BizTalk360 – v4.0 Released (Product Update)

We wanted to keep the rhythm of releasing an update with some cool capabilities every 4-5 months.  This is another big update from the BizTalk360 product team.

1. Service Window Support

If you are using Schedules and Service Windows in your receive locations and send ports, you are going to love this feature. It solve 2 big challenges customers face at the moment. v4.0 UI on the receive locations/send ports list will highlight:

• Visual clue on the list saying Receive Locations/Send ports got schedule/service window enabled
• Clearly showing whether the window is active now. Without this information support people often get confused why the receive location didn’t pickup the message or didn’t transmit the message

The support person can hover the mouse over and clearly see what that clock icon and the warning icon is for with clear tooltips. You can read more about it in his blog article.

2. Custom SQL Queries

After talking to lots and lots of BizTalk administrators and support people in the community, we realized people use set of SQL queries on daily basis. Examples

• Checking the Spool size in message box
• Checking the Message In/Out events in tracking database
• Checking All the disabled Receive locations in the environment
• Checking the top 10 big messages in tracking table
• etc.

Typically they maintain these queries in a SQL text file, open SQL server management studio and execute them. They also need to have permission to execute such queries. BizTalk360 v4.0 solves this problem by providing the ability to store and execute SQL queries right in the UI. It comes with complete query management (you can add, edit, view) capability, the user don’t need to have any specific SQL permission (the queries will be executed under secure service account credential). BizTalk360 comes with set of pre-packaged queries, users can add their own. Note: Users can maintain queries to any SQL Instance/Databases, not necessarily BizTalk databases. As long as the service account got credentials to access it.  You can read more about Custom SQL Query capabilities.

3. Extended Monitoring from BizTalk perspective

The main focus of 4.0 release is to increase the monitoring capabilities of BizTalk360. In previous version we supported monitoring BizTalk Applications and Message Box Viewer reports. The BizTalk application monitoring was limited in the sense it only checked for healthy receive locations, send ports, orchestrations, host instances, Suspended services. The only configurable option was the ability to ignore certain artifacts from monitoring.  But with 4.0 we are introducing BizTalk Application Advanced monitoring. With this capability the customer can decide on appropriate state of the artifacts for monitoring. Examples

• I want my SAP send ports to be in “Started” state
• I want my FTP Receive Location to be in a “Disable” state (since we manually enable them once a month, and I don’t want someone accidentally enabling it)
• etc.

Receive Locations Monitoring

You can set the expected state of the receive locations (Ex: Enabled or Disabled). If the receive locations are not in the expected state BizTalk360 will send notifications alerts(email/sms).

Send Ports Monitoring

You can set the expected state of the send ports (Ex: Started, Stopped, Enlisted, Unenlisted). If the send ports are not in the expected state BizTalk360 will send notifications (email/sms).

Orchestrations Monitoring

You can set the expected state of the Orchestrations (Ex: Started, Stopped, Enlisted, Unenlisted). If the orchestrations are not in the expected state BizTalk360 will send notifications (email/sms).

Service Instances Monitoring

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You can set the warning and error levels for the number of services instances with specific state (Suspended, Active, Scheduled etc) in an applications. If the services instances count crosses the threshold, BizTalk360 will send notifications.

Monitoring Disks

You can set the error and warning level on the free space in the disks (in BizTalk Server). When the disks run out of space (cross the threshold values), BizTalk360 will send notifications alerts.  Check: How to monitor your disks in BizTalk Server?

Monitoring CPU usage

You can set error and warning level of the CPU usage (for a duration, ex: 10 mins). If the CPU consistly stays above that level, threshold will be violated and BizTalk360 will send notification alerts.

Monitoring Memory Consumption

You can set error and warning level of the free Memory. If the free memory stays below the configured values (for a duration, ex: 20 mins) threshold will be violated and BizTalk360 will send notification alerts.

Monitoring NT Services

You can set the expected state of the NT services in your BizTalk Servers (Ex: Running, Stopped, Ignore). If the NT Services are not in the expected state BizTalk360 will send notifications. (Ex Services: EntSSO, RulesEngine etc)

Event Logs Monitoring

Multiple Event Log queries can be created and monitored. Ex: “Number of BizTalk errors in last 30 minutes > 10”. Whenever a query condition is met, BizTalk360 will send notifications. Multiple queries can be added to each servers.

Monitoring SQL Jobs

You can set the expected state of the SQL Jobs (Ex: Enabled or Disabled). It’s important to keep certain jobs in disabled state in BizTalk. If the SQL jobs are not in the expected state BizTalk360 will send notifications (email/sms). Monitor SQL jobs using BizTalk360

Monitoring HTTP/Web services endpoints

BizTalk360 allows to monitor external HTTP/Web endpoints (ex: Web services or http locations) for expected return code (ex: 200, 202 etc). If the end points do not return expected code, notifications alerts will be sent.

Monitoring Host Instances

You can set the expected state of the Host Instances (Ex: Started, Stopped or Disabled). If the host instances are not in the expected state BizTalk360 will send notifications (email/sms).

4. Behind the scene work

As usual between each releases we increase the stability of BizTalk360. In this version we fixed lot of the performance issues mainly on VMWare ESX platform. There are lot of small UI enhancements, Examples:

• Users can start/stop BizTalk360 monitor sub-services directly in the UI,
• Ability to view all the alarm mapping subscriptions
• Reset alarm after all the notifications are exhausted right in the UI
• Monitor and Notification got a completely new UI.
• etc..

Behind the scene we built a brand new platform for monitoring with plug-in architecture. This will allow us to add more plugin in the future (ex: Checking IIS Application Pools, XML Configuration files, FTP Locations etc) We hope you’ll enjoy this update, You can download the 14 days trial version and try it for yourself. – BizTalk360 Team.