My company’s “standard operating procedure” for BizTalk Server doesn’t call out the specific requirements to deploy among environments (development to test, test to production, etc), so I’m trying to help the team get those articulated. Here’s my first stab at a checklist that should be followed for BizTalk application migration between environments. I don’t want the list to be abusive, but want it to be as comprehensible as possible. Any feedback is appreciated.
| Migrate from Local Development to Shared Development | ||
| Task | Comments | |
| 1. | Code review executed by BizTalk team | Refer to BizTalk Code Review guidelines |
| 2. | Consistent system artifact naming in place | System DSNs, application configuration settings |
| 3. | Server access request approved | BizTalk Administrator rights ok |
| 4. | User has taken BizTalk developer training, and optionally, BizTalk administrator training | |
| 5, | BizTalk application and host usage defined | Are standard hosts used, or are additional ones defined? Does this project belong in an existing BizTalk Application, or a new one? |
| 6, | Reusable assets are factored into common applications and assemblies | Schemas, web services, business rules |
| 7. | Application security requirements are clearly identified | Authentication and authorization |
| Migrate from Shared Development to Test | ||
| Task | Comments | |
| 1. | Code successfully builds and runs all core use cases | |
| 2. | Code review is re-executed if significant deviations discovered during initial code review | |
| 3. | Performance test plan is in place | Test expected load + 25%; test LOB adapters to confirm downstream system load acceptance |
| 4. | Repeatable release management from development environment is set up | Binding files created, MSI built, scripts constructed; helper components and web services added to MSI |
| 5. | Exception handling strategy is confirmed | System retries, exception logging, resuming suspended messages |
| 6. | Application is ready for multi-box deployment | All hard-coded file system references considered |
| 7. | List prepared of all encountered application and system exceptions, and resolution strategy for each | Used for testing and eventual administration purposes |
| 8. | Need for new host instances or changes to throttling settings considered | |
| 9. | All web services are managed by governance platform [SOA Software] | |
| Migrate from Test to Production | ||
| Task | Comments | |
| 1. | Application monitoring requested and configured [Microsoft Operations Manager] | Identify events to monitor and notification recipients |
| 2. | Appointed application administrator has BizTalk Operator rights approved | |
| 3. | All web services are managed by governance platform [SOA Software] | |
| 4. | Debug statements removed and Event Log trace statements removed | |
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