Deploying MS_BizTalk_2006_on_....doc

Deploying Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 using HP BladeSystem servers and HP StorageWorks EVA in a Boot-from-SAN environment

Executive summary......................................................................................................................2

Overview......................................................................................................................................2

Target audience...........................................................................................................................2

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006......................................................................................................2

Deployment environment.............................................................................................................2Hardware..................................................................................................................................2Software...................................................................................................................................4

BizTalk Servers......................................................................................................................4SQL Server............................................................................................................................5

BizTalk Boot-from-SAN architecture..........................................................................................5

Solution overview.........................................................................................................................6Software solution......................................................................................................................7SAN configuration.....................................................................................................................8Provisioning BizTalk Server 2006............................................................................................12

Summary....................................................................................................................................17

For more information.................................................................................................................18

Executive summary

This guide describes the benefits and best practices of the deployment of Microsoft® BizTalk Server 2006 in a “Boot-from-SAN” environment for business continuity. The hardware used in this solution is based on HP ProLiant blade servers and HP StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) storage hardware. This document describes the benefits of Boot-from-SAN as an application infrastructure.

Overview

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 is an Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) platform that is responsible for the integration of enterprise business systems. In production environments Microsoft BizTalk Server functionality is generally considered mission-critical.

The “Boot-from-SAN” infrastructure technology developed by HP provides the benefit of rapidly deploying additional BizTalk servers in case additional BizTalk processing capacity is needed, thus reducing or eliminating service interruptions that might otherwise occur when capacity is added to an Information Technology (IT) system.

In addition, Boot-from-SAN decreases possible downtime by facilitating faster server replacement when an application server fails, offering the ability to support easy deployment and management. Each application server deployed in a Boot-from-SAN environment can benefit from a redundant storage path – through the SAN – as well as from disaster recovery, security, server maintenance, and backup solutions offered by HP.

See http://h18006.www1.hp.com/storage/saninfrastructure.html for more information.

Target audience

The intended audience of this document is IT professionals who have experience with Microsoft server operations, Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006, HP ProLiant Essentials management software, HP ProLiant servers, HP StorageWorks, and HP StorageWorks Command View EVA management software.

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 is an enterprise application integrator (EIA) system that integrates business applications within an organization. BizTalk Server 2006 is built on top of Windows® Server 2003 using the Microsoft .NET Framework, Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 as foundational elements.

For more information about Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006, see http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/

Deployment environment

Hardware The testing done in preparation for this document was conducted using the HP BladeSystem platform. Two HP ProLiant BL25p blade servers were selected to run Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006; an HP ProLiant BL45p was selected to run Microsoft SQL Server; and an HP StorageWorks 5000 Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA5000)1 was selected as the SAN platform. The following tables describe the hardware components used:

1 The currently shipping equivalent EVA storage arrays include the EVA6000 (for smaller deployments). It is reasonable to assume that the newer storage arrays will, at a minimum, provide the same level of performance as the older arrays, which means that the data in this paper can be used as a guideline for planning even EVA6000 and EVA8000 storage deployments for Boot-from-SAN deployments of Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006.

3

Table 1. Servers and storage hardware

HP ProLiant BL25p(BizTalk Server)

HP ProLiant BL45p(SQL Server)

HP StorageWorksEVA5000

(External Storage)

One (1) Dual-Core AMD Opteron™ processor Model

275 2.2GHz

Two (2) Dual-Core AMD Opteron™ processor Model

875 2.2GHz

(132) Fibre Channel Hard Drives

(7) TB Capacity4GB RAM 16GB RAM Two (2) SAN Switches

2/16 EL Four (4) PCI-X Gigabit

embedded ports consisting of

two (2) NC7781 and one (1) dual port NC7782

One 10/100 iLO NIC dedicated to management

Four (4) PCI-X Gigabit embedded ports consisting of

two (2) NC7781 and one (1) dual port NC7782

One 10/100 iLO NIC dedicated to management

One (1) SAN ApplianceStorageWorks

Command View EVA V. 3.025

Integrated Smart Array 6i Controller

Integrated Smart Array 6i Controller

Two (2) HSV110 Controllers

Fibre Channel Mezzanine Card

HBA Dual Port Adapter QLogic (2Gb)

