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Orphaned DTA Service Instances

Info
Get and alert and mitigate the issue when the number of Orphaned DTA Service Instances goes above the user-defined Monitoring threshold.

When the DTA Archive and Purge SQL Server Agent job archives and deletes tracking data from the BizTalk Server Tracking database (BizTalkDTADb) orphaned rows are created in the dta_ServiceInstanceExceptions table. The issue typically occurs when a message instance is resumed and then fails again. This behavior generates multiple rows that have the same uidServiceInstanceId and uidActivityId variables in the dta_ServiceInstanceExceptions table. If the orphaned DTA service instances are never removed by the DTA Purge and Archive job the BizTalkDTADb database can become very large.

Here's an example of a problem with Orphaned DTA Service Instances.

Category Name="Health Check"
Resource Name="Orphaned DTA Service Instances"

What's being evaluated for Orphaned DTA Service Instances?

If the number of Orphaned DTA Service Instances goes above the user-defined thresholds the Resource Orphaned DTA Service Instances the state is evaluated accordingly:

State	Status	Description	Actions
Unavailable	Resource not available	Evaluation of the 'BizTalk Orphaned DTA Service Instances' is not possible either due to network or security-related problems	Review prerequisites
Error	Too many instances exists	Number of instances are above configured threshold	Details
Warning	Too many instances exists	Number of instances are above configured threshold	Details
OK	Not too many instances exists	number of instances are less than configured thresholds	Details

Tip
The evaluated state may be reconfigured using the Expected State functionality on every Resource within Nodinite.

What remote actions are available?

Details - Show the number of instances, also allows an action to remove instances.
Edit - Manage thresholds (not yet implemented on Resource level)
Metrics chart: Metrics chart - View the statistics for the number of rows over time

Here's an example of the Remote Actions.

Details

Click the Actions button, and then click the Details menu item to view the current row count.

Here's an example of the Details menu item.

Here's an example of Details about the Spool Count and the Monitoring thresholds.

When there are Orphaned DTA Service Instances, you can click the Actions button and then click on the Remove menu item to initiate the process where the dtEndTime values for orphaned instances will be set. This means that the DTA Purge and Archive job (SQL Agent job) can now clean these rows on the next run.

Here's an example with the Actions button.

Click on Remove menu item to initiate the operation.

Edit thresholds

Changes to the Monitoring thresholds are performed from within the Health Check | Misc tab in the Configuration for the instance of the Nodinite Microsoft BizTalk Server Monitoring Agent.

If you click the Edit menu item in the Actions button a not yet implemented dialog appears.

Here's an example of the Edit menu item.