBOX DB 1 (MASTER) “BizTalkMsgBoxDb” on MJPAUCLT 0 KB – 0 Rows
Total in Q tables (Work + Suspended) – MSGBOX DB 1 (MASTER) “BizTalkMsgBoxDb” on MJPAUCLT 112 KB – 10 Rows
MsgBox Queues  
Total Suspended Messages – MSGBOX DB 1 (MASTER) “BizTalkMsgBoxDb” on MJPAUCLT 10
Total Suspended Resumables Messages – MSGBOX DB 1 (MASTER) “BizTalkMsgBoxDb” on MJPAUCLT 10
Total Pending Messages in Work Q – MSGBOX DB 1 (MASTER) “BizTalkMsgBoxDb” on MJPAUCLT 0
“BizTalkServerApplicationQ_Suspended” has most Suspended Messages 10
MsgBox Database Integrity  
Message Refs w/out Spool rows 0
Messages w/out RefCounts 0
Message Refs w/out Instances 0
Subscriptions w/out Instances 0
InstanceState w/out Instances 0
Messages with RefCount = -1 0
Messages processed  
Today Sent = 0, Received = 0
Service Instances  
Ready To Run – MSGBOX DB 1 (MASTER) “BizTalkMsgBoxDb” on MJPAUCLT 0
Active – MSGBOX DB 1 (MASTER) “BizTalkMsgBoxDb” on MJPAUCLT 1
Suspended Non-Resumable – MSGBOX DB 1 (MASTER) “BizTalkMsgBoxDb” on MJPAUCLT 5
Suspended Resumable – MSGBOX DB 1 (MASTER) “BizTalkMsgBoxDb” on MJPAUCLT 5
Dehydrated – MSGBOX DB 1 (MASTER) “BizTalkMsgBoxDb” on MJPAUCLT 0

 

2) I also changed a little bit the size and orientation of the frames of the generated HTML files to clarify again the output.

 This is a sample of the new output :

 

 

 3) I  added finally the possibility to change more quickly the current profile in both UI and console version of MBV and added some two predefined profiles “Minimum” and “Full”.

I recall that  a profile stores the selected queries, the query custom properties, and all the MBV global options, and each profile is stored in a file prefixed by “MBVSettings_”.
At MBV UI startup a combobox is populated by all the profile files enumerated in the current MBV folder. 
You can  so select in one click your current profile in the combobox visible on the main page of MBV UI (or as argument in MBVConsole), and also select the predefined “Minimum” or “Full” profile.
Selecting the Minimum profile will select only the queries of the “Important” category as opposed the Full profile selecting all the queries of all the categories.

This quick selection of a predefined profile is mush faster than checking/unchecking manually the queries in each category.

 

 
 
This version of MBV is available as an attachment in that post.

 

 

I look forward to have your feedbacks on that version and you can contact me of course if you want to report issue or suggestions.

 

in next posts I will discuss more about the global options of MBV to cutomize the report according to your own needs .
You have indeed the possibility to keep only the sections you are interested by, just by changing some global options. Stay tuned so !
 

Thanks !

 

 

JP

 

 


Blog Post by: JPAUC

BTUG.be is born

BTUG.be is born

by | Jul 19, 2013 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

I would like to make a small announcement… today we publicly announced the birth of a brand new Belgian BizTalk User Group, called BTUG.be! We were planning something like this for quite some time now, and you even might have picked up some rumours about it in the past. But as of today it is official, Belgium now has its very own BizTalk User Group.



I’m proud to say that I’m one of the co-founders of this BTUG.be. Together with Sam Vanhoutte we have started this initiative under excellent guidance of Lex Hegt, who shared his knowledge he gained with the Dutch BizTalk User Group.
And to start out, we wanted to make it a joined collaboration of the Belgian BizTalk Community. In this spirit we are glad that also i8c decided to support the initiative and Sven Van den brande agreed to fulfill our board of the BTUG.be. So that makes the all new Belgian BizTalk User Group will be worked out as a joined effort by Cnext, Codit and i8c with in the board at startup myself, Sam Vanhoutte and Sven Van den brande.
I’m already looking forward on having a great time working together with these guys organising all upcoming events.

A very first launch event is being planned to have place in november. For keeping up to date on all matters of this BTUG.be, I’ll recommend you subscribe to the mailing list on the website http://www.btug.be and even keep a close eye to the website for all announcements. And certainly don’t forget to follow our twitter account @BTUGbe.

And last of all, I would like to call out for sponsors… As the entire organization will be driven on volunteer work. So to cover all the necessary costs we will need to make for hosting events, catering, travel expenses in case of international speakers, etc. we are on the lookout for sponsors to keep it fun and free for everyone. You can always contact us on any questions or to share your interest for sponsoring using this entry form on the website.