Planning Your Platform for Fault Tolerance
Microsoft BizTalk Server is built on the Microsoft Windows and Microsoft SQL Server platforms. The ability of BizTalk Server to survive or recover from a disaster depends on the ability of the underlying platform to survive or recover.
For your Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) databases and your MessageBox database, we recommend you do the following:
Set up fail-over clustering, which is available in SQL Server Enterprise Edition. Fail-over clustering enables SQL Server to automatically switch the processing for an instance of SQL Server from a failed server to a working server.
The BAM Primary Import database collects event data. In the event of a disaster, data that was written to the BAM Primary Import database since the last backup will be lost. Because there is no way to regenerate lost events, it is especially important that you enable fail over clustering on your BAM Primary Import database.
Use SQL Server RAID (redundant array of independent disks), especially for the MessageBox database and the BAM Primary Import database.
Use the following resources to design your Windows and SQL Server deployments for fault tolerance. Take time to learn about hardware and server redundancy technologies, such as clustering and disk mirroring, to prevent service outages and data loss.
White Paper: High Availability—Always On Technologies
The “High Availability – Always On Technologies” whitepaper describes high availability features that are available with SQL Server 2008.
High Availability Solutions Overview
Introduces several high-availability solutions for SQL Server 2008 that improve the availability of servers or databases.
SQL Server - Business continuity and database recovery
Covers planning and designing for high availability and disaster recovery.
Windows Deployment Services Step-by-Step Guide
Contains step-by-step guidance for how to use the Windows Deployment Services role in Windows Server 2008
Windows Server 2003 Deployment Kit: Planning Server Deployments.
This book provides information about planning server storage, and information about designing and deploying file servers, print servers, and terminal servers in medium and large organizations.
You can also use the guidelines in this book to maximize the availability and scalability of your servers by planning for remote server management, designing and deploying server clusters, and designing and deploying Network Load Balancing clusters.
Backing Up Your Platform
After you have configured your system, prepare full backups of your servers so you can quickly restore an identical server in the event of data loss.
To back up your platform, perform the documented backup procedures for each of the following technologies:
Microsoft Windows Server Standard, Enterprise, or Datacenter Edition
Internet Information Services (IIS)
Microsoft SQL Server
Windows SharePoint Services, which is used by the Windows SharePoint Services adapter.
Follow the recommendations in the “BizTalk Server Operations Guide” for “Backing up BizTalk Server” available at Checklist: Increasing Availability with Disaster Recovery.
Thoroughly test your backup and restore procedures, and put them in a safe, remote location.