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Orchestration category

Nodinite BizTalk Monitoring Agent empowers you to monitor BizTalk Orchestrations across all BizTalk Applications. The agent automatically detects and manages new or removed Orchestrations, ensuring your monitoring is always up to date.

  • Orchestrations in BizTalk appear in Nodinite as Resources, using the same name as the Orchestration.
  • Nodinite mirrors the Application structure, providing a 1:1 mapping with BizTalk Applications.
  • Orchestrations are grouped by the Category Orchestration for streamlined management.

Unenlist and then Enlist an Orchestration from a Monitor View, animated walkthrough (6.4.2)
Animated walkthrough: from Enlisted (Warning), Unenlist turns the Orchestration Error, and Enlist brings it back to Enlisted (Warning).

Monitor View filtered on the Category Orchestration: unenlisted and unbound Orchestrations in Error with their Log Texts, and one Started Orchestration in OK (6.4.2)
Here's an example of a Monitor View filtered by the 'Orchestration' category.

Note

All User operations within Nodinite are Log Audited, supporting your security and corporate governance compliance policies.

Understanding BizTalk Orchestrations

What are Orchestrations?

Orchestrations are the business process automation engines in BizTalk Server. They execute your integration workflows: routing messages between systems, transforming data, enforcing business rules, handling errors, and coordinating multi-step transactions. Think of Orchestrations as the automated workers that execute your integration logic 24/7.

Why is Orchestration Monitoring Critical?

Stopped or unenlisted Orchestrations cause business process failures.

  • Zero business transactions – An unenlisted or stopped Orchestration doesn't subscribe to messages, causing routing failures and suspended instances (not resumable)
  • SLA violations – Order fulfillment, invoice processing, and customer onboarding workflows halt completely
  • Financial impact – Multi-million dollar processes (e.g., insurance claims, loan approvals) don't execute
  • Silent failures – BizTalk doesn't auto-alert when Orchestrations are stopped; messages accumulate as suspended instances
  • Exception handling gaps – Unhandled exceptions in Orchestrations create suspended instances (not resumable) that require code fixes and message resubmission

Common Orchestration Monitoring Scenarios

  • Unenlisted after deployment – DevOps deploys new version but forgets to start Orchestration; business processes stop immediately
  • Exception storms – Unexpected data causes unhandled exceptions; hundreds of instances suspend, overwhelming operations teams
  • Missing subscriptions – Orchestration filter doesn't match incoming messages; routing failures create suspended instances
  • Stopped for maintenance – IT stops Orchestration for emergency patch but forgets to restart; business loses hours of processing
  • Throttling side effects – Host Instance throttling causes Orchestrations to appear healthy while messages queue in MessageBox
  • Bindings imported with a host that doesn't exist – The Orchestration can't run at all; New 6.4.2 the agent reports it as Error
  • Host without host instances – The Orchestration is started, but nothing processes its messages; New 6.4.2 the agent reports it as Error

Connection to Suspended Instances: Orchestration exceptions (null reference, divide by zero, timeout, schema validation failure inside orchestration logic) create suspended instances (not resumable). These require developers to fix code, redeploy, and manually resubmit messages—costly and time-consuming.

What are the key features for Monitoring BizTalk Server Orchestrations?

  • Remote Actions – Execute powerful remote actions directly from Nodinite
  • State Evaluation – Monitor and evaluate the real-time run-time state of orchestrations

What is evaluated for BizTalk Orchestrations?

The table below explains the different evaluated states for any Orchestration. The first row that matches wins:

State Status Description Actions
🚫 Unavailable Resource not available Evaluation of the 'BizTalk Orchestrations' is not possible due to network or security-related issues, or the state is unknown (Log Text Orchestration state is unknown) Review prerequisites
❌ Error Bound to a missing host New 6.4.2 The bindings name a host that does not exist in this BizTalk group, for example after importing bindings from another environment. Log Text: Orchestration is bound to a host that does not exist (host id N). BizTalk cannot run it. Bind it to an existing host, in the BizTalk Administration Console or with corrected bindings Bind the Orchestration to an existing host
❌ Error Unbound No host is selected, and/or logical ports are not bound to a physical port. Log Text: Orchestration is unenlisted (Unbound) and cannot be enlisted or started until it is bound: followed by what is missing, for example no host is selected; logical port(s) LegacyInvoiceIn not bound to a physical port. New 6.4.2 A logical port bound to a Send Port Group counts as bound Bind the Orchestration, then Start
❌ Error Started on a host without host instances New 6.4.2 Log Text: Orchestration is started, but host '(host)' has no host instances, so nothing processes its messages. Add a host instance or bind it to another host. Older agents reported this case as OK Add a host instance, or bind to another host
❌ Error Unenlisted Log Text: Orchestration is unenlisted. It has no subscriptions, so messages for it fail routing, plus the host note below when it applies Start
Enlist
⚠️ Warning Enlisted/Stopped Log Text: Orchestration is enlisted/Stopped. Orchestration does not currently process any messages. New 6.4.2 When its host has no host instances, the Log Text adds Host '(host)' has no host instances, so nothing can process its messages Start
Unenlist
✅ OK Enabled and running Orchestration is operational, and no other problems are detected Details
Tracking

Unbound Orchestration Lab.Legacy.Legacy_Unenlisted in Error, with the Log Text naming the missing host and the unbound logical port LegacyInvoiceIn (6.4.2)
An unbound Orchestration: the Log Text names what is missing.

Tip

You can reconfigure the evaluated state using the Expected State feature on every Resource within Nodinite.

Actions

The following Remote Actions are available for the Orchestrations Category:
Action menu of an Orchestration with Start, Stop, Enlist, Unenlist, Details, and Tracking (7.12)
Orchestrations Actions Menu in the Nodinite Web Client.

Each action asks for confirmation in the Execute action? dialog, and then the Action dialog shows Communicating with the Agent… until the BizTalk Monitoring Agent answers, for example Orchestration '(name)' set to Started.

  • Start – Start processing messages (also enlists the Orchestrations)
  • Stop – Stop processing messages (keeps the subscriptions, so messages queue until Start) New 6.4.2
  • Enlist – Start subscribing for messages to process when started
  • Unenlist – Stop the orchestration and stop subscribing
  • Details – View detailed orchestration information
  • Tracking – Change tracking settings

Stop and then Start an Orchestration from a Monitor View, animated walkthrough (6.4.2)
Animated walkthrough: Stop sets the Started Orchestration to Enlisted (Warning), and Start brings it back to OK.

If BizTalk refuses an action, the Action dialog ends with See diagnostics for details (CorrelationId: …). New 6.4.2 BizTalk's reason is written to the agent's diagnostic files under that CorrelationId, and the agent rolls the refused change back.

Filter Orchestrations

Nodinite BizTalk Monitoring Agent lets you filter unwanted resources. See Configuration for details on excluding them from monitored Resources.

Tip

Use the filter feature to remove temporary Orchestrations that should not be part of your business-critical monitoring with Nodinite.

For information about subscription filters on Orchestrations, visit the Details user guide.

Next Steps

Add or manage a Monitoring Agent Configuration
Monitor Views
Configuration

BizTalk Monitoring Agent
Start
Stop
Enlist
Unenlist
Tracking
Details
Orchestrations
Monitoring Agents
Administration