There is enough buzz in the BizTalk community about the announcement of the newly renamed ESB Guidance Toolkit 2.0 which sits on top of BizTalk Server 2009. You can download it from here.

The documentation that comes out of the package is really good, but since its a first release of the tool kit there is obviously some gaps. In this post I'll explain the issues I came across while configuring the Exception management portal on Windows 2008 machine with IIS 7.0 and how I overcame them to have a working portal. The issues are mainly surrounding the supporting technologies like power shell and Windows communication foundation.

Step 1: Install the BizTalk ESB ToolKit Core.msi

This MSI file is a typical BizTalk Application MSI file so follow the procedures you'll follow to install a BizTalk Application MSI. Open the BizTalk administration console and import the MSI, later in the wizard select the "Run the MSI" option to install it.

Step 2: Run the Management_Install.cmd powershell command:

You need to unzip the ESBSource.zip file which contains the set of sample applications. Exception management portal is provided more like a sample web site, which you can enhance it according to your needs. Before running this command, you need to make sure

1. You generated the key file under C:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0\ESBSource\Keys\Microsoft.Practices.ESB.snk

2. Fix the Windows PowerShell execution policy restriction as described below.

Navigate to \Samples\Management Portal\Install\Scripts, and then run ManagementInstall.cmd. At this stage you'll receive an error message as "ManagementInstall.ps1 cannot be loaded because the execution of scripts is disabled on this system.. Please see "get-help about_signing" for more details"

The problem is mainly because Windows PowerShell restricts the execution of saved scripts by default. To see your current settings, open power shell command window and type "get-executionpolicy", the output will be "Restricted", which is default. Change it to unrestricted by issuing the command "set-executionpolicy Unrestricted". This changes the policy until you change it again (For obvious reasons you'll need to change the execution policy to restricted after finishing your task).

Now, you'll be able to run the ManagementInstall.cmd, which should complete without giving any errors.

Now, If you navigate to the url http://localhost/ESB.Portal/Default.aspx, you will be redirected to an error page asking you to check your event log. The event log will have an entry saying 404 not found.

Step 3: Follow the instructions in the documentation under "Configuring Services and Components".

The Exception management portal internally relies on set of web services (operations, ExceptionService etc) to function correctly. So, if these services  are not installed an exception will be raised. Follow all the steps under "Configuring Services and Components" to install the supporting services.

Step 4: Update IIS script maps to register .svc extension

Exception management portal relies on a WCF service called http://localhost/ESB.Exceptions.Service/ExceptionService.svc for its internal operations. By default there is no script map for .svc file with default IIS 7.0 installation, so register the script map using the following command

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.0\Windows Communication Foundation>ServiceModelReg.exe -r -y

Step 5: Make sure the users are in right NT roles

Exception management portal relies on BizTalk NT groups for authentication and authorization. So make sure you are in the correct group "BizTalk application users" for normal users and "BizTalk Administrators group" for admin users.

If you still face issues, there is a trouble shooting section in the documentation, which will give you more help.

Nandri!

Saravana