Behavioral Biztalk Helper Class Interview Questions & Answers:

1. Do you know what is atomic Transaction?

It follows full ACID properties Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation and Durability. If you require full ACID properties on the data-for example, when the data must be isolated from other transactions-you must use atomic transactions exclusively.

When an atomic transaction fails, all states are reset as if the orchestration instance never entered the scope.

2. Do you know what is Gacutil.exe?

The Global Assembly Cache tool allows you to view and manipulate the contents of the global assembly cache and download cache.

3. Explain me what is long running transaction?

Long running transaction support CD properties of ACID. It is not practical to lock transaction for a long time. This transaction can run indefinitely and can be dehydrated also.

4. Explain me what does property "copy local" indicates?

"Copy Local" property indicates whether the assembly referenced should be copied into the local bin directory when a project is built.

5. Tell me how helper class or .net assembly is added to GAC?

With the use of gacutil.exe and following command:

gacutil /i assemblypath

6. Tell me what is Dehydration?

When an orchestration has been idle for a while, the orchestration engine will save the state information of the instance and free up memory resources.

7. Explain me can an envelope schema consist of more than one schema type?

Yes. XML envelopes serve two purposes within XML instance messages sent and received by Microsoft BizTalk Server:

XML envelopes can contain data that supplements the data within the XMLdocuments. This data can be promoted into the message context by the XML disassembler to provide easier access from a variety of BizTalk Server components. For outbound XML instance messages, the XML assembler can demote values from the message context into an envelope for inclusion in the instance message transmission.

XML envelopes can be used to combine multiple XML documents into a single, valid XML instance message. Without an envelope to wrap multiple documents within a single root tag, an XML instance message containing multiple documentswould not qualify as well-formed XML.

8. Tell me is helper class deployed like BizTalk application?

No, it is added to GAC on the machine where it is used.

9. Explain me what is the difference between a Distinguished field and a Promoted Property?

Distinguished fields are light weight and can only be used inside an Orchestration.

Promoted Properties are defined inside a property schema, are tracking in SQL, can be tracked in HAT, and can be used for content based routing.

10. Do you know what is correlation?

An Orchestration can have more than one instance running simultaneously. Even though each of those multiple instances perform the same action, it does it on different data contained within a message. Correlation is a process of associating an incoming message with the appropriate instance of an orchestration.

For Example: If your orchestration issues a purchase order, receives an invoice, and sends a payment, the developer must make certain that the invoice message is received by the orchestration instance which corresponds to the orchestration that sent the Purchase Order. Without correlation, it would be possible to send out an invoice for thousands of items even though the purchase order is for one.