We are planning to host BizTalk server on windows cluster for ensuring high availability for FTP and POP3. Can we host the master secret server on the cluster on BizTalk application server rather than Sqlserver cluster? Concern I have this approach both enterprise single sign and master secret service both are same service Entsso.exe, is there any issue.  Please advice.

The best candidate servers on which you can cluster the Master Secret Server is the SQL Server cluster where BizTalk is installed because you can reuse this cluster for this low weight service.

If you have not clustered the Master Secret Server there is no high availability in the BizTalk environment, in this cases the first machine you have installed is the Master Secret Server and if it becomes unavailable the whole BizTalk environment will not work since it depends on the Master Secret server to read configuration from the SSO database.

 Thanks

Abhishek

Yes you can. Cluster if ONLY from the standpoint of HA. Since for most deployments, the SQL backend is clustered, Microsoft made special provisions in their license to permit ONLY the SSO deployment on a SQL cluster without incurring additional licensing cost.

In your case you have a valid BizTalk Server (licensed) cluster so of course you can deploy the SSO Master on this in a clustered configuration.

Regards.

• Proposed as answer by Naushad.AlamModerator Wednesday, July 16, 2014 9:08 AM

Yes you can. Cluster if ONLY from the standpoint of HA. Since for most deployments, the SQL backend is clustered, Microsoft made special provisions in their license to permit ONLY the SSO deployment on a SQL cluster without incurring additional licensing cost.

In your case you have a valid BizTalk Server (licensed) cluster so of course you can deploy the SSO Master on this in a clustered configuration.

Regards.

• Proposed as answer by Naushad.AlamModerator Wednesday, July 16, 2014 9:08 AM

Yes you can. Cluster if ONLY from the standpoint of HA. Since for most deployments, the SQL backend is clustered, Microsoft made special provisions in their license to permit ONLY the SSO deployment on a SQL cluster without incurring additional licensing cost.

In your case you have a valid BizTalk Server (licensed) cluster so of course you can deploy the SSO Master on this in a clustered configuration.

Regards.

• Proposed as answer by Naushad.AlamModerator Wednesday, July 16, 2014 9:08 AM

Hold on!  The answer to you question is NO.

There's a very important point missing above. If you are going to cluster SSO with BizTalk Hosts, them you must cluster all BizTalk resources in the same cluster group.

You cannot have clustered and non-clustered BizTalk hosts with SSO also in the Cluster. This is because if the Cluster fails over, the SSO Service on the failed host will be stopped. BizTalk Host Instances require a local SSO instance.

You should cluster the Master Secret Server with SQL Server.  Why do you want to do it differently?

• Marked as answer by PraveenKumarMP 1 hour 29 minutes ago

Hold on!  The answer to you question is NO.

There's a very important point missing above. If you are going to cluster SSO with BizTalk Hosts, them you must cluster all BizTalk resources in the same cluster group.

You cannot have clustered and non-clustered BizTalk hosts with SSO also in the Cluster. This is because if the Cluster fails over, the SSO Service on the failed host will be stopped. BizTalk Host Instances require a local SSO instance.

You should cluster the Master Secret Server with SQL Server.  Why do you want to do it differently?

• Marked as answer by PraveenKumarMP Tuesday, May 12, 2015 5:34 AM

Hold on!  The answer to you question is NO.

There's a very important point missing above. If you are going to cluster SSO with BizTalk Hosts, them you must cluster all BizTalk resources in the same cluster group.

You cannot have clustered and non-clustered BizTalk hosts with SSO also in the Cluster. This is because if the Cluster fails over, the SSO Service on the failed host will be stopped. BizTalk Host Instances require a local SSO instance.

You should cluster the Master Secret Server with SQL Server.  Why do you want to do it differently?

• Marked as answer by PraveenKumarMP Tuesday, May 12, 2015 5:34 AM

Hold on!  The answer to you question is NO.

There's a very important point missing above. If you are going to cluster SSO with BizTalk Hosts, them you must cluster all BizTalk resources in the same cluster group.

You cannot have clustered and non-clustered BizTalk hosts with SSO also in the Cluster. This is because if the Cluster fails over, the SSO Service on the failed host will be stopped. BizTalk Host Instances require a local SSO instance.

You should cluster the Master Secret Server with SQL Server.  Why do you want to do it differently?

• Marked as answer by PraveenKumarMP Tuesday, May 12, 2015 5:34 AM

Thanks.

Currently we have SSO on Sql Cluster. We plan to cluster the BizTalk App server to provide high availability for FTP and POP3 receive. New design has a failover cluster available within the BizTalk application server, I was thinking of possibility of moving Master secret server from SqlClsuter to BizTalk App cluster. 

From what you have advised this is not possible.

Also with clustered BizTalk app server its recommended to add MSDTC as a clustered  resource. Any thoughts on this.

Yes, you would add an instance of MSDTC to the Cluster group, but you would still have the local DTC as well.  This is new in Windows Server 2008: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc730992(WS.10).aspx

• Marked as answer by Pengzhen SongMicrosoft contingent staff, Moderator Tuesday, July 22, 2014 5:52 AM

Yes, you would add an instance of MSDTC to the Cluster group, but you would still have the local DTC as well.  This is new in Windows Server 2008: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc730992(WS.10).aspx

• Marked as answer by Pengzhen SongMicrosoft contingent staff, Moderator Tuesday, July 22, 2014 5:52 AM

Yes, you would add an instance of MSDTC to the Cluster group, but you would still have the local DTC as well.  This is new in Windows Server 2008: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc730992(WS.10).aspx

• Marked as answer by Pengzhen SongMicrosoft contingent staff, Moderator Tuesday, July 22, 2014 5:52 AM

Hi 

Did you check How to Cluster SSO and a BizTalk Host in the Same Cluster Group article ?

Thanks for that important pointer which makes the BizTalk server active-passive if SSO is clustered in the application server cluster.