BizTalk Server Roles and Responsibilities
The development, maintenance, and administration of a BizTalk Server environment encompass several different roles with distinct responsibilities. This topic describes these roles, the responsibilities associated with the roles, and tools that can be used to complete the tasks associated with each role. This topic also provides links to Operational Readiness checklist tasks associated with each role.
Roles and Responsibilities for a BizTalk Server Environment
| Role | Responsibilities | Tools | Operations Checklist Tasks |
|---|---|---|---|
| BizTalk Server Administrator | Administration Maintain environment uptime by monitoring BizTalk Server exceptions and resolving BizTalk Server specific issues. Platform Modifications - Create new hosts - Add and configure adapters - Create new MessageBox databases - Add additional BizTalk servers as required for scale out - Create new BizTalk groups Platform Monitoring - Monitor for BizTalk Server platform exceptions - Debug application errors. - Manage load across the BizTalk Server group. |
BizTalk Server Administration console. The BizTalk Server Administration console is the primary management tool for BizTalk Server. It provides a graphical user interface for performing deployment operations for a BizTalk application. For example, you can start the Import, Installation, and Export Wizards as well as add and remove an application's artifacts and make other modifications to the application. Scripting and programmability APIs. Use Microsoft Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) or the BizTalk Explorer Object Model to create and run scripts that automate administrative tasks. The WMI object model exposes and simplifies administrative APIs. All administration APIs expose some form of the following operations on every object they manage: - Create - Enumerate - Modify - Delete WMI exposes this functionality in a consistent manner for all WMI objects. Business Activity Monitoring (BAM). Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) provides an observation-based tracking framework that can be used to capture operational or business process metrics. Metrics are captured in SQL Server where they can subsequently be reported on using a reporting mechanism that is most appropriate for the situation. BAM uses a Microsoft Office Excel workbook to provide business users with the ability to see a real-time comprehensive view of business processes. Health and Activity Tracking. Use the Group Hub page in BizTalk Server Administration Console to track the health of your BizTalk Server implementation, identify bottlenecks, and monitor the BizTalk Server environment. You can view the technical details of a particular orchestration, pipeline, or message instance, as well as see the message flow of a particular message that enters the system. Business users can view, monitor, and query tracked data. In addition, users can create custom views and queries, and save them for reuse in other locations. Business analysts and end users can track the state of their business processes by viewing both live and archived data. |
- Checklist: Configuring Windows Server - Checklist: Configuring Internet Information Services - Checklist: Configuring BizTalk Server - Checklist: Monitoring Operational Readiness |
| Release Management | Deployment and Updating BizTalk Applications - Deploy new applications into the BizTalk Server environment - Manage strong name keys For more information about deploying and updating BizTalk applications, see Managing Applications |
BTSTask command-line tool. BTSTask enables you to perform many administrative tasks from the command line. | - Checklist: Deploying an Application - Checklist: Exporting Bindings from One Application to Another - Checklist: Updating an Assembly - Checklist: Updating an Application Using Side-by-Side Versioning |
| Operations Support | Support Change Management - Support new service solutions - Support new technologies - Support new systems - Support applications - Support hardware changes - Support configuration management - Support release management Normal Operating Procedures Effective, efficient execution of day-to-day tasks including the following: - Security administration - System administration - Network administration - Service monitoring and control - Directory services administration - Storage management - Job scheduling Support Procedures Timely resolution of problems and inquiries. - Service desk support - Incident management - Problem management Environment Optimization - Cost management - Performance optimization - Service level management - Capacity management - Availability management - Workforce management |
Performance Analysis of Logs (PAL) Tool. Use this tool for analyzing performance counter log files. Microsoft BizTalk LoadGen 2007 Tool. This is a load generation tool for simulating message transmission load on BizTalk Server. You can use it to run performance and stress tests against a BizTalk deployment for BizTalk Server versions 2004 and later. BizTalk Server 2006 Orchestration Profiler. This is used to view orchestration tracking data for a specified period of time; helpful for determining where performance bottlenecks exist in orchestrations. Note: Use of this tool is not supported by Microsoft, and Microsoft makes no guarantees about the suitability of this programs. Use of this program is entirely at your own risk. Note: This tool can be used with BizTalk Server as well. Tools and Utilities to use for Troubleshooting. |
- Checklist: Providing High Availability with Fault Tolerance or Load Balancing - Checklist: Increasing Availability with Disaster Recovery - Performing Bottleneck Testing and Tuning - Performing Load and Throughput Testing - Performing Availability Testing |
| Developer | Application Monitoring - Support application exceptions that are not resolved by the BizTalk Server administrator. - Provide updates to source code for resolving issues. New and Existing Application Development Create new applications and update existing application functionality on the BizTalk Server platform. |
Visual Studio Development platform used to create, modify, and debug BizTalk Server solution source code. Testing the Application. Useful for unit testing .NET code. DebugView for Windows. Tool for monitoring kernel-mode and Win32 debug output either locally or remotely. |
Performing Unit Testing |
| Database Administrator | Database Management - Define appropriate database space allocation - Monitor database usage - Tune SQL Server - Set up backup and restore jobs for all SQL Server databases. - Ensure that maintenance scripts are run regularly for the Tracking and Orchestration Persistence databases. - Work with the trend analysis specialist to identify appropriate thresholds. - Complete standard SQL Server maintenance procedures. |
SQL Server Profiler SQL Server Profiler can be used to capture Transact-SQL statements that are sent to SQL Server and the SQL Server result sets from these statements. Since BizTalk Server is tightly integrated with SQL Server, the analysis of a SQL Server Profile trace can be a useful tool for analyzing problems that may occur in BizTalk Server when reading from and writing to SQL Server databases. For information about how to use SQL Server Profiler, see Introducing SQL Server Profiler. SQL Server Management Studio SQL Server Management Studio can be used to execute SQL statements directly against SQL Server databases. This functionality may be useful for querying the BizTalk Server databases or for updating the BizTalk Server databases in certain scenarios. For more information about SQL Server Management Studio, see Using SQL Server Management Studio. |
Checklist: Configuring SQL Server |
See Also
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