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