Tools and Utilities for BizTalk Troubleshooting - Seanson III

Article
03/03/2008

Event Viewer

BizTalk Server logs information, warnings, and errors to the event log of the BizTalk Server-based computer. When troubleshooting problems in a BizTalk Server component or dependency, the event logs should be the first place to look for information to help diagnose the problem. For more information about Event Viewer, see "Event Viewer" in the Windows Server 2003 product Help at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=104797.

Network Monitor

Use Network Monitor to capture network traffic between BizTalk Server and remote clients or servers. Captured network traffic can then be analyzed to diagnose network related problems.

Network Monitor is available on Windows 2000 Server and Windows Server 2003 through the Add or Remove Windows Components option that is available in Add or Remove Programs.

Network Monitor functionality is provided for Windows XP through the use of the NETCAP.exe utility that is installed with the Windows Support Tools available on the Windows XP CD. For more information about the NETCAP.exe utility, see "Description of the Network Monitor Capture Utility" at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=66227.

For information about how to capture network traffic with Network Monitor, see "How to Capture Network Traffic with Network Monitor" at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=66230.

Fiddler Tool

Use Fiddler to record all HTTP traffic between BizTalk Server and remote clients or servers. Fiddler is compatible with Visual Studio Team Edition for Testers and allows you to save recordings as Web test files that can be added to Visual Studio Team Edition for Testers projects.

Fiddler is available at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=107050. For more information about how to use Fiddler, see https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=84796.

SQL Server Profiler

Microsoft SQL Server Profiler can be used to capture Transact-SQL statements that are sent to SQL Server and the SQL Server result sets from these statements. Since BizTalk Server is tightly integrated with SQL Server, the analysis of a SQL Server Profile trace can be a useful tool for analyzing problems that may occur in BizTalk Server when reading from and writing to SQL Server databases. For information about how to use SQL Server Profiler, see the "Using SQL Server Profiler" in the SQL Server 2005 Books Online at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=104423.

SQL Server Query Analyzer and Query Editor

SQL Server 2000 Query Analyzer and the SQL Server 2005 SQL Server Management Studio can be used to execute SQL statements directly against SQL Server databases. This functionality may be useful for querying the BizTalk Server databases or for updating the BizTalk Server databases in certain scenarios. For more information about Query Analyzer, see "SQL Query Analyzer Help" in the SQL Server 2000 Books Online at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=104424. For more information about using SQL Server Management Studio to execute SQL statements, see "Writing, Analyzing, and Editing Scripts with SQL Server Management Studio" in the SQL Server 2005 Books Online at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=104425.

DTCTester

Most BizTalk Server runtime operations require Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MSDTC) support to ensure that the operations are transactionally consistent. If MSDTC transaction support is not available, then the associated BizTalk Server runtime operations cannot proceed. Use the DTCTester tool to verify distributed transaction support across firewalls or against networks. The DTCTester utility uses ODBC to verify transaction support against a SQL Server database and therefore requires that SQL Server is installed on one of the computers being tested. For more information about DTCTester, see "How to Use DTCTester Tool" in the Microsoft Knowledge Base article at https://support.microsoft.com/kb/293799.

DTCPing

Use the DTCPing tool to verify distributed transaction support across firewalls or against networks. The DTCPing tool must be installed on both the client and server computer and is a good alternative to the DTCTester utility when SQL Server is not installed on either computer. For more information about using DTCPing to verify distributed transaction support, see "How to troubleshoot MS DTC firewall issues" in the Microsoft Knowledge Base article at https://support.microsoft.com/kb/306843.

Performance Console

Use the Performance Console to capture performance monitoring data in your BizTalk Server environment. See "Performance Counters" in BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Help at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=104641 for a comprehensive list of the performance counters included with BizTalk Server 2006. For more information about using Performance Console, see the Windows documentation.

RegMon, FileMon, and DebugView

RegMon displays registry access activity in real time, listing each call to the registry that an application makes, and logging the outcome. This tool allows you to identify when an application cannot access a registry key. Similarly, FileMon displays file system activity in real time, listing each system call that an application makes and registering the outcome. DebugView lets you monitor debug output on your local system, or any computer on the network that you can reach via TCP/IP.

RegMon and FileMon enable administrators to test an application and to identify the failure of any calls that the application makes to the registry or file system. The administrator can then mitigate that failure, for example, by changing file system or registry key permissions.

DebugView enables administrators to test an application and monitor debug output on your local system, or any computer on the network that you can reach via TCP/IP.

For more information about these utilities, see the Windows Sysinternals Web site at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=86409.

Debug Diagnostics Tool of the IIS Diagnostics Toolkit

The Debug Diagnostics Tool of the IIS Diagnostics toolkit can generate a memory dump of a failing process and perform a basic analysis of the generated dump file. For more information about using the Debug Diagnostics Tool of the IIS Diagnostic Toolkit to capture a memory dump see "How to Capture a Memory Dump of a BizTalk Server Process" in BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Help at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=104642.