Microsoft.Biztalk.explorerom.dll reference in asp.net application resulting system.nullreferenceexception

Question

Hi,

I have a asp.net application in order to start/stop applications and ports of Biztalk server 2006 r2. I have used "Microsoft.Biztalk.explorerom.dll (C:/Program Files/Biztalk Server 2006/Developer tool) " to achieve this. This is working fine on development machine since biz talk server is installed on local machine. But in the production environment (asp.net web server ,windows 2003 and iis 6.0)...this give System.nullreferenceexception (object reference not set..) at

BtsCatalogExplorer explorer = (BtsCatalogExplorer)myGroup.CreateInstance(typeof(BtsCatalogExplorer))

my biztalk server and sql server are on two different box. In my setup (asp.net web application)..adding Microsoft.Biztalk.explorerom.dll and Microsoft.Biztalk.Applicationdeployment.engine.dll to GAC. But still no luck.

Do i need to install biz talk server on my local machine even though I am connecting to different biz talk server??

And help is appreciated...

Answer 1

Hi,

I'm afraid i'll have to answer with "yes, if you want to use the BTSCatalogExplorer you have to have BizTalk installed". I'm pretty sure this is true for the BT 2006 and earlier releases. Only install is needed. It doesn't have to be an active member running anything (i.o.w. no host instances), just part of the group.

I also know that BT 2009 came with a new "build tool". This allows you to build BT projects without having BT installed. Maybe that allows remote communication to the BT management DB too (through the BTSCatalogExplorer) but i haven't looked into or tried this.

Hope this helpsps;Yes, WebFarms and BT is an expensive option. Advise; make a passthrough service from the outside all passing it on to the machine which has BT installed. Saves a lot of licenses (but might be a bottleneck for performance)

Hope this helps,

Answer 2

Totaly valid question i posed to Microsoft as well. Bottom line, its a licensing issue. You must have a license of BT to use the object model for it.

I never tried to get a 'libraries only' version to work. I just opted for the pass-through web-service.

Just to follow up on your current idea/progress; You might want to check the dependency chain of the main BTSExplorerOM.dll to see if there's any reference you missed. I´m pretty sure its using more than 2 assemblies in total.

BT uses a lot of different directories to store its assembly (Pipeline components are loaded from a sub directory of BT, instead of GAC for instance).

Can you get any more details out of the "NullReferenceException" you are receiving? Like which object/library is causing it. You could try to use the FUSLOGVW.exe to see if all fusion of assemblies is successfull and take it from there.

Hope this helps,