I have read a few recent posts below but I have been unable to find a clear answer - there are so many guides and articles on multi-box installation and they do not all say the same thing! I am planning to install a new BTS2006 R2 platform. There will be four BizTalk Server machines. The databases will live on a SQL Cluster which is newly installed and running OK. The cluster is active/active which is not ideal but I have no control over this - my client wants it that way for a number of reasons. I plan to install the Master Secret Server on to one of the SQL nodes. I have done a number of BTS2006 single-box installs without any problem. Can someone point me to one document / article that will guide me through the installation. I assume that I just need to get one BizTalk Server working and then I can add the others. The "official guide" for multiple machines just confuses the issue.
Well, yes you're mostly correct. You'll want to get one box working and then add the others. Be sure you cluster SSO if needed (it may not be really). Part of why it is so complex is because the factors that need to be considered, like which host instances to put on which machines and stuff. I've successfully, many times, just installed to one machine basically (important, remember database goes on cluster) and then added the others later to the exist BizTalk group. Works great. Once you have the first and the ESSO configured properly it should be a cakewalk. Cheers, -Dan Rosanova
