Can you use BizTalk in Azure Virtual machine for production use?

Published on : Jun 12, 2012

Category : BizTalk360 Update

Saravana

Author

Original article from blog.biztalk360.com In the previous post we explained how easy it’s to setup BizTalk servers in Windows Azure  using the new durable virtual machine support. In the article we mainly focused on some of the common low risk use cases like, setting up the environment for
  • Development,
  • QA,
  • May be for support, training etc.
But, how about running your production BizTalk environment in the cloud. Is it a supported configuration? Technically the virtual machines in windows azure are regular VHD files fully compatible with  Hyper-V. One of the key offering from Microsoft in this space is, customer can freely move their VM’s between Azure and on-premise. One step ahead, during Scott Guthrie http://meetwindowsazure.com talk he demonstrated customers will be able to move the VHD files between cloud providers like Amazon freely. Given the complete support of BizTalk running in Hyper-V (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/842301) as shown below image Production BizTalk environment in Windows Azure virtual machine should also be supported. But you need to be fully aware, the support will be within the SLA boundaries of Windows Azure for IaaS (Infrastructure as Service) offering, which currently is 99.95% monthly SLA. If your application can coupe with the occasional downtime (it may not happen, but still there is .05% possible downtime), then you should be able to run your BizTalk production environment in Windows Azure virtual machine. NOTE: There is no endorsement from Microsoft on this subject at this point, things will get much clearer when BizTalk 2010 R2 is released. However with one of the recent unofficial conversation I had with senior Microsoft executive, this is the statement I heard. I’m just giving you a head start, sure we will hear more official news in the future. Nandri! Saravana Kumar