http://maxime-labelle.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!D8D9369449D177DA!236.entry

Maxime added support for deploying vocabularies and policies to the PowerShell provider for BizTalk. In our opinion this is the easiest way to deploy BRE artefacts.

For now it is only available when you grab and build the latest sources. It will be included in the final 1.0 release of course.

Great work Maxime!

You cannot just look at the version number anymore because it seems SP1 of BizTalk Server 2006 R2 does not update the version number. This means the version numbers for BizTalk 2006 R2 without and with service pack 1 applied are the same. See also my blog post here.

The script will detect any BizTalk version and service pack from 2004 and later. I have tested it on different environments with different BizTalk versions. Please let me know if it is not working

Below is the source, but you can also download it from here.

# Initialization of helper variables
# BizTalk version numbers
$versionBTS2004 = "3.0.4902.0"
$versionBTS2004SP1 = "3.0.6070.0"
$versionBTS2004SP2 = "3.0.7405.0"
$versionBTS2006 = "3.5.1602.0"
$versionBTS2006R2 = "3.6.1404.0"
$versionBTS2009 = "3.8.368.0"

# BizTalk version description
$descriptionBTS2004 = "BizTalk Server 2004"
$descriptionBTS2004SP1 = "BizTalk Server 2004 with service pack 1"
$descriptionBTS2004SP2 = "BizTalk Server 2004 with service pack 2"
$descriptionBTS2006 = "BizTalk Server 2006"
$descriptionBTS2006R2 = "BizTalk Server 2006 R2"
$descriptionBTS2006R2SP1 = "BizTalk Server 2006 R2 with service pack 1"
$descriptionBTS2009 = "BizTalk Server 2009"

# Registry paths
$bizTalkRegistryPath = "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\BizTalk Server"
$biztalk2006SP1UninstallRegistryPath = 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Microsoft Biztalk Server 2006 R2 Service Pack 1 `[KB 974563`]'

$installedVersion = $null

# Check if BizTalk is installed:
if ((Test-Path $bizTalkRegistryPath) -eq $true)
{

# Set location to BizTalk registry key
Set-Location $bizTalkRegistryPath
$key = Get-ChildItem

# Get version number
$productVersion = $key.GetValue("ProductVersion")

switch ($productVersion)
{

$versionBTS2004 { $installedVersion = $descriptionBTS2004 }
$versionBTS2004SP1 { $installedVersion = $descriptionBTS2004SP1 }
$versionBTS2004SP2 { $installedVersion = $descriptionBTS2004SP2 }
$versionBTS2006 { $installedVersion = $versionBTS2006 }
$versionBTS2006R2
{
if ((Test-Path $biztalk2006SP1UninstallRegistryPath) -eq $false)
{
$installedVersion = $descriptionBTS2006R2
}
else
{
$installedVersion = $descriptionBTS2006R2SP1
}
}
$versionBTS2009 { $installedVersion = $descriptionBTS2009 }
}
}

if ($installedVersion -eq $null)
{
Write-Host "BizTalk Server is not installed on this machine."
Exit
}

Write-Host "BizTalk Server installation found on this machine."
Write-Host "Product version number: $productVersion"
Write-Host "Installed version: $installedVersion"

Although we will have this fixed in the 1.0 final release I decided to provide a hotfix right now for those who want to play with the beta and have a remote SQL server. This is major show stopper.

If you want to receive the hotfix please drop me an e-mail (see about page of my blog) and I will send you the fix and instructions a.s.a.p.

As an alternative you can download the latest sources from codeplex and compile them yourself.

The hotfix will also fix other reported issues:

- #3042
- #3170
- #3280
- #3390
- #3391
- #3393

Another option is that a new development team member has just started on a fresh development box and you want him to use the same host configuration that you have. There are a lot of other scenarios where you want to copy the configuration of your hosts and host instances to another machine.

