Scheduling Backup BizTalk Server job

Backup BizTalk Server (BizTalkMgmtDb) job is one of the important BizTalk SQL agent jobs which get created on the backend SQL server when the BizTalk group configuration is completed.

Scheduling the Backup BizTalk Server job:

If you are not in UTC time zone, you would notice that the BizTalk backup job does not create full back at midnight in your environment. If you closely watch this, the time at which the job creates the backup would match the 12 AM UTC. By default, the BizTalk server job would create the full backup of the BizTalk databases once a day at 12 AM UTC timing.

Say, I have a requirement to create the full backup of my BizTalk databases at 7 PM local time on my environment. Here is what I need to do:

We need to configure the optional parameters in the Step 2(BackupFull) of the execution: BackupHour and UseLocalTime. In our case, set theBackupHour to ‘19’ (meaning 7PM) andUseLocalTime to ‘1’to allowBackup BizTalk Serverjob to follow the local time set on the server. Once done, the job would start creating backups as per the setting from the next cycle onwards.

Below is the parameter setting I used:
exec [dbo].[sp_BackupAllFull_Schedule] 'd', 'BTS', ‘Location’, 0, 19, 1

Why Backup BizTalk Server is important?

BizTalk backup server job is the only supported (tested by Microsoft) automated backup mechanism for BizTalk databases. Backup BizTalk server job makes sure that the data which is backed up is transactionally consistent across all the backup files created. Only such backups are supported by Microsoft when you need to restore your databases in case of a disaster.

Now, there can be a thought that why I can’t get a downtime, stop BizTalk and its related services and take a full SQL backup. Isn’t that transactionally consistent? Yes, that is a consistent backup but as I mentioned earlier Backup BizTalk Server is the automated way to create the backup of the BizTalk databases.

Additional Information:How to Configure the Backup BizTalk Server Job?

This is explained athttps://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa546765.aspx.

How to backup custom databases?
This is explained athttps://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa561198.aspx
.

Hope this information helps!

Written By
Jainath V R

Reviewed By
Chirag Pavecha

Microsoft GTSC, India.