BizTalk Adapters: Active and Passive Configuration

In BizTalk Server, a single host can have multiple host instances running on different servers in a group at the same time. This article discusses how this affects the use of the adapters.

Load Balancing

This is considered an Active/Active configuration. In a load-balancing scenario where all servers in a group are active at the same time, any BizTalk artifact associated with the host will also be active. As a result, it is possible for two instances of a receive location to be active simultaneously.

While this does not pose a problem for send adapters, our receive adapters are based on a pull model (excluding the AS2 adapter), which may cause issues. The two instances of the receive location will operate independently of each other and may result in multiple copies of the same message being processed.

To avoid this, you can create a host instance that is active on only one server in the group, or implement logic to handle the possibility of duplicate messages.

Reliability

If your goal is reliability (a failover configuration), you should use an Active/Passive configuration. In this configuration, only one instance of each receive location and send port is active at any given time, so no special considerations are required when using the adapters.

If you have any questions about how to use the adapters in your environment, please contact support@nsoftware.com