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Home > Archive > BizTalk Server General > December 2005 > Deployment best practices & Issues
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Deployment best practices & Issues
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| BizTalk Benjamin 2005-12-04, 5:50 pm |
| Hi,
Just checking if anyone has these issues and could offer some help. We have
a set of batch files (copied and customised from the MS whitepaper -
Developing Integration Solutions with BTS). They are used to stop ports and
orchs, undeploy assemblies etc. Sometimes however, we find that the orch's
refuse to stop and they dont get undeployed correctly. At these times we have
to use the VS.NET BizTalk explorer and forcibly undeploy the
assemblies/orchs/ports etc. This works fine in TEST and UAT.
But in PRODUCTION, we wont have VS.NET so we dont have the luxury of using
the BTS Explorer add-in and the standard BizTalk Admin console is of no use
to change port bindings, undeploy etc. I am wondering about using the GDN
tool "BTS Management App". Is that a good idea?
So, for the folks who have BizTalk 04 in production,
(1) what are you doing to put new versions of assemblies? do you stop the
hosts, undeploy the lot and redeploy or do you just put new assemblies in the
GAC and does BizTalk pick it up automatically?
(2) if you undeploy, how do you do it? what tools do you use?
(3) What about version numbers and binding files? How do you put new ones
into the GAC while a current version is running?
Hope someone can help. We are going live soon and these deployment problems
are making us rather anxious.
Thanks
benjy
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| esgraham 2005-12-05, 5:55 pm |
| For BizTalk 2004 implementations, I use the BTSInstaller to uninstall and
reinstall projects on the production machine. For more information see
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...aller_bvkn.asp.
The downside to the installation package is that you either need to create
many different installations, or uninstall all items associated with a
project and reinstall. For example, I had one project that used 8
orchestrations, and I had to create 8 installations so that the client could
make changes to a single orchestration without affecting the other processes.
But, on the plus side, the client loved the simplicity of the installation
packages.
"BizTalk Benjamin" wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Just checking if anyone has these issues and could offer some help. We have
> a set of batch files (copied and customised from the MS whitepaper -
> Developing Integration Solutions with BTS). They are used to stop ports and
> orchs, undeploy assemblies etc. Sometimes however, we find that the orch's
> refuse to stop and they dont get undeployed correctly. At these times we have
> to use the VS.NET BizTalk explorer and forcibly undeploy the
> assemblies/orchs/ports etc. This works fine in TEST and UAT.
>
> But in PRODUCTION, we wont have VS.NET so we dont have the luxury of using
> the BTS Explorer add-in and the standard BizTalk Admin console is of no use
> to change port bindings, undeploy etc. I am wondering about using the GDN
> tool "BTS Management App". Is that a good idea?
>
> So, for the folks who have BizTalk 04 in production,
> (1) what are you doing to put new versions of assemblies? do you stop the
> hosts, undeploy the lot and redeploy or do you just put new assemblies in the
> GAC and does BizTalk pick it up automatically?
> (2) if you undeploy, how do you do it? what tools do you use?
> (3) What about version numbers and binding files? How do you put new ones
> into the GAC while a current version is running?
>
> Hope someone can help. We are going live soon and these deployment problems
> are making us rather anxious.
>
> Thanks
> benjy
| |
| BizTalk Benjamin 2005-12-05, 5:55 pm |
| Hi,
Thanks. Im using the BTSInstaller too but it has all the orchestrations in
one MSI (including ones for different subsystems). The problem is that when
uninstalling it doesnt appear to remove all ports and orchs.Some are stuck in
the system and thats causing me problems.
I tried to run the batch files (that call the VB Scripts) to stop ports and
orchs first, before doing the uninstall, but it frequently leaves some ports
& orchs running. Thats why Im in a dilemma now cos i need some fine grained
control over removing these artifacts.
Your approach of creating different MSI's for different orchestrations
sounds like a good idea. Is that all you use? does it remove all the
associated artifacts?
Cheers
benjy
"esgraham" wrote:
[vbcol=seagreen]
> For BizTalk 2004 implementations, I use the BTSInstaller to uninstall and
> reinstall projects on the production machine. For more information see
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...aller_bvkn.asp.
> The downside to the installation package is that you either need to create
> many different installations, or uninstall all items associated with a
> project and reinstall. For example, I had one project that used 8
> orchestrations, and I had to create 8 installations so that the client could
> make changes to a single orchestration without affecting the other processes.
> But, on the plus side, the client loved the simplicity of the installation
> packages.
>
>
> "BizTalk Benjamin" wrote:
>
| |
| esgraham 2005-12-05, 5:55 pm |
| I forgot, if the orchestrations has a port with a non-default pipeline, the
uninstall does not work and the artifacts must be manually deleted. Try
removing the port with WMI scripting. There is an vbs example in the SDK.
I have also seen batch files used to deploy the projects. The information
for using BTSdeploy can be found at:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...howto_kqbs.asp.
If installing the assmeblies on two or more servers, the assemblies only
need to be deployed once, but added to the GAC on all servers. The same
issue you are having will occur until you either remove the pipeline or
delete the port.
"BizTalk Benjamin" wrote:
[vbcol=seagreen]
> Hi,
> Thanks. Im using the BTSInstaller too but it has all the orchestrations in
> one MSI (including ones for different subsystems). The problem is that when
> uninstalling it doesnt appear to remove all ports and orchs.Some are stuck in
> the system and thats causing me problems.
>
> I tried to run the batch files (that call the VB Scripts) to stop ports and
> orchs first, before doing the uninstall, but it frequently leaves some ports
> & orchs running. Thats why Im in a dilemma now cos i need some fine grained
> control over removing these artifacts.
>
> Your approach of creating different MSI's for different orchestrations
> sounds like a good idea. Is that all you use? does it remove all the
> associated artifacts?
>
> Cheers
> benjy
>
> "esgraham" wrote:
>
| |
| BizTalk Benjamin 2005-12-05, 5:55 pm |
| Hi,
This is very helpful. Yes, we are using custom pipelines in a few
orchestrations to do various things such as stamping/updating context
information on the message etc. I will try and isolate the orchestrations
that require this into separate MSI's and use the script route.
The batch files and VBS files Im using are from the Integration Solutions
whitepaper which builds on the SDK samples.
Currently we are deploying on one server only.
I will take a look at the URL.
Thanks a lot.
Cheers
benjy
"esgraham" wrote:
[vbcol=seagreen]
> I forgot, if the orchestrations has a port with a non-default pipeline, the
> uninstall does not work and the artifacts must be manually deleted. Try
> removing the port with WMI scripting. There is an vbs example in the SDK.
>
> I have also seen batch files used to deploy the projects. The information
> for using BTSdeploy can be found at:
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...howto_kqbs.asp.
> If installing the assmeblies on two or more servers, the assemblies only
> need to be deployed once, but added to the GAC on all servers. The same
> issue you are having will occur until you either remove the pipeline or
> delete the port.
>
> "BizTalk Benjamin" wrote:
>
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