Brian Loesgen & Alan Smith

BizTalk Administration Challenges

BizTalk is a complex product IT-Pros are not usually familiar with BizTalk BizTalk requires specialized backup procedures Developers often lack required discipline Hosting companies often treat BizTalk as a customer application Who is responsible for BizTalk production environment?

Danger Signals
Can you send us a word document telling us how to install BizTalk? We dont use MOM or SCOM, we have our own monitoring software We have our own procedures for database backups How big are these databases going to get, its causing issues with our backups?

Required Knowledge
Recognize that BizTalk Server Administrator is a dedicated role Allow time for training and education Developers can mentor administration personnel Start to get serious with administrating your test environments

Database Administration

We all know this but

Enable and use the BizTalk backup job Ensure tracking purge and archive is

running Backup your ESSO master secret

Its also important to

Use BizTalk Log Shipping Monitor BizTalk Server & ESSO using

MOM/SCOM Monitor SQL Server using MOM/SCOM

Disaster Recovery
Backup is only half the story, if you cant restore Disaster Recovery becomes Disaster Enabling the BizTalk Backup job is easy, restoring BizTalk databases is not Consider using BizTalk Log Shipping Consider using SAN systems Practice Disaster recovery procedures

ESSO Master Secret Server

Ensure you have backed it up Practice and document MSS restore

Promoting another serve to MSS

Be aware of security implications

Monitoring BizTalk

Use MOM or SCOM

Install the appropriate management packs BizTalk has over 50 events to monitor ESSO also has over 50 events SQL Server should also be monitored

BizTalk is very verbose with logging events Some warning events can highlight critical problems ESB Guidance Error Reporting console is great!

But you need the system monitoring from MOM/SCOM

Gaining the Skills

Virtual environments can be used for multi server installations

Installation Configuration Disaster recovery Monitoring Failover testing

BizTalk Server Administration Guide

CHM document

BizTalk for Administrators 5 day Quick Learn course