Brian Noyes Chief Architect IDesign Inc ( SOA201

Chief Architect IDesign Inc. ( Microsoft Regional Director MVP Microsoft MVP Connected Systems About Brian Publishing Developing Applications with Windows Workflow Foundation, LiveLessons training DVD, June 2007 Smart Client Deployment with ClickOnce, Addison Wesley, January 2007 Data Binding in Windows Forms 2.0, Addison Wesley, January 2006 MSDN Magazine, MSDN Online, CoDe Magazine, The Server Side.NET, asp.netPRO, Visual Studio Magazine Speaking Microsoft TechEd US, Europe, Malaysia, Visual Studio Connections, DevTeach, INETA Speakers Bureau, MSDN Webcasts Blog:

WCF & WF 4.0 Primary focus on bringing WCF + WF together WF 4.0 WCF 4.0 Simplifies developer experience Enables new scenarios/features Fairly minor in terms of impact to your applications Major rewrite Redesign of WF runtime and programming model Need to relearn new approach

New WCF 4.0 Features Simplified configuration Discovery Router service Improved REST support Misc. advanced features

Simplified Configuration New support for default service configurations Default binding & behavior configurations Implicit endpoint configurations Much easier to get services up and running Removes the need for configuration Also enables file-less activation (no.svc) Need to use with care Implicit anything can be a maintenance and debugging nightmare

Service Discovery WCF 4.0 provides two types of service discovery Clients can discover services on a local subnet (UDP-based) Clients can discover services on a larger "managed" network (beyond the local subnet) through a discovery proxy AdhocAdhocManagedManaged Enabled via the serviceDiscovery behavior, clients "discover" services using a DynamicEndpoint

New WCF 4.0 Features – Part I

Router Service First-class "router" service Content-based routing, protocol bridging, etc Error handling support You host it like any other WCF service Configure with routing "filters" Client Service Router "filters"

Improved REST Support Many features from the WCF REST Starter Kit will become part of WCF 4.0 Automatic help page HTTP caching support ?

New WCF 4.0 Features – Part II

Advanced WCF Features DataContractResolver for type resolution Allows you to override known type resolution Support for queues with competing consumers Added a "receive context" feature High-performance ETW-based tracing Blob encoder

WF 3.x Challenges Today Limited support for XAML-only workflows Versioning is problematic Limited base activity library Writing custom activities is hard Managing data flow is really hard Designer is annoying and difficult to rehost Rules engine is primitive and not extensible

Moving Towards WF 4.0 Major themes in WF 4.0 include… Declarative workflow model (XAML only) Enhanced base activity library Simplifying custom activities Simplifying data flow Runtime improvements Designer improvements

XAML-only Workflows A declarative workflow is fully described within a XAML file (no code-behind) Has always been the ultimate WF vision Possible in.NET 3.x but not easy.NET 4.0 makes them first-class citizens Enhancements to programming model remove the need for code-behind files altogether Full designer support in Visual Studio 2010

Benefits of Declarative Workflows C# DSL Visio Increases hosting & deployment flexibility It can be represented in different formats XAML, C#, Visio, custom DSL, etc. The program definition is just data It's typically an XML file that's easy to process Simplifies tool support and designers It can be stored anywhere (file, DB, cloud, etc.)

Extended Base Activity Library.NET 4.0 comes with several new/enhanced activities FlowchartForEachParallel*ParallelForEach*DoWhilePick…AddToCollectionRemoveFromCollectionExistsInCollectionClearCollection...AssignInvokeMethodPersistTryCatchCompensableActivityInterop... Flow Control CollectionCollectionOthersOthers Microsoft is planning to ship more activities via CodePlex over time * New "parallel" behavior

New Flow Chart Model Simple step-by-step model, with decisions and switches Allows you to return to previous activities in the workflow Flowcharts offer a middle ground between the sequential and state machine models

Simplified WF Programming Model WF 4.0 makes it much easier to: Host workflows and run workflow instances Manage workflow bookmarks Create custom activities Pass data into activities and store data Unit test activities and workflows Use activities outside of workflows Rules engine

WorkflowElement ActivityCodeActivityNativeActivity Creating Custom Activities New Programming Model for Custom Activities Plus the new DynamicActivity for dynamic activity composition

WF 4.0 Data Flow Constructs ArgumentsArguments VariablesVariables ExpressionsExpressions Used to define the way data flows in and out of an activity; each argument has a binding direction: input, output, or input/output. Used to declare named storage for data within an activity; variables can be defined at different scopes within a workflow. Takes one or more input arguments, performs some operation on those input arguments, and then returns a value.

Arguments and Variables Flow Chart Parallel Sequence Send Message DelayDelay Receive Message Generate Order InArgument OutArgument InArgument OutArgument Process Order Send Report Variables Activities are the primitive abstraction for behavior Activities define Arguments to declare the type of data that can flow into or out of an Activity Activities are composable with other ActivitiesActivities have user-defined Variables for data storageActivities bind Arguments to in-scope Variables

WF 4.0 Programming Model

WCF Workflow Services WCF Service WF Workflow ClientClient ExternalServiceExternalService ExternalServiceExternalService WCF endpoint

Workflow Services New messaging activities Add service reference (Visual Studio) XAML authoring (contracts, bindings, etc) Workflow service host

WCF Activities in.NET 4.0 WF 4.0 comes with new-and-improved WCF activities SendReceiveSendAndReceiveReplyReceiveAndSendReplySendReceive.NET 4.0.NET 3.5 All 4.0 messaging activities come with improved WCF support including correlation

Message Correlation When sending and receiving WCF messages, correlation is a common need.NET 4.0 adds correlation support to WCF WF makes correlation easy to use via activities

Workflow Services

The New WF Designer Improved Usability Improved Designer Performance Major Rehosting Improvements Unified Debugging Experience

WF Runtime Improvements Full Control Over Persistence x Performance Improvements Flow-in Transactions

Preparing for WF 4.0 Your 3.x workflows will continue to work Using the WF 3.5 runtime and framework classes You can use 3.x activities in a 4.0 workflow Use the Interop activity to wrap them Avoid code activities and handling activity events in code behind More guidance coming from Microsoft… ?displaylang=en&FamilyID=bd94c260-b5e0-4d12- 93ec e685#filelist

Summary WCF/WF 4.0 offers many improvements: WCF + WF integration: Workflow Services New WCF features & messaging improvements New WF runtime, programming model, & designer Lays a solid foundation for building connected systems on the.NET platform

Additional Resources IDesign WF 4 Master Class WCF and WF Services in the.NET Framework 4.0 and "Dublin" us/magazine/ net40.aspx The Workflow Way (new whitepaper)

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