Fibre Channel Mezzanine Card

HBA Dual Port FC Adapter QLogic (2Gb)

No Internal Drives Two (2) SCSI 36GB 10K Hot Plug Ultra320 Drives

In addition, a domain controller and management server were deployed to facilitate the testing. The domain controller also acted as a DNS server, and the management server provided a platform for the HP ProLiant Essentials Rapid Deployment Pack (RDP) and HP Systems Insight Manager.

4

Table 2. BladeSystem Infrastructure components used

Quantity Description

1 HP BladeSystem p-Class server blade enclosure with enhanced backplane components

1 BL p-Class F-GbE2 Interconnect pair

1 Single phase power enclosure with four power supplies

1 Scalable bus bar

Table 3. Hardware firmware

Device/Server BIOS Driver

ProLiant BL25p (A02) 2005.08.31 Online ROM Flash cp005908

ProLiant BL45p (A02) 2005.08.31 Online ROM Flash cp005908

Dual Port Fibre Channel Mezzanine Card 2Gb

1.48 Rev. 9.0.0.14

EVA5000

Command View

V.3025

SoftwareBizTalk Servers HP ProLiant Support Pack 7.40B for Windows Server 2003

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1

SQLXML 3.0 with Service Pack 3

SQL Notification Services with Service Pack 1

Microsoft SharePoint Services 2.0 with Service Pack 2

Microsoft Excel 2003 with service pack 1

Microsoft InfoPath with service pack 1

Microsoft XML Core Services (MSXML) 6.0

Microsoft Office Web Components 11

ADOMD.Net 8.0

ADOMD.Net 2005 (9.0)

Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0 2

Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 3

Microsoft Visio 2003

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 Enterprise Edition (RTM version)

SQL Server Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition service Pack 1

HP ProLiant Support Pack 7.40A for Windows Server 2003

2 Microsoft .Net 2.0 should be installed on the BizTalk servers where Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 has not been installed. 3 Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 was installed in the first BizTalk server only for developments functions.

5

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 1

BizTalk Boot-from-SAN architectureThe storage architecture used for this testing is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Storage architecture

The HP ProLiant BL25p supports a Fibre Channel Mezzanine Card with a dual-channel Host Bus Adapter (HBA, shown as Port 1 and Port 2 in Figure 1), and bandwidth of 2Gbs. Its physical connection is through a fibre channel pass-through located in the GbE2 Interconnect switches, which are deployed in the blade enclosure that houses the ProLiant BL25p and ProLiant BL45p blades. Each port of the HBA is connected to a separate SAN switch in order to provide a redundant path between the ProLiant BL25p

6

booting from the SAN and the SAN itself. Likewise, the SAN switches are connected redundantly to each of the two HSV110 SAN controllers that are attached to the EVA5000. In addition, zoning was configured on each SAN switch to manage the interaction of servers in the SAN. Indeed, zoning is required during initial deployment in order to force just a single path from a Boot-from-SAN server to its boot LUN operating system because the setup process lacks the driver software to resolve the redundant paths. Once the operating system is installed along with the appropriate multi-pathing driver, the zones created for installation can be removed so that multiple, redundant paths from server to SAN can be enabled. For specific information about zoning for your environment, see your switch’s installation guide.

In addition, four Logical Unit Numbers (LUNs) of 50GB of capacity were created to support this architecture. The first two, attached to the BizTalk application servers – HP ProLiant BL25p blade servers – were configured in Vraid5 and were setup to act as boot LUNs for the ProLiant BL25p servers. The other two, attached to the ProLiant BL45p SQL database server, had a slightly different configuration. One LUN was configured as an SQL Server data disk using Vraid5; the other LUN was configured as a SQL Server log disk using Vraid1.

