Is that possible (using behavior and IClientMessageInspector.BeforeSendRequest) to change the comunication channel before send a message ?
I need to change this, because i have a backup/primary strategy for my proxy.
Based on your comment, it sounds like you want to be able to switch service endpoints in mid-call if the primary service is offline. I don't think there's any way to do that - at least not elegantly.
Once a communication channel is established, it's pretty much set until it is closed (or aborted). There's no way to switch it from one endpoint to a different (backup) endpoint - you couldn't even do it by creating a new channel because the proxy would still be using the primary endpoint.
Based on my understanding of WCF, about the closest you could come would be for the client to detect that the primary service was not responding (most likely through a timeout), and then it could switch to a proxy configured for the secondary/backup service.
Now, you might be able to, within IClientMessageInspector.BeforeSendRequest do some checking to see if the service is responsive, and if it does not response try to generate a new proxy with the backup service endpoint and send the message there...BUT I don't know if that would work, and even if it did it strikes me as a bit of a kludge.
Simplest solution is that the client simply switches to the alternate service endpoint if the primary endpoint is down, IMO.
Old thread, but for future reference.
I think WCF Routing (.NET4) is what you are looking for, namespace "System.ServiceModel.Routing.RoutingService". Search for "High Availability" on this page, Practical Messaging Scenarios with WCF 4, for an example.
From 1: "The back up list indicates to the Routing Service that if the primary endpoint, OneWayService1 is not available (i.e., it fails to respond), the Routing Service should try each subsequent endpoint beginning with OneWayService2 and ending with OneWayService4 until a service responds."
Related
I want to add server-side retry behavior if something specific happens during operation.
Custom IOperationInvoker looks like a good candidate for this functionality, but...
Unfortunately instance on which operation should be performed is already created/resolved, so to correctly implement retry logic everyone should write stateless service implementations which is quite limiting, sometimes it's nice to have InstanceContextMode.PerCall mode and state which lives only during request lifetime.
Is there any place or possibility to force WCF to re-create/resolve service and invoke operation again?
Not so easy to imlement retry logic on your own. You will have to deal with a number of issues like those:
What if all attempts failed?
Should there be an interval between attempts?
What if you server is down between the first and second attempt?
etc.
Fortunately there is an out of the box solution which already does everything for you. Take a look at the MSMQ WCF binding.
It will put you contract object to the dead letter queue if you wish, so you can easyly keep track of such messages and even force to process them again.
You can set an interval between the attempts. So if you server is down for 10 minutes not all attempts are shot.
You can configure it to be durable. It will store the messages on disk, So when your server is back it will try to process the message again.
Etc. Take a look at the MSMQ binding you will find a lot of useful features.
Here's a good article about the queuing in WCF
So in the long run your design will be something like that:
Client Call -> MSMQ -> Service
Please note you don't have to make any changes to the code you have now at all, you just change the binding configuration and set up MSMQ which is fairly easy.
Just in case you can't use msmq binding directly with you client, you can always go with an special server side service which just puts the messages to the queue. So the design will be:
Client service -> HTTP -> QueueService (one method which puts messages to a queue) -> MSMQ -> ProcessService
Hope it helps!
I have a question with regards to WCF client channel lifetime while using Message security, but first, a few notes on my company's setup and guidelines:
Our client-server applications are solely for intranet use
Our clients are WPF applications
Our company's guidelines for WCF usage are:
Use wsHttpBinding
Use Message Security
Service InstanceMode: PerCall
Service ConcurrencyMode: Multiple
It is the first time I have to use message security on an intranet setup. Here's how I typically use my client channels to limit the amount of resources kept on the client and server and literally just to keep things simple:
Instantiate + open channel (with ChannelFactory)
Make the WCF call
Close / dispose the channel asap
While monitoring this strategy with Fiddler 2, I noticed that because of Message Security, a single WCF call ended up causing 5 round-trips to my service:
3 initial round-trips for handshaking
1 round-trip for the actual WCF call
1 call to close the session (since I am using PerCall, I am assuming this is more a security session at the IIS level)
If I were to turn off Message Security, as one would expect, one WCF ended up being... A single round-trip.
As of now, I must use Message Security because that's our guideline. With this in mind and knowing that we make hundreds of WCF calls from each client WPF app a session, would you therefore advise to open the client channel and keep it open for re-use instead of disposing of it every time?
I would advise not to preemptively turn off features until you know they are a known problem. Preoptimization is needless work. Until you notice your clients having lagging problems, I would not worry about the message security. At that point, try a few things: one of your approaches of keeping a client open longer; two, try grouping requests together without turning off message security; three, consider caching, if you can; four, if the message security is the final culprit, then try a different method. I wouldn't just turn something off because I see a bit more network traffic until I knew it was the absolute last thing that I could do to improve performance.
I have asp.net site where I call my WCF service using jQuery.
Sometimes the WCF service must have an ability to ask user with confirmation smth and depend on user choice either continue or cancel working
does callback help me here?
or any other idea appreciated!
Callback contracts won't work in this scenario, since they're mostly for duplex communication, and there's no duplex on WebHttpBinding (there's a solution for a polling duplex scenario in Silverlight, and I've seen one implementation in javascript which uses it, but that's likely way too complex for your scenario).
What you can do is to split the operation in two. The first one would "start" the operation and return an identifier and some additional information to tell the client whether the operation will be just completed, or whether additional information is needed. In the former case, the client can then call the second operation, passing the identifier to get the result. In the second one, the client would again make the call, but passing the additional information required for the operation to complete (or to be cancelled).
