BizMon update: version 1.3

Change list for version 1.3.0

• FIX: Link in mailed Data Tracking Reports and Monitoring Alerts did not work in Mozilla Thunderbird.
• Improved the free version scenario. It is now possible to hide the information about a missing license. Further information is only visible if there are more than five applications and these are hidden.
• Possible to exclude an entire application.
• Send port groups are now monitored.

Exclude application

It is now possible to exclude and entire application from monitoring! In previous version of BizMon it was only possible to exclude separate artifacts from monitoring. Excluding all artifacts in an application when for example bringing the application down for maintenance turned out to be cumbersome for many BizMon customers.

An excluded application will not cause any alerts when error occurs on it. If Data Tracking is active on the application this will however continue to work as normal.

Send Port Groups

The status of the Send Port Groups within an application is now included of the aggregated status of an application. A Send Port Group can also, as all other BizTalk artifact, be separately excluded from monitoring.

Update from previous version

To updating from previous version of BizMon to 1.3.0 just run the 1.3.0 installer. If you have a previous version installed contact The BizMon Team at support@communicate.no and we will send you the latest version.

Learn more about BizMon Data Tracking

We have just published a new web cast showing some details to how BizMon Data Tracking works. Data Tracking in BizMon is a feature based on Business Activity Monitoring (BAM). BizMon however hides all the complexity that usually is associated with working with BAM and the different tools.

Check it out and make sure to let us know what you think!

BizMon installation and configuration guide IIS 7

This guide is applicable when installing BizMon on a server running IIS 7. If you are planning to use a server running IIS 6 use this guide.

It also assumes that you already have the server set up with the “BizTalk Administration tools”. If you are installing BizMon on a existing BizTalk server these tools are already installed.

If you are however planning to use a server without any BizTalk components previously installed to run BizMon you need to install the BizTalk Administration Tools first. Learn more about this in the BizMon pre-requisite section.

1. Run the installer

Download and run the installer on the server you are planning top run BizMon from. You can find more information on what the installer does here.

2. Create or configure a BizMon user

BizMon needs to run under a user with some special privileges. The user BizMon runs needs to be a member of

• The Administrators group of the local server BizMon runs on.
• The IIS_IUSRS group on the local server BizMon runs on.
• The BizTalk Server Administrators group used by the BizTalk server BizMon should monitor.

Some BizMon customer uses the same users that they use to run the BizTalk services under, and some customer setup a separate BizMon users and adds that user to the required groups.

3. Configure IIS

To enable BizMon Web to run under the user we setup, we need to create and configure an Application Pool. This is managed under the Identity tab on the Application Pool properties in IIS.

Next we need to change the BizMon Virtual Directory (that was created by the BizMon installer) to use the Application Pool just configured.

4. Configure the BizMon Subscription NT Service

The BizMon Subscription service that is responsible for sending out alerts and report also needs to use the same user we just configured. The BizMon installer installed the service so all we need is to configure it to use the correct user account.

5.  Setting up the database connections

The BizMon installer created a BizMon folder on the start menu. In this folder there is a Service connection shortcut and a Web connection shortcut.

Use these to open the configuration document to set the connection string to the “BizTalkMgmt” database.

If the “BizTalkMgmt” database is not on the local machine the data source needs to be set to the server where the BizTalkMgmt can be found.

<connectionStrings>
<add
name=”BizTalkMgmtDbConnectionString”
connectionString=”Data Source=.;Initial Catalog=BizTalkMgmtDb;Integrated Security=True”
providerName=”System.Data.SqlClient” />
</connectionStrings>

Remember to change this setting for both the “Web connection” and the “Service connection”!

6. SMTP settings etc

In the start menu there is also a Web settings shortcut and a Service settings shortcut. In the Service settings configuration document one needs to define the SMTP configuration that should be used to send alerts and reports.

In the Web settings one needs to configure the correct path to the BM.exe and the BttDeploy.exe. These are by default configured for the default installation path of BizTalk 2006.

You can find more information about the different configuration possibilities in the BizMon configuration documentation.

The default path for the BM.exe and the BttProfile.exe tool are based on the path for BizTalk Server 2006. So if running BizTalk 2009 or are using a x86 based server, or you will have to change this into the correct path to these tools.

7. Troubleshoot the installation

Start your browser and point it at “http://localhost/bizmon” directly on the server you have installed it on. If there are any exceptions these will be displayed directly in the browser (as you are browsing locally).

BizMon also logs all exception (both on the Subscription service and the BizMon web to the application log). Each of the components also logs to a log file that is located under folders in the installation path chosen in the installer.

And as always – do not hesitate to contact our support group if you have any question on the installer or the product in general.

BizMon update: version 1.2

Change list for version 1.2.0

• Added a “Reload main BizMon page” link to the errors pages
• We now split both the BizMon Web and BizMon Service the log files based on size and day.
• The times in the log files are now based on local time and not UTC time
• The BizMon service now installs with a “Automatic” start mode as default
• We changes the installer to better install ASP.NET MVC on IIS 7

Update

If you are running an earlier version of BizMon and want to update contact us and we’ll sent you the latest installer.

BizMon installation and configuration guide IIS 6

This guide is applicable when installing BizMon on a server running IIS 6. If you are planning to use a server running IIS 7 use this guide.

It also assumes that you already have the server set up with the “BizTalk Administration tools”. If you are installing BizMon on a existing BizTalk server these tools are already installed.

