BizTalk Servers

One of the most common problems that administration teams encounter in a BizTalk environment is while monitoring/diagnosing any issues. If an error or failure happens on different servers, the administration team has to manually log in to each server to view server information or try to find the root cause of the issue. This is a time-consuming process and it poses severe security risks since team members will have full access permissions to log in to the server and perform any operations to fix the issues. BizTalk360 addresses this problem by providing you the capability to access BizTalk and SQL servers directly from the BizTalk360 UI.

The below instructions explain how to access a BizTalk server.

Follow the below steps to view the BizTalk Server information in BizTalk360:

• Log into the BizTalk360 application

• Click on the Environment name on the landing page

• Click to expand the 'Manage Infrastructure' option and select 'BizTalk Servers' link

• The BizTalk Server page displays the below information

  1. Memory - This section provides information about the BizTalk Server RAM memory
  2. CPU - CPU usage information is displayed in this section
  3. Windows edition - This section provides information about the Windows edition installed on the server
  4. BizTalk/IIS edition - This section provides information about the BizTalk/IIS edition installed on the server
  5. Hardware - Hardware details of the server is displayed in this section
  6. Host Instances - Information about the number of host instances that are started/stopped is displayed here
  7. Server Usage - Server usage operations are listed in this section

BizTalk Logs 

BizTalk server logs play a vital role in auditing and troubleshooting BizTalk server operations. In a production environment, multiple BizTalk servers are responsible for processing critical business transactions and it's your team's responsibility to monitor them for any errors. Instead of switching between various servers, users can conveniently access these logs through the user-friendly interface of BizTalk360. 

Within BizTalk360, there is a sub-service known as "Server Logs" responsible for gathering logs from the designated paths.

To set up log configuration, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to  "Manage Infrastructure"-> "BizTalk Server" and select the respective server.
2. Click on "Log Configuration," which opens the configuration panel.
3. In the configuration panel, enable the "Logging Status"  and specify the log4net directory path for BizTalk log files. you can add multiple file paths here.
4. Once logging is enabled, all logs will be displayed, including their log category, file name, and the timestamp of the latest log entry.
5. To view a log file in detail, click on the eye icon, which opens the log file details panel. Within this panel, you can:  
   • Access the complete log information contained in that specific log file.
   • Use the "Goto Latest" button to scroll down and highlight the latest log data.
   • Download the logs as a file, and you can also email the log file to the respective recipient.
   • Enable "Word Wrap" for easier readability.

Logs are scheduled to be purged every 15 days to prevent any performance impact caused by an accumulation of a large number of logs.

With robust filtering capabilities, you can filter logs based on specific criteria, including category name and collection date/time. This functionality enables you to precisely pinpoint and access the logs that are most relevant to your troubleshooting needs.