BizTalk Tips & Things https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/amantaras/feed.xml Agustin Mantaras BizTalk Blog Tue, 16 Apr 2019 04:37:10 GMT en-US hourly 1 DTA purging job is not deleting old active instances https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/amantaras/dta-purging-job-is-not-deleting-old-active-instances Thu, 10 May 2018 09:51:42 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/amantaras/?p=1455  ]]> BizTalk 2016 feature pack 2 released! https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/amantaras/biztalk-2016-feature-pack-2-released Wed, 22 Nov 2017 05:40:53 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/amantaras/?p=1446 esterday, the BizTalk product team has released the feature pack 2 that contains very exciting new features: Deployment and Administration
  • Application Lifecycle Management with VSTS
    • Using Visual Studio Team Services, you can define multi-server deployments of BizTalk Server 2016, and then maintain those systems throughout the application lifecycle.
  • Backup to Azure Blob Storage
    • When deploying BizTalk Server to Azure VMs, you can backup BizTalk Server databases to Azure blob storage.
Server Runtime
  • Adapter for Service Bus v2
    • When using the Service Bus Adapter, you can utilize Azure Service Bus Premium for enterprise-scale workloads.
  • Transport Layer Security 1.2
    • Securely deploy BizTalk Server using industry-standard TLS 1.2 authentication and encryption.
  • API Management
    • Publish Orchestration endpoints using Azure API Management, enabling organizations to publish APIs to external, partner and internal developers to unlock the potential of their data and services.
  • Event Hubs
    • Using the new Event Hub Adapter, BizTalk Server can send and receive messages with Azure Event Hubs, where BizTalk Server can function as both an event publisher and subscriber, as part of a new Azure cloud-based event-driven application.
  Analytics and Reporting
  • Event Hubs
    • Send BizTalk Server tracking data to Azure Event Hubs, a hyper-scale telemetry ingestion service that collects, transforms, and stores millions of events.
  • Application Insights
    • When preparing BizTalk Server to send tracking data to Application Insights, released in FP1, you can use the new Azure sign-in dialog to simplify configuration and named instances of SQL Server.
  Licensing
  • Microsoft customers with Software Assurance or Azure Enterprise Agreements are licensed to use Feature Pack 2.
  • BizTalk Server 2016 Feature Pack 2 can be installed on Enterprise and Developer editions only.
  Software
  • BizTalk Server 2016 Feature Pack 2 contains all the functionality of Feature Pack 1, plus all the fixes in Cumulative Update 3.
  • You can install Feature Pack 2 on BizTalk Server 2016 Enterprise and Developer Edition (retail, CU1, CU2, CU3, FP1).
  • Download the software now from the Microsoft Download Center.
  Documentation You can learn more about FP2 by reading the documentation articles. Please contribute to improving our documentation, by joining our BizTalk Server community on GitHub.  ]]> Cannot validate argument on parameter (BizTalk 2016 deployment, feature pack 1) https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/amantaras/cannot-validate-argument-on-parameter-biztalk-2016-deployment-feature-pack-1 Sun, 05 Nov 2017 11:45:20 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/amantaras/?p=1426 When working with the new feature pack feature related to auto build and deployment, you can get the following error in the deployment phase: Error: 2017-11-02T08:25:50.9704669Z ##[error]Cannot validate argument on parameter 'PackagePath'. The " Test-Path -Path $_ -PathType 'Leaf' " validation script for the argument with value "your path" did not return a result of True. Determine why the validation script failed, and then try the command again.   As it is stated in the official BizTalk Server documentation here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/biztalk/core/add-a-biztalk-server-application-to-visual-studio-team-services a new application project should be added to your BizTalk Server solution (BizTalk Server Application Project (.btaproj).) However, it might happen that when you try to add this new kind of project it is not available. This is because Visual Studio is not targeting the right .NET Framework version for this new BizTalk Server feature (required  >= 4.61) Now the new project will become available and after you set up the all properties as per the previous referenced documentation, everything should run smoothly:            ]]> Error configuring SSO service BizTalk 2016 in a SQL Server availability group https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/amantaras/error-configuring-sso-service-biztalk-2016-in-a-sql-server-availability-group Mon, 30 Oct 2017 05:49:19 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/amantaras/?p=1405 I got this error while configuring SSO using the BizTalk Server Configuration tool:   [DBNETLIB][ConnectionOpen (SECCreateCredentials()).]SSL Security Error error(ConfigHelper)   and this is the configuration log specific information:  11:20:49 AM Info SSOServerCfg] (ssoconfigobj2.cpp:5164) Returning error description: <Exception Message="There was an error in the SSO configuration module. See the configuration log for further details." Source="SSO" HelpID=""><Exception Message="(0x80070433) The dependency service does not exist or has been marked for deletion. " Source="Win32" HelpID=""/></Exception> [11:20:49 AM Warning SSOServerCfg] (ssoconfigobj2.cpp:1657) CSSOServerCfg::ConfigureFeature: 0x80004005 (-2147467259) [2017-10-23 11:20:49:0655 Warning Configuration Framework]Feature failed to configure: SSOServer,Engine. [2017-10-23 11:21:10:0994 Info Configuration Framework]Configuration Summaries: [2017-10-23 11:21:10:0995 Error Configuration Framework]Feature: [Enterprise SSO] Failed to configure with error message [<Exception Message="There was an error in the SSO configuration module. See the configuration log for further details." Source="SSO" HelpID=""><Exception Version:1.0 StartHTML:000000227 EndHTML:000002812 StartFragment:000002682 EndFragment:000002776 StartSelection:000002682 EndSelection:000002776 SourceURL:https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/amantaras/wp-admin/post-new.php .mce-content-body div.mce-resizehandle {position: absolute;border: 1px solid black;box-sizing: box-sizing;background: #FFF;width: 7px;height: 7px;z-index: 10000}.mce-content-body .mce-resizehandle:hover {background: #000}.mce-content-body img[data-mce-selected],.mce-content-body hr[data-mce-selected] {outline: 1px solid black;resize: none}.mce-content-body .mce-clonedresizable {position: absolute;outline: 1px dashed black;opacity: .5;filter: alpha(opacity=50);z-index: 10000}.mce-content-body .mce-resize-helper {background: #555;background: rgba(0,0,0,0.75);border-radius: 3px;border: 1px;color: white;display: none;font-family: sans-serif;font-size: 12px;white-space: nowrap;line-height: 14px;margin: 5px 10px;padding: 5px;position: absolute;z-index: 10001} .mce-visual-caret {position: absolute;background-color: black;background-color: currentcolor;}.mce-visual-caret-hidden {display: none;}*[data-mce-caret] {position: absolute;left: -1000px;right: auto;top: 0;margin: 0;padding: 0;} .mce-content-body .mce-offscreen-selection {position: absolute;left: -9999999999px;max-width: 1000000px;}.mce-content-body *[contentEditable=false] {cursor: default;}.mce-content-body *[contentEditable=true] {cursor: text;} body {min-height: 150px}  

