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 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?”

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  It’s 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 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

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