BizTalk Host Instance status shows as Unavailable

Question

Hi,

We have two BizTalk Servers connected to same BizTalk Group. Members of BizTalk Operators group are able to see Host Instance status of only BizTalk server they logged but not to the other server. The status shows as "Unavailable". Did any one face similar issue and if so did you have a fix ?

Thanks for your help in advance.

Answer 1

Hi Sandeep,

Have you tried rebooting the servers? you must try.

Additionally, You need to do DTC ping between both servers and see if the servers can communicate both ways. You can use something like DTCPing for this.

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Rachit Sikroria (Microsoft Azure MVP)

Answer 2

Thank you Rachit for quick reply. Yes I have tried restarting the server and it didn't work. I didn't try DTC pink, but the same is working for members of BizTalk Administrators group. Something( I guess it may be WMI or database SQL issue) is stopping from BizTalk Operator group members to see other server host instance status.

Answer 3

Are you sure the status is not "Not Applicable"?

Isolated Host Instances, since they are run in IIS (usually) are will always show Not Applicable.

However, it might be the case that Unavailable is displayed if the physical server is not otherwise available.

Answer 4

Thank you Rachit for quick reply. Yes I have tried restarting the server and it didn't work. I didn't try DTC pink, but the same is working for members of BizTalk Administrators group. Something( I guess it may be WMI or database SQL issue) is stopping from BizTalk Operator group members to see other server host instance status.

Got it. The BizTalk Server Operator is a low privileged role that only has access to monitoring and troubleshooting actions on that particular server.

If you want to allow a user who is a member of the BizTalk Server Operators group to monitor remote BizTalk servers, this user must also be a member of the local Administrators group on the remote computers.

Refer below table:

BizTalk Administration
Create a MessageBox database	BizTalk Server Administrators sysadmin SQL Server Role
Create or delete a BizTalk host	BizTalk Server Administrators db_ddladmin SQL Server Database role on the BizTalk MessageBox databases
Change the Host Tracking property for a host	BizTalk Server Administrators db_securityadmin SQL Server Database role on the BAM Primary Import database, BizTalk MessageBox databases, and the BizTalk Tracking database
Create (install), delete, or change the credentials for a host instance	BizTalk Server Administrators Local Administrators securityadmin SQL Server Role on the server(s) where the following databases are: BizTalk MessageBox databases, BizTalk Management database, Rule Engine database, BizTalk Tracking database, BAM Primary Import database db_securityadmin SQL Server Database role on the following databases: BizTalk MessageBox databases, BizTalk Management database, Rule Engine database, BizTalk Tracking database, BAM Primary Import database
Start or stop a host instance	BizTalk Server Administrators

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Rachit Sikroria (Microsoft Azure MVP)

Answer 5

Yes. The Status is not Available.

Answer 6

Thanks Rachit. Yes adding them to Local Admin Group on other servers resolves the issue, but un fortunately our management doesn't want to grant them local Admin access. They wanted to keep them only RDP access. Is there any alternate solution for the same.

Answer 7

Thanks Rachit. Yes adding them to Local Admin Group on other servers resolves the issue, but un fortunately our management doesn't want to grant them local Admin access. They wanted to keep them only RDP access. Is there any alternate solution for the same.

Nope, no alternate solution. As you can see in the table, the bare minimum access required is that user must also be a member of the local Administrators group on the remote computers.

If a user who is a member of the BizTalk Server Operators group is also a local administrator on the computers running BizTalk Server, then only the user can access data beyond the role of the Operators group on these computers.

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Rachit Sikroria (Microsoft Azure MVP)