Host Instances

Setting up monitoring for Host Instances

1. Log in to the BizTalk360 application
2. Click 'Monitoring' in the environment panel
3. Click the expand button against the 'Manage Mapping' tab and select the 'BizTalk Environment' link
4. Select the Alarm name (see Manage Alarms) from the drop-down for which you would like to associate the alerts
5. At the tab pages with system resources at the top, select 'Host Instances'
6. Select the checkboxes against the Host Instances that you wish to monitor
7. Set the value of 'Expected State' by selecting a value from the drop-down. For instance, if you want the state of the host instances is to be Started, you need to set the value in the drop-down to 'Started'. In case the host instance is no longer in the Expected state, this will trigger a notification email/SMS about the status change

Monitoring Clustered Host Instances

To achieve high availability for adapters that cannot have multiple host instances running at one point in time, BizTalk allows you to cluster hosts using Windows Failover Clustering. This will make only one host instance running for the clustered host and in case of any failure, it will failover by running the host instance in a different server.

BizTalk360 has the capability of monitoring clustered host instances. Setting up monitoring for clustered instances is the same as monitoring all other artifacts in a BizTalk Server environment. You need to create an alarm and associate the alarm with the artifacts, in order to be able to monitor the host instances. In this case, configuring monitoring for clustered host instances happens in the same place as normal host instances, under BizTalk Environment.

Unique color indications are provided for a clustered host instance (since only one needs to be active at any point of time), you need to monitor by choosing the state — 'At Least One Active'. Monitoring on this expected state will keep a watch on the clustered host instance, to see if one of the two host instances is active at any point in time. If no host instance for the clustered host is active, BizTalk360 will trigger an alert and a notification will be sent to your notification channels. 

Monitoring Non-Clustered Host Instances

BizTalk360 also allows you to monitor non-clustered hosts in the same way as clustered host instances. To make use of clustered host instance monitoring with non-clustered hosts, the hostname should be the same.

Set Up Monitoring for clustered and non-clustered Host Instances:
• Log in to the BizTalk360 application
• Click 'Monitoring' in the Navigation panel
• Click the expand button against the 'Manage Mapping' tab and select the 'BizTalk Environment' link
• Select the Alarm name (see Manage Alarms) from the drop-down for which you would like to associate the alerts
• At the tab pages, select 'Host Instances'
• Select the checkboxes against the clustered host instances (BizTalkServerApplication) that you wish to monitor
• Set the value of Expected State as 'AtleastOneActive' by selecting from the values from the drop-down

When the monitored clustered host instances are all down or in the stopped state, then BizTalk360 triggers an alert and also sends the notification through the Email and custom notification channels.

Setting Auto Correct for Clustered and Non-Clustered Host Instance

With the Auto Correct functionality, administrators can set up monitoring on any State-based artifact and let the monitoring service try to automatically heal the artifact any time when there is a mismatch between the Expected State and the Current State. For instance, administrators can set up monitoring on the Host Instances and additionally set up the auto correct functionality for the Expected State of the artifact (which should be 'Started'). Whenever the host instance gets stopped, there will be a mismatch in the state and the auto correct will try to bring the artifact back to the expected state. If the operation is successful, the artifact will come back to the Expected State within the next monitoring service cycle (60 seconds).

Assuming you are still on the Host Instances screen, follow the  below steps to setup Auto Correct for cluster and non-cluster Host Instances:

• Select the check box of the Host Instances for which you want to set up Auto Correct,
• click 'Auto Correct' drop-down and select 'Started'

Auto Correct will be enabled for the Host Instances with the default values for Max Retry as 5 and Retry Count as 0.

Let’s see the behavior of cluster and non-clustered host instances with enabled Auto Correct.

When both host instances are in a stopped state when AtleastOne option is enabled, first BizTalk360 will attempt to start the first host-instance and add a count to the number of attempts. If it doesn’t get started, BizTalk360 will try to start the second host instance and add a count to the number of attempts. If the operation is successful, the artifact will come back to the Expected State within the next monitoring service cycle (60 seconds). If not, for every 60 seconds it will try to match with the expected state up to the max retry count.