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Microsoft Supply Chain team is monitoring 16 BizTalk Server groups that handle over 250 million messages per month via BizTalk 360
Technology Category
- Functional Applications - Remote Monitoring & Control Systems
- Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics
- Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Connectivity Platforms
Applicable Industries
- Software
- Consumer Goods
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
- Quality Assurance
Use Cases
- Remote Asset Management
- Predictive Maintenance
- Process Control & Optimization
- Supply Chain Visibility
Services
- System Integration
- Software Design & Engineering Services
The Challenge
To deliver smooth operations and cater to the demand generated by retailers, manufacturers, and online customers, SCBT group built a Hybrid integration solution that leverages BizTalk Server and Azure Services to manage high volume global transactions. Because of the growing demand and the complexity of the integration solution, SCBT team faced the need to make sure every transaction is monitored and the system processes these transactions fluently. The SCBT hybrid integration solution, running on top of Microsoft BizTalk Server is one of the most complex integration solutions in the world. This solution manages all of Microsoft’s worldwide, physical manufacturing and supply chain operations. To maintain high availability of the integration solution, SCBT team maintains 16 different BizTalk Server Groups. Each BizTalk Server Group with its own BizTalk and SQL Servers is responsible for discrete activities that can work independently and in tandem. The SCBT integration solution processes over 30 million B2B transactions (including multiple message formats like X12, EDIFACT, XML, SWIFT) per month with 2000+ partners spanning across all business domains. Message sizes range from 5 KB to 40 MB, and the data growth is at a rate of 6 TB per month. As the number of retailers, manufacturers, and customers increase, the need for centralized monitoring solution has increased too.
About The Customer
The Supply Chain Business Technologies (SCBT) is Microsoft’s Global Supply Chain Management group. All Microsoft products like Surface, Xbox, and other hardware and software that is sold in the market through different channels like retail outlets, online stores, etc., relies heavily on SCBT team. SCBT team operates out of 6 centres across 5 countries. With 5 Tier 1 manufacturing partners, 15 supply chain partners, and over 750 suppliers, the SCBT caters to about 50000 retail outlets and 300 retail partners over 60 countries.
The Solution
The SCBT team chose Microsoft’s System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) and additionally built internal home grown monitoring tools to address their operational and monitoring requirements for their BizTalk environments. However, SCOM introduced challenges like maintaining a complex monitoring platform and requiring specialized skillsets. The SCBT team faced difficulties in receiving BizTalk specific notifications and spent more time managing SCOM. To address these challenges, SCBT team decided to go ahead with BizTalk360 to monitor their integration solution. BizTalk360 provided centralized monitoring for artifact monitoring, data monitoring, intentionally stopped artifacts, clear actionable alerts with dashboard functionality, and auto healing features. With 16 BizTalk server groups in place, it was crucial for the SCBT service operation team to keep track and send regular status updates of the BizTalk server groups to the leadership team. BizTalk360 eliminated manual hours of effort by providing a centralized portal for monitoring all hubs. Specific features like Data Monitoring capability, developed in association with Microsoft, helped the SCBT team to monitor for non-events and get notified in case of any failures in the message transmission. The Auto Healing capability of BizTalk360 allowed most issues to be fixed even before they were realized.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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