A lot of great BizTalk people have already showed how this can be done in an automated way. Some samples are:

- VBScript and WMI
- Custom tool 1
- Custom tool 2

In this post I want to show you how this can be done using PowerShell and the PowerShell provider for BizTalk. So this is actually the next post in my series on more advanced things you can do with the provider.

I use a slightly different approach compared to the existing tools. I use a PowerShell script that can be executed on the source server. This is the server that already has the host configuration set up, for example a development server. The output of running this script is actually another PowerShell script that you can run on the destination server. This output scripts contains all necessary statements to create the hosts, corresponding host instances and settings.

This is how it works:

- execute the script
- the script prompts for the name and path of the output file:

- after a short while the script is finished and a PowerShell script is created. You can run this script on the destination server or send it to an administrator who will run it on another server.

This is the created script:

#Determine BizTalk root and switch to host container.
$BizTalkRoot = (get-psdrive -PsProvider BizTalk).Root
Join-Path $BizTalkRoot 'Platform Settings\Hosts' | Set-Location

$RunningServer = $Env:ComputerName
#Create hosts
#Create host 'ReceiveHost' and set properties.
New-Item -Path 'ReceiveHost' -HostType 'InProcess' -NtGroupName 'BizTalk Application Users' -AuthTrusted:$False
Set-ItemProperty -Path 'ReceiveHost' -Name HostTracking -Value False
Set-ItemProperty -Path 'ReceiveHost' -Name Is32BitOnly -Value True

#Create host 'ProcessingHost' and set properties.
New-Item -Path 'ProcessingHost' -HostType 'InProcess' -NtGroupName 'BizTalk Application Users' -AuthTrusted:$False
Set-ItemProperty -Path 'ProcessingHost' -Name HostTracking -Value False
Set-ItemProperty -Path 'ProcessingHost' -Name Is32BitOnly -Value True

#Create host 'SendHost' and set properties.
New-Item -Path 'SendHost' -HostType 'InProcess' -NtGroupName 'BizTalk Application Users' -AuthTrusted:$False
Set-ItemProperty -Path 'SendHost' -Name HostTracking -Value False
Set-ItemProperty -Path 'SendHost' -Name Is32BitOnly -Value False

#Create host 'TrackingHost' and set properties.
New-Item -Path 'TrackingHost' -HostType 'InProcess' -NtGroupName 'BizTalk Application Users' -AuthTrusted:$False
Set-ItemProperty -Path 'TrackingHost' -Name HostTracking -Value True
Set-ItemProperty -Path 'TrackingHost' -Name Is32BitOnly -Value False

#Switch to host instances container.
Join-Path $BizTalkRoot 'Platform Settings\Host Instances' | Set-Location

#Create host instances
#Create host instance 'Microsoft BizTalk Server ReceiveHost BTS2K9-DEV' and set properties.
$Credential = $Host.UI.PromptForCredential('Host Instance user credentials', 'Please enter credentials for host instance ''ReceiveHost''', '', '')
New-Item -Path 'hostinstance' -HostName 'ReceiveHost' -RunningServer $RunningServer -Credentials $Credential
Set-ItemProperty -Path 'Microsoft BizTalk Server ReceiveHost BTS2K9-DEV' -Name IsDisabled -Value False

#Create host instance 'Microsoft BizTalk Server ProcessingHost BTS2K9-DEV' and set properties.
$Credential = $Host.UI.PromptForCredential('Host Instance user credentials', 'Please enter credentials for host instance ''ProcessingHost''', '', '')
New-Item -Path 'hostinstance' -HostName 'ProcessingHost' -RunningServer $RunningServer -Credentials $Credential
Set-ItemProperty -Path 'Microsoft BizTalk Server ProcessingHost BTS2K9-DEV' -Name IsDisabled -Value False

