How should I handle queuing wcf messages?

Question

I am implementing a WCF service based on a 3rd party WSDL. Rather than process the messages synchronously, I want to dump the xml into a database, and have it processed by another part process. Is using the WCF Message class directly the right way to go ab out this? Or should I just let WCF deserialize the message and the re-serialize so I can put it in the database?

To clarify, I can't use the WCF MSMQ binding because the 3rd party has dictated this will be a soap web service. I just want to queue the messages on my end somehow so the processing can by asynchronous.

Answer 1

Could you possibly use MSMQ ? That's the classic message-queueing system, and it's supported by WCF.

You could receive the message from that third-party service and then just put it in the MSMQ for later processing.

As for message vs. deserialized object: both will work ok, but I think having a real .NET object is a bit easier to deal with.

Some more info:

• How to: Exchange Messages with WCF Endpoints and Message Queuing Applications
• WCF Sample Starter Project on CodeProject
• WCF and MSMQ—Take a Message
• Tom Hollander: MSMQ, WCF and IIS: Getting them to play nice

Answer 2

Is there a reason you want them to go to the DB at all? Investigating MSMQ as an applicable alternative might be smart here... this way it is closer to a config change, rather than a lot of custom development.

If you do need to do this, I would recommend creating a custom channel stack (both client and server) for the purpose. Then, yes, you would simply be serializing and deserializing the Message.