If you are however planning to use a server without any BizTalk components previously installed to run BizMon you need to install the BizTalk Administration Tools first. Learn more about this in the BizMon pre-requisite section.

1. Run the installer

Download and run the installer on the server you are planning top run BizMon from. You can find more information on what the installer does here.

 

 

 

 

2. Create or configure a BizMon user

BizMon needs to run under a user with some special privileges. The user BizMon runs needs to be a member of

• The Administrators group of the local server BizMon runs on.
• The IIS_WPG group on the local server BizMon runs on.
• The BizTalk Server Administrators group used by the BizTalk server BizMon should monitor.

 

 

Some BizMon customer uses the same users that they use to run the BizTalk services under, and some customer setup a separate BizMon users and adds that user to the required groups.

3. Configure IIS

To enable BizMon Web to run under the user we setup, we need to create and configure an Application Pool. This is managed under the Identity tab on the Application Pool properties in IIS.

Next we need to change the BizMon Virtual Directory (that was created by the BizMon installer) to use the Application Pool we just configured.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Configure the BizMon Subscription NT Service

The BizMon Subscription service that is responsible for sending out alerts and report also needs to use the same user we just configured. The BizMon installer installed the service so all we need is to configure it to use the correct user account.

 

 

 

5.  Setting up the database connections

The BizMon installer created a BizMon folder on the start menu. In this folder there is a Service connection shortcut and a Web connection shortcut.

Use these to open the configuration document to set the connection string to the “BizTalkMgmt” database.

If the “BizTalkMgmt” database is not on the local machine the data source needs to be set to the server where the BizTalkMgmt can be found.

<connectionStrings>
     <add
          name="BizTalkMgmtDbConnectionString"
          connectionString="Data Source=.;Initial Catalog=BizTalkMgmtDb;Integrated Security=True"
          providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
</connectionStrings>

Remember to change this setting for both the “Web connection” and the “Service connection”!

6. SMTP settings etc

In the start menu there is also a Web settings shortcut and a Service settings shortcut. In the Service settings configuration document one needs to define the SMTP configuration that should be used to send alerts and reports.

In the Web settings one needs to configure the correct path to the BM.exe and the BttDeploy.exe. These are by default configured for the default installation path of BizTalk 2006.

You can find more information about the different configuration possibilities in the BizMon configuration documentation.

7. Troubleshoot the installation

Start your browser and point it at “http://localhost/bizmon” directly on the server you have installed it on. If there are any exceptions these will be displayed directly in the browser (as you are browsing locally).

BizMon also logs all exception (both on the Subscription service and the BizMon web to the application log). Each of the components also logs to a log file that is located under folders in the installation path chosen in the installer.

And as always – do not hesitate to contact our support group if you have any question on the installer or the product in general.

BizMon version 1.1.0 is out!

Change list for version 1.1.0:

• Added the possibility to include or exclude alerts on database connection problems between BizMon and BizTalk DB. In 1.0 alerts was sent to all recipients that was part of a Error Monitoring subscription.
• FIX: We fixed a visual bug having to do with z-index of the blocking screen when adding and changing tracking profiles and definitions. In earlier version we had an issue with the graph always being on top and having the lowest z-index.
• FIX: Some users used the same name for send and receive ports. In version 1.0 a bug caused the message counts for ports with same name to be displayed as one sum.
• FIX: We added sessions state on the page element in BizMon web.config to be “true”. This should help some people that have had installation problems in conjunction with SharePoint being installed in the same web site.
• A few error pages has been added to enhance the experience for users that run in to some sort of exception.
• The installer now adds a shortcut to the actual BizMon.Web start page, both on the desktop and in the start menu.
• BizMon now disables all tracking options if BAM isn’t configured. Information that BAM needs to be configured to enable tracking has also be added.

Update from 1.0

If your running a previous version of 1.0 BizMon and want to upgrade – contact us. As BizMon is sold using subscription based licenses all updates are included – basically you update for free! 

To update all you need to do is to run the 1.0.12 installer. Next, next  and next. That should be it!

And, as always – if you have problems, questions etc make sure to contact us at support@communicate.no.

BizMon prices are public

We have now published out prices – you can find them here.

The model we choose is based on the number of BizTalk application and is subscription based. That means that the fewer BizTalk applications you have in the solution you want to monitor the less the product will cost – all the way down to free (if you have 5 or less applications)!

A subscription for year will include full support from us and also all updates we will publish during the subscription period.

Screen cast on Error Monitoring published

Don’t miss the screen cast we just added on error monitoring!

It shows the basic concepts behind how BizMon shows and alerts on errors. We currently working on getting similar screen casts published on Data Tracking and also one showing installation and the different configurations options available.

We have a RTM version!

We currently have a published RTM version of the 1.0 version of BizMon! This version is all wrapped up in a nice installer based on the NSIS installation system.

The installer deploys the web part of BizMon, sets up IIS, installs the BizMon service and make sure that everything is as straightforward as possible. You can find the BizMon pre-requisites here.

What we however need help with is testing. We’d love to see more people try and install BizMon on their system (And remember that if you have less than 5 application it is free!) and give us feedback.

Also remember that we’d more than happy to give you a full license key for up to three months for evaluation. Just let us know and we’ll send you a time limited key.

What’s in it for you?

If find BizMon useful enough that you’d like to use it for yourself or for a customer in production and have help us with valuable feedback, found a bug or something similar we promise to give you a really nice deal on a full license key!