Use NServiceBus for desktop app integration ?

Question

Background:

• We have a bunch of Windows apps that need to be integrated.
• We think a publish-subscribe IPC mechanism/library would do the trick.
• Inter app Events don't need to be persisted;
• Not all apps are written on .NET but those that aren't have a plug-in architecture that allows for extending in .NET
• The apps are run by users on a Terminal Service environment.
• The IPC mechanism should support user isolation. I don't want a message sent by Joe's instance of App A to Joe's instance of App B end up on Sam's instance of App B.

As I understand it, this is possible by either:

• use an IPC that has user isolation built in (DDE)
• use a general IPC and implement user isolation myself (include user id in the messages)

Questions:

• One of the options we are thinking of is NServiceBus. Is anybody out there that used this library for this same problem (desktop integration) ? Is NServiceBus even intended to be used this way ? Perhaps someone that replaced the default transport (MSMQ) with something volatile ?
• Is anybody out there that actually had the same problem and resolved it with a diferent pub-sub mechanism ?

Answer 1

NServiceBus was built to help resolve the Fallacies of Distributed Computing. Given that your scenario involves several applications running on the same machine, NSB really doesn't apply here in my opinion. Your proposed solution seems feasible given the locality of the applications.