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433

answers:

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Hi Everyone. Just a quick question regarding an Azure application. If I have a number of Web and Worker roles that need to communicate, documentation says to use the Azure Queue Service.

However, I've just read that the new .NET Service Bus now also offers queues. These look to be more powerful as they appear to offer a much more detailed API. Whilst the .NSB looks more interesting it has a couple of issues that make me wary of using it in distributed application. (for example, Queue Expiration... if I cannot guarantee that a queue will be renewed on time I may lose it all!).

Has anyone had any experience using either of these two technologies and could give any advice on when to choose one over the other.

I suspect that whilst the service bus looks more powerful, as my use case is really just enabling Web/Worker roles to communicate between each other, that the Azure Queue Service is what I'm after. But I'm just really looking for confirmation of that before progamming myself in to a corner :-)

Thanks in advance.

UPDATE

Have read up about the two systems over the break. It defo looks like .NET service bus is more specifically designed for integrating systems rather than providing a general purpose reliable messaging system. Azure Queues are distributed and so reliable and scalable in a way that .NSB queues are not and so more suitable for code hosted within Azure itself.

Thanks for the responses.

+1  A: 

I would recommed that you stick with Azure queues for communicating between web and worker roles. Using queues is the official and sanctioned way of communicating between Azure processes and I sincerely doubt that you will progrma yourself into a corner. Service Bus (AppFabric) has a higher overhead and although really good for talking to external apps, may not be optimal for quick and simple messages within your Azure app

Simon Munro
A: 

As I understand it, the Service Bus (as was) has had queues for a while, but these are not guaranteed to deliver the message - bon chance!

TobyEvans