Installing standard edition of Biztalk 2006 R2 on 64 bit Windows 2003 OS

Question

Hi

I would like to know if there are any limitations on running standard edition of Biztalk 2006 R2 on 64bit Windows 2003 OS

I read from the Installation guide that:

1) Running host instances in native 64-bit mode is only supported on BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Enterprise Edition, Developer Edition, Branch Edition, and Evaluation Edition. Does this mean host instances need to be configured to work in 32 bit mode and all DLLs need to be compiled to target 32 bit platform?
2) If the BAM portal is to be installed, ASP.NET 2.0 must be configured to run in 32-bit mode. Is that true? If so, will there be any performance issues when configuring ASP.NET to run in 32 bit mode while the operating system is running on 64 bit?

If anyone is using Biztalk R2 standard on Windows 2003 64 bit version please share your experience or provide me link to appropriate resources.

Thanks

Answer 1

You may consider running 32bit Standard in WOW on Windows x64. 32bit hosts will run fine under WOW on X64 OS. As far as I know none of our 32-bit products have licensing restrictions stopping you from running them on a 64-bit OS.

 

Below are some explanation on why we do not support 64bit standard edition: 

 

"We consider 64-bit support an Enterprise Edition level feature that a customer would only select if they require faster messaging/orchestration processing or the larger addressable virtual memory of 64-bit mode for large BizTalk message mapping or other memory intensive operations. Because the Standard Edition is designed for small-to-medium environments, it is licensed to only run on a single BizTalk server with a maximum of two CPUs, maximum of five "BizTalk Applications", and a single message box. 64-bit support for the Standard Edition seemed counter-intuitive from a technical and licensing perspective. If the deployment scenario requires 64-bit hardware then it certainly requires BizTalk Enterprise as well. Standard edition is for single box only installations. Enterprise is also required for multi box installs and for clustering."

Thanks.

 

Answer 2

Thanks for the Reply Wen-Jun Zhang.

I have another question.

When you mentioned "Standard edition is for single box only installations", did you mean that SQL Server and Biztalk Server should exist in single box.

Can we install Biztalk 2006 R2 Standard Edition on a separate box with 32 bit Windows 2003 OS and have the Biztalk related databases created on a remote SQL 2005 server  instance which is running on 64 bit windows 2003 OS?

Please advice.

Answer 3

 

Hi,

 

  As far as I know, and till now windows 2003 64 is not supporting BizTalk server. But it’s fully supporting SQL Server 2005.

 

You have to note that it’s highly recommended and especially in the production environment to install SQL server in a separate box.

 

For now, you can install BizTalk on Windows 32 bits and the SQL on different box that supporting 64 bits for both the operating system and the SQL server.

 

Later and once Microsoft publish the BizTalk 2006 64bits, you can upgrade your BizTalk box (OS + BizTalk Server) without effecting the old data.

 

Regards,

Firas

Answer 4

Wen-Jun Zhang was mentioning running BizTalk on a single box meaning that you cannot scale out BizTalk Standard as a 2 node BizTalk group. The edition comparison chart also shows this under the category of failover: http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/en/us/editions.aspx. Running SQL on a separate box is fine with BizTalk Standard edition.

Thanks,

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If this answers your question, please use the "Answer" button to say so | Ben Cline

Answer 5

How do I Run an Biztalk Server 2006 R2 x86 on in WOW on Windows x64. I have the following problem:

ESB Guidance 1.0 is using Microsoft.BizTalk.ExplorerOM.dll. It seems Microsoft.BizTalk.ExplorerOM.dll does not work on x64. below is the error I am getting when I try to browse the ESB.Portal web site.

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Microsoft.Practices.ESB
Event Category: None
Event ID: 6010
Date:  2009/06/17
Time:  12:25:14 PM
User:  N/A
Computer: ZAGBLCPTBPM01
Description:
Explorer OM is not supported in a 64bit process.

Source: Microsoft.Practices.ESB.BizTalkOperations.BizTalkQuery

Method: Void .ctor()

Error Source: Microsoft.BizTalk.ExplorerOM

Error TargetSite: Void .ctor() 

Error StackTrace:    at Microsoft.BizTalk.ExplorerOM.BtsCatalogExplorer..ctor()
   at Microsoft.Practices.ESB.BizTalkOperations.BizTalkQuery..ctor()

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Wonder Andile Hlongwane MCTS

Answer 6

Hi Wonder,

Did you able to get answer to question by now. Like you, we are trying to use ESG Guidance (1.0) in our Windows 2003 64 bit environment with BizTalk Server 2006 R2.

 

Can we use ESB Guidance in our environment? We are having problem in installing the ESB guidance because UDDI services are not supported on Windows 2003 64 bit.

 

Answer 7

Is there any single source with information about what are all supported on 64-bit and what need to be under 32-bit? If there is not one already exists, it would be worth to create some kind of Wiki/blog entry and keep revising it as changes evolve over time.

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Please mark it as answer by clicking on "Propose As Answer", if it helps

Answer 8

You may consider running 32bit Standard in WOW on Windows x64. 32bit hosts will run fine under WOW on X64 OS. As far as I know none of our 32-bit products have licensing restrictions stopping you from running them on a 64-bit OS.

 

Below are some explanation on why we do not support 64bit standard edition:

 

"We consider 64-bit support an Enterprise Edition level feature that a customer would only select if they require faster messaging/orchestration processing or the larger addressable virtual memory of 64-bit mode for large BizTalk message mapping or other memory intensive operations. Because the Standard Edition is designed for small-to-medium environments, it is licensed to only run on a single BizTalk server with a maximum of two CPUs, maximum of five "BizTalk Applications", and a single message box. 64-bit support for the Standard Edition seemed counter-intuitive from a technical and licensing perspective. If the deployment scenario requires 64-bit hardware then it certainly requires BizTalk Enterprise as well. Standard edition is for single box only installations. Enterprise is also required for multi box installs and for clustering."

Thanks.

 

Thanks for your effort!