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Health Check Tab

The Health Check tab of the Remote Configuration sets the thresholds for the Nodinite Microsoft BizTalk Server Monitoring Agent's Health Check Resources. It has six sub-tabs:

Sub-tab What it checks
Misc General health: orphaned DTA service instances, reference counts, and throttling
Assemblies & Files Runtime consistency across the BizTalk Servers in the group
Spool and Tracking Data Row counts in the MessageBox Spool and TrackingData tables
SQL Agent Jobs The BizTalk SQL Server Agent jobs
SSO The Enterprise Single Sign-On service

Animation: Health Check, Assemblies & Files with its comparison options, an existing exclude filter, and a new filter added
Health Check › Assemblies & Files: the comparison options, an existing filter, and Add with the expression ^Contoso\.Legacy\.. After Save and close, matching assemblies leave the Health Check comparison.

Misc

Manage general BizTalk group health settings.
The Misc sub-tab with the Warning and Error thresholds for orphaned DTA service instances, messages with negative ref count, messages without ref count, and the throttling limit
The Misc sub-tab with its thresholds.

Property Default Description
⚠️ Warning Orphaned DTA Service Instances - Warning threshold 5000 Triggers a warning alert when orphaned DTA service instances exceed this value
❌ Error Orphaned DTA Service Instances - Error threshold 10000 Triggers an error alert when orphaned DTA service instances exceed this value
⚠️ Warning Messages with negative ref count - Warning threshold 0 Triggers a warning alert for messages with negative reference count
❌ Error Messages with negative ref count - Error threshold 0 Triggers an error alert for messages with negative reference count
⚠️ Warning Messages without ref count - Warning threshold 0 Triggers a warning alert for messages without reference count
❌ Error Messages without ref count - Error threshold 0 Triggers an error alert for messages without reference count
⚠️ Warning Throttling limit - Warning threshold 15 Triggers a warning alert if throttling exceeds this limit (in minutes)

Assemblies & Files tab

Compare BizTalk Server processing nodes and SQL Server instance validity for consistency and reliability.

  • BizTalk Server Processing nodes – Ensure configuration files and binaries are consistent across all nodes.
  • SQL Server Management Database – Acts as the master for deployed binaries.
  • Enabled – Monitor all the BizTalk Servers in the group with the options below.
  • Compare 'Pipeline Components' folder – Include the BizTalk Server Pipeline Components folder.
  • Compare configuration files – Include the BizTalk configuration files.
  • Compare the installation folder – Include the BizTalk Server installation folder.
  • Compare cumulative updates – Include the installed BizTalk cumulative updates from all processing hosts; the latest CU must be the same on every host.
  • Filter – RegEx filters that include or exclude files and assemblies.

The Assemblies and Files sub-tab with Enabled, the four Compare options, and four filters
The Assemblies & Files sub-tab with its comparison options and filters.

Tip

Random issues may be caused by inconsistent binaries across nodes. Use this feature to keep your BizTalk environment reliable. See 'Run-time configuration comparison' for more details.

Filter

Click Add to add a filter. Each item reads Filter: followed by its RegEx, and has an Enabled box and a Filter expression. A disabled filter shows a icon in its title.

The Filter list with a disabled filter for Microsoft.BizTalk.Adapters.JDE expanded, and three more filters
A disabled filter, expanded, with three more filters below it.

Message Box Tables

Monitor critical BizTalk MessageBox tables on two sub-tabs: Spool and Tracking Data.

Common Configuration

  • ⚠️ Spool count - Warning threshold – Row count that triggers a Warning alert
  • ⚠️ Warning grace time span – How long the count may stay above the threshold before the Warning is raised
  • ❌ Spool count - Error threshold – Row count that triggers an Error alert
  • ❌ Error grace time span – How long the count may stay above the threshold before the Error is raised

Time spans use the format days.hours:minutes:seconds, for example 7.12:30:59. The Tracking Data sub-tab has the same fields for the TrackingData table.

The Spool sub-tab with the Spool count Warning and Error thresholds and their grace time spans
The Spool sub-tab.

See Spool count and Tracking Data count for details.

SQL Agent Jobs

Check Enabled to monitor the BizTalk SQL Server Agent jobs. Under Per-job overrides, add an override for a job that needs other settings than the rest, for example Backup BizTalk Server (BizTalkMgmtDb) or Monitor BizTalk Server (BizTalkMgmtDb).

SSO

Check Enabled to monitor the Enterprise Single Sign-On (SSO) service that BizTalk Server needs to run.

Next Steps