BizTalk Server 2009 : Deploying a BizTalk Solution (part 2) - EXPORTING A BIZTALK APPLICATION

12/5/2012 5:39:35 PM

2. MSI Export/Import/Install

You have seen in the previous section how to import and install a BizTalk application manually. Soon you will realize, if you have not already, that deploying an application manually is a long and error-prone process. In order to simplify the process of exporting, importing, and installing a BizTalk application, Microsoft provides BizTalk 2009 with a way to do all the preceding using MSI packages.

Exporting a BizTalk application consists of taking all BizTalk artifacts for a particular application and packaging them into an MSI file. Exercise 2 walks you through the process. You do not have to export all the different BizTalk artifacts into a single MSI. You can also decide to split your BizTalk artifacts into multiple MSI packages. This is convenient for BizTalk applications that contain too many artifacts.

EXERCISE 2: EXPORTING A BIZTALK APPLICATION

This exercise shows how to export an MSI application. To perform this exercise, please ensure that you completed Exercise 1 successfully. Then follow these steps:

Open the BizTalk Administration Console:
1. Select Start => All Programs => Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009 => BizTalk Server, and then click the Administration icon.
2. In the BizTalk Server 2009 Administration Console, expand BizTalk Server 2009 => BizTalk Group => Applications => PROBIZTALK Deploy Sample Application.
Add the testing binding file to the PROBIZTALK Deploy Sample Application:
1. Right-click PROBIZTALK Deploy Sample Application, point to Export, and then click Bindings.
2. In the Export Bindings window shown in Figure 5, type C:\DeploymentSampleApplication\TestingBindings.xml in the Export to file field, and select "Export all bindings from the current application."
  
  Figure 5. Export Bindings dialog box
3. Click the OK button.
4. Open C:\PROBIZTALK\DeploymentSampleApplication\TestingBindings.xml with Notepad.
5. Replace all occurrences of the text "\Documents\" with "\TestDocuments\".
6. Save the file, and close Notepad.
7. In the BizTalk Server 2009 Administration Console, expand BizTalk Server 2009 => BizTalk Group => Applications => PROBIZTALK Deploy Sample Application.
8. Right-click the PROBIZTALK Deploy Sample Application, point to Add, and then click Resources.
9. In the Add Resources window, click the Add button, and select the C:\PROBIZTALK\Deployment SampleApplication\TestingBindings.xml file.
10. In the Add Resources window, type Testing in the Target Environment text box. This text box allows you to specify which environment a binding file is applied to upon installation of the BizTalk MSI application.
11. In the Add Resources window, click the OK button.
Add a pre-processing script to the PROBIZTALK Deploy Sample Application:
1. In Notepad, create a new file, and insert content of the command file presented in Listing 2.
2. Save the file as C:\PROBIZTALK\DeploymentSampleApplication\TestingDirs.cmd.
3. In the BizTalk Server 2009 Administration Console, expand BizTalk Server 2009 => BizTalk Group => Applications => PROBIZTALK Deploy Sample Application.
4. Right-click the PROBIZTALK Deploy Sample Application, point to Add, and then click Pre-processing scripts.
5. In the Add Resources window shown in Figure 6 , click the Add button, and select the C:\PROBIZTALK\DeploymentSampleApplication\TestingDirs.cmd file.
6. In the Add Resources window, click the OK button.
  
  Figure 6. Add Resources dialog box
Export the PROBIZTALK Deploy Sample Application to an MSI file:
1. In the BizTalk Server 2006 Administration Console, expand BizTalk Server 2009 => BizTalk Group => Applications => PROBIZTALK Deploy Sample Application.
2. Right-click the PROBIZTALK Deploy Sample Application, point to Export, and then click MSI.
3. When the Welcome window appears as shown on Figure 7, click the Next button.
  
  Figure 7. Export MSI File Wizard Welcome screen
4. In the Select Resources window shown on Figure 8 , ensure that all BizTalk artifacts are checked, and then click the Next button.
5. Since the application does not have any virtual directories, click the Next button in the Specify IIS Hosts window, as shown in Figure 9.
6. The Dependencies window shown in Figure 10 enumerates all the dependencies for the application. As you can see in this particular case, this application depends only on the BizTalk.System application. Click the Next button.
7. Type C:\proBizTalkSample.msi, and then click the Export button in the Destination window, as shown in Figure 11.
8. In the Summary window shown in the Figure 12, click the Finish button.

Figure 8. Export MSI File Wizard Resources screen

Figure 9. Export MSI File Wizard—Specify IIS Hosts screen

Figure 10. Export MSI File Wizard—Dependencies screen

Figure 11. Export MSI File Wizard—Destination screen

Figure 12. Export MSI File Wizard—Summary screen

Once you have exported your BizTalk application to an MSI package, you can import or install it onto a new BizTalk Server Group. When importing or installing an MSI BizTalk application, you can specify the following parameters:

Application name: The name of the application used to import or install the MSI package. If the application name is not provided, the default BizTalk application name will be used. If this happens, remember that you can move the artifacts to the application manually.
Environment: The target environment where the MSI package is being imported or installed. This parameter allows all binding files for the specified environment to be applied to the BizTalk server. If the environment parameter is not specified, all the binding files that do not specify a target environment will be applied. The benefit of this is that you can create a bindings file for your receive ports and another bindings file for your send ports. By having the environment setting the same, they will both be applied, which gives you the ability to segment your binding files. This will allow you to create a bindings file that can contain information that needs to be deployed in each and every environment. This is done by keeping the port binding target empty, which sets the default to ENV:ALL. This becomes important when you want to do incremental updates in that you don't need to worry about unnecessarily overwriting unchanged items.
Overwrite: This flag specifies whether to overwrite the existing artifacts.

Table 1 displays what operations are executed when a BizTalk application is imported or installed.

Table 1. Operations Executed When Importing or Installing a BizTalk Application
Operation	Occurs While Importing	Occurs While Installing
Add references in the BizTalk Management Database.	X
Copy BizTalk artifacts to the BizTalk server.	X	X
Apply binding files for the specified target environment.	X	X
Execute pre- or post-processing scripts.	X The scripts will perform only those actions that will run when the BTAD_InstallMode is equal to Import.	X The scripts will perform only those actions that will run when the BTAD_InstallMode is equal to Install.
Store file-based artifact (assemblies, virtual directories, files, scripts, certificates, BAM artifacts, and BAS artifacts) data in the BizTalk Management Database.	X
Store policies in the Rule Engine database.	X
Store BAM artifacts in the BAM.	Primary Import database. Deploy BAM definitions.	X
Add BizTalk assemblies to the Global Assembly Cache.	Only if BizTalk assemblies were added to the BizTalk application with the "Add to global assembly cache on MSI import" option.	Only if BizTalk assemblies were added to the BizTalk application with the "Add to global assembly cache on MSI install" option.