#Create host instance 'Microsoft BizTalk Server SendHost BTS2K9-DEV' and set properties.
$Credential = $Host.UI.PromptForCredential('Host Instance user credentials', 'Please enter credentials for host instance ''SendHost''', '', '')
New-Item -Path 'hostinstance' -HostName 'SendHost' -RunningServer $RunningServer -Credentials $Credential
Set-ItemProperty -Path 'Microsoft BizTalk Server SendHost BTS2K9-DEV' -Name IsDisabled -Value False

#Create host instance 'Microsoft BizTalk Server TrackingHost BTS2K9-DEV' and set properties.
$Credential = $Host.UI.PromptForCredential('Host Instance user credentials', 'Please enter credentials for host instance ''TrackingHost''', '', '')
New-Item -Path 'hostinstance' -HostName 'TrackingHost' -RunningServer $RunningServer -Credentials $Credential
Set-ItemProperty -Path 'Microsoft BizTalk Server TrackingHost BTS2K9-DEV' -Name IsDisabled -Value False

There are a couple of things to mention about the generated script:

- This is by no means a script applicable for all situations and environments. The purpose is just to show the output script as a result of running the source script. The source script will probably need some modification to make it apply to your environment. For example the script does not take into account multi server configurations, etc.
- The output script will prompt for credentials for each host instance it will create. There are also ways to script this from source to destination. See for example here. In most cases hosts in different environments will run under different accounts which is why I choose to show a prompt each time.
- Also in this script the windows group for the host is kept the same for the destination environment. This might not be the case in your particular situation.

After running this script on the destination server I have a exact copy of my host environment on the source server.

The source script looks like this:

$ScriptFile = Read-Host 'Enter full path of script file:'</pre>
'#Determine BizTalk root and switch to host container.' | Out-File $ScriptFile
'$BizTalkRoot = (get-psdrive -PsProvider BizTalk).Root' | Out-File $ScriptFile -Append
'Join-Path $BizTalkRoot ''Platform Settings\Hosts'' | Set-Location' | Out-File $ScriptFile -Append
'' | Out-File $ScriptFile -Append

'$RunningServer = $Env:ComputerName' | Out-File $ScriptFile -Append

$BizTalkRoot = (get-psdrive -PsProvider BizTalk).Root
Join-Path $BizTalkRoot 'Platform Settings\Hosts' | Set-Location

'#Create hosts' | Out-File $ScriptFile -Append
$HostArray = @()
Get-ChildItem -Path . |  Foreach-Object {
    if (!$_.IsDefault -and $_.HostType -ne 'Isolated') {
   
        $HostArray += $_.Name
   
        "#Create host '$($_.Name)' and set properties." | Out-File $ScriptFile -Append
        "New-Item -Path '$($_.Name)' -HostType '$($_.HostType)' -NtGroupName '$($_.NtGroupName)' -AuthTrusted:`$$($_.AuthTrusted)" | Out-File $ScriptFile -Append
        "Set-ItemProperty -Path '$($_.Name)' -Name HostTracking -Value $($_.HostTracking)" | Out-File $ScriptFile -Append
        "Set-ItemProperty -Path '$($_.Name)' -Name Is32BitOnly -Value $($_.Is32BitOnly)" | Out-File $ScriptFile -Append
        '' | Out-File $ScriptFile -Append
                   
    }
}

'#Switch to host instances container.' | Out-File $ScriptFile -Append
'Join-Path $BizTalkRoot ''Platform Settings\Host Instances'' | Set-Location' | Out-File $ScriptFile -Append
'' | Out-File $ScriptFile -Append

Join-Path $BizTalkRoot 'Platform Settings\Host Instances' | Set-Location

'#Create host instances' | Out-File $ScriptFile -Append
Get-ChildItem -Path . |  Foreach-Object {
    if ($HostArray -contains $_.HostName) {
      
