Introduction In the first article of the series we discussed how to exchange messages with an orchestration via a two-way WCF Receive Location using the Duplex Message Exchange Pattern . This form of bi-directional communication is characterized by the ability of both the service and the client to send...

This blog reviews the current (January 2011) set of optio ns available for hosting existing .NET4 Workflow (WF) programs in Windows Azure and also provides a roadmap to the upcoming features that will further enhance support for hosting and monitoring the Workflow programs. The code snippets included...

Introduction In the first article of the series we discussed how to exchange messages with an orchestration via a two-way WCF Receive Location using the Duplex Message Exchange Pattern . This form of bi-directional communication is characterized by the ability of both the service and the client to send...

This blog entry is a sequel to the October 30th Blog “ Securing WCF Services hosted in Windows Server AppFabric with Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) ” where we demonstrated how to use WIF to secure Services hosted in AppFabric. And in this blog post we extend the same scenario to demonstrate...

  The following is a good place to get started with how to go about collecting basic information for monitoring and/or troubleshooting an App Fabric (AF) cache setup (Host/Cluster and clients). It starts by pointing to some resources on the different available logging features and then, via a sample...

At this year’s SQL PASS summit , I had the opportunity to talk with customers about App Fabric Cache and in preparation for the event, I put a demo to show some of the characteristics of the available APIs. The following is an explanation on how to setup the demo, what to expect when running it...

Abstract (updated version) Technical and commercial forces are causing Enterprise Architects to evaluate moving established on-premises applications into the cloud – the Microsoft Windows Azure Platform. This blog post will demonstrate that there are established application architectural patterns that...

Introduction Some time ago, I was asked by a customer whether or not BizTalk WCF Adapters support the Duplex Message Exchange Pattern. The latter is characterized by the ability of both the service and the client to send messages to each other independently either using one-way or request/reply messaging...

  In the middle tier AppFabric (AF) Caching can be setup in High Availability (HA) mode which is the feature that improves resiliency in the case a cache server goes down and for the backed, when using SQL for your configuration database, the simplest answer is to use mirroring. You may use SQL...

A key challenge while designing and deploying Web Services is access control and this blog post is the first in a two part series focused on leveraging Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) to secure Services hosted in Windows Server AppFabric. In this first blog post we focus on securing both WCF and Workflow...

I always have a sense of satisfaction when I find out that there is less tweaking or tuning needed to make my applications perform as expected under high throughput workloads (or that the tweaking is easier to do).  I had this sense of satisfaction just this week with some new insights on WCF 4...

T4 background Leveraging the power of Text Template Transformation Toolkit (T4 template) to generate code (or any other type of text) is a great time saver and it is particularly useful when working with Entity Framework (EF) since it allows to easily (almost in a batch like fashion) do things like...

There is tremendous interest in versioning .NET4 Workflows. This blog post provides guidance on common scenarios that can be supported. Background Workflow versioning is required by a change in a business process that causes a modifications in the implementation of a .NET4 Workflow Service and...

W e have new premium content for AppFabric server. This sample and the document are just what customers need to start using AppFabric Server to manage a .NET4 WCF Workflow service. Customers have been asking about versioning and security , and those are two features of the sample. The sample is released...

Simplifying publishing of the Workflow definitions Typically Business Analysts (IT Pro) own the process of creating Workflow definitions while publishing this definition, particularly to production environments, is relegated to IT/Production Systems Staff. While this approach is acceptable in many...

As shown in the previous precompiled view blog ( Isolating Performance with Precompiled/Pre-generated Views in the Entity Framework 4 ), views can significantly improve performance in various scenarios such as first-run; memory usage; and execution of one-off queries. However, the creation of views for...

When calling a query multiple times with Entity Framework the recommended approach is to use compiled LINQ queries. Compiling a query results in a performance hit the first time you use the query but subsequent calls execute much faster. The CompiledQuery class has functionality to compile and assist...

A previous post discussed potential issues with Compiled Query recompiles. The cause of the recompile issues were actually uncovered by using the Visual Studio 2010 Profiler . This blog will cover how the Profiler can be used to discover performance issues in the Entity Framework. The sample code from...

Check out the Epicor Case Study that was recently published by one of our partners. Epicor is a global software company that creates enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for manufacturing firms and other customers. They have been able to leverage Visual Studio 2010 and ADO.NET Entity Framework...

Introduction Working with customer’s solutions, we often have to track down potential performance issues or uncover areas for improvement. One of the techniques is to try and measure the relative performance gained using the different configurations or features (likely in a staging/testing environment...

A common problem IT support teams (especially multi location enterprises) have to grapple with is providing debugging assistance to IT Admin and Junior Developers at remote locations. Compounding the problem is restricted access to the machine due to logistical or security considerations. Packaging the...

Calling a .NET4 WCF/Workflow Service hosted in AppFabric from a .NET3.5 Workflow hosted in SharePoint Introduction The following blog put together by our team goes into some details of demonstrating interoperability between SharePoint Server 2010 (Beta1) and Windows Server AppFabric (Beta1). As...