There are few things you need to check and fix if you are having this issue:

  1. The Entsso.exe needs inbound & outbound access in order to be configured.  I have seen an issue similar to that in the past and for me it was a firewall issueNew-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName “Allow Inbound ESSO” -Direction Inbound -Program "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Enterprise Single Sign-On\ENTSSO.exe" -RemoteAddress LocalSubnet -Action Allow New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName “Allow Outbound ESSO” -Direction Outbound -Program "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Enterprise Single Sign-On\ENTSSO.exe" -RemoteAddress LocalSubnet -Action Allow  
  2. Check the availability group Listener properties and set the port to 1433 (or any other)
  3. Enable TSL 1.0 and 1.1  client and server on both the Biztalk server and the SQL server and reboot servers. BY default,  on the BizTalk server and the SQL server , only TLS 1.2 protocol is enabled for  under: HKey_Local_Machine\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders \SCHANNEL\Protocols  
             ]]> BizTalk Server 2013 R2 Cumulative Update 7 https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/amantaras/biztalk-server-2013-r2-cumulative-update-7 Fri, 13 Oct 2017 03:37:36 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/amantaras/?p=1385 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4038891   The CU7 package includes the following:
  • All hotfixes previously released for BTS 2013 R2
  • A selected set of hotfixes ported forward from BTS 2010 and BTS 2013
  • Other fixes for issues discovered internally when testing BTS 2013 R2
Detailed information about the individual fixes:
4020013 FIX: iDOC received in SAP is missing the segment hierarchy and contains error message when it is sent through NCo from BizTalk Server
4020017 FIX: WCF-SQL adapter fails intermittently if AmbientTransaction is set to True or if ReceiveTimeout is less than the total of the polling time and the time to query data from SQL Server
4038886 FIX: EDI message processing from XML to flat file fails when it contains an empty node in a sub-loop in BizTalk Server
4038889 FIX: Deployment of two-way receive port "Specify now" port binding fails after you install Cumulative Update 6 for BizTalk Server 2013 R2
3203655 FIX: Intermittent "no subscribers found" error when you process many messages through a two-way send port in BizTalk Server
4046183 FIX: "TDDS failed to read from source database" error if you use Turkish collation on a SQL Server 2012 database in BizTalk Server
]]> BizTalk Server 2016 notes. Advanced development techniques https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/amantaras/biztalk-server-2016-notes-advanced-development-techniques Thu, 09 Mar 2017 17:32:24 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/amantaras/?p=1355 I wrote the BizTalk Server Notes series based on information I gathered from my blog itself  and, what I think is more important also, from the field experience. The series will gain in complexity so, read the introduction section before getting into it.