        "#Create host instance '$($_.Name)' and set properties." | Out-File $ScriptFile -Append
        "`$Credential = `$Host.UI.PromptForCredential('Host Instance user credentials', 'Please enter credentials for host instance ''$($_.HostName)''', '', '')" | Out-File $ScriptFile -Append
        "New-Item -Path 'hostinstance' -HostName '$($_.HostName)' -RunningServer `$RunningServer -Credentials `$Credential" | Out-File $ScriptFile -Append
        "Set-ItemProperty -Path '$($_.Name)' -Name IsDisabled -Value $($_.IsDisabled)" | Out-File $ScriptFile -Append
         '' | Out-File $ScriptFile -Append
       
    }
}

In the script I skip the default and isolated host. As with the generated output script this is just a sample and might not apply to your specific situation. The source script should be modified to confirm to your requirements and environment.

You can download the source script from here.

The best way to for any application to support management and automation is to implement such functionality on top of Windows PowerShell. Windows PowerShell contains a comprehensive API which enables the implementation of Cmdlets or a Cmdlet provider and the implementation of custom hosts.

Cmdlets or a cmdlet provider
PowerShell has uniform syntax for working with commands working and container hierarchies. This is a great advantage for administrators as they only need to learn a single way of working to manage it all. By implementing cmdlets we can “translate” this PowerShell way of working in calls to an applications native management API.

This is exactly what we have done in the provider for BizTalk. Internally we call BizTalk management APIs like ExplorerOM to perform things like starting applications, exporting MSIs, etc.

A custom host
Besides implementing custom cmdlets you can also implement a custom PowerShell host. The host can be any sort of application as long as it implements the PowerShell host interfaces. It can be a Win32 app, a web app or a text console for example.

This is exactly what Microsoft has done in the most recent versions of Exchange server (2007 & 2010). Management is done using PowerShell. The graphical management console is a PowerShell host. Exchange can be managed using this GUI or for example using scripts or commands running in the command shell console that comes out of the box with PowerShell.

The diagram below shows this architecture:

Things get even more interesting since we have PowerShell 2.0. It has a new feature called remoting which allows for remote administration and automation. Remoting uses WinRm (Microsofts implementation of the WS-Management standard). Goods news is that WinRM is firewall friendly. It only uses http(s) for communication. Now the diagram looks like this:

Is this secure? Yes it is, both PowerShell and WinRM have been designed with focus on security. Both come out of the box with security enabled. Of course you still need to pay attention especially when exposing things outside the enterprise.

Back to BizTalk
For BizTalk we have a couple of options to remotely administer a BizTalk server. We can choose between: Remote Desktop, client installation of Admin console, custom web services for management tasks, etc. Of course all have their pros and cons. With PowerShell remoting we have a new additional option.

Below I’ll show a couple of screens to see how this works.

I used two virtual machines in this demo. I installed the following software on those machines:

Virtual machine 1 (name: BTS2K9-dev):

- Windows Server 2008 R2 (I know not supported for hosting BizTalk)
- SQL Server 2008
- BizTalk Server 2009
- PowerShell 2.0
- PowerShell provider for BizTalk 1.0 (beta)

Virtual machine 2 (name: Client):

- Windows Server 2008 R2
- PowerShell 2.0
- PowerShell provider for BizTalk 1.0 (beta)

The obvious but important thing to note here is that the only thing that I have installed on virtual machine 2 that is related to BizTalk is the provider. In other words I did NOT NEED ANYTHING from the BizTalk installation CD on this machine.

The first thing I needed to was to enable remoting in PowerShell. This very simple and only requires the execution of a single command ‘Enable-PSRemoting’.

Second thing I needed to do was to add the client to the list of trusted computers on the BizTalk box. This mainly needs to be done because I just wanted to communicate over http instead of https for this demo.

On the BizTalk Box the management console is shown. Note that the default host instance is stopped:

Back to the PowerShell console on the Client to do the following:

- Create a new remote session on the BizTalk Box.
- Add the PowerShell provider snap in to the session.
- Switch to the default BizTalk drive.
- Switch the location to the host instances.
- Start the default host instance.