Your architecture is wrong. Why:
Service cannot callback client's browser. Real callback over HTTP works like reverse communication - client is hosting service called by the client. Client in your case is browser - how do you want to host service in the browser? How do you want to open port for incoming communication from the browser? Solutions using "callback like" functionality are based on pooling the service. You can use JavaScript timer and implement your own pooling mechanism.
Client browser cannot initiate distributed transaction so you cannot start transaction on the client. You cannot also use server side transaction over multiple operations because it requires per-session instancing which in turn requires sessinoful channel.
WCF JSON/REST services don't support HTTP callback (duplex communication).
WCF JSON/REST services don't build pooling solution for you - you must do it yourselves
WCF JSON/REST services don't support distributed transactions
WCF JSON/REST services don't support sessionful channels / server side sessions
That was technical aspect of your solution.
Your solution looks more like scenario for the Workflow service where you start the workflow and it runs till some point where it waits for the user input. Until the input is provided the workflow can be persisted to the database so generally user can provide the input several days later. When the input is provided the service can continue. Starting the service and providing each needed input is modelled as separate operation called from the client. This is not usual scenario for something called from JavaScript but it should be possible because you can write custom WebHttpContextBinding to support workflows. It will still not achieve the situation where user will be automatically asked for something - that is your responsibility to find when the popup should appear and handle it.
If you leave standard WCF world you can check solutions like COMET which provides AJAX push/callback.
I have a self hosted WCF 4.0 service with an HTTPS endpoint. I have method that writes some trace info after the message comes in. However, some messages are 400k in size, so there is a long wait conceivably between when WCF has it and my console app has it. How can I get a hook or interception layer in there so I can at least know when a message is first coming in?
I think there is a WCF Performance Counter related to this, so there must be some way to know...
Thanks for all ideas!
This is not the same as Detect WCF client open channel operation , this is about knowing when the HTTP traffic first comes in. Maybe its not that I need to monitor things on my WCF service, maybe I need to monitor some other WCF layer that is intercepting HTTP. Can anyone say?
What about making a custom MessageEncoder that simply wraps the default implementation, but overrides ReadMessage() and logs some information before calling the wrapped implementation (which creates a Message instance)? At this stage the full message isn't even fully streamed over the wire, hence it's a very early point of the processing pipeline. Obviously, however, you don't know anything about the message yet. But if you want to get a timestamp, that might be a convenient place to get it.
One option is implement the IDispatchMessageInspector interface for your service with your message size checking code in the AfterReceiveRequest method override. Your code should look something like the code in this blog post.
I'm contemplating a project where I'll be required to make use of what is variously called the "asynchronous" mode, or the "duplex" mode, or the "callback" mode of SOAP webservice. In this mode, the caller of the service provides in the SOAP header a "reply-to" address, and the service, instead of returning the output of the call in the HTTP response, creates a separate HTTP connection to this "reply-to" address and posts the response message to it. This is normally achieved in WCF using a CompositeDuplexBinding, like so:
<binding name="async_http_text">
<compositeDuplex clientBaseAddress="http://192.168.10.123:1234/async" />
<oneWay />
<textMessageEncoding messageVersion="Soap12WSAddressing10" />
<httpTransport useDefaultWebProxy="false" />
</binding>
This results in not one, but two HTTP connections per call: one from the client to the service, and then one from the service back to the client. From the point of view of the service implementation, nothing changes, you have a method that implements the interface method, and you take in the request and return the response. Fantastic, this is what I need, almost.
In my situation, the request and response can be separated by anything from minutes to days. I need a way to decouple the request and the response, and "store" the state (message, response URI, whatever) until I have enough information to respond at a later time (or even never, under certain circumstances).
I'm not terribly excited about having my methods essentially "paused" for up to days at a time, along with the required silly timeout values (if they're even accepted as valid), but I don't know how to go about putting a system like this together.
In order to be completely clear, I'm implementing a set of standards provided by a standards body, so I do not have flexibility to change SOAP message semantics or alter protocol implementations. This sort of interaction is exactly what was intended when the ReplyTo header was implemented in WS-Addressing.
How would you do it? Perhaps Workflow Foundation enables this sort of thing?
In such case don't use HTTP duplex communication as defined in WCF. It will simply not work because it is dependent on some other prerequisities - session, service instance living on the server, etc. It all adds a lot of problems with timeouts.
What you need is bi-directional communication based on fact that service exposes one way service and client exposes one way service as well (services can be two-way to support some kind of delivery notification). You will pass client's address in the first request as well as some correlation Id to differ multiple requests passed from the same client. You will call client service when the request is completed. Yes, you will have to manage all the stuff by yourselves.
If you are in intranet environment and your clients will be Windows based you can even think about changing your transport protocol to MSMQ because it has built-in support for all these requirements.
Edit:
I checked your updated question and you would call your communication pattern as Soap Messaging. I have never did it with WCF but it should be possible. You need to expose service on both sides of the communication - you can build your service to exactly follow needed contracts. When your service receives call you can use OperationContext.Current.IncommingMessageHeaders to access WS-Addressing information. You can store this information and use them later if you need them. The problem is that these information will not contain what you need. You have to fill them first on the client. This is generally possible by using OperationContextScope and filling OperationContext.Current.OutgoingMessageHeaders. What I'm affraid is that WCF can be "to clever" and override your changes to outgoing WS-Addressing information. I will probably try it myself during weekend.
It turns out the Windows Workflow Foundation (v4) does indeed facilitate this sort of message exchange.
Because WF allows you to decouple the request and response, and do basically whatever you want in the middle, including persist the workflow, idle it, and go outside and cut the grass, you get this capability "for free". Information can be found at these URLs:
Durable Duplex (MSDN)
Workflow 4 Services and duplex communications