BizTalk Application Deployment Using Azure Pipeline with BizTalk360 API’s

Key takeaways from the blog

• BizTalk Deployment framework
• Deploy BizTalk Applications with Azure pipelines
• BizTalk360 API’s on CI/CD

Introduction

The process of BizTalk Application deployment process is a complex, time consuming and repetitive task. Microsoft BizTalk Server 2020 comes with capabilities to create deployment packages. However, the MSI packages you create with the out-of-the-box features of BizTalk Server have some shortcomings which lead to deployments which are error-prone.

BizTalk Deployment Framework

The BizTalk Deployment Framework (BTDF) covered these deployment issue.

• You can deploy complex BizTalk solutions containing BizTalk artifacts but also for example SSO settings, ESB itineraries and SQL Server scripts, without manual intervention
• You can combine all environment-specific configuration and runtime settings into one, which is an easy-to-use Excel spreadsheet. Maintain a single binding file that works for all deployment environments
• Make automated deployment a native part of the BizTalk development cycle, then use the same script to deploy to BizTalk servers

To eliminate this manual process, organization’s started to adopt the DevOps practice. In this article, we will see how the BizTalk360 APIs are helpful in BizTalk monitoring while deploying BizTalk Applications using Azure CI/CD Pipelines.

Deploy BizTalk Applications with Azure Pipelines

Microsoft has introduced automated deployment of BizTalk Applications in BizTalk Server 2016 Feature Packs. In BizTalk Server 2016 Feature Pack 1, automatic deployment and application lifecycle management (ALM) experience was introduced. Automatic deployment process has been improved with the release of BizTalk Server 2016 Feature Pack 2.

1. Set the Application Name of your BizTalk application within Visual Studio for each project.
2. In addition to using an agent-based deployment, you can also use deployment groups to deploy your BizTalk applications to multiple servers
3. In the release task, you can install the BizTalk application, and enter the BizTalk management computer, and the path to the deployment package

Azure Pipelines (CICD)

With Automated build/release definitions you can set up the CI or CICD Pipelines based on environment (Development/QA/Staging/Production):

1. Continuous Integration (CI) : Set up build task definitions rules to the VSTS Source code base
2. Continuous Integration Continuous Deployment (CICD) : Configure both build task definition and release task definition to automate the build and test process

If you are new to Azure CI/CD Pipeline go through this article Configure automatic deployment with Visual Studio Team Services in BizTalk Server

Deployment Build Definitions

In the BizTalk Application deployment process, you can create the following build/release definitions:

1. Visual Studio Build

   The build and release definitions are Visual Studio Team Services tasks, and should be done by a VSTS admin. The build definition builds your project within your git or VSTS repository, and the release definitions deploys it to your BizTalk Server environment

2. Publish Build Artifacts

   In Publish Build Artifacts stage configure the Path to publish (Application Project Folder)

3. Deploy BizTalk Server Application

   A BizTalk Server application deployment build definition operation has three options available

   1. Create new BizTalk Application: Deploys a new application, if the application already exists, it uninstalls the current applications (full stop), and installs the new application. If continuous integration is enabled, it automatically redeploys the application when it is updated in the repository
   2. Update an existing BizTalk Application: Appends changes, such as schemas, to an already running application. It does not require a full redeploy of the application
   3. Install BizTalk Server Application: Install the application, enter the BizTalk management computer name and the deployment package path

BizTalk360 API’s in CI/CD

Customer Scenario: In Build pipeline stages the customer wants to utilize the BizTalk360 API to set the Stop Alert for Maintenance in a BizTalk environment. Once after the new build is deployed to BizTalk Server and then user wants to configure newly deployed artifacts to monitor in BizTalk360. As the last step revoke the Stop Alerts in BizTalk360 Application.

We can use the following steps in Build definitions to achieve the above scenario;

1. Visual Studio Build (explained above)
2. Set Stop Alert for Maintenance

   BizTalk360 customers can take advantage of using the BizTalk360 API’s to set the alert maintenance during the BizTalk Application deployment. Create the PowerShell Script stage to call the SetAlertMaintenance API method to set the BizTalk environment under the maintenance. Assign the PowerShell Script full path

   SetAlertMaintenance.ps1

   $Request = '{
     "context": {
       "callerReference": "SAMPLE_REFERENCE",
       "environmentSettings": {
         "id": "DC45E848-E485-41D7-92E5-7C9932D43CB8"
       }
     },
     "alertMaintenance": {
       "comment": "BizTalk Deploy",
       "maintenanceStartTime": "2018-11-22T15:26:37.000",
       "maintenanceTimeUnit": 0,
       "maintenanceTimeLength": 2,
       "isActive": false,
       "expiryDateTime": ""
     }
   }'
   $Request
   $body = ConvertFrom-Json -InputObject $Request
   $body
   $RepsonseSet = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri http://biztalk360webserver/Services.REST/AlertService.svc/SetAlertMaintenance -Method Post -ContentType "application/json" -Body $body -UseDefaultCredentials
   $RepsonseSet 
   
   

   Set Alert Maintenance API returns the alert maintenance object with maintenance Id (out parameter). You can refer this maintenance Id, when revoking the maintenance in the below step.
3. Publish Build Artifacts (explained Above)
4. Deploy BizTalk Server Application

   Once after BizTalk Application deployment is completed, next step you can configure the newly artifacts to monitor. For creating BizTalk360 alarms and BizTalk Application mappings during deployments with BTDF, you could consider to BT360Deploy command-line tool. Use this GitHub project to setup pipeline stage.

5. Remove the Stop alert for Maintenance

   After the deployment of BizTalk Applications, the maintenance mode of BizTalk environment must be revoked in BizTalk360. To achieve this step, create a PowerShell Script stage and assign the PowerShell Script path(RemoveMaintenance.ps1)

   $RequestRem = '{"context":{"callerReference":"SAMPLE_REFERENCE","environmentSettings":{"id":"DC45E848-E485-41D7-92E5-7C9932D43CB8"}},"maintenanceId":"308d8b2c-b3e0-4024-b600-845113b06b80"}' 
   
   Invoke-RestMethod -Uri  http://biztalk360webserver/BizTalk360/Services.REST/AlertService.svc/RemoveAlertMaintenance -Method Post -ContentType "application/json" -Body $RequestRem -UseDefaultCredentials
   
   

   

Summary

Automation of Build and/or Deployment will be helpful to reduce the turnaround time. Hopefully, this article has provided insight on the following:

1. How you can setup the BizTalk Application Deployment automation
2. How you can utilize BizTalk360 API’s to stop alert during deployment
3. How to set up monitoring of the newly deployed BizTalk Artifacts.

Get started with the free 30 days trial. For any queries/feedback please write to us support@biztalk360.com.