Finally a check on the other box to see if the host instance is running to verify this has worked (need to refresh the admin console first):

As you can see in the screen shots this is really easy to do. In my opinion it is a great new, location transparent, firewall friendly, client only way of managing BizTalk Server.

The only thing left to be done is to rebuild the BizTalk Administration Console on top of Windows PowerShell.

I usually do a lot of tryouts and proof of concepts on my development box. In my urge to get things working I never spend too much time on descriptive application names. I also never clean up things after I’m done.

This will in inevitably lead to the following mess after a couple of weeks:

From time to time I feel the need to clean up this mess. I used to do this with the BizTalk Administration Console. I start on top of the list right click the application to first stop and then delete it. Then I go to the second, etc.

The problems start to arise when there are references between applications. If I delete an application that is referenced from another application I get the following warning:

I can still delete the application but the warning is annoying and takes time. The last thing I want is to lose too much time cleaning up

Things get even worse when there are assembly resources inside the application which are referred to by assembly resources in other applications. This time it is not a warning but a serious error preventing me from deleting the application.

This means I need to take this reference dependency tree into account and delete the “child” applications before their “parents”.

This all makes cleaning up my development box very annoying and time consuming which is probably why I keep postponing it in the first place.

You can nicely automate this procedure using a generic application removal script that uses the PowerShell provider for BizTalk. In the script I take advantage of the exception handling possibilities of PowerShell. I sort of do a “on error resume next”.

This is how the script works:

• - Build a list of all the applications and put them in a array variable.
• - Loop through the list and try to delete the application on top of the list.
• - When the deletion fails because of dependencies we catch, in PowerShell terms “trap”, the exception and shuffle the array a little bit so that the application that failed is moved to the bottom of the list.
• - We then continue with the application that is now on top of the list.
• - The loop will end when all the applications are removed.

This is the script:

Some details about the script:

In the fragment below we use the provider to get a list of all applications. We make sure exclude the system and default application because they cannot be deleted.

The second thing to show in detail is the error handling routine. The provider (or actually the BizTalk Management Classes library) throws an exception of type BtsException since the application is referenced and cannot be deleted. We catch this exception by using a trap statement. In the exception handler we do two things. First we make sure to set a variable in the main scope so that we know what to do with the array later. Either move the top item to the bottom or remove the top item. Second we use “continue;” to have the main routine continue with the next statement.

After running the script this is what the admin console shows:

Nice!!!!

The script can be downloaded from here

The setup (and source) can be downloaded from codeplex.

I hope BizTalk developers and administrators will find this a useful addition to their toolbox.

In the coming weeks we will provide more information on usage and show some tips.

There is also a link to a great presentation that they (Michel and Maxime) did at the French BizTalk User Group. The presentation is in the French language. For me that means I had to use the translation dictionary a lot .

We´re currently very close to releasing the first beta of this new version.

The provider now uses a separate object layer for BizTalk management tasks. The layer is called ‘BizTalk Factory Management Automation’. This new architecture allows us to focus on provider functionality in the provider codebase and delegate all BizTalk related stuff to the object layer.

Nice things:

• The object layer hides us from all the different technologies and API’s (WMI, OMExplorer, etc.) that you can come across when doing BizTalk management from code. The object layer is a wrapper around all this stuff and provides a uniform way to do BizTalk management from .Net code.
• It is not solely aimed and meant for the provider but can be used stand alone or from your own projects.

The object layer is already in Beta and can be downloaded from here. Samples and instructions on how to use this will be provided later.

A big compliment to Maxime who is mainly responsible for the object layer and did almost all of the coding!

I didn’t take  much time for us to decide to join forces. We are currently in the process of merging the two source bases and planning for the next release. 

I’m very happy to have the chance to work together with Maxime and Michel on this project. I also think the merge brings benefits like higher (code) quality and  higher release frequency.

This  next release will be the one and only PowerShell provider for BizTalk (I hope) and will be available on codeplex. My version will be downloadable from here until the first joined effort release is available.

