Orchestrations

In this section, we will see how to set up monitoring on the Orchestrations in a BizTalk application. 

In BizTalk Server, Orchestrations are used as workflows to compose business processes. In the majority of the instances, Orchestrations will become a key part of the solution you have deployed, and to avoid any downtime, it's important to make sure the Orchestrations are in a healthy/expected state. 

BizTalk360 assists administrators by monitoring the Orchestrations against a predefined status. For instance, you want to monitor the health of the Orchestration and want to be alerted when the status is not in a Started state. You can easily configure this in BizTalk360 by setting the expected state of the Orchestration to Started. By doing this, BizTalk360 will trigger an alert as soon as the Orchestration status is not in the Started state.

BizTalk360 allows you to set up monitoring for any desired state, which is not necessarily just the healthy running (Started) state. When it comes to BizTalk, there can be situations that, for example, you have some Orchestrations in the Stopped or Unlisted state and you do not want someone to accidentally start it.

So, when you are configuring monitoring for Orchestrations, you can select one of the expected states from the drop-down. The meaning of the states are: 

• Started – The Orchestration is expected to be in the started state 
• Stopped – The Orchestration is expected to be in a stopped state 
• Unenlisted – The Orchestration is expected to be in an unenlisted state 
• Do not monitor – Selecting this option will disable monitoring for the selected Orchestration 
• Unmapped - This means that no monitoring has yet been set up for the selected Orchestration

Setting Up Alerts For Orchestrations

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 'Applications' link
4.   Select the Application for which you want to set up the monitoring
5.   Select the Alarm name (see Manage Alarms) from the drop-down for which you would like to associate the alerts
6.   Choose the Orchestration(s) that you wish to monitor 
7.   Select the check box against the orchestration you wanted to monitor
8.   Set the value of the 'Expected State' by selecting from the value from the drop-down. For instance, if you want to be alerted when the Orchestration is not in the 'Started state', then you need to set the expected value in the drop-down to 'Started'

Auto Correct Functionality

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 Current State. For instance, administrators can set up monitoring on the Orchestration(s) of an application and additionally set up the auto correct functionality for the Expected State of the artifact (which should be Started).

Whenever the orchestration goes gets stopped or unenlisted, 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 Orchestrations screen, follow the below steps to setup Auto Correct for Orchestrations:

1. Select the check box of the orchestration for which you want to set up Auto Correct
2. Click the Auto Correct drop-down, and select 'Enable' 
3. Auto Correct will be enabled for the orchestration with the default values for Max Retry as 5 and Retry Count as 0
   
   From the Health Monitor alarm, all Orchestrations of the BizTalk EDI application need to be monitored, to be in the Started state. Also, Auto Correct needs to be Enabled

When an Orchestration is not in the Expected State

Attempt 1- Auto correct will attempt to bring the Orchestration to the expected state for the first time during the monitoring cycle. (Max Retry : 5, Attempt Count : 1). Let's assume the attempt was unsuccessful. You will receive an Auto Correction Alert email with the information. At this point, the monitoring dashboard will display the state of the artifact as Critical (2). When you click on the count, you will notice the auto correction steps that have been performed on the artifact

Attempt 2 - Auto correct will attempt a retry for the second time during the next monitoring cycle (Max Retry: 5, Attempt Count: 2). Let's again assume the attempt was unsuccessful. You will receive the second auto correction email with the information

Attempt 3 - Auto correct will attempt a retry for the third time during the next monitoring cycle (Max Retry: 5, Attempt Count : 3). Let's assume this attempt was successful. You will receive the third auto correction email with the information. Within the next few seconds, the monitoring dashboard will display the state of the artifact as healthy. Lastly, the attempt count will reset to 0 (Max Retry: 5, Attempt Count : 0)

Remove Orphaned Orchestrations

BizTalk360 provides the ability to remove Orphaned Artifacts from the UI. Say, for instance, you have configured monitoring for Orchestrations. However, later you either rename them or remove them completely in your environments. By doing so, the artifacts configured for monitoring move to an Orphaned state. These orphaned artifacts can be removed right from the UI by clicking the 'Remove Orphaned' button. Until Orphaned artifacts are removed from UI, the user will get alerts.