Edit

Share via

Planning for Database Testing

  • Article

Thorough stress/load testing of a BizTalk solution figures prominently in the ultimate success or failure of the solution. Since BizTalk Server performance is so dependent on the performance of the BizTalk Server databases, testing and optimization of a BizTalk solution frequently focuses on testing and optimization of the computers running SQL Server that house the BizTalk Server databases.

Considerations When Planning for Database Testing

Consider the following when planning for database testing:

  1. Ensure that the test environment matches the production environment as closely as possible. Using a virtual environment such as Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 for unit testing is perfectly acceptable; however, all load/stress testing should be performed against hardware that matches the final production environment as closely as possible.

  2. Plan to measure maximum sustainable throughput and maximum sustainable tracking throughput of the BizTalk Server system. Maximum sustainable throughput is measured as the highest load of message traffic that the BizTalk Server system can handle indefinitely in production. Follow the steps in the following topics in BizTalk Server Help:

  3. Understand the implications of how BizTalk Server implements host throttling. The BizTalk Server host throttling algorithm attempts to moderate the workload of BizTalk Server host instances to ensure that the workload does not exceed the capacity of the host instance or any downstream host instances. The throttling mechanism is self tuning and the default configuration options are suitable for the majority of BizTalk Server processing scenarios. You should, however, have a good understanding of the throttling mechanism before implementing load/stress testing. For more information, see Optimizing Resource Usage Through Host Throttling (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=155770) in BizTalk Server Help.