We are excited to launch version 10.4 of BizTalk360. We mostly focused on customer feedback and enhancing the product with new features and a couple of improvements. Let’s see a brief view of each new feature and enhancement we added for this release.
Electronic data interchange (EDI) is the most widely used messaging protocol in B2B data exchange. BizTalk Server contains a few features for EDI like interchange processing, batch processing, and trading partner management.
From an operational viewpoint, all kinds of features exist in BizTalk Server, and many have also found their way to BizTalk360. BizTalk360 is one platform for BizTalk server management. Without context switching, the user can manage and monitor EDI.
In the previous version, BizTalk360 users had to switch to the BizTalk Admin Console to manage EDI parties, profiles, and agreements. Switching back and forth between tools to manage parties and agreements and view EDI transactions is time-consuming for users.
Now in the latest version 10.4, users can be able to Manage EDI Parties and Agreements from BizTalk360 itself without being dependent on the BizTalk server. Also, all the operations carried out will be audited under Governance and Audit, allowing users to manage the EDI in a more secure and audited manner. By using the access control policy, users define who can access which parties or agreements based on their business role.
Users can create and configure a party using the BizTalk Server Administration Console. After you create a party in BizTalk Server, it is likely that you want to interact with that party using an orchestration.
To support B2B communication between customers and business partners, we need to create basic business entities such as partners and their business profiles. Knowing the importance of managing these, we have added support in BizTalk360.
what does an agreement do? Partner agreements play a crucial role in B2B communication between the partners, Partners should agree to the communication parameters that have been defined in the agreements. With that, we can manage agreements for all the different types of protocols.
Knowing the importance of managing these, we have added support in BizTalk360.
Let’s have a quick view of what is Azure Service Bus, Azure Service Bus is a brokered messaging service offered by Azure that can be used to decouple the various applications forming the business integration and solving the business problem. The Applications transfer messages between them to share the data between them. The messages can be in XML, JSON, or simple text format.
As part of extended support for hybrid integration, we added Service Bus queue and topic Operations support in this release. This new feature Service Bus Queues & Topics operations capability is implemented to improve the ease of use for users using queues & topics and BizTalk360.
In the previous versions, BizTalk360 is already capable of monitoring Service Bus queues and topics. Now they can manage and monitor from a specific location with the help of this functionality.
Use case,The user can fix the issue through the BizTalk360 UI when they see a threshold violation of queues & topics. This can save time to log in to the Azure Portal and manage them.
Service Bus Queues can be used when there is a one-to-one communication needed between the Applications. Queues store the message in redundant storage until the message is received by the receiver.
Yes! Users of BizTalk360 can now manage queues simply by configuring the corresponding subscription in the environment. Multiple Azure subscriptions can be added to work at the same time. Once the subscription is added, all the available service bus queues will be listed along with their state and message count details.
Also, bulk operations can be initiated in a single click by selecting multiple queues and clicking the state action.
Service Bus Topics can be used when there is a one-to-many communications needed between the Applications. Messages can be sent to the Service Bus Topics but cannot be received from the Topic directly.
Topic Subscriptions can be created within a Service Bus Topic. The messages sent to the Service Bus Topic will be copied to the subscription, based on the filters created for the Topic Subscriptions.
When we manage the Queues, why not topic and subscription in the same place?
Same as Queues, once the subscription is added, users can view the list of available topics in that subscription along with its name, status and message count details.
The state of topics and subscriptions can be changed by selecting single or multiple topics or subscriptions.
BizTalk360 users can send single or bulk messages to Topics and purge the subscription messages from BizTalk360.
Do we audit the operations? Yes, all the operations performed in topics and subscriptions will be audited under Governance and Audit, allowing users to manage the topics and subscriptions in a more secure and audited manner.
The user can define who has access to the topics and subscriptions by using an upgraded user access policy.
Let’s take a look at the need for Task. Existing BizTalk360 users are aware that we introduced the new feature Automated Task in V10.3 as it’s useful to bring down many BizTalk components during the maintenance phase, and the components must be up and running after the maintenance for a successful business transaction.
According to customer feedback, we have added the Logic app, IIS app pool, and PowerShell script automation to add more flavour to an automated task.
PowerShell scripts can be used to automate many BizTalk Server administrator’s tasks, as well as manage the BizTalk environment for a wide range of reasons.
In some cases, users may find that several messages are suspended on BizTalk Server. We are only allowed to save one message at a time when using the BizTalk Server Administration tool, so we must go one by one and save the message on the hard drive after several clicks. PowerShell script automation can be used to speed up these operations.
Users can also configure an automated task for any IIS application pool operations like Start, stop, Recycle and Restart. This can be used to automate many BizTalk Server administrator tasks, as well as manage the BizTalk environment for a wide range of reasons.
Take a case when the administrator wants to terminate and start a new worker process which handles the requests for any application pool. The configured task will be executed based on the scheduled configuration.
As part of understanding the high usage of on-premises and hybrid environments, Logic Automated tasks can sort the challenges like,
Users have had difficulty setting the port level schedule configuration in previous versions because it is dependent on the BizTalk server admin console and can only be viewed in BizTalk360.
Yes, we have it for our users!!
They can now manage the schedule configuration in the BizTalk360 user interface, specify the dates on which the receive location and send port should start and stop processing messages, and what time of day the receive location should process messages.
Till the BizTalk360 latest versions, the User had to configure the business hours-hours manually for each schedule in Data Monitoring.
Now, in this release Data Monitoring schedules can be executed with a custom range of end-of-business hours. The end of business hours will be auto-selected as per the time given by the user in the environment settings.
In the Analytics dashboard, we have the option to configure performance widgets to the dashboard. Once you enabled any of the types (BizTalk, SQL, IIS, and Windows) in any selected environment, the BizTalk360 Analytics service will start collecting the performance metrics. These performance metrics can be mapped to the custom widget.
BizTalk360 users can view the analytics data count of Messages processed per application counter data in the custom widget of Analytics Dashboard to add more scores to it, like the artifacts that exist in the previous versions.
BizTalk360 sends alerts to the various channels that have been configured. In the previous versions, ServiceNow alerts were sent via incidents.
Now, in V10.4, BizTalk360 monitoring alerts can also be configured to send on the ServiceNow, allowing for further connection. Sending events to the ServiceNow notification channel allows the user to get the alerts in the ServiceNow Events module from Alarms.
Users can customize the alert as the events can be sent as consolidated or per issue based on the severity specified during configuration.
As we always prioritise customer feedback, we brought up the voice notification in Twilio, as we are supporting the Twilio SMS notifications in our previous versions. BizTalk360 users can get alarm notifications via voice message as per their configurations.
Think of a case, where a notification has exceeded the character limitation of 1600 characters, it will send out a trimmed message via the Twilio voice Notification channel. It notifies the user about the status of the Monitor Group Types which are not in a healthy state.
Well with the new features and enhancements mentioned above, we believe BizTalk360 Version 10.4 will be extremely useful and meet the business requirements. If you are not already a BizTalk360 user, why not give BizTalk360 a try? we have a free trial for you to try!
