SOA with .NET and Windows Azure: WCF Extensions - WCF Router (part 1) - The RoutingService Class & Routing Contracts

Decoupling services from service consumers has several benefits, including the ability to independently leverage non-functional features, such as message-logging, security logic, fault tolerance, and various forms of routing processing.

Although building a router service was possible with .NET 3.5, version 4.0 of the .NET framework provides the WCF Router, an intermediary that can be configured as a service or service agent to receive and forward messages to target services based on various factors.

The WCF Router can be configured as an active or passive intermediary. An active WCF routing service can provide a range of runtime processing, such as security, message encoding, reliable sessions, and protocol compatibility. As a passive intermediary (meaning the router logic can alter policies and protocols, but not message structure or content), it can perform various forms of runtime routing logic, such as content-based routing, rules-based routing, and load-balancing.

The RoutingService Class

The WCF Router is equipped with a built-in filtering mechanism that allows you to specify the criteria used to dynamically determine message paths. For example, a message may need to be routed based on action, an XPath query, or its actual content.

WCF provides the System.ServiceModel.RoutingService class, and as with any other WCF service, the routing service can be hosted in IIS/WAS or it can be self-hosted in a Windows application or a Windows service.

The following example shows the contents of a .svc file with directives for hosting RoutingService in IIS:

Example 1.

<%
  @ServiceHost
  Service="System.ServiceModel.Routing.RoutingService,
    System.ServiceModel.Routing,
      version=4.0.0.0,
      Culture=neutral,
    PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"
%>

This next example shows RoutingService in a self-hosted environment:

Example 2.

using (ServiceHost serviceHost =
  new ServiceHost(typeof(RoutingService)))
{
  try
  {
    serviceHost.Open();
    Console.WriteLine
      ("Routing service running. Press <Enter> to exit");
    Console.ReadLine();
    serviceHost.Close();
  }
  catch(CommunicationException)
  {
    serviceHost.Abort();
  }
}

Routing Contracts

The RoutingService class supports the routing of messages that are part of synchronous (request-response) data exchanges as well as asynchronous and request-response exchanges over duplex protocols. The router can also multicast these two message exchange types.

The generic routing contracts available in the System.ServiceModel.Routing namespace to configure the router are listed in Table 1.

Each of these routing contracts supports a different set of message exchange patterns and channel properties. Consequently, you may have to set up different routing endpoints for a service contract if your contract’s operations are designed with different message exchange or transaction requirements.