BizTalk: Filters on Send Ports and Send Port Groups

Each filter defines a subscription. Messages will be picked up from the MessageBox by each Send Port or Send Port group that ha a ;atching filter defined.

Now consider following situation:
We have a send port group with the filter Firstname = "Harry". The send port group has 2 send ports. One send port (SP1) has an own filter defined on it, namely LastName = "Smith". The other send port (SP2) has a filter LastName = "Jane".

What will happen when a message is received and has these promoted properties:

• Firstname = "Harry"
• LastName = "Smith"

In this case, 2 filters apply but the send port SP1 is also defined in the send port group.
Where will the message be routed to?

The answer is that the message will go twice to the send port SP1 AND once through the send port SP2.
Now, why is this the case?

The group has a subscription and any messages coming to the group will go to the send ports in the group, regardless of their filters. The send ports may get messages directly based on their own filters. It is possible that your send port will get the message twice, once from the group filter and once from its own filter.

BizTalk360 – An introduction

This blog gives a nice review of the Biztalk 360 functionalities.

Source: BizTalk360 – An introduction

BizTalk Server: List of Service Packs and Cumulative Updates available

Each BizTalk Server and Biztalk Adpater pack version already has several service packs and cumulative updates available.
To keep track of all available BTS updates Sandro Pereira made a handy overview on his blog.

BizTalk Server: List of Service Packs and Cumulative Updates available « Sandro Pereira BizTalk Blog

Top 10 Performance Tips for SQL Server

Found a blog with some tips for SQL Server Performance Tuning.
the 10 tips helps you start on performance tuning in Microsoft SQL Server Tuning.

For the complete explanation, I refer to the original blog
Here's a short overview of the tips:

1. Stop waiting around
   Check the SQL wait statistics to recognize the bottlenecks


2. Locate I/O bottlenecks
   Find I/O bottlenecks, as they are one of the key reasons for bad SQL performance


3. Root out problem queries
   Find the most expensive queries


4. plan to reuse
   Determine the statements that are not reusing query execution plans


5. Monitor index usage
   Evaluate the usage of all indexes


6. seperate data and log files
   Make sure the data and the log files are on separate physical drives


7. use seperate staging databases
   Use a seperate database in simple recovery model for all initial imports to minimize the transaction logging


8. Pay attention to log files
   Make sure there is plenty of free space in the log file to avoid the auto-grow operation as much as possible


9. Minimize tempdb contention
   Optimize your tempdb files


10. Change the max memory limit
    Make sure you configure the correct max memory setting

Source: Top 10 Performance Tips for SQL Server

Biztalk Best Practices

I found a neat blog about best practises for orchestrations in BTS.

Another great addition to this blog can be found here. This is a check list to review BizTalk code.

A third great blog has some tips and tricks on how to program BizTalk code.

Links:
BizTalk Server 2010 - Orchestration Best Practices - TechNet Wiki
My BizTalk Code Review Checklist - Richard Seroter's Architecture Musings
8 Tips And Tricks For Better BizTalk Programming - MSDN Magazine

List of Biztalk Errors and warnings: causes and solutions

On the techNet wiki there is a new post on BizTalk errors and warnings.
The article is yet to be expanded.

The point is to get a complete list of possible BizTalk errors and warinings with their causes and solutions for all stages/components.
For now the list is still rather limited, but with the contribution of all of you this list can become complete.

List on TechNet Wiki: BizTalk: List of Errors and Warnings, Causes and Solutions