Pipeline category
Please also review the Recommended tracking settings for default pipelines user guide! There is a BUG in BizTalk that Nodinite can tackle and that you must be aware of.
Nodinite BizTalk Server Monitoring Agent provides robust monitoring and management for Pipelines, ensuring your tracking settings remain as recommended and protecting your environment from unwanted logging due to BizTalk bugs.
- Pipelines in BizTalk are listed in Nodinite as resources by their unique name
- Pipelines belong to a named BizTalk Server Application
- BizTalk Server pipelines are grouped by the Category Pipeline
Here's an example of a Monitor View filtered by the 'Pipeline' category.
Understanding BizTalk Pipelines
What are Pipelines?
Pipelines are the message processing engines in BizTalk Server. Every message entering (Receive Pipelines) or leaving (Send Pipelines) BizTalk flows through a pipeline that handles decoding, disassembling, validating schemas, and tracking message bodies. XMLReceive, XMLTransmit, PassThruReceive, and PassThruTransmit are the default pipelines used by most BizTalk environments.
Why is Pipeline Monitoring Critical?
Incorrect pipeline tracking settings cause massive data bloat and schema validation failures.
- Database explosion – Body tracking on high-volume pipelines (1000+ messages/min) fills BizTalkDTADb with gigabytes of data daily, degrading performance
- BizTalk bug impact – Deploying or redeploying applications silently resets default pipeline tracking settings, enabling unwanted body tracking without warning
- Compliance violations – Sensitive data (credit cards, health records) tracked in databases when it shouldn't be, violating GDPR/HIPAA
- Performance degradation – Body tracking triggers additional SQL writes per message, increasing latency and reducing throughput
- Schema validation failures – Pipelines with schema validation enabled reject malformed messages, creating suspended instances (not resumable)
Common Pipeline Monitoring Scenarios
- Post-deployment tracking reset – DevOps deploys updated application; BizTalk bug silently enables body tracking on all default pipelines
- Accidental tracking enable – Developer tests with tracking enabled, forgets to disable; production environment logs 50 GB/day unnecessarily
- Schema validation suspended instances – Partner sends malformed XML; XMLReceive pipeline rejects it with schema validation error → suspended instance (not resumable)
- Disassembler failures – Pipeline can't parse message format (corrupt ZIP, invalid EDI); disassembler component fails → suspended instance (not resumable)
- Compliance audit failure – Security audit discovers PII tracked in BizTalkDTADb; organization faces fines and remediation costs
Connection to Suspended Instances: Pipeline failures (schema validation, disassembler errors, component exceptions) create suspended instances (not resumable). These require fixing the source data or pipeline configuration and resubmitting messages.
The BizTalk Tracking Bug
Critical: BizTalk has a well-known bug where deploying or redeploying applications resets default pipeline tracking settings to undesirable defaults (often enabling body tracking). Nodinite's Auto Healing feature detects this immediately and automatically resets pipelines to recommended settings, preventing database bloat before it starts.
What are the key features for Monitoring BizTalk Server Pipelines?
- State Evaluation – Monitors and evaluates the run-time state of pipelines and warns if body tracking is enabled
What is evaluated for the Pipeline category?
The table below explains the different evaluated states for pipelines:
| State | Status | Description | Actions | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unavailable | Resource not available | Evaluation of the 'BizTalk Pipeline' is not possible due to network or security-related problems | Review prerequisites | |
| Warning | Body tracking is enabled | Tracking is enabled before and/or after pipeline, which may cause hefty unwanted logging | ✅ Set default tracking | |
| OK | Default tracking is applied | Default tracking options are currently set and no body tracking option is set |
Tip
You can reconfigure the evaluated state using the Expected State feature on every Resource within Nodinite.
Remote Actions
The following Remote Actions are available:
✅ Set default tracking
Set default tracking
The 'Set default tracking' action resets the selected pipelines' tracking setting to default.
Here's an example of the Action button with menu item 'Set default tracking'.
Below is an example of a Microsoft BizTalk Server default pipeline with our recommended tracking settings:
Default tracking options.
Earlier versions of this agent had more actions, but we decided that Nodinite should only provide the one option that ensures the correct and anticipated behavior of your BizTalk Server environment.
Auto Healing
Tip
Use the Auto Healing feature of Nodinite to ensure Default Pipelines do not lose tracking settings when deploying or redeploying BizTalk Applications. We consider the lost setting of tracking a bug in BizTalk that can be compensated for using Nodinite's Auto Healing feature.
And again:
Please also review the Recommended tracking settings for default pipelines user guide! There is a BUG in BizTalk that Nodinite can tackle and that you must be aware of.
Metrics chart: Metrics
Not yet implemented. Please send a feature request if you need this feature, detailing what you would like to see.
Remote Configuration for Pipelines
You can enable or disable the tracking monitoring feature for BizTalk Server pipelines. Review the Configuration user guide for additional information:
Remote configuration for pipelines in Nodinite Web Client.
Next Step
Related Topics
Add or manage a Monitoring Agent Configuration
Monitoring Agents
Administration
Monitoring Agents