Note:The term “Vraid” or “virtual” raid is used by HP StorageWorks, and it means the transparent abstraction of storage at the block level. It separates logical data access from physical per-disk data access. Virtualization can occur at any level of the storage area network (SAN) including the server level, fabric level, and storage system level; see the information at this link for more details: http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/storageworks/eva/index.html

Solution overview

The infrastructure described in this document includes the Windows domain controller and management server described above, the Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 application server, and the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 database server.

One HP ProLiant DL580 G2 server was selected to provide Windows domain and DNS services, including Microsoft Active Directory (ADS), Domain Controller (DC), Domain Name Services (DNS), and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). The network infrastructure was distributed across three logical network segments as shown in Figure 2. In addition; two HP ProCurve Ethernet Switches were configured to link the various network segments together. Figure 2 shows the architecture of this solution.

7

Figure 2. Infrastructure architecture diagram

Software solutionMicrosoft BizTalk Server 2006 is considered a mission-critical application in a production environment because it is responsible for tying disparate enterprise applications together. For this reason, IT administrators need to consider business continuity needs when deploying BizTalk application servers. Boot-from-SAN deployment can make sense in many environments.

To define and test a setup for BizTalk for Boot-from-SAN, two HP ProLiant BL25p servers were chosen as the deployment targets. The application server, including the operating system and application software itself, was configured to boot off of a LUN configured in the HP StorageWorks EVA5000.

This deployment plan includes Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 installed and configured in a multi-server environment, using physically separate HP blade servers to act as

8

BizTalk and SQL servers. Note that this solution can be applied to a single server environment as well.

For more information about BizTalk Server installation and configuration, see:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/BTS06CoreDocs/html/850efd02-1b11-40b7-8a7a-20dd4dbeaa8d.asp

SAN configurationBefore starting with the Microsoft software application deployment, the volumes or LUNs must be configured in the SAN storage. Four LUNs were created to support this architecture, the first two LUNs (BizTalk_Vdisk001 and BizTalk_Vdisk002) were dedicated as boot LUNs for Microsoft BizTalk Server application servers, and the two remaining LUNs (BTSSQL_Data and BTSSQL_Log) were dedicated as storage LUNs for the SQL Server database server, one for SQL Server data and the other for SQL Server logfiles. The StorageWorks Command View EVA software application, run from the Storage Management Appliance4, provides the functionality for creating and managing LUNs in the EVA5000. These LUNs are also called Virtual disks or Vdisks. Figure 3 provides a view of the HP StorageWorks Command View EVA application with four LUNs configured.

Figure 3. StorageWorks Command View EVA – Boot-from-SAN virtual disk properties.

Virtual disks are connected to servers through the unique World Wide Name (WWN) included on the Fibre Channel HBA card. Figure 4 shows how the WWN of the QLogic-based Fibre Channel HBA for the HP ProLiant BL25p blade server is configured. This utility allows you to select the HBA Adapter, enable boot, and configure the Boot Port Name and LUN. The Boot Port Name refers to the external LUN located in the SAN, attached to the server. Servers are identified in the StorageWorks Command View EVA software application as Hosts. Each host is set up logically using the StorageWorks Command View EVA application as shown in Figure 5.

4 A Storage Management Appliance is required as part of the configuration of EVA SAN arrays such as the EVA5000.

9

Figure 4. Boot Port Name configuration using QLogic-based Fibre Channel HBA Utility

10

Figure 5. StorageWorks Command View EVA – Host Configuration

Once the Vdisks are set up and linked to the servers in the StorageWorks Command View EVA, it is necessary to attach the HBA to the external LUNs for initial boot of the server. In this context, attachment requires both physical connection of the fibre channel cable to the server and the logical configuration of the HBA, so that it can boot from the SAN LUN. This is done using the ROM-based HBA setup program on each application server. Also, because Windows does not include multi-path resolution device drivers as part of its initial installation, the SAN switches must be zoned appropriately to force only one path between the server and its boot LUN during initial setup only. Once a multi-path device driver is installed, this particular zoning configuration should be modified or removed so that the server can access the boot LUN using all available paths in the SAN.

