BizTalk File Backup

Business or system constraints may force you to leverage BizTalk for File backups.  BizTalk can actually handle this pretty well if it’s planned out carefully.

Here is a diagram of the overall design:

One way to implement this is to set up a receive port and location to poll the original drop location of the files.  This receive location will be set up as PassThruReceive where no disassembling of the message will occur (actually there are no pipeline components for PassThru).

Next, create two new Send PassThru ports that subscribes to that receive port using Filters.  The first Send port will send the message to a backup folder.  The second port sends the message to a new file receive location that will be polled for incoming messages for processing.

Use the follow configurations for the Send PassThru for backup files.  Use the macro %datetime% and %SourceFileName% for the backup directory file names.  The %SourceFileName% retains the original file name including the extension.  Remember that macros are case sensitive.

The second send port will send the file to the new file drop location.  Your receive ports for processing will poll this new location.  Use only %SourceFileName% macro to cary over the original file name.

Set both of these ports up by changing the Send pipeline to PassThruTransmit.  Messages that are processed via BizTalk have context properties even though it’s PassThru.  Use one of the context properties in in the Filter property: BTS.ReceivePortName == ‘FileReceive’ (name should match rcv port above).  Now, every message that arrives from our receive port will be copied to the backup file directory and the new incoming file drop directory.

The last step is to set up a receive port that polls the new file drop location.