The PowerShell Provider for BizTalk lets you browse BizTalk as a file system. The primary goal for writing this provider is to aid me in my day to day BizTalk development work. With this in mind the first thing I wanted to be able to do is stop, start and restart host instances in an easy manner. I also wanted to replace my host manager tool with something with more flexibility. You can read more on host instances and PowerShell here.

Download link can be found here

Some features:

- Browseable BizTalk Adminstration Console like hierarchy and structure of artifacts. Read more here

- Tab completion saves you from a lot of typing

- Custom cmdlets aimed at BizTalk.

Installation instructions:

prerequisites: PowerShell 1.0 installed, BizTalk Server 2006 R2 (haven’t tried R1 yet) installed and configured.

steps:

1. run ‘PowerShell.BizTalk.msi’ and follow instructions.

2. Start a new PowerShell shell.

3. Type the command:

Add-PSSnapin PowerShell.BizTalk

4. Optionally verify that the snap-in is loaded by executing the command:

Get-PSSnapin

You should see the snap-in in the list of loaded snap-ins (see example below).

5. Add a connection to the local BizTalk installation by executing the command:

New-PSDrive LocalBTS BizTalk LocalBTS: -scope global -server <ServerName> -database <DatabaseName>

Replace <ServerName> and <DatabaseName> with the name of the server and database with the name of the management database.

For example:  New-PSDrive LocalBTS BizTalk LocalBTS: -scope global -server BizTalk01 -database BizTalkMgmtDb

This will create a new PowerShell drive object pointing to the BizTalk management databases.

Automatically load the snap-in:

Step 3,4 & 5 need to be executed every time you start a new PowerShell and want to use the BizTalk provider. To prevent you from typing the commands every time you can of course create a personal profile script. This will be loaded every time a new PowerShell shell is started. In order to do this:

1. Create a new folder in your ‘My Documents’ folder. Name this folder ‘WindowsPowerShell’.

2. Create a new text file in the folder created in step 1. Name the file ‘Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1′.

3. Set the contents of the text file like below and save it.

When opening a new shell the snap-in should be loaded automatically.

Supported artifacts:

Compared to BizTalk Adminstration Console this release of the provider has a limited set of artifacts that are browseable. Also each artifact has less properties than you’re used to in the console.

Limitations in this version:

- The provider makes heavily use of ExplorerOM model. As far as I know this is only supported on 32 bit platforms. So be aware when using the provider on a 64 bit platform.

- The provider does not (yet) (fully) support connections to remote BizTalk installations. Some things like e.g. browse applications work, while other browse host instances will not work.

- Make sure you have enough rights (BizTalk administrator) before using the provider. It does not check role membership or authorizations before executing code so insufficient rights may lead to nasty errors.

- Many other……

Please send me an e-mail or post a comment if you have questions, remarks, bugs, etc…

I would be great if BizTalk developers or administrators:

• just could walk through the biztalk artifacts in the same way we do with file folders.
• have a (rich) set of powershell cmdlets aimed at BizTalk.

In other words we need a: Powershell provider for BizTalk. Searching the internet resulted in nothing. I found one initiative but that did not seem to have started and there were also no downloadable bits.

Anyway I decided to code a BizTalk provider myself. I have copied the artifact hierarchy tree used in the BizTalk Administration Console as much as possible (see screenshots below). The provider also supports tab completion which makes it very easy to navigate through the BizTalk artifacts.

The screenshot below contains an example of a BizTalk cmdlet to stop a specific host.

Although I’ve been very, very busy with this in the last couple of weeks there is still a lot of work to be done. So why am I telling you about this when there are no downloadable bits yet. There are two reasons:

• I hope there are BizTalkers out there that use Powershell and want to test my provider eventually. (If so drop a comment or e-mail).
• I want to make a list of first release cmdlets that should be included. (Suggestions? Let me know!)