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Microsoft BizTalk Server Logging Agent

Use Nodinite to replace BAM; as a bonus, you get long-term archiving of tracked events, including the payload and context properties!

Replaces BAM
Plug and play
No pipeline components required (!)

  • Nothing to deploy
  • No restarts required

No vendor lock-in
Log Events, Payload and Context Properties
Long term storage
Re-index support in Nodinite means that you have no up-front design to consider
Supports Logging from more than one BizTalk Group with a single license

Nodinite and the BizTalk Server Monitoring Agent are fully compatible with BizTalk Server 2006 -> 2020!

Logo

  • The Nodinite Logging agent for Microsoft BizTalk Server copies events and messages from one or more Microsoft BizTalk Server instances.

About

Get tracked data from any number of BizTalk Server groups within a few seconds with nearly no effort!

The Microsoft BizTalk Server Logging Agent copies events and messages, including the promoted properties from one or more Microsoft BizTalk Servers for ports and Orchestrations with Tracking enabled. Since the agent copies data from the BizTalk Tracking database, there is no need to keep large amounts of data within BizTalk. Use Nodinite to make your BizTalk Server environment run faster and be less error prone due to tracking related problems.

You can also track events and messages using the Log Pipeline Components for Nodinite.

Nodinite replaces BAM entirely and is less error-prone. You can finally trust logging with BizTalk!

Features

Nodinite copies data from the tracking database (BizTalkDTADb). You can use a single instance of Nodinite and fetch data from more than one BizTalk Group (i.e. old Prod and new Prod).

  • Events (where any of the following tracking options are set)
    • Messages (payload)
    • Context Properties

Supported Versions

Nodinite runs smoothly with the following versions and editions of Microsoft BizTalk Server:

All versions from BizTalk 2006 and onwards are supported. Nodinite is built and tested for the latest available Cumulative Update (CU) at any given time.

For the latest CU, please visit: KB2555976

  • BizTalk 2020
  • BizTalk 2016
  • BizTalk 2013 R2
  • BizTalk 2013
  • BizTalk 2010
  • BizTalk 2009
  • BizTalk 2006 R2
  • BizTalk 2006

All editions are supported:

  • Enterprise
  • Standard
  • Developer (which is Enterprise)
  • Trial (which is Enterprise)

Logged data

Users can access the logged data using one or more role-based Log Views.

Installation and Configuration

The BizTalk Logging is a built-in feature of the Nodinite Logging Service. Part of the installation process of Nodinite, the configuration for logging from BizTalk can be set.

Automatic synchronisation

The BizTalk Log Agent always keeps track of last tracked event and body and performs a synchronization whenever Nodinite and the BizTalk tracking databases are available.

  • Reboot anything at any time - no worries, Nodinite will synchronize automatically
    • Any of the Core Services
    • Any of the BizTalk nodes (Processing nodes and SQL nodes)
  • Original log date time is used and there will be no "holes" in time for logged events
  • Perform updates at any time, there is no data loss
  • BizTalk Tracking database can be cleared using BizTalk Terminator tool/BHM tool.

NOTE: Make sure that last transaction in BizTalk tracking database is available in the online Log Databases before running the purge/reset command

  • Do note that the BizTalk SQL Job TrackedMessages_Copy_BizTalkMsgBoxDb by default, runs once every minute. This in effect means that tracked data is typically visible in Nodinite 90 seconds from when the event originally occurred. This latency may be tuned using the System Parameters set during installation/configuration, read more here
  • If the online Log Database is lost for whatever reason, restore from last backup and the BizTalk Log Agent will automatically fetch the missing tracked events and data
  • The BizTalk Log Agent MUST not be stopped for a longer period than the purge period set in the BizTalk SQL Agent job DTA Purge and Archive (BizTalkDTADb)

NOTE: You will eventually lose data if the BizTalk Log Agent cannot reach the tracking database (changes in network, firewalls, security, policies and more) or the service is/has stopped for too long time

TIP: Use Nodinite the Non-Events agent to make sure you are alerted whenever there is data outage

  • If the Nodinite BizTalk Server Logging Agent has been stopped for a long time, it may take a while to catch up. This is mainly dependent on disk performance on BizTalk Tracking database and the Log Databases

Next Step

BizTalk Logging Agent PreReqs
Add or manage Log View

Log Views
Log Agents