Configuring BizTalk Server Log Shipping

You use the Backup BizTalk Server job to back up all of the databases in your BizTalk Server source system, except for some databases used by Business Activity Monitoring (BAM). The source system is the server or group of servers that contain live data. Because some of the BAM databases have different backup and restore requirements, these databases are backed up and restored using other methods.

Backing up the BizTalk Server databases and restoring them involves the following steps:

  1. Configuring the Backup BizTalk Server job

    Before you can back up the BizTalk Server databases, you must first configure the Backup BizTalk Server job on the source system, which directs backups to be automatically written to a folder where they can then be used to restore the databases on the destination system. The destination system is the server or group of servers that will be used to restore the database backups produced by the source system. For more information about this step, see How to Configure a Backup BizTalk Server Job.

  2. Configuring the destination system for log shipping

    You must also configure the destination system for log shipping, which provides standby server capabilities and reduces downtime in the event of a system failure. For more information about this step, see How to Configure the Destination System.

  3. Restoring the databases

    When a hardware failure occurs, you can restore your databases by using the backups and logs sent to your destination system. For more information about this step, see How to Restore Databases in the Backup BizTalk Server Job.

BizTalk Server Databases

The following tables describe the databases used by BizTalk Server and identify which methods are used to back up the databases.

Databases Backed Up by the Backup BizTalk Server Job

The following table lists the databases that are backed up and restored as a part of the Backup BizTalk Server job. You can modify the Backup BizTalk Server job to back up custom databases by adding them to the adm_OtherBackupDatabases table. For more information, see How to Back Up Custom Databases (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=151569).

Database Default database name Description
BAM Primary Import database BAMPrimaryImport This is the database where the Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) collects raw tracking data.
BAM Notification Services Application database BAMAlertsApplication This database contains alert information for BAM notifications. For example, when you create an alert using the BAM portal, entries are inserted in the database specifying the conditions and events to which the alert pertains, as well as other supporting data items for the alert.
BAM Notification Services Instance database BAMAlertsNSMain This database contains instance information specifying how the notification services connect to the system that BAM is monitoring.
BizTalk Tracking database BizTalkDTADb This database stores health monitoring data tracked by the BizTalk Server tracking engine.
BizTalk Management database BizTalkMgmtDb This database is the central meta-information store for all instances of BizTalk Server.
BizTalk MessageBox database BizTalkMsgBoxDb This database is used by the BizTalk Server engine for routing, queuing, instance management, and a variety of other tasks.
Rule Engine database BizTalkRuleEngineDb This database is a repository for:

- Policies, which are sets of related rules.
- Vocabularies, which are collections of user-friendly, domain-specific names for data references in rules.
SSO database SSODB This Enterprise Single Sign-On database more securely stores the configuration information for receive locations.

Databases Backed Up When Backing Up the BAM Analysis and Tracking Analysis Server Databases

The following table lists the databases that are backed up using the procedures in Backing Up the BAM Analysis and Tracking Analysis Server Database:

Database Default database name Description
BAM Star Schema BAMStarSchema This database contains the staging table, and the measure and dimension tables.
BAM Analysis BAMAnalysis This database contains BAM OLAP cubes for both online and offline analysis.
BAM Archive BAMArchive This database archives old business activity data. Create a BAM Archive database to minimize the accumulation of business activity data in the BAM Primary Import database.
Tracking Analysis Server BizTalkAnalysisDb This database stores health monitoring online analytical processing (OLAP) cubes.

This section of the operations guide describes additional steps that you should follow to configure BizTalk Server log shipping.

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