The release of Minotaur V2.0 brought Minotaur's great new usability features as well as enhanced monitoring capabilities to the market. In V2.0 of Minotaur we made it even simpler to configure and manage monitoring for your BizTalk solutions. Advanced analytical information is now at your fingertips and provides summary and detailed statistical information regarding your environment's stability and performance.
Minotaur supports the following great features to simplify your routine BizTalk monitoring tasks and procedures:
Installation & Configuration
| Easy, intuitive installation program | Minotaur's installation program will guide you through the steps to install Minotaur in your environment. |
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| Start evaluating Minotaur immediately | Once Minotaur is installed, the 30 day evaluation is immediately activated. Start using Minotaur right after installation. No need to wait for activation keys. |
| Discover and automatically register your BizTalk environment | Minotaur will discover your BizTalk environment and automatically register your BizTalk environment for monitoring. No need to manually setup all your monitoring requirements. Minotaur will do the bulk of the work leaving you to fine tune the configuration based on your specific requirements. |
Traffic light-style dashboard
| Health of your environment at a glance | With Minotaur's unique operations room dashboard, it is easy for operators and administrators to monitor the health of the BizTalk environment. All monitored objects are displayed on the dashboard, with the objects in violation bubbling up to the top of the dashboard in RED. |
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| Drill-down capabilities | The operator or administrator has the ability to drill down in the dashboard itself into the violation object by simply clicking on the red light. A wealth of information is displayed here including detailed history of violations for the object as well as analytical information. |
| Reset violations | The operator or administrator can reset a violated item which will reset it to green status until such time the next violation occurs. |
Configure & Analyze Monitors
| Configuration made simple | Maintaining monitoring objects is simpler than ever! Not only does Minotaur allow you to maintain monitoring items very simply, it now also supports set-based operations. You can update sets of monitors at the same time, thus reducing the time spent on basic configuration tasks drastically. Minotaur also allows you to work with BizTalk application as a whole and does not force you into configuring a new BizTalk application one artefact at a time. |
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| Last n Violations | Minotaur will show you the last n number of violations for the specific monitored category. This at-a-glance view will allow administrators to easily identify trends of issues with specific monitored objects. |
| Violation Graph | Minotaur will show violation graphs in the form pie charts. This allows the administrator to easily see how each monitored object is performing in relation to its counterparts. |
| Violation Trend | Minotaur will show you the trend of violations per monitored object. This allows the administrator to easily identify violation trends. |
Monitoring Engine Capabilities
| Suspended Queues |
Monitors the suspended items queue per BizTalk application. Minotaur will notify the configured administrator or operator of the suspended item and will also include the suspended message as an attachment. |
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| BizTalk Orchestrations |
Monitors BizTalk Orchestrations to ensure they are in the 'started' state. If configured as such, Minotaur can restart a stopped orchestration. |
| BizTalk Receive Locations | Monitors BizTalk Receive Locations to ensure they are in the 'enabled' state. If configured as such, Minotaur can re-enable a disabled BizTalk Receive Location. |
| BizTalk Send Ports | Monitors BizTalk Send Ports to ensure they are in the 'enabled' state. If configured as such, Minotaur can re-enable a disabled BizTalk Send Port. |
| Activity Monitoring | Monitors Orchestrations, Receive and Send Ports for messaging activity. Thresholds can be set on length of inactivity and message processing durations. |
| Host Instances / Services | Monitors Host Instances to ensure they are in a 'started' state. If configured as such Minotaur can restart services that have stopped. Minotaur can also be configured to restart services based on a schedule. |
| Database Read | Monitors databases to ensure that they accept queries. Database availability is the core of a working BizTalk environment. Minotaur ensures that the databases are available and in a query-able state. |
| Database File Size | Monitors databases files to ensure they are within configured thresholds. One of the most common symptoms of an unhealthy BizTalk environment is unchecked database growth. |
| Database Locks | Monitors databases locks to ensure that deadlocks/long running locks don't impact application operation. Persistent database locks are indicative of problems with the BizTalk database server. |
| SQL Agent Jobs | Monitors the BizTalk SQL Agent Jobs to ensure they run successfully and regularly. Minotaur will monitor BizTalk's SQL Agent jobs to ensure they are enabled and that they run without problems. |
| Disk Space | Monitors server drive space on all servers hosting BizTalk Integration Solutions against configured thresholds. Drives running low on space are one of the most common problems causing unnecessary outages. |
| Performance Monitors | Monitors performance monitoring metrics on all servers hosting BizTalk Integration Solutions against configured thresholds. |
| Event Logs | Monitors event logs on all servers hosting BizTalk Integration Solutions for configured event log entries. |
| Servers | Monitors servers hosting the BizTalk solutions to ensure they are online and also to ensure the servers have memory available for proper application performance. |