Professional BizTalk® Server 2006

11.9. SQL Server — From a BizTalk Perspective

BizTalk servers are essentially stateless. The SQL Server databases store all BizTalk's configuration, tracking, and processing information that they require for normal operation. Of these, the MessageBox is the heart of BizTalk. If it is not performing quickly and efficiently, neither will BizTalk. This section covers the things about SQL Server that all BizTalk developers and administrators should be aware of. This includes a high-level overview of the MessageBox structure, how SQL Server Agent maintains the database, and the BizTalk backup and restoration process. There are entire books written on administering and maintaining SQL Server; therefore, we will cover only the BizTalk-specific piece here. We will begin by describing the structure of the MessageBox.

11.9.1.

11.9.1.1. How Messages Are Stored in the MessageBox

The MessageBox is a huge database that is essentially BizTalk's storage engine during processing. The most important point to make is that no changes whatsoever are supported to the MessageBox. You can look at the things we highlight in this section, but you must under no circumstances make any changes, as this may break something that BizTalk relies on. In this section, we are primarily focused on understanding how the physical messages themselves are stored in the MessageBox database.

All physical messages within BizTalk are stored across four tables in the MessageBox database: Spool, MessageParts, Parts, and ...