BizTalk administration presents several challenges as it is a complex product unfamiliar to many IT professionals. Specialized backup procedures, lack of developer discipline, and treating BizTalk as just another application by hosting companies can all cause issues. The document outlines key things required for proper BizTalk administration like recognizing it as a dedicated role, training, using Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) or System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) for monitoring, enabling backup jobs, log shipping, and practicing disaster recovery procedures. Virtual environments can help administrators gain skills in areas like installation, configuration and failover testing.
2. 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?
3. Danger Signals
“Can you send us a word document
telling us how to install BizTalk?”
“We don’t 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, it’s causing issues with our
backups?”
4. 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
5. 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
It’s also important to…
Use BizTalk Log Shipping
Monitor BizTalk Server & ESSO using
MOM/SCOM
Monitor SQL Server using MOM/SCOM
6. Disaster Recovery
Backup is only half the story, if you can’t
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
7. 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
8. 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
9. 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