For more information on multi-path device drivers, see http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/sanworks/multipathoptions/index.html and http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/sanworks/secure-path/index.html.

Documentation for configuring HP HBAs in a Boot-from-SAN environment is available at http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00099862/c00099862.pdf.

Once the HBAs have been setup, each BizTalk server can recognize the external volume as the initial boot unit, as shown in Figure 6.

11

Figure 6. BizTalk server boot from external Vdisk

Note that Figure 6 shows how a server using a QLogic-based HP HBA “sees” the SAN storage at boot time. HP HBAs based on Emulex technology have a slightly different boot-time display, though the server’s view of the boot LUN is logically identical.

In addition, HP offers StorageWorks software that allows for the creation of Snapshots and Snapclones of virtual disks. This is done to create copies of data on a Vdisk at the storage block level and can be useful for backup and restore of virtual disks among other things. This feature can further reduce any possible service interruption of Microsoft BizTalk Server, improving the business continuity of the solution. There are two StorageWorks software products that provide the snapshot and snapclone capability for EVA storage arrays, StorageWorks Business Copy EVA and StorageWorks Continuous Access EVA. Both of these software packages integrate with StorageWorks Command View EVA.

More information on this capability is available at http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/storage/software/bizcopyeva/index.html (Business Copy)

and http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/storage/software/conaccesseva/index.html (Continuous Access).

Figure 7 shows the user interface for creating a snapclone:

12

Figure 7.. StorageWorks Command View EVA – Create a Snapclone Using StorageWorks Business Copy EVA

Provisioning BizTalk Server 2006To begin the deployment of Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 application server (once the HP blade servers are connected to the SAN on a Boot-from-SAN environment), the operating system, Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, and the HP ProLiant Support Pack (PSP) are installed on each Boot-from-SAN LUN first. PSP facilitates the installation of all the latest HP device drivers. It also supports management functions through HP Systems Insight Manager and the HP Version Control Repository. Additionally, PSP configures the HP System Management Homepage, which provides some server-by-server configuration information and integrates with HP Systems Insight Manager. Figure 8 shows the System Management Homepage of one of the BizTalk servers used in preparation for this document. Herein, the BizTalk servers are called bfs-1 and bfs-2. The screen shot in Figure 8 shows the external storage connections and HBA World Wide Names for bfs-1.

For more information about PSP, see http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/management/psp/index.html

13

Figure 8. HP System Management Homepage for BizTalk Server (bfs-1)

To deploy BizTalk Server 2006 in a Boot-from-SAN environment, HP engineers used the HP ProLiant Essentials Rapid Deployment Pack (RDP) software application. This software package is used to identify and deploy HP ProLiant servers through Remote Network Boot via PXE -- Preboot Execution Environment.

Once the BizTalk application servers are recognized by PXE, they appear in the RDP Console. At this point, the systems administrator needs to drag and drop the Deploy ProLiant BL System Configuration (Boot-from-SAN) job script to the BizTalk servers. This script disables the embedded storage controller and enables the HBA controllers, enabling installation on the SAN LUNs instead of on internal drives. Once this job is finished, drag and drop the Deploy ProLiant ML/DL/BL+ Windows 2003 Enterprise + PSP job script to each BizTalk server. This job deploys Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, automatically creating a single partition that expands to the full physical drive size. It also installs the PSP silently.

For more information about RDP jobs scripts, see http://h18013.www1.hp.com/products/servers/management/rdp/index.html.

After initial operating system installation, the multi-path device driver must be configured. For this document, HP StorageWorks Secure Path software was selected. Secure Path is host-resident software that monitors the data paths between server and storage to increase availability of information.

