I’m sure its common knowledge that other databases can be backed-up using the Backup BizTalk Server Job, meaning that the transaction consistency that is that is written the the BizTalk databases can be included in your own custom databases.
I thought it was pretty easy to include custom databases, simply by adding an entry into the adm_OtherBackupDatabases table in the BizTalkMgmtDb database. In the screenshot below, I’ve added the BizTalk RosettaNet Accelerator (BTARN) databases:
I thought it was that simple, until I tried it for the first time in real life and was greeted with the following error from SQL Agent (notice the error in bold):
Executed as user: NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM. Processed 17520 pages for database ‘BizTalkDTADb’, file ‘BizTalkDTADb’ on file 1. [SQLSTATE 01000] (Message 4035) Processed 2 pages for database ‘BizTalkDTADb’, file ‘BizTalkDTADb_log’ on file 1. [SQLSTATE 01000] (Message 4035) BACKUP DATABASE successfully processed 17522 pages in 10.454 seconds (13.093 MB/sec). [SQLSTATE 01000] (Message 3014) Processed 2264 pages for database ‘BizTalkMgmtDb’, file ‘BizTalkMgmtDb’ on file 1. [SQLSTATE 01000] (Message 4035) Processed 3 pages for database ‘BizTalkMgmtDb’, file ‘BizTalkMgmtDb_log’ on file 1. [SQLSTATE 01000] (Message 4035) BACKUP DATABASE successfully processed 2267 pages in 2.284 seconds (7.751 MB/sec). [SQLSTATE 01000] (Message 3014) Processed 3280 pages for database ‘BizTalkMsgBoxDb’, file ‘BizTalkMsgBoxDb’ on file 1. [SQLSTATE 01000] (Message 4035) Processed 2 pages for database ‘BizTalkMsgBoxDb’, file ‘BizTalkMsgBoxDb_log’ on file 1. [SQLSTATE 01000] (Message 4035) BACKUP DATABASE successfully processed 3282 pages in 2.156 seconds (11.890 MB/sec). [SQLSTATE 01000] (Message 3014) Processed 256 pages for database ‘BizTalkRuleEngineDb’, file ‘BizTalkRuleEngineDb’ on file 1. [SQLSTATE 01000] (Message 4035) Processed 1 pages for database ‘BizTalkRuleEngineDb’, file ‘BizTalkRuleEngineDb_log’ on file 1. [SQLSTATE 01000] (Message 4035) Could not find stored procedure ‘BTARNARCHIVE.dbo.sp_BackupBizTalkFull’. [SQLSTATE 42000] (Error 2812) BACKUP DATABASE successfully processed 257 pages in 0.326 seconds (6.158 MB/sec). [SQLSTATE 01000] (Error 3014). The step failed.
‘Could not find stored procedure ‘BTARNARCHIVE.dbo.sp_BackupBizTalkFull’. Oh really?
It turns out that it isn’t as simple as adding a custom database to the adm_OtherBackupDatabases table – a number of stored procedures and tables also need to be added to your custom database to get the backup job to successfully work, however these can be easily added by executing the two SQL scripts Backup_Setup_All_Procs.sql and Backup_Setup_All_Tables.sql against your custom databases (the scripts can be found in the ‘[BizTalk Installation Directory]\Schema’ directory). You may want to force a full backup to ensure you have full backups across all of your databases:
BEGIN TRAN UPDATE [BizTalkMgmtDb].[dbo].[adm_ForceFullBackup] SET ForceFull = 1 COMMIT TRAN
Re-run your backup job and you will see your custom databases included in the backup.
The requirement to include additional stored procedures and tables in custom databases is well worth remembering, especially if you are deploying (or re-deploying) custom databases that don’t include these artifacts by default.
The procedure is detailed in more depth on MSDN.