The latest one published is called Advanced techniques. It is not an introductory book as it assumes you have some BizTalk knowledge and strong .NET knowledge

My intention was to show you how you can create advance BizTalk Server Solutions. You will learn about the following topics:

1. Create your own BizTalk Server performance counters.

2. Developing side by side BizTalk Server solutions.

3. Applying versioning to BizTalk Server projects.

4. Securing data using the ENTSSO database.

5. Fix the SSO application snap in for BizTalk Server 2016.

6. Trace your BizTalk Server solutions using implementing Windows Tracing.

7. Query all BizTalk ETW traces using Debug view or the CAT Instrumentation Controller Tool.

8. Start and stop ETW traces.

9. Developing Custom Pipeline components.

10. Unit Testing BizTalk Server 2016 solutions using Visual Studio 2015.

11. Load Test for BizTalk Server using Visual Studio.

12. Examining the Load Test Output and export the report to Excel.

Having a solid foundation on these topics will allow you to create robust BizTalk Server solutions.

These series are focused in BizTalk development techniques, but the first one that is more generalist. However if you are a BizTalk Administrator and want to learn about BizTalk development, these are also your book series.

Happy reading!

You can download it from Amazon Here:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XHMXMX4/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1489080663&sr=8-5&keywords=biztalk+2016

]]> BizTalk: PowerShell script to provide high availability for single host instances (FTP,POP3...) https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/amantaras/biztalk-powershell-script-to-provide-high-availability-for-single-host-instances-ftppop3 Tue, 07 Mar 2017 12:02:05 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/amantaras/?p=1182 serversWith this configuration, BizTalk server is deployed using a high availability configuration that will work for most of cases in which the environment is receiving information using, for instance, the WCF http binding adapter only. The NLB (hardware or software) is spreading the requests among all the BizTalk servers in the group. For the database layer, most of customers provide high availability setting up an MCS cluster (virtual or physical) and typically they also provide HA for the SQL Server Agent service (or at least they must) , action that opens an interesting option to solve the most common problem when using the FTP BizTalk receiving adapter: Having more than one receiving BizTalk host instance for the FTP adapter can cause duplicated messages. The FTP protocol does not blocks the file, therefore, having more that one host instance configured to process receive locations could cause a duplicated message.  For instance, if we have a look at our architecture it can happen that host instance on server 1 will go to pick up files to the FTP server. Because host instances are fully agnostic of what the other host instances in the group are doing, the one running in server 2 might go also to the FTP server at the same time than Server 1. If the file is bigger enough BizTalk will pick up the same message twice. To avoid this issue we normally have two options:
  1. Create an MCS cluster at the BizTalk layer and cluster the receiving FTP host instance (preferred option)
  2. Disable all the host instances from starting and enabling it in one server only. With this action, just one host instance will be executing and now BizTalk will not get duplicated messages (not recommended as we are having manual HA for FTP host instances)
So what do we do if we cannot implement BizTalk clustering ? As Microsoft always recommends clustering the SQL Server Agent you could leverage on SQL Server jobs to execute a Powershell script that will check BizTalk Services status remotely. Have a look at the following architecture:

