BizTalk Developer Interview Questions and Answers - BizTalk Application

Introduction

This article intends to cover the answers to BizTalk Application related questions which a BizTalk developer can face during an interview.

Questions and Answers

1. What is MessageBox?

MessageBox is a SQL server database along with messaging agent. See MSDN MessageBox.

2. What is purpose of MessageBox?

Store all messages and context received.
Stores all subscriptions.
Stores all Host Queues.

3. What happens to the messages coming in to MessageBox?

Checking the subscription table is the First thing when messages comes in MessageBox and copy of the message is sent to the subscriber.

4. How does MessageBox treats messages without subscriber?

Message is suspended when there are no subscribers found for it.

5. How many receive locations can a single receive port have?

Receive port can have any number of receive location.

6. Types of subscription in BizTalk?

Two types of subscription

1. Activation
2. Instance

Instance subscriptions are removed from the message box while Activation subscriptions remain active as long as the orchestration or send port is enlisted.

7. Is it possible to have various ports with same name in two applications?

No. Names of the various ports must be unique not just inside an Application but for the whole BizTalk group.

8. In which state can a send port does not subscribe to a message?

In Unlisted state send port does not subscribe to any messages and no messages will be sent through the port.

9. What could be the reason for having multiple receive locations inside one Receive port?

The reason for having multiple receive locations inside one Receive port is to have the ability to receive different messages from different locations and having BizTalk treat them as if they were received from the same place and/or had the same message type.

10. How can we check what's going on inside BizTalk Server?

The group hub gives the user an overview of what is currently going on inside BizTalk.

11. Can a send group be a part of multiple send group?

No only static send ports can be part of send group.

12. Ordered delivery on send port has serious performance impact, why?

Because only one thread can submit messages through the port and each message has to wait for messages through the port and each message has to wait for the message before it can be processed.

13. Ordered delivery does not have effect even after it is set, when this might happen?

When back up transport is also applied.

14. Can a message in a MessageBox be changed?

Messages in BizTalk are immutable after constructed & message is considered constructed after it is placed into the MessageBoxDatabase.

15.What happens when we run MSI package?

When we run MSI packages , it will register the application with Windows Operating System and then load any related assemblies in the Global Assembly Cache.

16.In how many ways can we do BizTalk Application deployment?

BizTalk Application deployment can be done using following:

Deploying from Visual Studio
Building a Microsoft Installer (MSI) package that can be exported or imported between environments.
Using command line-based tools such as MSBuild and BtsTask.
Using community frameworks , such as BizTalk Deployment Framework and NANT.

17. How it's possible to work with several pipelines as soon as new Application is created?

BizTalk.System is already referenced in all new applications, as a result of this we can work with several pipelines as soon as new application is created.

18.What happens to message when all subscribers have received their message?

BizTalk will no longer need to hold on the message and the message will be removed from BizTalk.

19. What can be done to avoid loss of messages in a scenario where we know beforehand unavailability of the destination system, but source system is publishing messages ?

In this scenario we can stop the send port bound to the destination system. This way the messages will lie in a queue inside Messagebox. Subsequently we can start the send port when destination system is available.

20.When does ErrorReport properties get promoted?

When Failed message routing is enabled and if error occurs in the port then the message will have all the regular context properties unpromoted and instead have some error-specific context properties promoted - all in the ErrorReport Namespace e.g. ErrorReport.ErrorType, ErrorReport.ReceivePortName etc.

21. Which is the first step to enable Subscription?