For more information, see http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/sanworks/secure-path/index.html?jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN.

14

To install Secure Path in this infrastructure, HP engineers created a silent installation job script in RDP. First manually, create a shared folder in the management server, and copy all of the Secure Path files including subfolders into the shared folder. For purposes of this document, the shared folder is called “\\rdp2\Shared.” Finally create a job script in RDP and enter the following commands:

net use X: \\rdp2\SharedX:cd \HP\SecurePathWincd SPInstallSetup.exe /s /f2C:\SPSInstallLog.txt

Next, install the latest Microsoft Updates. This can be done using the HP ProLiant Essentials Vulnerability Patch Management Pack, which is a plug-in to HP Systems Insight Manager. For more information about this software application plug-in, see http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliantessentials/valuepack/vpmp/index.html

Next, manually install Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 software pre-requisites, described in the BizTalk Server Installation Guide – Windows Server 2003; installation can be done through an RDP job script as well. To download the latest Microsoft BizTalk Server Installation Guide, see http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=B273269C-97E0-411D-8849-5A8070698E4A&displaylang=en.

If a development environment is required, install Visual Studio .Net. 2005. If BAS (Business Activity Services) is required, install Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services following the instruction on the BizTalk installation guide.

Finally, Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 was installed into the two HP ProLiant BL25p blade servers, configured as Boot-from-SAN. The Single Sign-On (SSO) service was installed on the first server and the BizTalk application on the second server. Using Rapid Deployment Pack, HP engineers created a Job Script to copy all of the BizTalk setup files to each server in turn in order to install Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 in silent mode as shown in Figure 9. The commands included in the silent-mode installation job script are shown below:

md c:\temp

c:\bts2006\Setup.exe /addlocal all /INSTALLDIR "c:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006" /l "c:\temp\BTSsetup.log" /InstallPlatform /AutologonPassword hp

cd\

Note: For purposes of this document the Auto logon password used was hp; this is the user login password with local permission for the server. For production deployments, an appropriately secure password should be used, or else the /AutoLogon feature should not be used.

15

Figure 9. Sequence of Microsoft BizTalk Server Deployment using RDP Job script (bfs-1)

Once BizTalk was installed, the BizTalk Configuration Wizard was used on bfs-2 to configure Enterprise Single Sign-On (SSO), and the same BizTalk Configuration Wizard was used to configure the complete BizTalk Server 2006 application on bfs-1. Figure 10 shows the BizTalk Server Administration Console configured on bfs-1, and Figure 11 shows the Enterprise Single Sign-On (SSO) Service Console configured on bfs-2.

16

Figure 10. BizTalk Server 2006 Administration Console (bfs-1 server)

17

Figure 11. BizTalk Server 2006 SSO Console (bfs-2)

Summary

The solution presented in this document for Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 enables IT administrators to rapidly and consistently deploy and re-deploy server configurations to meet the changing needs of the organization. Boot-from-SAN (BfS), enabled by HP Storage Technology, allows for improved business continuity since boot LUNs are themselves stored on Vdisks stored in an Enterprise-class storage array, such as the HP StorageWorks EVA5000.

18

For more information

HP ProLiant Essentials Rapid Deployment Pack - Windows Edition:http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/management/rdp/index.html

HP and Microsoft for Business Continuity:http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/cache/197853-0-0-225-121.html

HP BladeSystem:http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/cache/80362-0-0-0-121.html

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/blades/components/storage.html

HP StorageWorks EVA5000:http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/storageworks/softwaredrivers/enterprise/index.html

HP StorageWorks Business Copy EVA Software:http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/storage/software/bizcopyeva/index.html

HP BizTalk Server Solutions: http://www.hp.com/solutions/microsoft/biztalk

Microsoft links

Microsoft BizTalk Server home page: http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 home page: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/default.mspx

© 2006 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.

Microsoft and Windows are U.S. registered trademarks of Microsoft Corp. AMD Opteron is a trademark of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

September 2006