Biztalk interview Questions

1. What transport protocols are supported in BizTalk?
2. What is MSMQT? How it is different from MSMQ?
3. What needs to be specially done to call a .net assembly from the BizTalk orchestration?
4. What is xpath? How do you use xpath with Messages?
5. What is the difference between Static Port and Dynamic Port?
6. What is BizTalk?
7. Biztalk is a messaging based integration tool.
   Bonus:It consists of several different pieces including Business Processes
   (Orchestrations), BAM, Rules Engines, and HAT.
   


8. What is a Message Type (i.e. BTS.MessageType) and how is it used in BizTalk?
   

   Message Type is a BizTalk System property that is promoted inside a Pipeline. It
   is made up of Document Name Space # Root Node Name.

   
   
9. What is the default mapping for Auto Mapping?
   

   
   The default is by structure.This can be change to by node name on the map
   properties.
   

   
   
10. How do you call a Non-Serializable .Net helper class inside an Expression Shape?
    
    
    

    • Add a reference to that class.

    • Make sure your Orchestration is Long Running transactional.

    • Add an Atomic scope.

    • Create an Orchestration variable of that class inside the scope.

    • Create an instance on that object inside the scope.

    • Call the method.

    • Bonus: Mention the class must be strongly signed and in the GAC.

11. What if the class is Serializable?
    

    No transactional Orchestration or Atomic scope is needed.
    

    
    
12. What does the Value Mapping Functoid do?
    

    Returns the second parameter if the first parameter is true
    

    
    
13. What is the difference between a Distinguished field and a Promoted Property?
    
    
    

    • Distinguished fields are light weight and can only be used inside an
      Orchestration.

    • Promoted Properties are defined inside a property schema, are tracking in SQL,
      can be tracked in HAT, and can be used for content based routing.

14. How do you achieve First-In-First-Out message processing of messages received
    from multiple sources using an Orchestration?
    
    
    

    • Use a Sequential Convoy to process the messages in the order they are received
      into the Message Box.

    • Make sure Ordered Delivery is set to True inside the Orchestration Receive
      Port.

15. At high level, what do Receive Ports and Orchestration Send Port really do in terms of messaging? What about Send Ports and Orchestration Receive Ports?
    
    
    

    • Receive Ports and Orchestration Send Port are both publishers.

    • Ports and Orchestration Receive Ports are both subscribers.

16. When working with Schemas, Maps, Pipelines, and Orchestrations how should the projects be structured?
    
    
    

    • Schemas and Maps in its own project.

    • Or Schemas and Maps together in its own project.

    • Orchestrations in its own project.

    • Pipelines in it own project.

17. What is direct binding?
    
    
    

    • Direct binding has three types: direct to message box, self correlating, and
      partner ports.

    • Used to route message between the message box and Orchestrations without using
      bindings or from one Orchestration to another Orchestration.
      

18. What is BAM used for?
    

    BAM is used to monitor business milestones and key metrics in near real-time
    throughout a process in BizTalk.

19. What is the Rules Engine?
    

20. Rules are used to provide highly efficient, easily changeable business rules
    evaluation to Business Processes. This allows rules to be changed without
    rebuilding and redeploying .net assemblies. The Business Rules Engine (BRE) can
    also be called from any .net component through the API’s



21. What are Persistence Points and what causes them?
    
    
    

    • Persistence is when the state of a running Orchestration is stored into SQL.

    • It is good enough to know various shape and actions cause persistence. More
      specifically, it occurs: end of a transactional scope, at a send shape, at a
      start Orchestration shape, during dehydration, if the system shuts down
      expectedly or unexpectedly, or the business process suspends or ends.
      

22. What group does a user need to belong to in order to submit messages to the
    message box?
    

    The user needs to be a member of the hot group or isolated host group (assuming
    a default installation).

23. What user rights to you need to perform most actions in HAT?
    BizTalk Server Administrator
    When installing Biztalk in a multi-server configuration with a remote SQL and Analysis Services

24. What are BizTalk artifacts?

25. What is Promoted Property?

26. What is Distinguished Field?

27. What is the difference between Promoted Property and Distinguished Field?
    How do you debug Orchestrations?

28. What is HAT?

29. What is Functoid?

30. How do you develop a Custom Functoid? Which interface to use?

31. Why the ROOT Name and namespace combination in a schema has to be unique?

32. What is Correlation?

33. What are the transaction types available in an orchestration scope?

34. What is Compensation?

35. How do you catch exceptions inside the orchestration?

36. How do you publish an orchestration as web service?

37. What is Receive Location and Receive Port?

38. What are the adapters available with BizTalk 2004?

39. How do you set up MSMQ and MSMQT in the same machine?

40. What are the components available in an orchestration tool box?

41. What is the difference between Call Orchestration and Start Orchestration shapes?