One of the most important configurations to make inside a SAP Receive location is the “receiveTimeout” property. The documentation describes this property as:
“Specifies the WCF message receive timeout. Essentially, this means the maximum amount of time the adapter waits for an inbound message. The default is 10 minutes.
Important
For inbound operations such as receiving IDOCs, we recommend setting the timeout to the maximum possible value, which is 24.20:31:23.6470000 (24 days). When using the adapter with BizTalk Server, setting the timeout to a large value does not impact the functionality of the adapter.”
The default value(10 minutes), is too short of a period for BizTalk to stop listening for messages from SAP. For instance, if your organization has a weekly back up scheduled for SAP, it will likely take longer than 10 minutes. The documentation indicates that there is no impact to using a large number so I am not sure why the default is only 10 minutes.
Just to give a practical example of what you can expect when SAP goes down (either planned or unplanned) from a BizTalk perspective.
SAP going down
Event Type: Warning
Event Source: BizTalk Server 2009
Event Category: (1)
Event ID: 5740
Date: 3/13/2XXX
Time: 10:01:31 PM
User: N/A
Computer: SERVER
Description:
The adapter "WCF-Custom" raised an error message. Details "The WCF service host at address sap://CLIENT=XXX;LANG=EN;@a/SAPServer/00?ListenerGwServ=SAPGateWay00&ListenerGwHost=SAPServer&ListenerProgramId=IDOC&RfcSdkTrace=False&AbapDebug=False has faulted and as a result no more messages can be received on the corresponding receive location. To fix the issue, BizTalk Server will automatically attempt to restart the service host.".
For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Event Type: Warning
Event Source: BizTalk Server 2009
Event Category: (1)
Event ID: 5740
Date: 3/13/2XXX
Time: 10:01:31 PM
User: N/A
Computer: SERVER
Description:
The adapter "WCF-Custom" raised an error message. Details "Microsoft.Adapters.SAP.RFCException: Details: ErrorCode=RFC_FAILURE. AdapterErrorMessage=An exception has occurred on the listener while executing RfcWaitForRequest..
at Microsoft.ServiceModel.Channels.Common.Design.AdapterAsyncResult.End()
at Microsoft.ServiceModel.Channels.Common.Channels.AdapterReplyChannel.EndTryReceiveRequest(IAsyncResult result, RequestContext& requestContext)
at Microsoft.Adapters.Internal.LayeredChannelBindingElement.LayeredInboundChannel`1.System.ServiceModel.Channels.IReplyChannel.EndTryReceiveRequest(IAsyncResult result, RequestContext& context)
at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ReplyChannelBinder.EndTryReceive(IAsyncResult result, RequestContext& requestContext)
at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ErrorHandlingReceiver.EndTryReceive(IAsyncResult result, RequestContext& requestContext)".
For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Event Type: Warning
Event Source: BizTalk Server 2009
Event Category: (1)
Event ID: 5740
Date: 3/13/2XXX
Time: 10:01:32 PM
User: N/A
Computer: SERVER
Description:
The adapter "WCF-Custom" raised an error message. Details "The faulted WCF service host at address sap://CLIENT=XXX;LANG=EN;@a/SAPServer/00?ListenerGwServ=SAPGateWay00&ListenerGwHost=SAPServer&ListenerProgramId=IDOC&RfcSdkTrace=False&AbapDebug=False could not be restarted, and as a result no messages can be received on the corresponding receive location. BizTalk Server will continue trying to start the service host until it succeeds or the receive location is disabled.
To fix the problem, you may choose to:
1. Use the error information given to fix the problem.
2. Restart the receive location.
3. Keep waiting for BizTalk to recycle the service host. Another event will notify if the service host is successfully started.
SAP coming back up
Event Type: Information
Event Source: BizTalk Server 2009
Event Category: (1)
Event ID: 8112
Date: 3/13/2XXX
Time: 11:03:13 PM
User: N/A
Computer: SERVER
Description:
The WCF service host at address sap://CLIENT=XXX;LANG=EN;@a/SAPServer/00?ListenerGwServ=SAPGateWay00&ListenerGwHost=SAPServer&ListenerProgramId=IDOC&RfcSdkTrace=False&AbapDebug=False was successfully restarted, therefore the associated receive location can now receive messages.
For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
You are now able to receive messages from SAP without any intervention. Had we not set an appropriate ReceiveTimeout, the receive location would have still be down when SAP tried to push this IDoc to our system.
You never want your middleware to be the cause of an outage so it is important to understand when your dependant servers/services have scheduled maintenance so that you can ensure that your application can sustain this downtime. Configuring the ReceiveTimeout to an appropriate value will reduce the chance that BizTalk will be down due to someone else's maintenance window.
