The is a new version of this script. You can find it here:

http://www.biztalkadminsblogging.com/index.php/item/99-new-version-enforce-your-tracking-strategy-with-a-powershell-script

One of my customers has a tracking strategy stating that by default all tracking in the production environment should be disabled. The problem is that it is difficult to enforce this strategy. New applications were put into production with tracking enabled or tracking was enabled for troubleshooting reasons never to be disabled again. The only method they had to enforce this strategy was to manually check the tracking settings. Since they have a lot of artifact this took about an hour of clicking (and was extremely boring).

In my last post (http://www.biztalkadminsblogging.com/index.php/item/79-powershell-script-that-gets-biztalk-server-group-settings) I told you that I use library files with PowerShell code that I reuse. In this post I will describe how I import all library files into my script and how the library files actually work.

In my PowerShell scripts I often use the same functionality as in other PowerShell scripts. To prevent me from writing the same code over and over again I created a library with generic code that I can reuse. For example I often need the Management Db Server Name and the Management Db Name.

The script below has a function GetBizTalkGroupSettinginfo that BizTalk Server group settings. It fills variables that you can then use in your script. The script writes the output to screen to give you an idea of the information that is collected.

There is a new website in town called www.biztalkevents.com. This site gives an overview in the worldwide organized BizTalk related events. If you want to add an event you can do that here.

In an earlier post I posted a PowerShell script that automatically deploys BizTalk applications:

http://www.biztalkadminsblogging.com/index.php/item/44-installation-script

This version of the script stops when a older version of a BizTalk application that you are installing is detected. I had some discussions with other BizTalk admins and most of them wanted a ‘overwrite’ feature. I added this to a newer version of the script.

In my scripts I regularly check the status of host instances on a BizTalk system. For example, if I want to start a host instance in a script, I first check if it isn’t in started state already.

To show how you can check the status of a host instance, I created a small script. The scripts returns the state of all host instances on all servers in the array servers:

$servers = ("BizTalk2010n1", "BizTalk2010n2")

I often perform BizTalk health checks for my customers. One of the checks I do is to see if they are using software that is still supported by Microsoft. I do not think it is per definition wrong to use software that is out of support. It is however a risk that they should know about, so that they can accept the risk or resolve it.

I had a discussion with some of the other bloggers (Sandro Pereira, Lex Hegt, Steef-Jan Wiggers and Tord Glad Nordahl) on this website about initial file sizes for BizTalk databases. This discussion was based on the following article:

http://www.biztalkadminsblogging.com/index.php/item/66-checking-database-autogrowth-settings

Imagine that you are looking for a BizTalk admin, and somehow, magically your recruiter found some great resumes and set you up with some interviews. What questions are you going to ask to get a good feeling about the candidates technical knowledge? Tord Glad Nordahl did some great work about that:

http://biztalkadmin.com/biztalk-administrator-interview-questions/

Ohhh, and p.s., if you are a BizTalk admin who lives in The Netherlands and you know all of these answers, or know a BizTalk admin like that, please let me know (jeroen AT BizTalkAdminsBlogging dot com). I can set you up with an great job opportunity (interesting work, nice colleagues and an excellent salary). :)

Yesterday I was performing a Health Check at a client. One of the checks is looking at the database autogrowth settings. In the operations guide Microsoft states the following about the BizTalk database autogrowth settings:

Pre-allocate space for BizTalk Server databases and define auto-growth settings for BizTalk Server databases to a fixed value instead of a percentage value