“You are making my point!”

When configuring Windows Clustered BizTalk host, one very important resource that needs to be clustered as a prerequisite is the Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator, or MSDTC. Here are a few links to help troubleshooting MSDTC.

Troubleshooting Problems with MSDTC

Troubleshooting MSDTC with DTCPing

How to use DTCTester Tool

One of the most common errors that I have seen can be linked to the proliferation of virtual machine technology. People simply copy the virtual hard disk (vhd) file containing the base Windows OS, boot it up, and then install BizTalk server on it. Well, the problem is that the System security identifier (SID) created by Windows OS in this case is also simply replicated in this case. And this ID happens to be the token MSDTC uses to identify cluster nodes. With these numbers replicated across the cluster nodes, MSDTC will get confused and your distributed transactions will stop working.

Hence, it is very important to remember using the SysPrep tool to reseal your Windows OS images before installing any software. Using NewSID utility to regenerate new SID after the fact may work but it requires you reinstalling MSDTC. In my opinion it is best to do SysPrep prior to installing anything to ensure that your new OS is truly unique. This could prevent a lot of head-scratching at 3 o’clock in the morning. J