BAM Activity and Real-time Aggregations Windows

You can modify the duration data is kept in the BAMPrimaryImport database using the bam_Metadata_Activities table:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms962341.aspx

In addition, if you are using Real-time Aggregations for BAM data, you can set the window of data kept using the bm utility and the set-rtawindow command:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa559458.aspx

Changing Default BAM Alerts From Email

By default, the BAM alerts installed out of the box are set up to be mailed with a from address of BAM@microsoft.com This is a security concern for clients, not to mention kind of silly.

I kept looking for a while for the steps to change this, so I'm posting this so I can remember for next time.

General info on the script used is documented in MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa560641.aspx

These steps came from a user named Kent Weare on a BizTalk R2 General forum, but I am reposting his response in case it becomes unavailable in the future. The steps look to be copy-pasted from documentation somewhere, which I have yet to find an original source for. Note: there is no step 1.

Step 2: Retrieve the current BAMAlerts Application Definition File
(ADF)

1. On the Start menu, point to All Programs, point to Microsoft SQL Server 2005, point to Notification Services, and then click Notification Services Command Prompt to open a Notification Services Command Prompt window.
2. C:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006\Tracking>cscript ProcessBamNSFiles.vbs -Get config.xml adf.xml BAMPrimaryImport

Step 3: Modify Application Definition File (ADF)

1. Copy adf.xml to ClusterAdf.xml
2. Change SMTP from info: from ‘BAM@Microsoft.com’ to ‘’.
4. Save ClusterAdf.xml

Step 4: Update the current BAMAlert Application Definition File (ADF)

1. C:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006\Tracking>cscript ProcessBamNSFiles.vbs -Update config.xml ClusterAdf.xml
BAMPrimaryImport

Don't worry about the "ClusterAdf.xml" naming convention. We clustered the Bam alerts service hence us calling the file that.

Event Log error on BTSHTTPReceive.dll

This posting also helped me figure out why I got event log errors indicating IIS could not find a file in the C:\Windows\Temp directory. 

 

Always make sure the application pool worker service account has Read access to the windows Temp directory!

 

http://www.biztalkgurus.com/blogs/biztalksyn/archive/2006/08/01/BizTalk-HTTP-Adapter-_2800_BtsHttpReceive.dll_2900_-Error.aspx

 

Successful Configuration of the BAM Portal

This post helped me work out a HTTP 401 error I was receiving on the BAM Portal.  I only had to do the first step he recommended (setting authentication to use NTLM) which can be missed, especially if (as I have) created a whole new website to host BAM.

 

http://biztalkwithshashikant.blogspot.com/2007/08/rules-for-successful-bam-implementation.html

 

BizTalk Deployment Framework: Add Reference to Application

I wish I had found this before - I had not previously found a way to script the adding of a reference to another application, and thus used workarounds (like including assemblies from other projects).

http://blogs.sqlxml.org/bryantlikes/archive/2007/07/18/creating-biztalk-application-references-with-nant.aspx

This is particularly useful if you have a separate application defined for a common Exception Handling framework (for instance using the ESB Guidance package: http://www.codeplex.com/esb).

Thanks Bryant!