servers2

The PowerShell script that will run under the SQL Server Agent and it will ensure that your FTP BizTalk hostinstance is running only in 1 server. If that scripts runs and finds out that there are more hostinstances running, it will shutdown those processes and will enable the hostinstnace only in 1 server.   Description of the script This Powershell script gives a mechanism to provide High availability for windows services, when there is no cluster set up (or when it cannot be used). As a BizTalk engineer, I visited many customers that need to provide HA to BizTalk FTP hostinstances and they did not set up an MS cluster across the BizTalk group. Prerequisites The SQL Server account that you use to execute this job must be part of the BizTalk Administrator group because and it needs to have permissions to start and stop services in all of your BizTalk Servers. Paramenters. ServiceName This will be the name of the windows Service that you want to provide HA.Don't forget to add the escape character for the BizTalk Services name, as they have the $ symbol, like in this "BTSSvc`$BizTalkServerApplication" . ServerList This is the place in which you have to provide the Server Names that will be part of the HA configuration. ServerStatusList This is the Server Status List. By status here we refer to the status of the service in all of the Servers that are part of the $ServerList array. The number of items here should be the same than in the $ServerList array. DefaultServer Change this parameter if you want a different default server. This will be the position in the $ServerList array (So zero, for the first server). The script will know which server should be used as the Default one in the HA configuration. So it will always try to start the service in this Server First. LogFilePath Yes! the script is logging information. The Script will be logging all the information to the file specified here. Example of parameters: $ServiceName = "BTSSvc`$BizTalkServerApplication" $ServerList =@("ServerA","ServerB","ServerC","ServerD") $ServerStatusList=@(0,0,0,0) #This is the Server Status List. By status here we refer to the status of the service in all of the Servers that are part of the $ServerList array. The number of items here should be the same than in the $ServerList array. $DefaultServer = 1 #Change this parameter if you want a different default server. This will be the position in the $ServerList array (So zero, for the first server). The script will know which server should be used as the Default one in the HA configuration. So it will always try to start the service in this Server First. $MoreThanOneServiceActive= 0 #If there are more than one service active, we change this to 1, as the objective of this script is to ensure only one instance of the service is running across all the Servers in $ServerList. $LogFilePath="C:\Logs\PowerShellLog.log" #the Script will be logging all the information to the file specified here.   Conclusion After you adapt the script parameters within the code, you can now create the SQL Server agent job that will call the script.  After the changes, your architecture would look something similar to the following diagram: ftp-ha Downloading the code: You can download the code from MSDN code gallery here: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/BizTalk-PowerShell-script-a20d3222 Enjoy!]]> BizTalk Server 2016 The Message Engine https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/amantaras/biztalk-server-2016-the-message-engine Mon, 06 Mar 2017 14:50:50 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/amantaras/?p=1285 https://www.amazon.com/BizTalk-Server-Notes-Message-Engine-ebook/dp/B06XD1PBMB/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1488811785&sr=8-2&keywords=biztalk+2016    ]]> Cumulative update package 3 for BizTalk Server 2013 R2 https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/amantaras/cumulative-update-package-3-for-biztalk-server-2013-r2 Wed, 18 May 2016 06:25:31 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/amantaras/?p=1275 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3158677 Happy update  :)]]> BizTalk 2013R2 CU2 available for download https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/amantaras/biztalk-2013r2-cu2-available-for-download Mon, 11 Jan 2016 02:38:02 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/amantaras/2016/01/11/biztalk-2013r2-cu2-available-for-download/  

BizTalk 2013 R2 CU2 is now available for installation. You can find it here:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3119352

UPDATE 21/1/2016 The following described warning has been fixed and now the CU updates the BizTalk  binaries with out any known issues:

Warning: There was an undocumented issue with this CU. After installing it you might get the following exception:

System.TypeLoadException: Method 'get_UseXSLTransform' in type Name of your type from assembly ‘name of your assemblydoes not have an implementation.

   at System.RuntimeTypeHandle.GetTypeByName(String name, Boolean throwOnError, Boolean ignoreCase, Boolean reflectionOnly, StackCrawlMarkHandle stackMark, IntPtr pPrivHostBinder, Boolean loadTypeFromPartialName, ObjectHandleOnStack type)

   at System.RuntimeTypeHandle.GetTypeByName(String name, Boolean throwOnError, Boolean ignoreCase, Boolean reflectionOnly, StackCrawlMark& stackMark, IntPtr pPrivHostBinder, Boolean loadTypeFromPartialName)

   at System.RuntimeType.GetType(String typeName, Boolean throwOnError, Boolean ignoreCase, Boolean reflectionOnly, StackCrawlMark& stackMark)

   at System.Type.GetType(String typeName)

If you get this the only way to fix it is by redeploying the assembly again (no need to redeploy the BizTalk application AFAK) Microsoft is working on it to fix it as soon as possible.

Happy and safe update :-)

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